The Maverick Meets His Match (22 page)

A man who was so much more complex than she realized. A man whose life had been more difficult than she knew. A man she found herself far more attracted to than she had counted on.

Perfectly relaxed stretched out on the bed, he thumbed through his phone screens, his powerful shoulders resting against the tufted headboard, his jaw shadowed with stubble, his legs hugged by denim pants, and his bare feet crossed casually. And all she wanted to do was snuggle up against all that muscle and let him kiss her senseless.

He lifted his head, and she was caught in the crosshairs of a pair of shining dark eyes. It felt like some internal cyclone was propelling her toward him as his gaze dropped from her eyes to her neck, then to her breasts covered by cotton fabric, where he lingered an extra heartbeat before moving down past the hem to the length of her legs in a slow appraisal that pulled a trail of heat with it.

“You left the seat up, again.” It was easier focusing on the toilet seat than on the man sending lust beams from his spot on the bed. She’d found the toilet seat up a few times during their time together, and having a brother, she was used to it. But if they were going to be together for six months, she figured he should at least try to remember.

“Sorry. I’m not accustomed to living with anyone. I’ll be more careful.” Ty patted the spot next to him. “I won’t bite. Unless you ask me to, that is.”

Feeling like she was walking on a cliff’s edge, she moved toward the bed and settled her bottom on the far side from where he lounged. The cool, shimmery sheets sent a warning shiver through her.

“It was nice to meet Trace. And little Delanie. And see the ranch.” Normal conversation, that’s all they were having tonight. She hoped she could keep that promise to herself.

“Ranch isn’t quite up to Prescott’s standards, is it? And the drought has really decimated his herd. He needs to rebuild it, and soon.”

She tucked that information away. “At least he’s trying. Does that ranch date back before your father?” Seeing where he’d been raised, meeting his brother, had increased her curiosity, made her want to know more.

“My mother’s parents owned it.”

Mandy turned toward him, stretching out the length of the bed. “Speaking of parents, it must have been tough on you and Trace, losing your mother so young. What did she die from again?”

A car accident had taken Mandy’s father. There’d been no time to prepare, no warning that hugging him before he left for that meeting would be the last time she’d ever hug him. She’d often wondered if it was harder or easier knowing the end was near, and she had come to the conclusion that it was rough all the same.

“She killed herself.” The deep voice that spoke those words was flat, emotionless. And only added to Mandy’s shock.

She remembered he had lost his mother. That was what had her feeling a connection with him way back when. But it hadn’t been suicide. She would have remembered that.

He turned toward her. Shadows played across his stoic expression, making him look more rugged, tougher. But it was his eyes, glistening in the low lamp light, that made her feel like she’d just opened a forbidden closet.

“I only found out a few years ago…when I was bailing Trace out of a jam caused by the alcohol.” Ty turned his line of sight toward the bedroom door, away from her. “Funny thing is, he thought I knew or at least suspected. I didn’t. She’d been staying in bed a lot. I thought that was because she was sick and my daddy hadn’t wanted to tell us. She’d cry sometimes. I’d hear her. But I thought that was because she knew she wasn’t well and was worried about us. Little did I know she wasn’t worried about leaving us at all. She was planning on it.”

The pain wasn’t covered by the toneless recitation of facts. It was amplified by it.

Mandy thought back to her father’s death, so unexpected. The toxicology reports had indicated her father had been drinking that evening. And though her father had never had a drinking problem that she knew of, it had taken a long time for her to forgive him for imbibing that night at the stockowners’ association meeting. How long would it have taken her to forgive her father for something like suicide?
Forever.

Without thought, she reached across and rested her palm on his denim-clad thigh. She felt the muscle flex beneath, but she didn’t remove her hand. Even if he didn’t want the connection, she did.

“I’m so sorry, Ty,” she finally said when she trusted herself to speak. “I know how hard it is to lose a parent regardless of the circumstances, but to learn later it was suicide…that’s tough to bear, harder to make sense out of it all.”

“I’m not asking for anyone’s pity.” His tone had sharpened.

