Last Year's Bride (Montana Born Brides) (6 page)

And it was probably only because he had been afraid his friends
’ teasing flirtatiousness while she was shooting might overwhelm her that he had stepped in and said, “Lay off. She’s got a job to do.”

It had made her smile inside.
In fact, Nell had appreciated that he had taken her seriously as much as she had appreciated his handsome, rough-hewn rangy cowboy good looks.

She might have come to the rodeo because making a short documentary about a couple of rodeo cowboys had seemed like a good idea at the time
, and she was curious because she knew nothing much about the life. But the minute she had seen Cole, her gaze, her focus had sharpened. She had been drawn to him instantly—and so had her camera. Unlike his buddies, there was seriousness to Cole McCullough. They were living for the moment. He had more demands on his time.

His friends
, Dane and Brian, had suggested she not confine her film to the rodeo itself, but come to the dance after. “Can’t have a rodeo without a dance,” Brian had said, grinning widely. “Right, guys?”

Cole
’s cousin Levi had nodded emphatically. But Cole shook his head.

“
You can,” he’d said. “I can’t. No time,” he’d added with an apologetic glance in Nell’s direction. “No time. I’ve got things to do. I need to get home.”

How true that was
—and how many responsibilities Cole had—she found out later that evening when, after his ride threw him head first into the metal railings of the chute, she volunteered to drive him home.

“
You don’t need to,” he muttered, pacing woozily back and forth behind the chutes in an effort to walk off the effects. “I’ll be fine. I can catch a ride.”

But Levi shook his head.
“Would you mind?” he’d asked Nell. “We gotta get on down the road and—” he’d watched Cole propping himself up against a fence post and trying to look nonchalant “—well, somebody’s gotta.”

“
Do not,” Cole had maintained.

But Nell had taken him.
And she hadn’t left him at the house as he’d told her she could, either. Instead she had followed him in, made him a meal, then fussed a little, but not too much, about the gash he had on the side of his head.

“
You should have stitches,” she’d told him.

He
’d refused point blank, insisting he was fine.

“
If you were fine,” she had retorted with some asperity, “you’d see the wisdom of stitches.”

She hadn
’t let him fall asleep right away, thinking she’d read somewhere that people who’d had concussions were supposed to stay awake. Cole kept closing his eyes. So to keep him awake, she peppered him with questions.

At least that was the reason Nell gave herself for all the things she asked him.
Over the course of the evening and much of the night, she learned about his dad and his grandmother and his teenage sister, about the brother who’d gone out east and never returned. He told her about the cattle who needed feeding and moving and doctoring and the horses that needed shoeing. He talked about the roof on the house needing mending, and the work that had to be done on the original homestead cabin that had been his grandparents’ and was now his.

She had asked,
“Who does all that?”

And he
’d said, “Me.”

Who else was there? he had said with a shrug.
Then he had gone on to explain. His dad was determined to do everything he could. But his dad had a bad heart and no desire to undergo the knife to get it fixed. His grandmother, nearly eighty, was in good shape, but not for herding cattle. His sister was still in high school.

“
Sadie’s smart. Real smart,” Cole had said. “She needs to go to college. Get out of Marietta.”

Nell could tell he intended to see that it happened.
She could tell that first night that Cole thought it was his job to take care of them all.

Nothing had changed, except while she and Cole had been getting married in Reno last April, his dad had had the heart attack they
’d all been worrying about. Cole hadn’t found out until he got home. Then his plan to tell the family about his spur of the moment marriage had been shelved.

“
I can’t tell ‘em now,” he’d told Nell in a phone call from the hospital. “The doc says no stress. I’ll do it later, when the time is right.”

“
Of course. I understand,” Nell had agreed at once. But months had passed. Ten of them. And the time had never been right.

And now Nell
wondered how much of a driving factor his father’s heart attack had been, and how much of Cole’s decision was motivated by the realization when he’d got home that marrying her had been a mistake because he didn’t really love her at all.

The thought made Nell
’s stomach knot. She looked at him, wishing she could see his mind, discern what he felt as easily as she could see his rumpled dark hair, his smooth shaven chin and strong hard jaw.

“
Talkin’ won’t do any good, Nell,” he said roughly. “It was a nice idea at the time, but—” he shrugged “—in the long run, it won’t work.”

“
So you’re just going to walk away.” Her eyes challenged him and for a moment she thought she saw the fire of combat in them.

But then the fire went out of them. They went opaque and unreadable and Cole nodded.
“Yep.”

Nell
’s fingers curled tightly, her nails biting into her palms. “Because you don’t love me.”

Pain flickered across his features.
“I didn’t say that.”

“
You don’t have to.” She stood, never letting go of his gaze, vowing that she wouldn’t be the first to look away.

Cole
’s mouth twisted. “It’s not like that.”

“
No? What’s it like then?”

His eyes shuttered for a moment. His jaw tightened. He seemed to be engaged in an internal battle.
And then as if he couldn’t help himself—though whether he won or lost, Nell didn’t know— Cole moved. He reached to touch her cheek.

Instinctively Nell turned into his touch so that it wasn
’t her cheek his fingers touched, but her lips that caressed his palm.

He made a strangled sound, and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders, drawing her close.
And then there was no distance, no space between them, and Nell was right where she wanted to be, hard against the solid warmth of his chest so she could feel the beat of his heart.

“
Oh, hell, Nell.” His voice was as ragged as the breath he drew as he held her tight and buried his face in her hair. Nell slid her arms around his back, holding him close as his lips moved over her, kissing her hair, her jaw, her cheeks, her chin, and finally—at last—her mouth.

