Sweet Return (36 page)

“What about a rubber?” he said huskily, kneeling and poised. “I’ve got—”

“My period’s due any day.” She reached for him and took him inside her, letting out a great sigh as his hot flesh pushed into her. He seated himself and she felt the shudder that passed over him. For a few beats they didn’t move.

“God, Joanna. I feel like this is where I ought to be,” he said.

A thrill lifted her heart and she floated in euphoria. “I feel like it’s where you ought to be, too.”

She wanted more, all, everything. Their eyes locked as they moved together in a slow, silky rhythm. She savored the heat of him up inside her, the soft friction of his flesh moving against hers. Soon smooth became turbulent, breath became ragged and that odd little tickle cried out for relief. She lifted her knees and took every inch of him to her deepest place. He answered her silent plea, his hips pumping hard and fast. She dug her heels into his buttocks and met his powerful thrusts until the need overtook all reason and the demon of pleasure captured her body and soul. She came hard, crying out as her deep muscles contracted and clutched over and over at his penis.

In seconds his body became taut and he pushed hard and ground against her. “Aww, God,” he groaned and she felt the wet warmth of his semen.

He lay gasping for air where he had fallen. She held him close, feeling his heart beat against hers. Her chest had never felt so full of emotion. It had to be nothing more than the passion, the ecstasy of the sweet release. It couldn’t be true that she loved him.

His warm breath rasped against her ear. “Jesus Christ, Joanna…. Eight seconds…. They say that’s…all it takes.”

Despite being shaken all the way to her center, she found a tiny laugh. “Does that equate it to a bull ride?”

“You’re into rodeos?”

“Who hasn’t been to a rodeo?”

“Babe, most of the people in the world haven’t been to a rodeo.”

“Their loss,” she said.

He laughed. “The point I was making, smarty-pants, is it’s a damn shame it’s so short when it feels so damn good.”

“Yeah,” she said and hugged him tighter.

For a long while, they lay in each other’s arms, his head on her breast, her fingers stroking his hair. “You have curls,” she said. “I hadn’t noticed them before.”

“They don’t show up until my hair gets long. I haven’t had a haircut lately. Now why do you suppose that is when I know the woman who’s probably the best haircutter in town?”

“Clova’s hair is so straight. Your dad must have been curly haired.”

“I’ll never know.”

“In the parking lot, you said you don’t care that you don’t know him. Is that true? Do you really not care?”

“I don’t. I don’t know what I’d do with the information if I had it. There are a hell of a lot of things I want more.”

She scooted down, turned on her side and faced him, their faces only inches apart. “What are they? The things you want more. Deep down, your most secret yearning.”

His lips tipped into a smile and he trailed a finger down the side of her face. “You tell me first.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think about that question very often. Security, maybe. I want to be sure I can take care of myself. Everyone keeps reminding me that I’m thirty-five years old and not married.”

“You’ve never wanted to get married?”

“I’ve never found anyone who I thought could take care of me better than I can take care of myself. I used to think I would eventually. But now I don’t know. I’m awfully set in my ways. Maybe I’ve stopped looking. I’ve sort of gotten used to being called an old maid.”

He chuckled. “That’s silly, calling you an old maid. They’re all jealous of your independence.”

“I’m that, all right. Does it bother you, me being independent?”

“I admire you. You’re smart and resourceful and you’re doing pretty well in this town that has a lousy economy.”

“It’s bothered some of the guys I’ve known.”

He grinned. “I’m not some guy. Darlin’, I’m your new lover. Now I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t always hung out with smart women, but that wasn’t because I felt threatened by a woman who could think.”

She didn’t have to ask why he hung out with women he classified as unable to think. She knew. He didn’t want the challenge of a partner who might be capable of outmaneuvering him. So in his scheme of things, where did that alpha male thinking put Joanna Walsh? Her feeling for him seemed only to intensify with every encounter, but she knew herself well enough to know that at the end of the day, she would allow him to bulldoze her only so far. “Dalton Parker. You’ve given yourself away. You’re one of those male chauvinist pigs.”

He snuggled closer. “Guilty.”

