When Wade or Clyde or Harley comes a-courtin’, how will you, the greenhorn female person, recognize a compliment?
Answer: He’ll compare your hair to the mane on his sorrel horse.
Harry had aches where she’d forgotten she had muscles. She knew how to ride, but that didn’t mean she’d done much riding lately. Her back, thighs and buttocks could attest to that. But she’d accomplished what she’d set out that morning to do. Her flock of sheep had been moved up into the leased mountain pastures, and the wiry old shepherd had been settled in his gypsy wagon with a stern warning to keep a sharp eye out for wolves.
Harry was doing the same thing herself. Actually, she was keeping a sharp eye out for one particular wolf. Nathan Hazard had been acting strangely all day. Silent. Predatory. He hadn’t done anything overtly aggressive. In fact, he seemed to be playing some sort of game, stalking her, waiting for the moment when he could make his move. Her nerves were beginning to fray.
After the fracas of the previous evening, Harry hadn’t expected Nathan to be enthusiastic about joining her on this mountain pilgrimage. Nor was he. But at least he hadn’t said a word about what had happened in Whitey’s Bar. Of course, he hadn’t said much of anything. Harry had been determined not to provoke him in any way, so she’d kept her aches and pains to herself. Was it any wonder she’d leaped at Nathan’s suggestion that they halt their trek halfway down the mountain and take a rest? She had to bite her lip to keep from groaning aloud when she dismounted, but she was so stiff and sore that her knees nearly buckled when she put her weight on them.
Nathan heard Harry-et’s gasp and turned to watch her grab the horn of the saddle and hang on for a few moments until her legs were firmly under her. He had to hand it to the woman. She was determined. He couldn’t help admiring her gumption. Nathan had suspected for some time that Harry-et was feeling the effects of the long ride. That had suited him just fine. He’d had plans of his own that depended on getting her off that horse while they were still in the mountains. They had reached Nyla’s Meadow. The time had come.
He spread a family heirloom quilt in the cool shade of some jack pines and straightened the edges over the layer of rich grass that graced the mountain meadow. At the last moment he rescued a handful of flowers that were about to be crushed, bringing them to Harry-et.
“Here. Thought you might like these.”
Harry smiled and reached out a hand for the delicate blossoms. She brought them to her nose and was surprised at the pungent sweetness of the colorful bouquet. “They smell wonderful.”
“Thought you also might like to lie down for a while here on Nyla’s Meadow,” Nathan said nonchalantly, gesturing toward the inviting square of material.
Harry wasted no time sagging down onto the quilt. She groaned again, but it was a sound of satisfaction as she stretched out flat on her back. “You have no idea how good this feels.”
He settled himself Indian-style on a corner of the quilt near her head. “Don’t guess I do. But if you moan any louder some moose is going to come courting.”
Harry laughed. “I’ll try to keep it down.” She turned on her side and braced her head on her elbow, surveying the grassy, flower-laden clearing among the pines and junipers. “Nyla’s Meadow. That sounds so beautiful. Almost poetical. How did this place get its name?”
Nathan’s lips twisted wryly. “It’s a pretty farfetched story, but if you’d like to hear it—”
“Yes, I would.” Harry tried sitting up, but groaned and lay back down. “Guess I’ve stiffened up a little.” She massaged the nape of her neck. “Make that a lot.”
“I’d be glad to give your shoulders a rubdown.”
That sounded awfully good to Harry. “Would you?”
“Sure. Turn over on your stomach.”
A moment later Nathan was straddling her at the waist and his powerful hands had found the knots in her shoulders and were working magic. “You have no idea how good that feels,” she said with another groan of pleasure.
Nathan’s lips curled into a satisfied smile. Oh, yes, he did. He longed for the time when there would be nothing between his fingertips and her skin. It seemed like he’d been waiting his whole life for this woman. He didn’t plan to wait much longer.
Harry felt the strength in Nathan’s hands, yet his touch was a caress. A frisson of excitement ran the length of her spine. She imagined her naked body molded to Nathan’s. Joined to Nathan’s. Harry closed her eyes against the vivid picture she’d painted. She had no business thinking such thoughts. The sheepman only wanted her land. He’d as much as told her she wasn’t the woman for him. Last night certainly couldn’t have convinced him she’d be the kind of wife he had in mind. No, the minute she’d learned all she could from him, she intended to bid him a fast farewell.
So why was her body coming alive to his touch? Why did she yearn for his hands to slip around and cup her breasts, to mold her waist and stroke the taut and achy places that had nothing to do with the long ride of the morning? Harry tensed against the unwelcome, uncontrollable sensations deep inside.
