Rhys had won every hand. Nevertheless, he left his gaming partners smiling with a victor’s round of drinks in their bellies. He did not recall when he had played better—a testament that a man’s mood was the key to success. Admittedly, the low stakes had not added up to make him rich, but he was no longer a pauper and, in the greater game, the one he played with Teddy, he felt assured of winning.
Not ready for a return to Mae’s he stopped off at a cafe and ordered the highest-priced meal plus a bottle of wine for his own private celebration of his change of fortune.
When he had finished his repast he stepped out into the deepening dusk in time to see the magnificence of a desert sunset. The sky was fused with amber and coral and the craggy mountains in the distance transformed to gold as the fading light fell over them. He strolled along the street, watching the shadows grow into total darkness that was again transformed by the lighting of lanterns inside windows. He was as happy as he’d been in months. And he had nowhere to go and nobody to share his happiness with.
He thought of Honor but there was really nothing he could tell her and she wasn’t the one who could satisfy the other yearning he had. That would be Teddy, but she was probably already at the ranch. Even if she was around, he had about as much chance of cozying up to her as safely hugging a cactus. On top of that he wanted to let her stew a few days, let her worry and wonder if he was making a deal with Adams.
The little she-cat had put him through it and he wanted to return the favor. He smiled as he thought of her rousing him out of Honor’s room at the Diamond. Teddy must have been tied in knots wondering if Adams had included the girl as part payment in a deal for the shares. She was something, Teddy Gamble, hard as granite but she had to have a soft side. He wondered...
His rambling had brought him to the Gamble stable. Half expecting a challenge, he opened a door and walked in, but found only the horses inside. Someone had left a lantern lit. Casting a wide spray of golden light, it softly illuminated the big barn. Careless, or else someone was coming back. Bullet, he reasoned. If that mare he had seen earlier was ready to drop her foal she was sure to need someone with her.
The animal nickered as he approached her stall. She was still standing, but her head was down and there were signs that she was in labor. Making sure he didn’t spook her he carefully and quietly entered the stall and gave the mare a few comforting pats. She snorted but didn’t even try to get her head up. A few moments later she dropped down on the straw and began thrashing her legs, obviously in more distress than a healthy animal giving birth ought to be.
“Sacré bleu!” Rhys swore softly. The way she was blowing and kicking meant something was seriously wrong and he feared that without help she was never going to deliver the foal.
Reluctantly, after calling out to be sure there was no one else around, Rhys slipped out of his coat and hung it over the stall gate. While talking soothingly to the mare he rolled his sleeves, pushed them over his elbows and untied the blue cravat at his throat. With the cravat tucked away in a coat pocket he loosened his collar. Resigned to the job of delivering the foal, he knelt beside the mare.
An hour passed with the animal alternately calmed and struggling to rise. Knowing she would do herself harm if he left her, Rhys stayed on his knees at her side, humming a French lullaby and stroking her sweat-dampened neck each time she got restless.
He did not hear the soft sound of footsteps behind him or even suspect that someone stood back and listened to his calming song until a shadow fell over his shoulder and a slightly sarcastic voice muttered, “Mighty purty.”
In trying to jump up without stepping on the mare, Rhys banged the back of his head on the side of the stall. Rubbing his head he stood. “Where is Bullet?” he demanded, his voice falling a note when he saw that in the soft light, with her scowl half hidden, she was prettier than ever. His mind took that thought and created a flashing image of her in satin and lace. Irresistibly beautiful.
Teddy, decked out in dusty buckskins and a pair of old boots, carried a bucket filled with foul-smelling bottles and clean rags. She set it down and leaned on the gate. “Out at the first station tending a couple of horses that got in a kicking match in the corral.” Her worried look swept over the downed mare then turned to indifference when she raised her cool green eyes to him. “This one isn’t supposed to foal until next week.”
“Birth makes its own time, Teddy,” he said with conviction. “The foal is on its way.”
Teddy leaned in and bent her head over the inside of the stall, to make her own assessment of what he said. He was right, that was plain. But she didn’t like it in the least that he had found one of her animals needing help that wasn’t handy. She directed her annoyance at herself for not having been there earlier. Then she gave him a dark look. “That’s why I rode in,” she remarked. “So get your fancy self out of there and I’ll take care of her.”
