David knelt beside the fire ring, struck a match from the box Mary had found for him, and held the flame to a cluster of tiny, dry pine branches. It took hold with a greedy crackle.
“I suppose you were a Boy Scout, too,” Mary said.
“Nah, I was an ag nerd. I showed a steer every year at the county fair until I was fourteen, then I got too busy with the junior rodeos.”
“You started early.”
He fed a slightly larger twig into the fire, watched the flame lick around it. “My uncle gave me a rope for my second birthday, and I slept with it instead of a teddy bear.”
“You must’ve had to work pretty hard to get so good.”
David nudged another twig into the growing fire. “When you love what you’re doing, it doesn’t seem like work.”
“Even when it’s not going so well?”
“Even then.” He flashed her a wry smile. “You know what they say, the worst day roping is better than the best day of honest work.”
“You treat it like a real job.”
“I have to. Otherwise, I’d be pretty skinny by now.” He carefully crossed a pair of larger chunks of kindling over the hungry fire, thinking of how patient and connected she’d been with her students the day before. “I bet you feel the same way about what you do.”
She smiled, her face going soft. “Yeah. Some days it’s so frustrating you wonder if you’re accomplishing anything, but when I get up in the morning, there’s nothing I’d rather do.”
“Exactly.”
Their eyes met, and this time the ping of connection was different. Deeper. Soul to kindred soul.
Mary looked down at her hands, lacing her fingers together again. “Are you over her? The one who left you?”
“Yes.” His response was abrupt enough to raise Mary’s eyebrows. David poked at the fire with a stick and then threw it onto the flames. “I wouldn’t take her back if she showed up on my doorstep tomorrow.”
“That’s not the same as being over what she did.”
He shrugged. “Some lessons can’t be unlearned.”
Mary was quiet, staring into the fire. Then she sighed. “It would be nice, wouldn’t it? If you could just wipe the slate clean, start over?”
For himself, David would have said no. He didn’t want to be that stupid, that vulnerable, all over again. For Mary…knowing the memories that haunted her, if he could clear the shadows from her eyes for even an hour, a day, he’d do it. He stacked a couple more logs on the fire and then switched off the lantern, leaving the firelight to dance over the creatures that ambled around the walls. “Nice drawings. Do them yourself?”
She shook her head with another of those soft smiles. “I took the canvas into my classroom and turned the kids loose on it.”
“That explains the purple dinosaur. I didn’t think they were a big part of Native American culture.”
She laughed. “They were a big part of Crystal Little Bear’s culture at the time.”
He stood, brushed the wood shavings from his jeans and sat down beside Mary, close enough to feel her tense. Every inch of skin on that side of his body tingled, as if the very molecules were straining to reach out and touch her.
“What are you doing, David?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know, but I can’t seem to stop.” He angled a glance at her, but she turned her face away. “If it doesn’t feel right to you, I’ll back off.”
“Doing something because it feels good has never worked out very well for me.”
“Maybe you were doing it with the wrong guy.”
She looked at him, caution and humor fighting for the upper hand. “Are you the right guy, Dudley?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
She went still, her eyes locked on his as he reached up to cup her face. He rested his little finger against the fluttering pulse in the curve of her throat as he lowered his head and brushed his mouth over hers. Just a taste. A test. When she didn’t pull away, he went back for more, gentle, coaxing kisses that she returned in kind. They eased into each other, feeling their way, lips, then tongues, touching, tasting, but not taking more than was offered.
He felt her smile against his mouth and pulled back to look at her. “What?”
“The first boy I ever kissed tasted like grape soda.”
He touched a fingertip to a freckle on her nose. “I hope it’s a good memory.”
“It was very sweet.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief. “And not just because of the grape soda.”
“Then I’d best be sure I match it,” he said and kissed her again.
This time he gave himself more rein, asked for the same in return. She leaned in to him, sliding her hands inside the open front of his jacket to press her palms to his chest. The contact set his blood pounding. He ached to haul her hard against him, press her into the softness of the bed and find the release his body craved. He settled for working his fingers beneath the bottom band of her pullover, peeling up the clingy cotton shirt underneath until he found bare flesh.
She breathed a sigh into his mouth as he spread his fingers over warm, silky skin, able to span the width of her lower back with one hand. The muscle beneath was firm, her body petite but not fragile. A spine of steel, like her name.
And if he kissed her much longer, he was gonna have a permanent kink in his back from bending in half.