“Relax,” Nathan murmured as his hands slipped down from her shoulders to the small of her back and began to massage the soreness away.
“Tell me about Nyla’s Meadow,” Harry said breathlessly.
Nathan’s thumbs slowly worked their way up her spine, easing, soothing, relaxing. “Nyla was an Egyptian princess.”
Harry lifted herself on her hands and turned to eye Nathan over her shoulder. “What?”
Nathan shoved her back down. “Actually, the princess’s name was N-I-L-A, after the Nile River, but somewhere over the years the spelling got changed.”
“How did a Montana meadow get named after an Egyptian princess?” Harry asked suspiciously.
“Be quiet and listen and I’ll tell you. Long before the first settlers came to the Boulder River Valley, a mountain man named Joshua Simmons arrived here. He’d traveled the world over just for the pleasure of seeing a new horizon, or so the story goes. He’d been to Egypt and China and the South Sea islands. But when he reached Montana, he knew he’d found God’s country—limitless blue skies, snowcapped mountains and grassy prairies as far as the eye could see.”
“You’re making this up, aren’t you?” Harry said with a grin.
“Shut up and listen,” Nathan insisted. His hands moved down Harry’s back to her waist and around to her ribs, where they skimmed the fullness of her breasts at the sides before moving back to her spine.
Harry shivered. She would have asked Nathen to stop what he was doing, but his hands were there and gone before she could speak. The sensations remained. And the ache grew.
“When Joshua reached this meadow, he encountered an Indian maiden,” Nathan continued. “She appeared as exotic to him, as foreign and mystical, as an Egyptian princess.”
“The Princess Nila,” Harry murmured sardonically.
“Right. They fell in love at first sight. And made love that same day here on the meadow. When he awoke, the Indian maiden—though she was a maiden no more—was gone. Joshua never learned her name and he never saw her again. But he never forgot her. He named this place Nyla’s Meadow after the Egyptian princess she had reminded him of.”
Harry shifted abruptly so her buttocks rocked against Nathan. He felt his loins tighten and rose slightly to put some space between the heat of their two bodies.
Oblivious to Nathan’s difficulties, Harry rolled over between his legs and scooted far enough away to sit up facing him. He was still straddling her at thigh level.
She pulled the band off one braid and began to unravel it, seemingly unconscious of the effect her action would have on Nathan. “So Nyla’s Meadow is a place for falling in love? A place where lovers meet?”
Nathan swallowed hard. “Yes. A place for lovers.” He couldn’t take his eyes off Harry-et. Her gaze was lambent, her pupils dilated, her lids lowered. She was clearly aroused, yet her mood seemed almost playful, as though she didn’t realize the powerful need she’d unleashed within him.
When Harry started to free her other braid, Nathan reached out a hand. “I’ll do it.”
Her hands dropped onto his thighs. And slid upward.
Nathan hissed in a breath and put his hands over hers to keep them from moving any farther. There was no need for her to actually touch him. The mere thought of her hands on him excited him. He slid her hands back down his thighs, away from the part of him that desperately wanted her touch. When he was relatively sure he’d made his position clear, he let her hands go and reached for the other braid.
Her hair was soft and rippled where the tight braids had left their mark. When both braids were unraveled, he thrust his hands into her rich brown hair and spread the silky mass around her head and shoulders like a nimbus. “You are so beautiful, Harry-et.”
Harry hadn’t meant to let the game go so far. She hadn’t realized just how aroused Nathan was. She hadn’t realized how the sight of his desire would increase her own. She wanted to see what would happen next. She wanted to feel what she had always imagined she would feel in a lover’s embrace. Her hands once again followed the corded muscles along Nathan’s thighs until she reached the part of him that strained against the worn denim. She molded the shape of him with her hands, awed by the heat and hardness of him.
Nathan closed his eyes and bit the inside of his mouth to keep from groaning aloud. The sweetness of it. The agony and the ecstasy of it. “Harry-et,” he gasped. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“No,” she replied. “But I’m learning fast.”
Choked laughter erupted from Nathan’s throat. At the same time he grabbed her by her wrists and lowered her to the ground, pinning her hands above either side of her head. He stretched out over the length of her, placing his hips in the cradle of her thighs. “That’s what you’re doing, lady,” he said in a guttural voice, thrusting once with his hips. “I want you, Harry-et.”
Harry heard the slight hesitation between the two syllables as he spoke her name that made the word an endearment. He wanted her, but he hadn’t spoken of needing, or caring. Maybe that was as it should be. Alistairs and Hazards were never meant to love. History was against it. She wanted him, too. Wasn’t that enough?
