The Bride Wore Red Boots (24 page)

“That's not going to work.” He choked on the words.

“Oh?”

“Things are going to have to come off, or the body
is
going to be your problem.”

“Then by all means things are coming off.”

Slow and careful ended right there. He shucked off her sweater first, and she grasped the hem of his sweatshirt to yank it carelessly up and over his head. He reached for her open waistband, but she got to him first. Delving fingers first into the top of his jeans, she pushed down and peeled them off of him as easily as a banana skin. He stepped out of them, and she made to toss them out of the way.

“Whoa, don't let them get too far,” he said. “There's an important piece of equipment in the pocket.”

She giggled and stroked him again, this time with only the loose cotton of his boxers between his hot skin and her long, slender, clever fingers. “This is the piece of equipment I'm interested in.”

“Yeah, well, you'd better be careful with that. I'm not guaranteeing it will function the way you want it to if you keep working with it that way.”

He closed his eyes as waves of pleasure flowed from her hands to his body.

“Oh, it'll function exactly the way it's supposed to. I'll see to that.”

He gained control back long enough to see her slick her jeans down and off her legs. He'd never seen anything cuter, hotter, and downright sexier than the picture of her in her plunging bra, purple panties and thick wool socks. Her hair fell over his hands as he slipped one bra strap and then the other down her arms, and it curtained his face as he bent to kiss the swell of her breasts while she arched over him, pulling his head closer.

The bra was the next to go, his boxers after that, and finally the only thing each wore was socks.

“How are your toes doing?” he asked.

“Tingling, like everything else on my body.”

“You're warm enough?”

“Want me to take my socks off?” She giggled again.

“If you do, you'll be completely naked,” he warned.

“I'll do it if you will.”

They fell onto the couch seconds later, sockless and naked and exploring with hands that couldn't touch enough skin with enough speed. He swore she had extra fingers as the sensation built all over his body. She stroked his back, kissed his face and neck. She kneaded his glutes and his forearms and his shoulders, and he had no idea how she got to all the places so quickly.

He lay beneath her, letting her skin slide over his, trying to match her touch but certain the soft skin of her breasts, the feathering of her hair against his chest, and the soft heat between her legs that teased his thigh as she moved against him brought him far more pleasure than he could ever give her.

And then she stopped. She pushed herself up until she could look him in the eyes. A long moment later, without warning, she lowered her head and claimed his mouth in a dizzying, delving kiss. Heat and dangerous sparks headed southward, and a wave of desire made him impossibly harder than he'd been. She suckled his lip, tugged on it with gentle teeth and kissed him as intimately as making love.

And then she left him again, sitting up, smiling like a wild-haired wood sprite and running her hands up his chest, spreading her fingers through his chest hair and licking her lips unconsciously as she sighed. Reaching behind her, she found his erection and closed around it with a velvet touch. He arched in pleasure and let every muscle in his body share the sensation as she began a long, slow stroke like a master musician would make love to a cherished violin with his bow.

The pleasure lasted longer than he could ever remember it lasting until a surge of fiery need warned him he'd nearly waited too long. He sat up to meet her and pulled her hand desperately from him before he stood and took her with him. She wrapped her legs around his hips, only releasing him when he laid her on the sofa and stretched out over her.

“My turn,” he said.

M
IA SANK INTO
euphoria as Gabe's weight pressed her into the cushions. He didn't need to do anything to make her more ready than she was, but as much as her body sang with every touch and begged for him to be with her, inside her, she didn't rush.

He was beautiful—his body fit against her without being hard, his chest was perfectly sprinkled with dark hair, his hands were strong without being harsh. His lips moved down her body, and she let herself fly into shivers and chills and heat as he suckled first one breast, then the other, then moved to her neck, her ear, her lips.

He moved down again, to her ticklish stomach and then to the edge of the curls at the juncture of her thighs. He lingered there, finding sensitive skin to play on and drive her longing through the roof. She dug into his hair, praying he'd wait but panting for him to search just a little lower.

When his tongue found the spot, she cried out in relief and melted into that most intimate swirling kiss two people could share. But it wasn't what she wanted.

“Gabe. Gabe, stop.”

She tugged and bucked until he pulled away, kissed her inner thigh, and came back up to her. He grinned. “Lady, why are you bothering me?”

“I don't want it like that the first time. Please? I want all of you.” She bit her lip and tried not to blush even though she could feel her face heating. “I want you to come inside and play.”

His laughter should have killed the mood, but it didn't. It rolled hot and sexy across her cheeks and made him shake as he twisted to grab his jeans from the floor. Desire sluiced through her anew.

“What did I tell you?” He held up the foil packet.