His touch was thawing her.
Since they’d parted in Reno ten months ago, she’d grown progressively colder. At first it had been tolerable because, while she was cold from missing him, she had been sure it wouldn’t last. But as the weeks turned into months, the cold had deepened, her worries increased. When she’d got Cole’s letter with the divorce papers enclosed, Nell had felt as if her heart were frozen clear through.

And now the ice was melting, the warmth of his arms holding her, of his kiss opening her lips, of his tongue tangling with hers brought her to life again.
This was the Cole she remembered, hard and warm and, now, just a little bit desperate.

And Nell couldn
’t believe he didn’t love her. If Cole didn’t love her, he would have stood there, stolid and indifferent, and told her again to sign the papers. He wouldn’t have fought his internal battle, he wouldn’t have looked so anguished. He wouldn’t be kissing her now.

Relieved, rejoicing, Nell kissed him back.
With every bit of pent-up emotion and longing she’d been storing for the past ten months, she gave herself to him. He didn’t stop with kissing. His hands molded her back, her hips, the swell of her buttocks. They urged her closer. One of his knees tried to slip between hers, but her sheath give little scope for such maneuvering, and she heard a frustrated mutter from Cole’s throat. Then he changed tactics, his hands moving to the zipper at her back. In one fluid motion he had the zip down and the dress off her shoulders. “Mmmm.” The word came as a murmur between his lips as he pushed the bodice down further and began to kiss her shoulders and her breasts.

A part of Nell wanted just to relish these kisses, to bask in their attention, to soak up the feel of Cole
’s lips on her. It had been so long.

But another part of her couldn
’t remain still, couldn’t just accept. She needed to touch, to stroke, to learn his body all over again. And so she tugged, pushed his suit coat away from his shoulders and was grateful when he shifted first one shoulder and then other, then shrugged it off. Even as he did so, she had pulled his shirt tails out so she could put her hands on him. They slipped under the cloth and slid up his back, remembering as they went. There, that jagged little ridge was the scar from the barbed wire, and that longer one by his shoulder blade was from when he’d caught a tree limb in the back. She catalogued the map of scars as her fingers moved over him, then slid around to his sides.

“
What’s this?” Her fingers stopped on one near his waist, so new her touch made him suck in a breath.

He turned his torso slightly to avoid the contact.
“Doesn’t matter,” he mumbled, his lips still teasing her breasts.

“
It does,” Nell pulled back. “Show me.” She began unbuttoning his shirt.

Cole sighed.
“Got kicked by a horse a couple weeks ago.” He stripped off his shirt as soon as Nell got the buttons undone. Then she tugged his undershirt over his head, tossed it aside and made him turn again so she could see where the skin had been broken, and the area around it still showed yellow and dark purple bruising as it dipped beneath the waist of his trousers.

“
Oh, Cole.”

“
It’s not a big deal.”

Not now, maybe. Nell suspected it might have been at the time. Not that he would have admitted it.
She laid her palm against it lightly, turning her head, kissing his shoulder, then moving down his arm, dipping beneath it to kiss him where he was bruised, touching her lips to the scar.

He groaned.
“Gotta get you out of this.” He was sliding her dress over her hips as he spoke, letting it pool at her feet. His fingers were callused, rough skin and tiny nicks and scratches caught on her sheer stockings as he peeled them down next. “Sorry.” His voice was a mutter against her abdomen.

Nell fisted her hands in his hair.
“I’m not.” Not sorry at all. She was burning with need of him, her fingers fumbling with his belt.

“
Let me.” Cole made quick work of both the belt and zip, shucked all his clothes, then, not even giving her a chance to do more than glimpse the bare magnificence of Cole McCullough, he bore her down on the bed.

God, she had missed this!
Missed him. Her hands ran over his heated flesh, followed the small knobs of his spine to the dip of his lower back. Her lips nibbled the curve of his ear, the line of his recently shaved jaw.

They
’d had so little time together, that she’d tried to tell herself that she couldn’t possibly feel as lonely as she’d felt these past months. But the truth, now that she was in his arms, was that the emptiness had been profound. It was like finding the other half of her self—her heart—and feeling able to breathe, to live once more.

His hands were all over her as well, making quick work of her bra and pants, then tracing her curves with his fingers, relearning the slope of her breasts, the concavity of her abdomen, the slight swell below just before he reached the juncture of her thighs.
His fingers walked the line, followed by his lips. His soft hair brushed her breasts as he worked his way down. Nell held her breath as she felt his warmth against her, felt his fingers part her, touch her.

She twisted, shifted to make room for him, reached to draw him down. But he resisted, sat back on his heels between her knees and looked into her eyes.

His expression was solemn, dark, unreadable, really. His skin was taut across his cheekbones. He looked almost in pain. Or in prayer. An anguished prayer.

“
Cole?”

His jaw clenched, his eyelids shut, and for a moment she feared that he would pull away, leave her there.

But then he opened his eyes again. His abs tightened and his chest expanded as a breath shuddered through him. She saw him swallow and he moved to stroke his hands down the front of her, slowly, deliberately, watching her reaction as his fingers touched her, parted her, stroked her, made her shift her legs and open for him.

His mouth twisted as he came down to her, as she touched him, made him suck a harsh breath at the stroke of her fingers along the length of him.
“Nell.” His voice was strangled as he warned her, “Playing with fire.”

Nell only smiled.
“Burn me down.”