Guilty, for sure,
she thought. And probably never going to change.

They lay for a few more silent minutes until she realized he hadn’t kept his end of the bargain. He hadn’t revealed his deepest yearning. “You want to know what else I am?” she said. “I’m also good at people watching. I’ve been doing it for years. Want me to guess what you want most?”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“I’ve given it a lot of thought.”

“Why would you?”

“Don’t you know without me telling you?”

He didn’t answer, just stared at her with those beautiful, mysterious eyes.

“I think you’re afraid of feeling,” she said. “I think the thing you want most is not to get your feelings hurt.”

His relaxed smile fell away. “No one wants his feelings hurt.”

“But it’s more important to you. You’re more afraid to risk it than most. I’ll bet that if anyone could ever reach you deep down, they’d find a gentle soul whose heart is as fragile as china.”

He pulled away from her and sat up. “You were right about this bed. A man could get used to this.”

She was right,
she thought smugly. “Change the subject if you want to, but that’s the real reason you’re still single.”

He braced a hand on the mattress and looked back at her. “Wrong. The cottage and picket fence routine has never fit my life. I’ve needed to be able to pick up at a moment’s notice and take off for the latest massacre in Butt-fuck, No-Man’s-Land. Worrying over who’s gonna feed the dog just wouldn’t cut it. It’s been hard enough worrying about my house and swimming pool.”

“If your life’s that unscheduled, why do you even own a house?”

“Mostly because I want to. I’ve had it a long time. It’s all I got out of my divorce. And now, the way things are in California, it’s worth a lot of money.” He reached over to the nightstand and picked up her digital clock. “Christ, it’s two thirty. We should get cleaned up and go to sleep. I’ve got to pick Mom up from the hospital in a few hours.”

They left the bed and washed themselves. As she dried, he came behind her, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him. “Don’t analyze me,” he said softly against her neck. “It makes me nervous.”

Smiling, she leaned into him, loving the skin-to-skin embrace. She saw their reflection in the mirror, his image tanned to golden all over, hers white as a fish belly except for her arms and neck. His hands caressed her breasts and belly, and something else came to her. “Dalton?” She turned in his embrace, placed her arms around his neck and looked up at him. “You can trust me with your heart, Dalton. I’d never hurt you.”

His eyes locked on her face for a long moment. Then he kissed her.

Chapter 25

The next morning, Dalton left Joanna’s house before daylight. The happiness he felt bordered on being euphoric, in spite of the conflict raging within him. This was ridiculous, going silly over a woman, especially a woman in Hatlow. His life was in LA. That is, his house, his studio and his stuff were in LA. He had traveled so much in recent years, he was hard-pressed to know where his
life
was.

Even with those realities seated in his mind, all the way from town to the ranch, disquieting questions kept popping up. Questions like, could he fit back into his family? During
this
visit, more so than in the past, he had been reminded how much he loved the ranch and even West Texas. Could he operate from here as easily as from LA? Transportation in and out of this part of the world had once been inconvenient for anyone who wanted to travel beyond the area, but it had improved.

In Hatlow, he wouldn’t have to rely on a house sitter when he left town. And if he forgot to lock the front door, he wouldn’t worry over everything being there when he returned. He wasn’t so attached to his house in LA, but he loved his fantastic pool. Still, the house and the city itself had become a burdensome place to call home.

Finally, the question that had been pushing and shoving to get to the top of the list came at him. Did he want Joanna Walsh to fit into his future? This morning, he knew only one thing for sure about her. For a reason he couldn’t define, she stood out from other women he had known in recent years.

He hated indecision. So when he turned into the ranch’s driveway, he stopped whiffling. Though he’d had little sleep, he had a busy day ahead of him. As soon as he brought his mother home from the hospital, they could have that conversation about the wildcatting venture. Foremost in his thoughts, though, was Joanna’s chicken operation and the location of the old oil well.

You can trust me with your heart, Dalton. I’d never hurt you
.

Her words came back to him as he shaved. Oh, yeah. She would work with him on the oil well. Not only was she a reasonable person, she cared about him. She cared about everybody. No wonder his mother thought so much of her.