“Brilliant man. Get dressed and come on over to my place.”

“You were right,” he said. “It's not the snow.”

Silliness vanished when he came to her at last. It might have been a long time, but it didn't matter. He entered her and moved so sweetly, so easily that she felt the buildup immediately. It was just how she wanted it, close, slow, rocking, timeless. Stroke after stroke they rose together, and when Gabe made small warning moans, she answered.

“Yes,” he whispered. “Mia, come with me. It's time.”

With one aching, erotic blast they hit the peak of hot pleasure and just kept on going, shattering together far above their bodies, coupled in the dark, warm cabin.

The descent was slow and peaceful. Mia tried to wipe the tears of pleasure from her eyes before Gabe saw them, but he hooted at her gently.

“From laughter to tears. Do I have talent or what?”

“Told you you'd get lucky.” She smeared the tears away with a palm and snuggled sideways on the sofa with him.

“And you were absolutely right. I doubt you were that lucky yourself.”

“You were lucky, but I won the night. Sorry.”

He kissed her and grabbed a woolen blanket from the back of the sofa. Deftly he managed to cover them and snuggle in more deeply.

“We can't stay long,” she said. “They will eventually come looking for us.”

“I have a plan,” he said. “We'll warm up, we'll go back, we'll move Rory. I'll sneak into your bed, and then I'll leave before anyone finds us in the morning.”

She laughed. “You've thought about it far more than I have. We'll go with your plan. Just don't let me fall asleep.”

“Trust me. We aren't going to sleep.”

S
HE SLEPT
.

Until insistent pounding pulled her out of her dreamless haven. “Mia! Mia, get up!”

She lifted her head groggily and looked around her room. “Harper?”

Fireplace, cabin, moving Rory, Gabe . . . awareness rolled each memory up and out and back into its proper place, and she flipped over with a start embarrassed, that her sister had found them together.

Gabe was gone. She gasped and sat up. “What's wrong, Harpo?” she called.

The door burst open then, and Rory launched himself into the room, tears streaming down his cheeks. “He's gone. Dr. Mia, Jack's gone.”

“Gone?” She swung her legs out of bed, grateful she'd put her nightgown back on. “Calm down, sweetie. What do you mean?”

“He's not in the house.”

“I'm sure he's here somewhere.” Her heart beat up into her throat despite her words. She caught Harper's eyes, and her sister shrugged and shook her head. “He's probably nervous and hiding in a new place.”

Jack didn't get nervous. He was the most unfazed-able cat she'd ever known.

“You have to come. He's gone.” Rory was sobbing now.

“Hey, what's all this?”

Gabe stood in the doorway like a guardian angel come to life. He was dressed for work, in black dress pants, a striped blue, button-down shirt, and a sharp gray sport coat. In spite of the crisis, Mia's mouth went dry, and memories of the night before threatened to undo her emotions. And where, she wondered out of the blue, had he gotten fresh clothing?

“Well, hello there.” Harper, too, forgot the immediate calamity and swept a knowing gaze between Gabe and Mia. “Didn't know you were still here.”

“Yup.” He answered with his big smile and not a shred of discomfiture. As always, his calm bolstered hers. “We talked until too late to drive home in the snow, so I bunked over. Would have invited you to the slumber party, but you all were asleep.”

Slumber party. She almost let her laughter escape. The best one she'd ever had; that was for sure. She wanted him to bunk over every night now, and nobody else, ever, was going to be invited.

“Mmm hmm.” Harper didn't hide her smile. “Those horses must have needed a
lot
of help last night.”

“They did,” he said. “We needed to make sure there were no ill-effects from the day.”

“I'm sure they were extremely well tended.” Harper sent Mia a smug, happy smile.

“Now, what's this about Jack?” Gabe asked.

Rory's sobs brought them all back to attention. “We've looked everywhere.”

“All right.” Gabe strode into the room and squatted next to the boy. “Let's let Mia get dressed. We'll go over all the evidence. He was here last night when we got back from the barn, so I'm sure if he's missing he isn't far away. Come on.”

He took Rory's hand and led him to the hall. The boy gave a sniff and looked over his shoulder once at Mia. “I'll be right there,” she said. “How about I look everywhere up here again?”

He nodded.

“Crap,” she said to Harper, when the pair had disappeared. “That cat is his anchor. He has to be okay.”

“We'll find him.”

“I'm sorry I overslept.”

“It's only a little after eight. You're fine.”

“But you've had to watch Rory.”

“That's what family is for. Mia, you don't have to be strong every second. You don't have to get it all right all the time—we can help. We want to help. And look at you—you're letting Gabriel in, too. I'm so happy. He's such a wonderful guy. He's good for you.”

