A LONG WHILE LATER, Trace rested his head against Jo’s bare back as she lay stomach down on the rumpled sheets. A languid peace had settled over him. He was coming to know so much about this woman. What made her gasp and dig her nails into his shoulders; the taste of her; her unique, intoxicating scent. But there was still so much more he wanted to know. When she had nightmares, what were they about? What made her happy? What made her sad?
He wanted to know everything.
And he wanted to share everything with her.
He lazily traced the raised brand of a mustang on her pert backside. “Where’d you get this?” he asked.
She turned her head toward him, causing her long, black hair to slide across her back. “The brand?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Trace leaned down to press his lips against it, then shifted to face her, leaving his arm around her waist.
She looked so beautiful with her hair tangled around her face, her lips swollen from his kisses, her eyes sleepy. “I got it a long, long time ago on one of the first ranches I worked on.”
He could imagine a younger Jo driving all the men crazy with her need to prove herself not only as capable as any of them, but more.
“About ten of us hands were sitting around a campfire after a long drive. We were drinking, probably a little too much, and one of them had a broken branding iron in the fire, using it as a poker.”
“Broken?”
“Mmm. The part that had the initials of the ranch had split off, so the owner had no need for it.”
“But you did.”
“At the time, yes.” She smiled. “I guess I felt like I had a lot to prove back then. To myself more than anyone else. So I jerked the back of my jeans down a few inches and told him to brand me.”
Trace cringed. “Ouch.”
“Oh, that wasn’t the bad part. What was worse was riding on the range for the next week with my jeans rubbing against this oozing wound on my backside.”
Trace grunted. “That does sound bad.”
She turned onto her side. “Trust me, if I had known how damn long it was going to take to heal, I would have never done it.”
He took in the defiant sparkle in her blue eyes. “Oh, yes you would have.”
She smiled. “Okay, I admit it.” She put her hand on his upper arm. “Something tells me you’re coming to know me too well.”
Trace squinted. “And that’s a bad thing because…?”
She shrugged, but he could tell she was suddenly feeling anything but nonchalant. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She shifted closer to him and fell silent. Trace rested his chin on top of her head, content to just lie still. Jo pressed her lips against his chest and stayed there for a long moment.
“Come away with me,” she said softly.
Every molecule in him froze. “What?”
She kissed his chest again. “I said, come away with me.” She shifted until she was looking into his face. “What does either of us have here? My family…” She let her words drift off, her sadness touching him. Then she cleared her throat. “I’m not welcome here anymore. And you…well, with Eric back, and Sara living in the main house, you must be feeling like the odd man out….”
Trace rolled onto his back and folded his right arm behind his head. “Where would we go?”
Jo shifted closer. “I don’t know. Anywhere. Montana. Idaho. Arizona. There are a hundred different places that could use a couple of experienced ranch people like us.”
Trace stared at the ceiling, absorbing her words. Finding them as wild as the brand on her backside. Exotic. Adventuresome. Just like the woman herself.
What would it be like to cut free from all of his responsibilities and just ride? Work for someone else without worrying about the bottom line or the overhead? Move from town to town, state to state, with no roots to hold him in place?
He looked down at Jo, to find her staring at his chest. If only he didn’t have the strong impression she wasn’t so much running toward something as away.
She shifted so that they were nose to nose, and kissed him. “What do you say, cowboy? How about we ride off into the sunset and rediscover the West?”
He kissed her back. And then again. And said nothing.
But Jo apparently needed an answer. And she needed it now.
The problem was, he wasn’t prepared to give her one.
She abruptly sat up, gathering the top sheet to cover herself. Trace knew an instant of regret. He’d tell her anything to keep her from putting that sheet between them.
Almost.
“You don’t want to leave,” she whispered.
He swallowed thickly and sat up next to her, his shoulder pressing against hers.
“I have family here, Jo. Wildewood is my home. No matter what problems Eric and I are currently facing, I can’t imagine living anywhere else, doing anything else.”
She propped her chin on her raised, sheet-covered knees.
“You have family, too,” he added. “Right here. And despite what happened tonight, maybe even because of it, they need you more than ever.”
She pressed her cheek against her knees, turning her face away. It drove Trace crazy that he couldn’t see her expression. Couldn’t read the emotions that were surely written there.
“You know, I would never have figured you for a coward,” he said, measuring his words carefully.
That made her turn back to face him.
He cleared his throat again. “You come off as this free spirit. Strong. Independent. Smart. But you don’t travel around because you’re looking for your next adventure, do you, Jo?”
Her jaw was set so tightly he swore he could hear her teeth grinding together.
“You leave because you’re running. At the first sign of trouble, you’re out the door.”
He hated to be the cause of the angry, hurt expression on her lovely face. But he’d come to some realizations of his own over the past twenty-four hours. About his volatile relationship with his brother. About the ranch and the future—not just his future, but the future of the Armstrong clan. Which not only included Eric and his soon-to-be wife and child, but depended on them. It was time Trace got over their petty differences and started hammering out a compromise that would make everybody happy.
He only wished he could have figured that out before suffering a black eye and sore jaw.
He also wished that his increasing awareness didn’t shine such a new light on the woman he was coming to care for deeply.
Jo began to move away, as if to get up, and he gently grasped her arm.
“My father used to say something that I never really got, until now.” He smiled sadly. “Funny that it should come to me at this point, but anyway…”
Jo looked as if she wanted nothing more than to shake his hand off and get out of bed, but she stayed, staring at him hard.
“He used to say it was when a wild horse bucked the most that you needed to hold on the tightest. It’s then when you dig in your heels and give it all you’ve got.”
She didn’t blink.
“You need to fight, Jo. You’re a marine. You know how to do that on the battlefield. Can it be that much different to bring those same strategies to the problems with your family?”
“You don’t know anything.” She finally tugged her arm free and got up, stalking into the bathroom. Moments later she returned, clothed again in the wrinkled dress.
“Maybe I don’t know all that much,” he admitted. “But I do know this—I need to stay here. And I want you to stay, too.”
She went to the window and opened the curtains. She stood there staring at the dawn brightening the eastern sky, smearing it with purples and deep reds, much like the bruises both he and Jo bore, real and imagined.
She turned back to face him. “I’m moving on.” Pain flashed through her eyes, but was quickly replaced by determination as she lifted her chin. Consider that my notice, as your employee.”
“And as my woman?”
It heartened him that she was surprised by his words. Did he stand a chance?
But then she picked up her truck keys and walked toward the door. “Sex does not make a relationship, Trace.”
And she walked out.