last, right there, on that blanket, in the lovely, shadowed, private place beneath the birch trees…
To have it all with Grant, as she’d always dreamed. To be fully a woman at last, with the only man she’d ever loved.
He kissed her chin, nipping it, whispering her name against her eager flesh. He kissed the side of her neck, opening his mouth there, licking her skin, making her shiver in the most delicious way…
He kissed the hollow of her throat and she stretched her neck back, spearing her fingers into his hair, cupping his head and cradling him close, urging him to kiss her some more, to keep on kissing her.
To never stop.
“Oh, Grant,” she whispered, “Oh, Grant. Yes. Please. Yes…”
His warm hand trailed downward. She wanted… more.
To be closer, to have his hand there, where she was aching and yearning, hot and eager. To have him, completely. To be with him in the most passionate, intimate way.
She moaned his name again.
And then, out of nowhere, for no reason at all…he tore himself away from her. With a low groan, and a guttural, “No!” he was gone.
“Grant?” She opened her eyes to see him sitting back on his bent legs, his strong hands on his knees, face flushed, mouth swollen, eyes heavy with the same need that made her legs and arms feel weighted, that made her body so lazy and hungry and hot. She lifted yearning arms to him. “Come back here. Back here to me…”
He swore. “No. This is all wrong. I didn’t come here for this.”
“But I don’t…”
“Damn it, Steph. Listen. Listen to me.”
Stunned, punch-drunk with longing, she dragged herself to a sitting position. “I don’t understand. What’s the matter? What happened?”
He rocked back on his stocking feet and rose above her. She stared up at him, so tall and strong, glaring down at her, the leaves of the birches rustling above his head, the blue, clear sky beyond…
A sudden chill swept through her. She wrapped her arms around herself against a cold that came from deep inside. “What? Say it. Whatever it is, just please, say it. Now.”
And at last, he did. “I came out here to tell you I’m selling Clifton’s Pride.”
Chapter Five
Grant stared down into her flushed, bewildered face. Right then, there were no words to describe how thoroughly he despised himself. As he watched, the hectic color drained from her cheeks and her mouth formed a round, shocked O.
On a husk of breath, she pleaded, “No…”
He forced a nod. “Yeah. It’s true. I’m selling the ranch.”
She gaped some more, then whispered, “When?”
“I’m signing the contract today, at four-thirty.”
She swallowed, caught her upper lip between her teeth, worried it, let it go. “Today.”
“That’s right.”
“When…do we have to be out?”
“By the end of August. The new owner wants to take possession September first.”
She seemed to consider that for a moment. “Not quite two months, then… Who?”
“What?”
“Who will be the new owner?”
“Her name’s Melanie McFarlane. From out of town. She wants to make it a guest ranch.”
“A guest ranch,” she repeated as if the very words made her sick.
Grant felt like something squirming and loathsome, something you’d find buried in sour soil under a giant rock. He made himself confess the rest. “I meant to tell you Sunday,” he said, as if that mattered. As if that made any difference at all.
“Oh,” she said. “You meant to tell us. But you… forgot?”
“I was…distracted.”
Color stained her cheeks again and he knew that she knew why he hadn’t. Because he’d seen her down by the creek, seen her as a woman for the first time. Because his senses, his mind, all of him, had been filled with her. No room left to remember what he should have done.
She hitched in a hard breath. “Distracted. By me?”
“Yeah.”
“And again, today, right? It’s all my fault…”
“I didn’t say that. Of course, it’s not your fault.”
“You met me here to tell me you were selling the ranch. And I distracted you again.”
“No. Wait. You’re getting it all wrong. There’s no excuse for my not telling you. I know there’s not. I’m not blaming you.”
She only stared at him. And he saw it all, his own complete culpability, right there in her upturned face, in those amazing leaf-green eyes of hers: the kiss on Sunday. And worse than that, what he’d almost done just now, out in the open beneath birches, where anyone might ride by and see them. He’d been too busy kissing her to tell her the thing she most needed to know, too absorbed in the feel and the taste of her, too stupefied by his own lust for her, to be straight with her.
His throat felt like two angry hands were squeezing it. Still, roughly, he made himself say the things he’d planned to say before he made such a complete mockery of her innocent trust in him. “It’s time to move on. To let go of the past. The world is changing, Steph. The day of the small, family ranch is over. Thunder Canyon isn’t the sleepy mountain town it once was. Growth and change are inevitable and we all need to get with the program, we need to—”
She put up a hand. “Wait.”
“Uh. What?”
“Don’t give me a load of that progress crap, please. The last couple of years, it’s about all I’ve heard. I don’t need to hear anymore. Bottom line is you’re selling Clifton’s Pride. I get it. It’s your ranch, after all, and your choice to make. You can let that buyer of yours turn a fine working ranch into some silly showplace where city people can play at being cowboys if you want to.”
He winced. “Look. What matters is, you’re going to be okay. I’ll see to it, I swear to you, we’ll get you a good job. Your mom, too…and I meant what I said about college. If you think you might change your mind, now you’ll be leaving the ranch, I’ll be glad to foot the bill…”
She just sat there, staring up at him. It was damned unnerving. He couldn’t tell what she might be thinking—he only knew it wasn’t good.
After the silence stretched out for way too long, she finally asked, “Well. Are you done?”
“I…” Hell. What more was there to say? “Yeah. I’m done.”
“Great.” She grabbed her boots from the edge of the blanket and yanked them on. Then she settled her hat on her head, gathered her legs under her and stood.
“Put your boots on,” she said in a voice so controlled it made him want to grab her and shake her and beg her to yell at him, to go ahead and get it out, tell him exactly what she thought of him. After all, it couldn’t be worse than what he thought of himself.
But he didn’t grab her. He knew if he did, he’d only try to kiss her again.
God. He was low. Lower than low.
He sat, put his hat on and then his boots.
She asked in a tone that was heartbreakingly civil, “Now, would you please get off the blanket so I can roll it up?”
He