Rhys stood firm. Damn her! That dismissive tone again. Once more she had assumed he was incapable of anything worthwhile. Or maybe she was still miffed because he had not her taken her offer to work for her while he waited for proof of his claim. He wondered what she would say when he told her he didn’t have to wait anymore, that Parrish Adams had made him an offer that didn’t require any wait for verification from London. She wouldn’t be high and mighty then. In fact, he thought she would get immensely more congenial the minute he told her. He was going to do so as soon as the mare was taken care of. Meanwhile he would prove to her he wasn’t a fancy fool who was in the way. “Oh,” he said, his pale eyes drilling her. “Are you experienced enough to turn a foal before it’s born?” He raised his brows in challenge. “Because this one is positioned badly and the mare is in for a bad time unless she has expert help.”
He watched her sublimely confident look falter, heard her feet shuffle in the scattered straw outside the stall. “Well, I’ve never actually...”
He leaned heavily on the gate from the other side, getting face to face with her. “Well, I have. And unless you’re willing to risk this animal’s life I suggest we both remain and do what we can to make the ordeal bearable and to end up with mother and foal alive.”
“Move over,” Teddy said, frowning. Grabbing the bucket, she eased into the stall and to a spot where she could get a good look at the mare’s progress. “But you’d better be more than talk on this. You’d better know plenty about delivering a foal or—”
The mare kicked and Rhys roughly shoved Teddy aside, knocking her off her feet and onto her backside. “More than I know about splinting a leg,” he said. “So stay clear of her hooves. She’s going to get wilder before this is over.” Very softly he added, “From experience I can tell you one mad female is all I can handle.”
Teddy gave him a scathing look as she hurriedly scooted up and positioned herself behind the mare’s head. That way, the animal could see and hear her when Rhys was ready to reach into the birth canal to turn the foal. “I’m sure you like them sugar-coated and agreeable,” she quipped.
Rhys was bent over the mare’s belly feeling her distended abdomen attempting to confirm what he feared about the way she was carrying the foal. He lifted up and flashed a smile at Teddy. “Sugar-coated, salty, spicy. Anything but sour,” he said.
Teddy huffed out a hot breath. “Don’t you have something to do besides clue me in on your love life? I’m not interested, especially not in a horny French—”
A tremor shook the mare and once again Teddy had to get clear, this time to avoid being hit by the animal’s big head as the mare flung it back and forth.
“Hold her if you can,” Rhys ordered. “If you can’t, get out of the way. That was a contraction and she’s presented—Sacré bleu,” he said softly. “A hindquarter.” He was all business then, his face grim. The mare was trying to deliver too fast and with the foal turned backward neither of them was going to make it.
Hurriedly he stripped off his waistcoat and shirt and tossed them out of the stall.
“What can I do?” Teddy’s query ended in a gulp when she saw Rhys half-naked. Her imagination had drawn him leaner and much less imposing. That broad chest was anything but lean. It was banded with muscles that rippled and tensed as he toiled with the mare. The sight of him hard at work, with his overlong black hair waving down his neck, clinging in damp curls to his sculpted cheekbones, captivated her so that she stood and stared dumbly, with her face flushed and hot.
“Keep her head down,” Rhys said, breaking her trance, reminding her there was work to do that would not wait while she gaped to her heart’s content.
She dropped down quickly and gripped the mare’s halter, pitting her strength against the horse’s power and fear. Fortunately the animal sensed that she needed this human help. She offered minimal resistance, trembling but not fighting when the foal moved within her. Still it was slow, tedious work turning the foal, since a too-sudden or too-forceful move could result in a rupture and hemorrhage and cause the death of the mare even if the foal could be saved.
The mare’s nostrils were wide and her heavy outflow of breath made a sound like a bellows in the silence of the stable. Her heaving sides and neck were foam-flecked and wet. Sweat streamed from Rhys’s brow nearly blinding him with the sting of salt in his eyes. He was bloody to his elbows, still struggling with the mare half an hour after he’d begun.