The old familiar prickling of resentment sprouted in Mia's chest. Her family with their expectations and their assessments of her life . . . and then she stopped short. Harper hadn't told her what to do, or asked her to do anything, or criticized. Why did she always hear criticism in other peoples' words? Her sister was right. Gabriel was very good for her. And the family was slowly coming together—coalescing back into a cohesive whole, where they'd once been fractured.

She sagged back onto the bed. “I like him. It's too soon, but I do. I'm loath to leave in eight days.

The thought blazed through her brain like pain. Eight days? What had she been thinking last night? She wasn't a casual sex kind of woman. She'd never been. It was supposed to mean something—something permanent, something committed.

“You know,” Harper said thoughtfully. “It wouldn't be impossible for you to stay. This is a very big house. A very big ranch. And part of it is yours.”

Mia scrubbed her face with her fingers, trying to wipe the fog of sleep fully from her eyes and her brain.

“I know. But it's impossible. I've made commitments in New York. I love my job.”

The thought of going back to her job sent ribbons of steel jamming down her spine. She could almost feel the tension of the OR reaching its fingers out for her. Intense. Important.

Harper only smiled. “Get dressed. Let's find Rory's cat.”

J
ACK WAS NOWHERE
in the house. Gabe called his office and postponed two meetings, and after his help with fifteen minutes of concentrated search efforts, Jack's disappearance was confirmed. Rory was inconsolable. At the height of his distress over the cat's very probable escape to the outdoors, the front doorbell rang. Mia answered it, hoping maybe Leif or Bjorn had found Jack, and was shocked when Hannah, the social worker who'd accompanied Rory, smiled in greeting.

“Hi, there!” she said in a voice a chipper as a spring robin's. “How's it going this morning?”

She looked past Mia's shoulders as Rory shuffled into the living room wearing his snow boots, pulling on his jacket and weeping for the fifth time that morning—something that spoke volumes about his distress since he was normally such a stoic kid.

“I'm going,” he said, his nose stuffed, his voice full of tears.

“Goodness, is everything all right, Rory?” Hannah asked.

“No.”

Of course this is the scene she walked in on. Mia sighed in frustration. “It looks like Jack escaped out one of the doors this morning. Rory and Gabe are going to look for him.”

“Gabe?”

“Mia's boyfriend,” he said miserably.

The cheerful robin disappeared. Hannah took in Rory's unhappy demeanor with obvious skepticism, and then Gabe poked his head into the room.

“Hello,” he said. “Sorry to run—have an escapee to hunt down. Come on, cat whisperer. I have your hat. Out the back door.”

Rory gazed at the two women, looking far too much like a whipped puppy.

“Mia? Is everything all right?”

“Oh, Hannah, come in. Take your coat off. It's been great. We had a wonderful night last night—playing computer, reading books. This just looks bad.”

“Should we go with them?”

“We can if you like. Or I can show you the house and introduce you to my family.”

“You trust Rory with this . . . boyfriend?”

Again the urge to rail at stupid questions from people who weren't listening almost overwhelmed her. The retort was on her tongue:
I wouldn't send him with Gabe if I didn't trust him
. She pulled herself together instead, drawing calm from the warmth of her house, the knowledge that her mother was just beyond the door, her sister had her back. And—Hannah was just doing her job.

“You saw how good he is with Rory,” she said. “Yeah, he'll take good care of him.”

She knew it as well as she knew he'd take good care of her. If she let him.

Hannah smiled. “Okay. If they don't come back soon—we'll go after them.”

Her slightly teasing tone surprised Mia. No backlash. No more skepticism. Just belief that Mia cared, not just on a professional level, but a personal one.

Had Mia really always expected people to question her? Had she been equally suspicious of her colleagues? Her head hurt as if someone had swung with a baseball bat and connected. Such a simple lesson. Dr. Thomas had been right.

H
ANNAH MARVELED AT
the house, as everyone did when they saw it for the first time. With its vaulted cathedral ceiling in the living room, the enormous dining table built by Sebastian Crockett to fit all his family at once, the nine bedrooms, five bathrooms, and bright welcoming pine everywhere, it really was a dream home.

And it was made all the more charming by Mia's mother and grandmother, who sang Rory's praises, without making it look like they were trying, and plied Hannah with cinnamon rolls and coffee while they waited. It was all rather silly, Mia thought, worrying about Hannah's reaction. She wasn't going to take Rory back with her unless she saw evidence of totally inappropriate care and facilities. But what she would take back were stories and impressions. Brooke, Samantha, everyone who knew her would hear. About a crying Rory and a lost cat.