“And I’m not offering pity. I got too much of that when my own father passed away. But depression is a disease, Ty. It’s an illness. She obviously wasn’t thinking straight.”

“She was thinking straight enough to take a whole lot of pills.” The bitterness in his voice had the stinging effect of lemon juice on a cut. “As Trace tells it, my daddy found her in the bedroom, passed out. By the time he got her to the hospital, it was too late. She was pronounced dead. All the while I thought she was sick and the doctors just couldn’t save her—I thought she had a weak heart. No one told me different.”

“Trace knew though?”

“He’s four years older. He knew. We never talked about it. My father never said a thing. But knowing it now, I should have seen signs, done something.”

Guilt was a heavy burden to carry. Especially when it warred with anger at the very person you felt guilty about. She knew because she had watched JM suffer through it. He’d blamed himself for not going with his son that night. He would have been driving most likely, if he had.
             “There’s nothing a child can do to save a parent in a state like that, Ty. Even your father couldn’t save her. He probably didn’t even understand what was happening.”

“He took it to his grave. If Trace hadn’t slipped, I’d never have known. Part of me wishes I’d never found out that I’d been such a disappointment to both my parents.”

“I’m sure that you weren’t a disappointment to either of them.”

“No? My mother couldn’t face being my mother, and my father pretty much cut me out of his life after I took that scholarship. Barely spoke to me.” He shifted on the bed. “But I didn’t do so bad for myself. Thanks to JM.”

“Thanks to your abilities.”

Ty was wealthy, independent, self-reliant. Still, she couldn’t get the thought of him struggling to understand the actions of a mother bent on leaving him permanently. Or what it must have felt like when he found out the truth.

It was like a damp winter wind had blown over her, over them both. She wanted to hold him, comfort him, wrap her arms around him in a hug, but she settled for resting her hand on his leg to reinforce the fragile bond she felt arcing between them. They had both lost a parent. They had both felt abandoned, felt anger…and betrayal.

She tried to imagine what it must have been like for Ty growing up with a cold father and a distant brother. She’d never been alone in her troubles. She’d always had family around to support her. For all of Ty’s lone-wolf nature, he probably could have used some support. Maybe her grandfather knew that. Maybe that was why he’d watched out for Ty.

For the first time, she realized Ty was probably as devastated by the loss of her grandfather as she was and maybe he needed a little support too, given her grandfather had thrown him the same curveball he had thrown her. They were, for better or worse, in this together.

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, felt the stubble of his five o’clock shadow. She’d meant it to be just a light caress, but he twisted his face until his mouth met hers. His hand cupped the back of her neck, and his lips swooped over hers. There was nothing light about this kiss. In a heartbeat he was feeding her kisses, and she was returning them, taking them deeper.

Feeling like she was sinking in shifting quicksand, she grabbed his shoulders and hung on. Soft denim brushed against her legs, bare flesh rubbed against her tee shirt. His warm, surprisingly work-roughened fingers brushed up her arm, as if he was checking to make sure she was real. His warm touch brought tingles to her skin.

Ty raised his head and looked into her eyes. “I’ve wanted you since I first spied you striding through the barn in jeans and a tight pink T-shirt.”

He remembered the color of her T-shirt?

“At the creek, you didn’t want me.” And she’d been desperate for him.

She’d gone after him that summer in the way of a seventeen-year-old starved for attention. She’d sneak up on him and clasp her hands over his eyes, hugging the back of him just so she could fell his body next to hers. He’d turn around, laugh, and hold her hands while he told her that she’d be sorry if she didn’t watch it.

She didn’t believe she’d be sorry about anything when it came to him.

She’d find him watering the horses and she’d grab the hose and spray him with water. He’d grab it back and spray her. With wet clothes clinging to her body, she’d revel in the appreciation she saw in his eyes.

Each day she found an excuse to be near him and devised ways she could tempt him.

Finally, one day, behind the barn, he grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her—deep, possessive, with tongue. She’d never been kissed like that before, and it awoke in her a passion so fierce she could barely keep from climbing on top of him.