Teddy, seeing him blink and grimace, snatched a clean cloth from the bucket and mopped his face. Inadvertently her fingertips grazed his heated skin and brushed against the bristly growth of late-day beard on his chin. A jolt shot up her arm. Her heartbeat quickened and a lump formed in her tight, dry throat. She put the cloth aside and moved away, puzzling over the reaction this man had wrought in her, knowing what she felt was the beginning of desire. Desire. She had no room in her life for it, no room for entanglements and no room for a man whom she had never even wanted to meet. But she had met him and he was a part of her life, a large part for now. And she was both repelled and attracted to him, which was a predicament she didn’t need and, dammit, wouldn’t have.
“Is it going to work?” she asked abruptly, wanting to change the worrisome direction of her thoughts.
“I almost have it in place,” he said softly. Shortly he drew his blood-stained arms free and rocked back on his heels. “They ought to make it now, both of them.”
Teddy smiled and nodded, admiring—in spite of her misgivings—the effort he had made; noting, gratefully, that the mare’s breathing had eased and a tiny pair of hooves had emerged. It would not be long before the rest of the foal followed. Sensing that his relief was as great as hers she slid down closer to him to watch, fascinated as she always was by such marvels, laughing gleefully when, not long afterwards, the youngster was out, strong and whole in spite of the ordeal.
“A little stallion,” Teddy said, the wonder still in her voice as she wiped down the small, struggling animal, doing the job the exhausted mare was unable to do. The foal was soon on his feet, stamping and shaking and wobbling his way around the stall. The mare shuddered once, then gathered the strength to stand. Upright, she whinnied to her offspring and began nuzzling his still damp coat. Teddy stepped back for a good look at the two of them, silently acknowledging that without Rhys, neither animal would have been likely to live. Alone, she could never have been as much help to the mare. She had no doubt of it.
She wanted to thank him as she would have done any other man. But then, she had so many points of difference with him that she couldn’t quite do it. This was the man who could ruin everything her family had worked long and hard for. This was the man who made her feel giddy and uncertain in a way no other man ever had. So, doing her best not to show too much gratitude she cocked her head to one side, took a long pensive look at the newborn then at Rhys. “I reckon in light of your being responsible for getting him here we ought to call him—”
“Delmar,” Rhys suggested.
Teddy had a mischievous grin as she opened the stall door. “Frenchy,” she said, and motioned to Rhys. “Come on. I’ll get some soap and water so you can wash up.”
Arms akimbo, wondering if she ever gave an inch, Rhys followed her out back where she pumped water into a bucket and handed him a cake of strong hard soap that smelled of pine. He scrubbed for several minutes, cleaning skin and nails. When Teddy had refilled the bucket with fresh water, he rinsed his face and splashed the dried sweat from his chest and shoulders. When he was clean and smelling more of pine than horseflesh, he ran damp fingers through his tousled hair. The gesture, a habitual part of his grooming, showed to perfection every sinewy inch of his well-formed torso. Her sense of desire returned. Teddy had hoped it had been but a momentary foolish reaction to the sight of bare male flesh.
Rhys sensed her eyes on him and turned around. If he’d had any idea of the effect he was having on her he’d have pushed on. But with the darkness partly shielding her face, he could detect only the start of the scowl she usually wore in his presence.
“Frenchy,” he said, with some amusement grasping that even a compliment from Teddy had barbs, “will be fine. The mare needs watching.”
“Oh,” Teddy said, afraid he’d seen the untoward interest in her eyes.
He hadn’t and he went on innocently flexing his powerful muscles as he used one of Teddy’s cloths to dry his skin. “I believe I did her no harm,” he said. “But I cannot be entirely sure of what I could not see. Since I am responsible in either case, I will stay the night.” He glanced up at the sky and the bright silver disc of the moon high in the blue-blackness. “What is left of it in any case. Should the mare go down, there is the foal to see to—”
“I’ll stay.”
They had begun walking toward the stable. Rhys was a few steps behind Teddy but close enough that when she stopped abruptly at the stable door to tell him he need not remain with the mare, he pinned her against it, not intentionally, but solidly, the arm he’d stretched out to catch the door resting above her left shoulder.