The decision was made for her when Nathan captured both her wrists in one hand and reached down between the two of them to caress the heart of her with the other. She felt herself arching toward him, toward the new and unbelievable sensations of pleasure.
Nathan caught her cries of ecstasy with his mouth. His kisses were urgent, needful. He let go of her wrists because he needed his hand to touch her, to caress her. When he did, Harry’s fingers thrust into Nathan’s hair and tugged to keep him close, so she could kiss him back. Her hands slipped down to caress his chest through his shirt, but the cotton was in her way. She yanked on his shirt and the snaps came free. She quickly helped him peel the shirt down off his shoulders. Just as quickly he freed the buttons of her shirt and stripped it off, along with her bra.
An instant later they paused and stared at each other.
Harry had seen Nathan’s muscular chest once before and wanted to touch. Now she indulged that need. Her fingertips traced the crease down the center of his chest to his washboard belly.
Nathan had imagined her naked a dozen, dozen times, but still had failed to see her as beautiful as she was. Her breasts were full and the nipples a rose color that drew his eye, his callused fingers and finally his mouth.
Harry’s fingernails drew crescents on Nathan’s shoulders as his mouth and tongue suckled her breast. She arched toward him, urging him to take more of her into his mouth. He cupped her breast with his hand and let his mouth surround her, while his teeth and tongue turned her nipple into a hard bud.
Harry moaned. Her body arched into his, her softness seeking his hardness.
“Please.” She didn’t know what came next. She’d always stopped in the past before she got this far. Only this time she didn’t want to stop. She wanted to know how it ended.
“It’s all right, sweetheart,” he murmured in her ear. “Soon. Soon.”
“Now, Nathan. Now.”
He sat up and pulled off her boots, then began pulling off his own. They both rid themselves of their jeans in record time. Nathan threw his jeans aside, then went searching for them a moment later. He ransacked the pockets, cursing as he went.
“Did you forget something?” Harry asked.
Nathan grinned as his fisted hand withdrew from his jeans pocket. “Nope.”
Suddenly Harry was aware of her nakedness. And Nathan’s. He looked awfully big. Not that she had anything to compare him with, but surely that thing was too large to fit…
“What’s the matter, Harry-et?” Nathan said as he lay down beside her and pulled her into his embrace.
“Nothing,” she mumbled against his chest.
“Having second thoughts?” Nathan held his breath, wondering why he was giving her a chance to back away when he wanted her so much that he was hurting.
Harry had opened her mouth to suggest maybe this wasn’t such a good idea when Nathan’s lips closed over hers. His tongue traced the edges of her mouth and then slipped inside, warm and wet. Seducing. Entrancing. Changing her mind all over again.
“Hold this for me,” he said. “I need both hands free.”
“What is it?” she asked through a haze of euphoria.
He quickly removed the foil packet and dropped a condom into her palm.
“Oh. Dear.” Harry was unable to keep from blurting something she’d read in a magazine article. “It’s Mr. Prophylactic. The guy with the cute little button nose.”
Nathan burst out laughing.
Harry blushed a fiery red. Thank goodness Nathan still had his sense of humor. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so impossible, after all. Her relief was premature.
“Would you like to put it on me?” he asked.
“I’ve never done it before,” she admitted. “I wouldn’t know how. I might do it wrong.”
A frown arose between Nathan’s brows. He couldn’t believe she’d be so irresponsible as not to use some kind of protection in this day and age. As Harry-et’s eyes fell, the truth dawned on Nathan. She hadn’t used protection because she hadn’t needed it.
“How long?” he demanded, grasping her hair and angling her face up toward him.
“What?”
“How long since you’ve been with a man.”
“I haven’t ever…that is…this is the first time.”
Nathan watched as she lowered her eyes to avoid his gaze, as if she’d committed some kind of crime. Didn’t she know what a precious gift she was giving him? Didn’t she know how special she’d made him feel? He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly. He had never felt so protective of a woman in his life. Both awed and terrified by the responsibility she’d placed in his hands.
“The first time for a woman…sometimes there’s pain,” he said, his mouth close to her temple. “I don’t want to hurt you, sweetheart.”
“You won’t,” Harry reassured him.
“Darling, sweetheart, I wouldn’t mean to, but I’m afraid—”
Harry pushed him far enough away that she could see his face. “You? Afraid? Of what?”
He looked her in the eye. “That it won’t be everything you expect. That it won’t be perfect.”
Harry smiled a beatific smile. “If I’m with you, Nathan, it will be perfect. Trust me.”
He eased her back down on the quilt and lowered himself beside her, giving her a quick, hard hug.
Harry noticed something different about the embrace. Something missing. She chanced a brief glance down at him. “Oh, no,” she said, dismayed.