He moved his hand down, cupped her butt, the curve of it fitting his palm exactly the way he’d known it would. He eased back onto the pillows, lifting her so she sprawled across his chest, her thigh between his. David groaned at the rub of denim on denim, over the hard and ready flesh beneath.
She nibbled at the corner of his mouth, her tongue playing hide-and-seek with his as she trailed her hand down, along his side to the hem of his shirt. The muscles in his stomach tensed in anticipation. A reflex, dammit; he was not sucking in his gut. But man, was he glad he’d ditched the spare tire. It was worth every drop he’d sweated to hear that hum of appreciation low in Mary’s throat when her fingers trailed across his navel, then back to his chest, combing through the hair she found there.
He cupped the back of her head with one palm, capturing her teasing mouth while his other hand reluctantly gave up possession of her butt and went exploring under her shirt, tracing the curve of her spine. She arched into him, made him groan again, and then laughed at his pain. He slid his palm higher, thumb and pinkie finger skimming the delicate angles of her shoulder blades, the impossibly soft skin between.
Completely bare skin. His hand froze, and he broke free of the kiss to blink up at her. “You’re not wearing a bra.”
Her smile raised his internal temperature another ten degrees. “It’s not like I need one.”
Holy. Crap. She was naked under there. He lost his breath, his lungs flattened by a tidal wave of lust. All he had to do was slide his hand around to the front, and he’d be holding a piece of heaven. Even better, he could push her shirt up and taste it…
No. He couldn’t.
He pulled his hand from under her shirt, smoothed both layers into place, willing his heart to stop thundering. She tipped her head back to give him a puzzled frown, dropping her wandering hand to his waist.
“What? You don’t approve?”
His laugh was three-parts groan. “Hell, yes, I approve, but I don’t want to take advantage.”
“Of me? You’re a little late for that.” But her words were slightly blurred around the edges, her eyes a tiny bit glassy. He guessed it was from more than lust. He ran his hand up her spine—on the outside of her pullover, unfortunately—and kneaded gently.
“You’ve been put through the wringer twice today. You’re exhausted…and I’m betting you popped another migraine pill.”
Her gaze dropped to his chest, and her bottom lip poked out. “Only half.”
“Enough.” And he’d bet she’d needed it. If she’d had a killer headache before dinner, it must feel like she’d been whacked with a sledgehammer now. “How often do you have flashbacks?”
She extracted her hand from his shirt, avoiding his gaze. “Not since high school. I thought I was over them.”
“Did you get professional help?”
“Sure. Sad to say, our school district has a lot of experience in grief counseling, so they’ve got all the resources in place.”
He massaged a slow circle at the base of her neck. “The counting… Is that something they taught you?”
“Was I counting?” Her forehead puckered as she tried to remember. “It’s a coping mechanism. A way to try to stay grounded in reality. But tonight it came on so fast, I couldn’t hold it off.”
David stared at her, confounded. How could she go through something like that and choose to enlist? “I can’t believe they let you in the military.”
“They didn’t know. I was a minor when my brothers died. My mental health records are sealed.”
“Weren’t you worried you might have a flashback in the middle of a mission or something?”
“I cruised through basic training without any problems, so I figured I’d be okay. And I was…until tonight.” She blew out a long stream of air. “It was damn near inevitable, I suppose. Same place, same stupid shit.”
Same man, at least inside her head? He hesitated, but he couldn’t resist asking. “Who did you think I was when I carried you out of there?”
“I don’t know. His name, I mean.” She twisted one of the buttons on his shirt, the friction setting off little explosions of desire in spite of the depressing turn in the conversation. “After the accident, I went into shock. I freaked out when they tried to put me on a stretcher. One of the EMTs carried me to the ambulance and held me on his lap all the way to the hospital.” She smoothed a hand over David’s chest. “He was big, solid, like you.”
David slid his hand up and down her back in long, soothing strokes, all he could offer to ease the pain of remembering. “I thought it might have been the guy who left you because of Kylan.”
“You say that like there was only one,” she quipped and then bit her lip as if she regretted the words. Instead of hiding her face, though, she leaned in closer, nose to nose. “Did you know your eyes are the exact same color as the mountains right before sunset?”
“In other words, you don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“Not tonight, thanks.”
“Fair enough.” He had no right or reason to pry. Just a burning need to know everything about this woman he’d never see again once he left Browning. He went back to kneading her tense muscles.