He cooked breakfast, grinning like a fool as he broke two eggs from the Walsh’s Naturals carton into a frying pan. What a gutsy woman Joanna was to take on a business as fraught with catastrophic possibilities as raising chickens and selling eggs.

He had no sooner finished eating and cleaning up in the kitchen than he heard Joanna’s truck out front. His heart lifted in a way it hadn’t in a long time. “Wait a minute,” he told the unruly organ. “Just cool it.”

He met her in her egg-washing room. She looked fresh and pretty, though he knew she had slept no more than he. She came into his arms with a good-morning kiss so tempting, his thoughts traveled to his new mattress in the house. Before things got out of control, he set her away.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked, brightening the whole room with her smile. “Don’t tell me you’re going to help me gather eggs.”

“Snakes seem to like you. One might come to visit.” He gave her a wink and slapped her bottom.

Through the egg-collecting chore, he covered his dislike for the chickens with sarcastic comments, attempting to be funny. Joanna laughed at his wry jokes, but he suspected she only humored him. He didn’t care. He liked making her laugh. After they had gathered dozens of eggs, he consented to letting her teach him how to hook up the egg washer, a task that gave him another opportunity for cynical wisecracks.

Before going to her shop in town, she offered herself and Alicia as tomorrow’s helpers for rounding up the cattle to be trucked to market in Amarillo. He could hardly wait. He hadn’t been on horseback in years.

As soon as she left, he drove to town to pick up his mother. He found her jovial and eagerly waiting to be released. He had been waiting just as eagerly to discuss the well-drilling venture with her.

As soon as she had settled back into the house, he made a fresh pot of coffee and invited her to sit down with him at the dining table. He had printed a generic land-lease document from a Web site and filled in the blanks. He picked it up and placed it on the table. “I think I’ve got it figured out, Mom,” he told her. “A way to raise the cash the ranch needs and maybe make life a little easier around here.”

As he explained the ins and outs of his idea, to his delight, she was receptive and enthusiastic. That is, until he told her where he wanted to place the well.

“But we can’t do that,” she said. “I promised that piece o’ land to Joanna. I already got Clyde making a deed.”

Wariness crawled through Dalton. “What do you mean?”

“I tol’ Joanna I’m gonna give her that section where she’s got her chickens.”

Section?
Did she mean
section
? Jesus Christ, a section was 640 acres. “That won’t work, Mom.” He couldn’t keep the sharpness from his reply. “That’s where I want to drill the well. You’ll have to tell her you’re not able to do that.”

His mother’s dark eyes snapped with anger. “I ain’t tellin’ her no such thing. She ain’t rich. She’s got money tied up in those coops and the fencing and her supplies. And in the chickens, too. If you go in there with a bunch of loud equipment and commotion, it’ll mess her up.”

Hot anger began to inch its way through him, but he kept his emotions in check, still believing the dilemma could be reasoned through. “Mom. We’re talking about a few chickens here that don’t even belong to you. What’s that compared to saving this ranch?”

“And just what’s she supposed to do with her chickens? They ain’t like cows. You can’t just herd ’em around or get ’em all upset. They got feelin’s.”

Chicken feelings? Bullshit
. He leaned forward, holding his mother’s gaze. “I don’t know what she’ll do. That’s not the problem I’m dealing with. But chickens or no, you can’t just on a whim give away a bunch of land to someone outside the family. This has been Parker land forever.”

“It ain’t a whim. Joanna
is
family to me. Nobody’s ever treated me as good as she has.” Her dark eyes began to shimmer with moisture.

She might be on the verge of tears, but her words came at him like a punch. And at the same time, so did the realization that this was what his absence from Hatlow and his failure to maintain a relationship with his mother had wrought.

“And I don’t have nothin’ else to give her,” she added when he didn’t reply.

A kaleidoscope of unpleasant childhood memories came at him.
Perhaps not,
he thought bitterly, but she had somehow managed to find enough money to hire a lawyer to do something unnecessary. He rose, scraping his hand through his hair and putting distance between himself and the woman he had never understood.