Dateline: Kydd and Rios (23 page)

If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t have believed it. Even with a ton of luggage weighing him down, he moved with more grace than she could have imagined, as if his feet weren’t touching the ground.

* * * * * *

Continue Reading for an excerpt from
Shameless

One

The brick wall was hot against Colton Haines’s back, seared by a Wyoming summer sun and burning through his shirt. It was support, though, hard and reliable, a place to get what he couldn’t find elsewhere.

A mist of fine dust kicked up at the end of the alley and sheeted by him in its journey east, blown by a ceaseless wind. He swiped at a tear with the back of his hand, hating the weakness in himself even more than he hated the tears’ cause. The dampness mixed with the sandy grit on his knuckles, making a patch of salty mud he wiped off on his jeans.

He couldn’t stand in the alley, leaning against the back wall of Atlas Drugs, and cry. He couldn’t. He’d driven the ten miles into town to get to
her
.

Sarah.

His chest constricted on a sudden breath, and he squeezed his eyes shut to hold back another tear. She had never betrayed him, not from the very beginning, not like his mother, who’d just betrayed everything.

He needed Sarah’s loyalty like a lifeline. In return she deserved a man, not a twenty-year-old boy crying because his mother was—He didn’t know what to call it, not even in the privacy of his own mind. “Taking a caller” was the best he could do, and even that hurt. He couldn’t think about it, no more than he could stand there and cry about it.

He pushed off the wall, propelled by his anger, and walked over to use the water spigot. As he crouched next to the running stream of cool water, his glance raked the endless expanse of prairie surrounding the town of Rock Creek. A herd of antelope grazed less than a hundred yards away from the main street, proof of the town’s lack of worth. His mouth tightened. Rock Creek didn’t even have enough civilization to hold back a herd of skittish wild animals.

And he’d thought it was the neatest damn place on earth. He made a short sound of disgust and rose to his feet.

Cleaner, with no revealing tracks staining his cheeks, he used his wet hands to slick his hair back under his cowboy hat. He settled the brim low on his forehead and with a quick motion rubbed the dirt off his boot tops on the backs of his jeans. He didn’t want to look even one tenth of one percent as torn-up as he felt. What he wanted was Sarah and the way she believed in him.

Sarah thought he was strong, and next to her he was. It was one of the many pleasures of kissing her and holding her, how he had to temper his strength so as not to scare her, or ever hurt her.  Her love and trust gave him the desire to be good, to be the best.

Sarah.

He squared his shoulders and looked out on the sea of sun-cured grass floating to the horizon, broken by coulees and occasional scrub. There was nothing for him in Rock Creek. He’d known it that day so many years ago when he and his mom had washed up in this backwater, nowhere place on a flood of grief, both broken from the loss of her husband, his father. He shouldn’t have forgotten. He shouldn’t have invested so much of himself in the two-bit town, so many of his dreams.

There was nothing in Rock Creek, he silently repeated, never had been, nothing except Sarah. He turned his back on the prairie and headed for the main street, the cool interior of Atlas Drugs, and the soothing comfort of the girl he loved.

* * *

Sarah knew the instant Colt stepped into the store. The bell over the door didn’t jingle any differently for him, but the air changed. The weatherman could talk all he wanted about increases in atmospheric pressure; Sarah felt it every time Colton Haines walked into a room.

She turned and their eyes met briefly over the postcard rack at the front of the store. She checked where her Uncle Tobias was helping Doris Childress at the pharmacy and hoped the preacher’s wife would keep him busy. She knew her uncle felt bound and beholden to report on her to her father—it was that or catch hell—and lately the comings and goings of Colt had been the priority news on any given day of the week.

Colt stayed up by the tourist goods, where the display of T-shirts hanging from fishing line strung across the aisle offered the most privacy. Not many tourists stopped in Rock Creek, but when they did they could get an official Rock Creek T-shirt at Atlas Drugs.

Over the top of a shelf filled with shot glasses and knickknacks, she saw the wide blue and black stripes of his favorite shirt stretched across his broad but youthful shoulders, a young man’s shoulders used to carrying the burden of a grown man’s responsibilities. He was like that all over—lean and hard with muscle, promising to fill out. For Sarah, everything about Colt was a promise of things to come, of their future.

Sometimes when he looked at her, she saw the deepening of their friendship over the years of a long and good marriage; and sometimes, especially when he’d been kissing her, she saw the heat banked up in him, ready to explode, tethered only by the same love that had lit the fire. It always amazed her, the way he wanted her, and the strength it took not to take her.

As she rounded the edge of a display unit and drew closer to him, she noted the dust on his black cowboy hat and his clothes. His jeans fit him like a soft, well-worn glove, faded indigo hugging narrow hips and strong flanks, and breaking across the tops of remarkably dust-free boots. A smile teased her mouth. She knew the trick. He’d taught her.

“Colt?” she asked softly, not whispering exactly, but not wanting her uncle to hear them. The less her father knew, the better, for all parties concerned.

Colt turned when she spoke, and he felt a small portion of his hurt melt away under the soft gray light of her eyes. There wasn’t anyone like Sarah. She wasn’t the prettiest girl in town, or the most popular, but he’d had to win her. Once, in grade school, he’d teased her about her straight, dishwater hair until she’d cried, then he’d pulled her braid.