“What’s the matter, Harry-et?”
“You’re not…well, you’re not…anymore,” she said, pointing at a no-longer-aroused Nathan.
Nathan chuckled. “You’re precious, Harry-et,” he said with a quick grin. “One of a kind.”
Harry took a swipe at his shoulder with her fist—the same fist that was still holding the condom he’d handed to her. “I don’t like being laughed at, Nathan.”
He laughed. “I’m not laughing at you.” He rolled over onto his back and let his arms flop free, a silly grin on his face.
Harry tackled him.
An instant later she was under him, his body mantling hers. His mouth found hers, and he kissed her with all the passion he felt for her. His hands found her breasts and teased the nipples to a peak. He felt the blood thrumming through the veins in her throat with his mouth. By the time his hand finally slipped between their bodies, she was wet.
And he was hard.
“Oh. It’s back,” she said.
Nathan grinned. “So it is. Where is Mr. Prophylactic?”
Harry grinned and opened her hand to reveal a slightly squashed condom. “Will it still work?”
“Not unless you put it on.”
Her chin slipped down to her chest. She glanced up at him shyly. “Will you help me?”
Nathan helped her place the condom and roll it on until he was fully covered. The way she handled him so carefully, as though he would break, made him feel treasured and very, very special.
“Is that all there is to it?” she asked.
“Pretty simple, huh?”
She caressed him through the sheath. “Can you still feel that?”
Nathan jerked. “Uh-huh.”
“Really?” She let her fingers trace the shape of him, encircle him, run down the length of him from base to tip. “You can feel that?”
Nathan inhaled sharply. Slowly he inserted a finger inside her. “Can you feel that?”
Harry gasped. “Uh-huh.”
He inserted another finger. “And that?”
Harry tightened her thighs around his hand, reminding Nathan this was new to her. He slowly worked his fingers inside her, stretching her, feeling the tightness and the wetness. He had to be patient. And gentle. And exercise rigid control over a body that ached with wanting her.
“Harry-et,” he breathed against her throat. “Touch me.”
Harry had been too caught up in her own sensations to think about Nathan’s. Until he’d spoken she hadn’t been aware that her hands each grasped a handful of quilt. She brought her hands up to grasp his waist instead. Slowly her fingers slipped around to his belly and down to the crease where hip met thigh.
Nathan grunted. The feel of her fingertips on his skin, on his belly, in those other places he hadn’t known were so sensitive, was exquisite.
Harry relaxed her thighs, allowing Nathan greater freedom of movement. His mouth found a breast and teased it, then moved down her ribs to her belly, and then lower, where it replaced his hands at the portal she’d guarded against invasion for so many years.
Her hands clutched his hair as she arched up toward the sensations of his mouth on her flesh. “Nathan, please,” she cried. She had no idea what it was she needed, but she was desperate.
Nathan’s eyes glittered with passion as he rose over her. She expected one quick thrust and was prepared for the pain. Instead she felt the tip of him pushing against her. Just when she started to feel the pain, he distracted her by nipping her breast. Then his mouth found hers and his tongue mimed the action below. Thrusting and withdrawing. Pushing farther each time. Teasing and tempting. A guttural sound rose in her throat as she surged toward him, urging him inside.
Nathan thrust once more with tongue and hips and filled her full.
Harry tensed with the extraordinary feeling of being joined to Nathan. Her legs captured his hips and held him in thrall. As he withdrew and thrust again, she met his rhythm, feeling the tension build within. His hand came between them to touch her and intensify the need for relief. For release. For something.
Harry was gasping for air, her heart pounding, her pulse racing. “Nathan,” she cried. “Please. I ache. Make it stop.”
God, he loved her! He wanted to say the words. Here. Now. But once said, they couldn’t be taken back. He had no idea how she felt about him. She trusted him, that much was clear. But did her feelings for him run as deep as his for her? She hadn’t offered those three words, and there was no way he could ask for them. He could only show her how he felt and trust that it would be enough.
“Come with me, sweetheart. Let yourself fly. It’s all right. I’ll take care of you.”
Harry took him at his word and let herself soar. Nathan joined her in her aerie, two souls surpassing the physical, seeking a world somewhere beyond Nyla’s Meadow.
It was long moments later before either of them touched ground again. Their bodies were slick with sweat, despite the shade in which they lay. Nathan was stretched out beside her with an arm and a leg thrown possessively over her. He couldn’t see Harry-et’s face, so he wasn’t able to judge what she was thinking. But there was a tension in her body that was at odds with the release he’d felt within her just moments before.
“Harry-et? What’s wrong?” He must have hurt her. He hadn’t meant to, but he had.
