Angela sorted through the stack of mail Clint had picked up in town and seized the pale yellow envelope from home. She’d been waiting for days for a long, chatty letter from her mother. After all those years she’d spent away, knowing nothing, she could no longer seem to get her fill of news now that she’d been there at Christmas. Phone calls satisfied some of her curiosity, but she liked receiving mail. She could hold it in her hands and practically feel the bond with her mother. She could read it over and over. And, of course, her mother always tucked in snapshots from the latest family gathering. There had been a huge Memorial Day barbecue just the week before.
Sure enough, there were three or four pictures from the celebration. The one of her parents stealing a kiss, thinking they were unobserved, no doubt, made her smile. Another of Grandpa Harlan flipping huge steaks on the grill and waving Janet away had her laughing out loud. He would never trust her when it came to cooking. He’d always said she could ruin a hard-boiled egg without half trying.
“A letter from your mom?” Clint asked, pausing beside her to drop a kiss on her forehead.
“With pictures,” she said, displaying them for him. “I’ll bet Dad didn’t know anyone with a camera was nearby when he planted that kiss on Mom.”
“I don’t think he’d care,” Clint said. “Personally, I love seeing the affection between them. I hope we still have that when we’re old and gray.”
“We’d better,” Angela warned.
“Then let’s stay in practice,” Clint suggested. He sat in an over-stuffed chair by the fire and held out his arms. “Come here and read the letter to me.”
She went to him eagerly and, after snuggling into his arms, she began to read:
“Dearest Angie,
We all loved the picture of baby Clint on the horse with his daddy. He’s so big for five months, and he’s the spitting image of his father. Quite the little cowboy. Please bring him to Texas soon so we can all fuss over him.
“Life goes on here. Everyone misses you. Sharon Lynn and Kyle Mason are definitely an item. She still credits you with getting them out of limbo and into each other’s arms. After all those years in Dallas, Jenny has decided to come home and teach in Los Pinos. Harlan Patrick and Justin are already studying college catalogues and Janet swears Lizzy will never, ever go away to school, if what she hears about college campuses these days is true.
“I wish you could have been here for the Memorial Day festivities. Your grandfather was in his glory, but I must say I think he’s slowing down just a bit. I worry about what will happen when we lose him. He’s the glue that holds all of us together.”
Angela glanced at the snapshot again and looked for the signs of aging her mother had seen. It seemed to her that her grandfather looked as robust as ever. She continued reading:
“Harlan is such a remarkable man, please do make sure your son has a chance to get to know him. Maybe we can all be together again this year at Christmas. Of course with no babies due, it will probably be boring.
“Whoops, almost forgot. We think that Dani has met the man. So far, though, she is being stubbornly resistant to the idea. Typical Adams, though in her case at least I understand what’s behind her reluctance. Maybe, if you come, you can give her a push.
Until then, much love,
Mom.”
Angela sighed and folded the letter.
Clint regarded her sympathetically. “Homesick, huh?”
“I was so sure I would never, ever feel homesick,” she said. “I have everything I ever wanted right here. You, our son, a home.”
“I could try to make you forget about it,” he offered, his hand closing over her breast.
She grinned. “I’ll bet you could, too.”
His fingers stroked and teased until the images of home almost faded. Then he sighed.
“It’s not working, is it? Your body’s with me, but your heart is back in Texas.”
“Afraid so.”
“Then we’ll go home,” he said. “Christmas? Thanksgiving? You pick.”
She regarded him speculatively. He seemed to be in an indulgent mood. “The Fourth of July is just around the corner,” she suggested hopefully. “We could take a long weekend. Grandpa would send the plane.”
“You know, Mrs. Brady, you have absolutely no patience.”
“Sorry,” she said without much real contrition in her voice.
“And I have absolutely no willpower when it comes to refusing you something you want. The Fourth it is. You call and I’ll start supper.”
She wound her arms around his neck instead. “How did I ever get so lucky?”
She lowered her head and kissed him. She began working the buttons on his shirt, then slid her hands inside over heated flesh and solid muscles. Clint moaned as her caresses became more and more insistent. When she reached for the snap on his jeans, he covered her hand with his and looked directly into her eyes.
“I thought you were anxious to make that call.”
She shook her head. “It can wait. Some things definitely take priority.”
Clint stood up then and shucked off his shirt and boots and jeans with an efficiency that still startled her. She grinned at him. “Afraid I’ll change my mind?”
“Nope, just encouraging you to hurry up and get naked, too.”