He was still putting his hands on her hair, but only to hold her closer, to feel the silky fine silver and gold strands slip through his fingers. The most he ever did to her braid was unweave it so the summer-blond veil of hair fell over her shoulders. He’d lost count of the number of nights he’d spent dreaming about watching her hair slide over her breasts. It took a lot of imagination. He’d never seen her breasts.

He’d known she was in the aisle, approaching him, but he’d waited to face her, wanting one last chance at pulling himself together just in case something showed. He thought he’d done a pretty good job, until he looked at her.

“Colt?” Her voice went from welcoming to concerned.

He forced a smile and wondered what part of him was giving him away.

“Hi. Can you get out of here?” His voice was gruff, but it didn’t shake.

She hesitated for a second, then said, “Sure. Just give me a minute. Do you want a soda?”

He shrugged. “My truck is in the alley.”

“I’ll be right out.”

She brought more than sodas when she came. Her hands were full of cookie and cracker boxes, a few candy bars, and a whole six-pack of cold cola. She also brought two sandwiches she must have made up in the kitchen in the back. He wondered what her uncle had thought of that.

“You’re not letting me eat you out of another paycheck, are you?” He tried to grin again. He could afford a smile now that he had her on his turf. He hadn’t felt welcome in the drugstore, because he wasn’t welcome anymore. Tobias and he had gotten along real well up until a few weeks ago, when for reasons Colt hadn’t understood until today, Sarah’s father had told everybody that Colt wasn’t supposed to see Sarah any longer, for any reason. Neither he nor Sarah, though, had considered for a minute that they’d give each other up. They’d just gotten careful.

“I’m hungry too,” she said, shoving the food across the seat before crawling up into his pickup truck.

Her booted feet had barely left the ground when he scooted over and wrapped his hands around her waist, pulling her across the seat and onto his lap.

“Colton Haines! What do you think you’re doing?” She slanted him a provoked glance and reached over to pick up the boxes being crushed by her legs. “You’re smashing the creme cookies.”

“Kiss me, Sarah.” The words were spoken low, with a seriousness that captured her attention.

Her gaze returned to his, and she searched his crystalline-blue eyes, the color of a Wyoming sky, until his dark lashes lowered and his mouth lifted to hers. She met him halfway, not knowing what to expect, but suddenly reminded of the look she’d seen on his face in the drugstore. Colt was hurting.

She kissed him sweetly, her lips soft but closed, and he didn’t press for more. But then his hand slid to the nape of her neck, his legs spread apart, and he pulled her between his thighs. That was when the kiss changed, growing mysterious, and darkly exciting, and confusing all at once.

He bit her lips gently, something he’d never done before. His other hand settled on her hip and pulled her closer against him, causing him to groan and her to catch her breath. His mouth came back to hers and he pushed his tongue deep inside, caressing her with slick, even strokes.

Sarah started to tremble, but she couldn’t move away. She clung to him, her fingers digging into his shoulders, her mouth open and responsive. She knew what he was doing, what he was pretending to do, but she didn’t know where it would lead, not in broad daylight in the alley and not between them, even if they’d been parked on the prairie in the middle of the night.

She couldn’t move away, though, and he didn’t stop. He only held her tighter. Her breaths grew shallow. His grew rough. She knew when he became aroused, and guilt slipped in next to her confusion and gathering excitement.

“Colt . . . Colt,” she whispered, breaking away and burying her face in the crook of his neck.

Colt tilted his head all the way back to the seat, his eyes closed, his teeth clenched. Frustration gnawed on his insides. He was angry, angry at himself for letting go and getting half crude on her, and angry at a nice girl’s code when he needed her so badly.

He felt her leave him and slide over to her side of the truck. Her hand came back and rested on his arm in a touch of comfort he didn’t acknowledge. He didn’t want her young-girl comfort. He wanted the woman inside her. He wanted her beneath him, around him, all over him, until he couldn’t think.

“Let’s go to the river,” he said, and didn’t wait for a reply as he pushed himself back behind the steering wheel and started the truck.

The engine was slow to turn over, but Colt was an expert at getting the ancient pickup going and keeping it going. He’d had years of practice and damn little hope of getting a newer or better vehicle. The truck finally fired up, and he pulled out on the prairie side of the alley, to catch the highway on the outskirts of town.

Miles of road and pale amber bluffs ran past them to the horizon, the bluffs breaking into a stretch of cliffs as they neared the river. She was quiet on the other side of the barrier she’d absently built out of boxes of cookies and crackers. She offered him a can of soda, which he accepted without thanks. But he wasn’t quiet inside, and he knew what her little wall meant even if she didn’t.

He turned off on a dirt track at riverside, following it through two gates and up through the pastures before driving back down to the river. He parked in front of an old barn used officially for winter hay, and unofficially by him and his friend Daniel Calhoun as a fishing shack. Daniel’s father owned the ranch, and it was taken for granted that Daniel would own it someday. Colt had often wished his future was as securely mapped out. Instead, it had taken another vicious twist he was going to have to fight damn hard to accommodate.

“Do you want to go swimming?” he asked, the edge still in his voice.

She shook her head, not meeting his eyes. He didn’t blame her. He wasn’t in much of a mood to face himself either.

He got out of the truck and started for the river, leaving her behind. He’d ground gears getting to her; he’d kissed her as he’d never dared before, he’d dragged her all the way the hell out there—and then he’d walked away. He didn’t know what to think.