Читать книгу The Loneliest Cowboy - Pamela Macaluso - Страница 10

Three

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Skye said. She knew it wasn’t a good idea, but a flutter of anticipation stirred inside her nevertheless.

“I think it’s the best idea since barbed wire.”

She started to laugh, but the sound was trapped as Clint leaned down and placed his lips against hers. Floodgates burst open. For five years she’d been wrapped up in her role as Dawn’s mother. In half a heartbeat of Clint starting to kiss her, she awakened to the forgotten fact that she was also a woman. A woman extraordinarily physically attracted to the man kissing her.

Skye knew she should slip away and put distance between them. Instead, she slid her arms around his neck and kissed him back. Clint moved closer until he was thrust tightly against her. A need grew within her and she remembered the night that had changed her life forever. She recalled the passion his touch had ignited, the burning desire that had driven her to make love with Clint.

With a soft sigh, she parted her lips. Clint slipped his tongue between them, probing, tasting, inciting more and more memories in Skye. What was it about the way this man kissed her, held her, touched her, that gave him the power to affect her so deeply?

She was six years older, six years wiser—he shouldn’t be able to make her knees so weak, to make her melt against him.

Her only consolation was that the desire wasn’t onesided, the proof of his arousal pressed hard between them. Instinctively, she shifted her hips, rocking against him. He moved one arm to the small of her back, encouraging her to continue the subtle movement. He slid his other hand up to curve gently around her breast. Skye felt her nipple pull tight, then push forward, pressing against the fabric of her bra and blouse. Her reaction didn’t go unnoticed. Clint moved his palm seductively over the area, intensifying the sensation.

The rumble of an engine and the harsh glare of headlights sweeping across them were an abrupt intrusion to their steamy kiss. With a honk, the car was gone as quickly as it had appeared, but the mood was shattered.

Clint moved back a step. The sound of them trying to catch their breaths was the only indication they’d been doing anything more than talking.

“I need to get to work,” she said hoarsely.

“Are we on for tomorrow? Just pick a time and I’ll be here.”

Skye shook her head. “No. Long-distance relationships are possible, but I don’t think we should start one.”

“You’re going to ignore what just happened?”

“We kissed each other. That’s all that happened.”

“And steers have udders!”

“Okay, so it was a very...” Hot, passionate, sexy? “A very good kiss, but still just a kiss. I’ve had a rough couple of days, I’m tired, stressed-out, and you’ve obviously had a lot of practice at this kind of thing.”

“Stress and my reputed expertise had nothing to do with what was happening between us.” He stepped forward, grabbed his hat from the hood of the car and put it on. “There was more to it than that. Now, if you plan on working tonight, you’d better get going before I decide to kiss you again.”

Skye didn’t need to be told twice. She expected him to follow her into the coffee shop. Instead, she heard the slam of a door and an engine roaring to life.

Clint woke up in pain. Carefully, he rolled from his stomach to his side. It relieved the external pressure from parts of his anatomy, but did nothing to relieve the internal pressure causing his arousal.

That damned dream again!

People spoke of a second childhood, maybe he was suffering from a second round of adolescence. The hell of it was that teenage boys only needed privacy and a confiscated magazine to find relief.

He closed his eyes, pretending he had a chance of falling asleep. Instead of dwelling on the dream, his mind chose to torture him with memories of kissing Skye last night.

Without a doubt, it was the most explosive first kiss he’d ever been part of. There was usually a tentativeness, a testing at the beginning of a kiss...especially a first kiss. Skye had gone off like dynamite. Once again he wondered if she had some kind of hidden agenda, something she wanted from him.

But she hadn’t been the one waiting for him to come along in the parking lot...

True, but the way she’d returned his kiss might have been her way of taking advantage of the situation and trying to use it to further her own plans. But she hadn’t made any move to follow up on the kiss. Not even a promise of more to come. In fact, she’d looked as surprised as he’d felt. Of course that might be part of her game, reeling him in slow.

He would be wise to see they didn’t cross paths again.

Go ahead, be wise, his libido taunted him. And unless you want to wake up in pain again, you’d better stop sleeping on your stomach.

“Mommy, you’re hugging too tight.” Dawn’s sentence ended with a squeak.

Skye loosened her hold and tucked her daughter’s sleep-tousled hair behind the little girl’s ears. “Sorry. How’d you sleep last night?”

“Okay.” Dawn scooted out of Skye’s arms, off the bed and over to the window. “Are the cowboys around here real cowboys like my daddy or pretend cowboys like the ones who visit our ranch?”

Usually, Skye would remind Dawn that the Bar K Dude Ranch wasn’t theirs, it was only where Skye worked. But with Dawn bringing up Clint after Skye had spent most of yesterday thinking about him and the rest of it thinking about the kiss they’d shared, she decided to let the inaccuracy pass.

Skye sent up a silent prayer that after getting a short simple answer, Dawn would drop the subject of Clint. “Most of them are real cowboys.”

“Do any of them know my daddy?”

A lot of them work for your daddy. The words flashed into her mind. She bit on her tongue to keep them from slipping out.

“I think so.”

“Could I maybe get to meet him, like I’m maybe going to meet Granpa?”

Skye took a deep breath and grabbed for the small loophole Dawn had opened for her. “That reminds me...Grandma called last night at the coffee shop. Grandpa is awake now and they’re going to fly him to San Antonio this afternoon. Grandma will be coming home sometime this morning and she’s looking forward to meeting you.”

“Granpa, too?”

“No, he’s going to fly straight from one hospital to the other in a helicopter.” Skye got out of bed, holding her hand toward Dawn. “How ’bout if we surprise Grandma with a batch of blueberry pancakes?”

Later that afternoon, Skye loaded her mother’s suitcase into the trunk of her car and got ready to drive her back to the hospital. After lunch, Dawn had gone to Skye’s sister Alice’s house to play with her three children, so there would be just the two of them in the car.

Skye walked into the house and found her mother hanging up the phone.

“There’s been a change in plans,” Marge Williamson said.

Skye felt as though she’d swallowed a rock. “Is Daddy all right?”

“He’s the same, but they’ve had another patient come into the emergency room with a hand injury and Doc wants him to see a microsurgeon as soon as possible, so they’re sending him to San Antonio in the helicopter with your father. But Doc also managed to find me another way to the city. Wasn’t that sweet of him?”