The sound of the door in the back hallway interrupted Hannah's description of her job back in New York. There was no waiting before the clomp of boots resounded, growing louder as they neared the kitchen. Rory burst in, his arms filled with buff-colored cat. Mia cheered and jumped from her chair, much more crazily relieved than she'd ever imagined being.

“Now you saved him
and
Gabe saved him. He was in the barn making friends with the barn cats.”

“I'm so happy he's safe. Silly boy. He knew where to find some kitty friends.”

Gabe appeared in his stocking feet and smiled at the group. “He made us work for it, but we tracked him.”

“Like hunting party scouts,” Rory said, and handed the cat to Mia. “We were quiet and careful and we followed his tracks.”

“He actually left tracks?” She looked to Gabe.

“He kind of did. A lot of hopping and swishing through the snow, but it was unusual enough that we thought it was him. He made quite a trek. And made good time.”

Rory turned then and threw himself at Gabe, hugging him. “Thank you for saving Jack.”

“Well you're welcome. But you saved him, too. And you said thank you. So we'll just say we make a great detective team.”

He held out his hand and Rory slapped him a loud high five. Now
that
, Mia thought, would make a great story for back in New York.

I
T PRETTY MUCH
amazed Mia that Rory followed her and Raquel, without protest or apparent distressing memories, down the hospital corridor on their way to see Joely. They'd planned a trip into Wolf Paw Pass for afterward, to see the town, have ice cream at Ina's Ice Cream Emporium, which did a brisk business even in the winter, and visit the pet store where they were going to get a new masculine collar and a nametag for Jack. “To tell him from the barn cats,” according to Rory. That all was worth a trip to meet Dr. Mia's other sister, he'd said, because then he'd only have one left. The one in Denver named Kelly.

When Mia asked him outright if going to the hospital would make him sadder about his mom he shook his head. “Do I have to wear a mask?” he asked.

“No. Not at all.”

“Then she's not like my mom. She was in a kind of dark room that was really quiet and we couldn't bring in any germs because of her bad infection.”

The nurses and the social workers back in New York had pegged him perfectly—when he wasn't being a normal ten-year-old, he was scarily perceptive.

Joely was in fairly good spirits this visit. Mia worried about her—she'd lost more than the use of a leg in the accident, she'd lost a lot of hope, too. She smiled and conversed by rote most of the time. She didn't push herself in physical therapy and didn't ever ask about coming home. Because of that, her progress was slow and very uneven. In nine weeks, going from intensive care, to a medical surgical floor, to now making plans for moving her to a rehab care facility, she'd suffered bouts of depression, a case of pneumonia, three surgeries, and no real improvement in her crushed leg. If anyone tried to talk to her about the scar on her cheek and chin from the accident, she nearly curled up in a ball.

Mia hated to miss a day visiting, although she was never sure it helped her sister.

Today, however, Joely smiled when Rory entered the room between Mia and Raquel, and she answered all his intrusive questions about her accident without a flinch. Mia wanted to hug the daylights out of her. Her family was going so far above and beyond for this child—she was still trying to wrap her mind around it. Because of them, Hannah had flown off happy with Rory's new arrangements saying only that she looked forward to seeing them when they got back to New York.

Rory was absorbed in showing Joely a game on Raquel's cell phone when a white-coated figure appeared at the door and rapped softly. “Am I intruding?” Perry Landon stepped into the room.

“Hi, Perry!” she said. “It's been a while since I've been here when you're making rounds. How have you been? How's our sis doing? Behaving herself?”

“Mia.” His greeting was warm, and the corners of his eyes crinkled behind his glasses. Geeky and yet quite handsome. “I'm so glad to see you.” Then his gaze slid slowly across the room. “And Raquel. It's really good to see you, too.”

If she hadn't been used to having everyone goof up the triplets' identities or stammer to try and figure out which one was which, Mia might not have studied Perry the way she did and certainly wouldn't have seen the very faint shuffle of nervousness in his stance or the tic of uncertainty in his features. But he didn't even hesitate when saying Raquel's name—something infinitely more impressive because she was there alone with no other sib to compare her to.

He could tell them apart.

Or at least tell Raquel from the others.

“Hi, doc,” she said cheerily, and Mia studied her reaction.

Raquel smiled the way she always did—with an air of casual confidence. She wouldn't notice fidgeting or nuanced changes in a human. If Perry had been a ledger or a business detail, she'd have been on him like a bee to a rose had there been anything different. Or if he'd been a baseball stat or an opponent on the soccer field, she'd have studied him like an ACT test. But he was a normal person, a nice guy, and it didn't dawn on Rocky Raquel to look for more than friendship.