After that, they took every opportunity to make out. In the tack room, behind the barn, in the hayloft, in the haystack, in an empty stall.

It was bliss, and each day she woke up wondering when and where they’d have their next encounter.

Things progressed from kisses to touching to testing, and Mandy only wanted more. Knowing the summer was ending, and with it Ty’s work on the ranch as he headed off to State, she made her move, convincing him that her grandfather wanted him to check out the fencing by the creek. It had been a lie. But Ty hadn’t known that.

He dutifully saddled up one of the stable horses and headed out. Mandy saddled up Twinkle, her horse at the time, and cantered after him, taking a short cut through a copse of trees so she could arrive before him.

She stripped naked and waded into the creek near the fence he would be checking and hid behind one of the boulders by the shore.

Riding up, he didn’t see her. She waited until he dismounted to check the fence, and then she yelled out to him.

“I’m stuck, Ty. Please help me.”

“Mandy, where are you? I can’t see you.”

“I’m behind the boulder. I’m stuck. Please pull me out.”

“Stuck? On what?”

“I don’t know. Help me, Ty.”

He took off his boots, stripped to his underwear, and dove into the water. As soon as she heard the splash, Mandy emerged from around the boulder. Being the water was only waist high and Mandy was naked, Ty’s mouth dropped open at the sight of her—just as she planned.

Before he could react, she ran to him and wrapped her nude, wet body around his. She felt his erection and figured she got what she wanted.

“Mandy, no.”

“Why not? There’s no one here but us.”

“No.” He extricated himself from her grasp, turned his back on her, and walked toward the shore.

She’d called after him, told him she wanted him to be the first. Begged him to come back.

Instead, with his back turned, he put on his pants, put on his boots, threw on his shirt, mounted his horse, and rode away without saying another word—leaving her naked and humiliated.

He avoided her for the next two days until he left for college, never saying another word to her. And he never came back to work on the ranch either.

“Make no mistake. I wanted you. But you were just seventeen, Mandy, and I wasn’t in any position to do right by you.”

Ty shifted his body so he rested on his side, his head propped on his large hand as his dark eyes focused like a laser on her face. She resisted the urge to run her fingers up his chest, to press her body into his. Her heart pumped hard against her ribs as she studied his face, looking for signs he was lying. She didn’t find any—but that didn’t mean he was telling the truth.

“I know I was just seventeen. I wasn’t expecting marriage.” Though her fantasies had certainly gone in that direction at the time. She was young. He had been her first love…

“I wasn’t ready for any kind of relationship. I had to finish school. Then law school. Knowing that, it wouldn’t have been right to take advantage of the situation.”

She looked away, taking what little relief that action granted. “I wanted you to be the first.” The words came out in a need-filled whisper.

“I didn’t feel worthy of the honor. Not when I knew that nothing could come of it.”

As it turned out, Chet Voorhees, her first college boyfriend, hadn’t been worthy of it either, but that hadn’t stopped him.

“And you feel worthy of it now? Or is honor no longer involved?”

His hand cupped the back of her head as his thumb brushed across her cheek.

“Things are different. Clearer. We are much older. There’s an end game we’ve both agreed to. There’s an attraction we both have. And a bedroom we’ve been forced to share. I like you, Mandy. And, maybe more importantly, I respect you. Your business sense, your drive, the way you related to Delanie.” Those strokes on her cheek were like zings of electricity jolting through her, softening her from the inside out. “It only increases your attractiveness. And that’s the truth.”

She wanted to believe him. But believing him would only make it more dangerous for her heart.

His large fingers slid down her cheek and cupped her chin. “Let’s finish what was started that summer.”

He leaned in. Warm lips brushed across hers in a whisper of a kiss.

“Don’t think. Just feel, honey,” he murmured against her ear.

That was easy enough to do, given the sensations dancing through her.

He kissed her temple, a sweet and simple gesture. And then covered her mouth as his muscled arms wrapped around her, enclosing her in a Ty-scented cocoon. This kiss was powerful and possessive, spiking passion clear to her toes.