She sighed. A huge, deafening sound. Those last few words Nathan had spoken before she’d found ecstasy resounded in her ears: “I’ll take care of you.” Those words reminded her of why it would be foolish to give her heart to Nathan Hazard. She wanted to stand on her own two feet. He was liable to sweep her off them. She freed herself from his embrace and sat up, pulling her knees to her chest and hugging them with her arms. “This can’t happen again, Nathan.”
“I’m sorry if I hurt you. I—”
“You didn’t hurt me, Nathan. I just don’t want to do it…this…with you again.”
“It sounds to me like you’re sorry it happened the first time,” he said angrily, sitting up to face her. “You were willing. Don’t try to deny it.”
“I’m not denying it. I wanted this as much as you,” she admitted. “I’m only saying that it can’t happen again.”
“Give me one good reason why not,” he demanded.
Because I’m in danger of falling in love with you.
Because I’m in danger of losing myself to you.
Because I find you irresistible, even though I know we have no business being together like this.
That was three reasons. None of which she had any intention of mentioning to him. Harry turned away from him and slipped on her bra and panties. She could hear the rustle of clothing behind her as he dressed. The metal rasp of the zipper on his jeans was loud in the silence. She stood and pulled up the zipper on her own jeans before reaching for her boots.
He grabbed the boot out of her hand and shook it, then handed it back to her. “Snakes,” he said. “And spiders.”
Harry shivered and made sure she dumped the other boot as well before she slipped it on. His warning had been an abrupt reminder that she was a very sore tenderfoot. Harry couldn’t very well avoid Nathan until she learned everything from him that she needed to know. She would just have to learn to control the need to touch, and be touched, that arose every time she got near him.
Nathan had no idea what he’d done that was so wrong, but after the most profound lovemaking he’d ever experienced, Harry-et was avoiding him as if he had the measles. She wasn’t going to get away with it.
“Harry-et.”
“Yes, Nathan?”
“Come here.”
“No.” Harry turned and marched over to the tree where her horse was tied. She tried to mount, but couldn’t raise her leg high enough to reach the stirrup. She laid her face against the saddle and let her shoulders slump.
An instant later Nathan grabbed her by the waist and hoisted her into the saddle. “Move your leg out of the way, tenderfoot,” he ordered.
Harry gritted her teeth and did as he ordered, painfully sliding her leg up out of his way as he worked on the saddle.
“Good thing you couldn’t reach the stirrup,” he snarled. “Damn cinch wasn’t tightened. Saddle would have slid around and dumped you flat.”
“Stop treating me like I’m helpless,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he retorted.
“I pulled my own weight today. Don’t tell me I didn’t.”
Nathan neither confirmed nor denied her assertion. He tightened the cinch on his own saddle and mounted, then reined his horse to face her. “That story I told you about Nyla’s Meadow?”
“Yes?”
“I made it all up.”
Harry struggled to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “All of it?”
“Every last word. No one knows how the meadow got its name.”
He’d invented a place for falling in love. A place where lovers met. Then brought her here. And made love to her. Now he wanted her to believe it had all been a lie.
“We made love in Nyla’s Meadow, Nathan. That was real.”
Nathan met her imploring gaze with stony eyes. “We had sex. Damn good sex. But that’s all it was.” And if she believed that, he had a bog he’d like to sell her for grazing land.
He was waiting for the retort he was sure was on her lips. But she didn’t argue, just kicked her horse and loped away from him toward the trail back down the mountain.
“Damn you, Harry-et,” he muttered. “Damn you for stealing my heart and leaving me feeling helpless.”
He kicked his horse and loped down the mountain after her. As he followed her down the mountain, he thought back on the day he’d spent working with Harry-et. Not once had she asked for his help. Not once had she complained. In fact, she’d done extraordinarily well for a tenderfoot. Was it possible that someday Harry-et Alistair could actually stand on her own two feet? He found the idea fascinating, if farfetched. He stared at the way she rode stiff-backed in the saddle. She had grit, that woman. It sure couldn’t hurt to hang around long enough to find out.
Harry’s thoughts weren’t nearly so sanguine. All day she’d been careful not to let Nathan do too much. If she was going to feel like a success, she had to make it on her own. She had left her family to get away from people ordering her around.
But Nathan had never ordered her to do anything. He’d made suggestions and left the decisions up to her. So maybe she could endure his company a little longer. Maybe she could forget what had happened between them today in Nyla’s Meadow and simply take advantage of his expertise.
But it was clear she was going to have to be careful. Give Nathan an inch and he might take an acre. And the man had made no secret of the fact that he wanted the whole damn spread.