“Unlike you, I do think there are some things in life worth savoring. Stripping happens to be one of them. Why don’t you just stretch out on the bed and I’ll show you what I mean?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, already fiddling with the buttons on her blouse.
As clever as he was with his own, he fumbled with hers. She’d always found that endearing somehow, proof that she could rattle him when little else in life could. Once in a while a woman deserved to have an edge with a man.
He didn’t wait for her to finish undressing before his hands were everywhere, caressing, probing, pleasuring. She was breathless long before they tumbled into bed together, straining toward a first climax before he even touched the moist, sensitive core of her. With a quick, skimming stroke, he sent her over the edge, then settled back to take his time and do it all over again.
Her breath was coming in ragged gasps, her body was slick with perspiration and fiery with need by the time he slipped inside her, filling her up, joining with her in a way that made her feel whole and never failed to amaze her.
His movements were slow, languorous, as if they had all the time in the world, when the rapidly spiraling of sensation inside her said otherwise. With his gaze fastened to hers, he seemed able to tell the precise instant when one more stroke would have been too much.
“Not yet, darlin’,” he said and stilled inside her.
Frustration and need had her thrusting her hips up, searching for release, demanding it. If she could have, she would have flipped him onto his back and ridden him, exulting in the sensations that never failed to astound her.
But there was pure joy in this, too, in letting him control the pace, in delaying the sweet, sweet end for as long as possible. She settled back to wait, to prove that she could be patient when it counted, but one tiny movement of his hips, the touch of his lips closing over her breast pitched her right back to a physical intensity that was just shy of exquisite torture.
And again, he drew back. He touched a finger to her chin, stroked a thumb across her lips, drawing her attention. “I love you, angel.”
“I love you.”
He smiled at that, then rolled to his back without releasing her. “Why don’t you have your wicked way with me, then?”
Settled intimately astride him, she said, “I thought that’s what I was doing.”
He linked his hands behind his head. “Not so’s I noticed.”
She laughed at the hint of challenge in his tone and the spark of pure mischief in his eyes. “Why, you low-down, rotten scoundrel,” she muttered, tweaking the hairs on his chest until he yelped. She laved the same spot with her tongue and had his breath catching in his throat and all signs of teasing fading from his eyes.
When she began to move her hips, his gaze locked with hers.
“Now that’s more like it, darlin’.”
“I’m so glad you approve,” she said, her voice husky.
And then she was lost again to sensation, to the rasp of his day-old beard against her skin, to the hitching sound of his breathing and the rush of his blood when she touched a finger to the pulse at the base of his neck. Then all she felt was the heat, his and hers, so much heat that she was sure they would be consumed by flames.
The slick friction of their bodies melding was as new and thrilling today as it had been on the night they met. Familiarity and commitment had only made it better, had only deepened the bond that was renewed each time they made love.
There was trust now, too, trust that would last beyond this moment, trust that would carry them through eternity. It had been slow in coming, but Angela felt it each time they looked into each other’s eyes, each time they made love with an abandon that could only come with honesty and hard-won faith in what they had together.
“Come with me, angel,” Clint whispered. “Come with me now.”
Angela smiled as they reached the peak together, both of them rocked by shattering sensation.
She collapsed against his chest, breathing hard and feeling like a million bucks.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to move again,” she said eventually.
“I’m afraid one of us is going to have to,” Clint responded.
“Why?”
“Our son is calling. It’s dinnertime. And he’s clearly impatient.”
Angela struggled to untangle herself from her husband and the sheets. “I guess I’m just going to have to teach that boy to cook.”
“You might have to wait until he’s old enough to reach the stove,” Clint pointed out. He kissed the tip of her nose. “I’ll cook. You call your parents and tell them we’re coming home for the next big barbecue.”
“Not home,” Angela said, her hand on his cheek. “This is home. I’ll tell them we’re coming for a visit.”
A slow smile spread across his face and lit his eyes. If she’d known how much it would mean to him to hear her say the word, she would have said it much sooner. Texas and White Pines would never be far from her thoughts. Her family would never be far from her heart. But this was home now. It always would be.
As for their son, though she vowed never to say as much to him, he was their littlest angel, the brightest one in the universe. He would grow up knowing how special he was, but she prayed he would never feel the inadvertent pressures of living up to expectations.
And this man, she thought in wonder, watching Clint as he retrieved his scattered clothes, he was far more than the father of her child. She could admit it now, to herself and to him. He was her heart and soul.