For Rhys it was like catching a rainbow or, unexpectedly, a quicksilver nymph. His blood roared in his ears, his loins tightened. He forgot entirely what he had intended to tell her about Adams. Fate had gifted him with this moment. He wanted to make the best of it. He wanted Teddy. He wanted to hold onto her, however ill-advised that notion was.
“We could both stay,” he suggested softly, his warm breath wafting gently over her face which was tilted up, temptingly gilded by the moonlight.
What she had seen at a distance was even more appealing up close, a flash of white in his smile, a hard, flat belly, a sinewy chest that was, in any critical assessment, magnificent. Her tongue flicked out over dry lips. His nearness, the warmth and bareness of him, intoxicated Teddy, deprived her of her sanity or she would have shoved him into the dirt and aimed her gun at his head.
But curiosity and desire, wild and reckless, prevented that. They urged her to wait a moment and see if what she felt madly surging inside her was real, or merely misplaced gratitude for what he had done on her behalf. Quietly she raised her eyes and stared up at his alluringly handsome face.
Astonished that she had held still even a few precious seconds, Rhys was beset with suspicion that she was drawing him into a trap, setting him up for a rebuff he would never forget. And yet, in the seductive darkness, with Teddy almost in his arms, so close he could smell her woman’s scent and, faintly, the lingering essence of desert flowers in her hair, he was rashly willing to pay any price to see the test out.
His arms encircled her; gently, soft as light, he brought her against him. He felt no resistance in her body, only soft lush curves pressing into him and setting his need for her loose like a thief in the night. Logic and caution vanished. He no longer cared that at any moment she was apt to draw her gun or resort to any of the hundred ways a woman such as Teddy must know how to use to defend herself. He wanted her at any cost. His lips came swiftly down on hers, found them soft and parted, sweet and willing. His tongue swept past them testing her further, finding her mouth delectable as a honeycomb. Wild, sweet honey. “Teddy.” He whispered her name.
She moaned against him, caught up in the incredible sensation of his body melding into hers, of his mouth hotly pressed to her lips. And yet it was as if she had left her physical self and in some mystical way observed what she felt, seeing that Teddy in Rhys Delmar’s arms responding, wantonly raking her hands down his naked back in a way she would never, could never, do.
She felt hot and restless. He felt hard as steel against her. His hands went sliding down her sides to mold tightly around her buttocks. Her back nudged against the desert-dried boards of the stable as he came hard against her, his corded thighs pinning her to the unyielding wall. She felt his need for her, urgently, unabashedly straining his tight trousers. Where he touched she burned, hot and silky wet between her thighs.
“Damn you...Rhys...Delmar,” she murmured. Her skin was aflame, she could not think, did not wish to. His hand was at her breast and the laces which held her buckskin shirt snugly in place had somehow loosened, opening up soft, sensitive flesh to his marauding mouth. “Ohhh...” The feel of him there, his face buried in the soft, fragrant valley between her breasts took her breath away.
Rhys was ready to sweep her inside and find a soft stack of hay where he could make love to her until the sun rose. He lifted his head, and brought his mouth near hers again. “Teddy.” His voice was raw and strained. “Both of us. Together.”
The mare’s frantic whinnying decided for her. Rhys backed away at the first shrill cry yet neither of them dashed into the barn. Teddy was too weak-legged to move and needed to press a palm against the stable wall to balance herself. Rhys was short of breath and too drunk with desire to comprehend that he ought to see why the animal sounded an alarm. Finally, he shook his head to clear it, growled out a curse, and rushed inside. Teddy followed a few seconds later, eyes dazed and face flushed to berry red.
Rhys had the foal in his arms. One of them had left the stall door unlocked and the small creature had pushed through and gotten separated from his mother. He put the foal inside, secured the gate and turned to Teddy with every intention of taking up where he had left off.
She had other ideas. Looking as if the devil himself had whispered a plan to her, she drew her gun, twirled it around her finger twice and brought it to rest pointing low but at him. “You stay,” she said acidly. Her eyes were resting where the gun pointed. “And if you value your life and your lady-pleaser, don’t ever try anything like that again.”