She arched into his caress like a cat. “Keep that up for an hour or two and I bet you’d get good at it.”
“Practice makes perfect.”
He moved up to massage the base of her neck again, enjoying how her hair tickled his fingers even if it did nothing to help his body settle. Like that was going to happen anyway with Mary draped over him. She nestled her head into his shoulder. He liked the weight of it there, the trust it implied.
“You must have plenty of opportunities to practice,” she said, tracing the line of his jaw, her fingertip rasping against the stubble. “And don’t try to tell me Emily is the only girl you’ve ever kissed. You’re not that pure of heart, Dudley.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m gonna wish I never told you that stupid nickname.”
“Yep,” she agreed with a quick grin. “And you’re changing the subject.”
He sighed, wishing they could skip this part of the getting-to-know-you routine. Women always got weird when they realized how backward he was about sex. “There were other girls before Emily. And after she left, I was mad at the world and dead set on getting even. I did some things…” He shrugged, assuming she could fill in the blanks.
“But not anymore?”
He tilted his head back, gazing up at the point where all the tipi poles converged. “It didn’t feel right, being with someone when there were no feelings involved.”
“Have you had feelings for anyone since Emily?”
“Not really.” Unless you count now.
His hand froze on Mary’s back again. Where in the hell did that thought come from? Mary was…different. Unlike any woman he’d ever met. Fierce. Vulnerable. Brave. And even more head shy than he was. Could he find a woman more likely to bolt at the first sign of trouble?
“So…what? You’re celibate?” And there it was. The disbelief, as if he was some kind of freak.
“It’s not like I made a vow,” he said, unable to keep the defensive note out of his voice. “It takes me a while to get comfortable with a woman, that’s all. So if being with someone is just a way to get off, I’d rather, um…you know.”
“Handle it yourself?”
“Uh…yeah.” And he was not exactly comfortable with where the conversation was going, so he turned it around. “What about you?”
Her eyebrows quirked. “Girls have ways of handling things, too.”
Heat flared in David’s face and then washed over his entire body at the mental picture she conjured. “I wasn’t asking… I meant… Shit. Are you trying to kill me?”
She laughed, taking way too much pleasure in his discomfort. “If you meant how long has it been since I’ve been involved with anyone? A while.”
“Because?”
“Same reasons as you, pretty much. More trouble than it’s worth, and it’s hard on Kylan when they leave.”
“Just Kylan?”
Her gaze fixed on a point somewhere below his chin. “We’re fine how we are, just the two of us.”
Questions piled up at the back of David’s throat. Are you sure about that? Do you really think you can keep him forever? And a dozen others. But it wasn’t his business to question her choices, criticize her for wrapping her life around the kid and her work. Like he could talk. Besides, nothing he said would change her mind, so no sense ruining what was turning out to be a damn fine moment.
She settled deeper into his embrace, her eyes drifting shut. “God, this feels good. Just being here.”
Being held. Holding on. A basic human need that went much deeper than sex. “Then stay.” Because right or wrong, he didn’t want to let her go.
“Can’t,” she mumbled through a yawn. “Kylan… He’ll think…”
“How ’bout this one time you don’t worry about Kylan?”
She dragged her eyes open, tried to scowl. “I can’t just stop. And you still have to decide about Muddy—”
“We’ll figure something out.” He feathered his fingertips down her forehead, stroking her eyelids shut. “Give yourself a break, Mary. You need it.”
Her protest was lost in another yawn. She gave in to exhaustion and the medication, her hand going limp on his chest, her body going liquid as fatigue pulled her under. “Just for a minute,” she mumbled. “But tomorrow…”
“Tomorrow,” he promised, kissing her forehead.
He eased around so they were stretched out on the camp bed, pulled the buffalo hide over them and closed his eyes, contentment wrapping around him like a cocoon. It had been so damn long since he’d had this—the sharing of warmth and comfort at the end of a hard day. It was worth the deep, grinding ache of unfulfilled physical desire. As much as the sex, the laughter, and even the conversation, he’d missed this moment between wakefulness and sleep, when everything he needed was right here in his arms.
Until tomorrow.
That same crazy idea fluttered at the edge of his consciousness, like unseen wings in the darkness, but he was too tired to latch on to it. His thoughts drifted up and away, wafting out through the top of the tipi with the woodsmoke to evaporate into the night sky. Tomorrow, he’d gather them up again. Tonight, he wanted only to feel the soft weight of Mary’s body against his as he sank into oblivion.