Special Deliveries: A Baby With Her Best Friend

“I came better prepared this time, too,” he said and reached behind the cooler for a small, battery-operated radio. He turned it on and a woman’s voice soared into the shadows, singing of love. “Remember the battery on my old truck died that night? Left the radio playing too long and we had to use the ranch walkie-talkie to get Henry to come out and give us a jump?”

She remembered. She also remembered the knowing look Henry had given the two of them. But the ranch foreman hadn’t said a word. He’d only gotten Nathan’s truck running again and then left.

“That was embarrassing,” she said with a sad smile.

“It was,” he agreed, then gave her another quick grin. “But it was worth it.”

Her hand tightened on the slender base of the crystal wineglass. Nathan was pushing past all of her defenses, one smile at a time.

She turned away from him and looked out over the river. At its widest point, it was no more than six feet across, but it was a wild river, fed from the distant mountains and left unchecked. The water frothed on the surface, slapping against the banks and over rocks worn smooth over time. While she watched, a trout jumped from the water only to splash back down. Wind sighed through the trees, rattling the leaves.

It was perfect.

A summer night, with the stars overhead. Soft music playing accompaniment to the roar of the river and the man who had been the great love of her life at her side. How many times had she wished for just this over the years?

She looked at Nathan as he reached into the cooler and pulled out two cookies. Handing one to her, he smiled and said, “You always did like Louisa’s pecan cookies.”

Her heart fisted in her chest. He looked so damn…harmless. And he so wasn’t.

“You’re evil,” she said, nipping the cookie from his fingers and taking a bite.

He nodded. “You used to like that about me.”

“There are a lot of things I used to like.”

“But not anymore.” The words were clipped. Cool.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Didn’t have to,” he told her and then shrugged as he took a bite of his cookie. “I feel the same way.”

“Good to know,” she muttered, as her foolishly hopeful heart sunk a little in her chest.

“Things’ve changed,” he said.

“If that’s what you brought me out here to tell me,” Amanda said, “you wasted your time. I already knew that.”

“But the thing is,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken at all, “some things don’t change.”

He reached out and stroked the tip of his fingers down the back of her hand and along her arm. Amanda shivered.

“Not fair.” She pulled her hand free of him and dropped the cookie to the quilt before she stood up and moved to the edge of the river.

Music continued to sail into the deepening night. The river rushed on and, above her, the stars were glittering against the dark sky.

She heard him stand, then walk up behind her. When his hands dropped onto her shoulders, she was already braced for the heat that poured from his body into hers.

“Why the hell should I play fair?” he demanded and turned her around to face him.

“Why are you playing at all?” she countered and waited, watching his features in the indistinct light.

“Because I can’t get you out of my head,” he admitted, his voice harsh and deep, as if it were crawling up from the center of him.

If he could admit at least that much, then she could, too. “I feel the same way.”

He slid his hands up and down her upper arms as if chasing away a chill she didn’t have. In fact, she was so hot at the moment, she couldn’t imagine ever being cold again.

Amanda took a breath, tipped her head back to look up at him and said, “Wine. Cookies. Music.” She waved one hand at the frothy river beside them. “This place. What is it you want, Nathan? Truth.”

“Truth.” He tasted the word as if trying to decide if he liked the idea of it or not. Finally, though, he nodded and said, “Truth is, Amanda, there’s a lot of history between us and until we get it sorted out, life in Royal’s going to be harder than it has to be for both of us.”

Disappointment flashed through her before she could stop it. Of course that’s why he’d done all this. To soften her up. To make her malleable enough to agree to however he wanted to handle things. So much for change, she thought glumly.

“We’ve already had our ‘talk,’ Nathan.”

“Yeah, we did,” he agreed. “But it wasn’t enough.”

She pulled away from him and walked even closer to the river’s edge, where spray reached up from the water’s surface to kiss her skin. She turned her face up to the sky and fixed her gaze on one star in particular. It was a focus point, to center her thoughts, to gather her frazzled nerves.

She didn’t want to talk about the past anymore. It only brought pain. Still watching that star, she asked, “What more is there to say, Nathan?”

She heard him move to stand behind her again. She felt the heat of his body reaching out for hers. Felt the frisson of something incredible that she always felt when close to Nathan.

Once again, his hands came down on her shoulders and a whip of electricity snaked through her in an instant. She closed her eyes and took a breath to steady herself—an idea that went to hell the moment he started speaking. “Can we leave the past where it is, Amanda? Live here in town without going back there?”

“I want to,” she said and it was the truth. The past was pain and she’d had enough of that to last a lifetime.

“Then we make a pact. We deal with the present. Starting fresh.”

“Just like that?” Was it even possible? she asked herself.

“Won’t be easy,” he admitted, “but it’s easier than hauling the past around with us wherever we go.”

It sounded good, but she wasn’t as sure as he was that it could be done. But, talking with him, being with him, without the hurtful memories, was worth taking the chance.

“A pact,” she agreed and held out one hand.

He looked at it, smiled, then took her hand in his, smoothing his fingers over her knuckles. His voice was soft, low and as mesmerizing as the rush of the river below.

“You’re still in my blood, Amanda.”

Her heart jumped into high gear and she swayed on her feet. But his hands only tightened on her shoulders. He bent his head until his mouth was beside her ear. His voice came again and his warm breath dusted her skin.

“I think about you. Dream about you. Want you.”

“Nathan …” Her blood felt as if it were bubbling in her veins.

He spun her around, pulled her close and took her right hand in his left. Confused, Amanda only stared at him, until he said, “Dance with me.”

He didn’t give her a chance to answer. To decide yes or no. Instead, he began to sway to the music and she let herself move with him. He held her tightly, her body pressed along the length of his and she felt…everything, just as he’d wanted her to.

Her body lit up inside as desire pulsed like a beacon deep within her. He must have sensed it. Must have felt her body’s surrender because he dipped his head to steal a hard, fast kiss that left her reeling.

“Tell me you don’t the feel the same damn thing,” he demanded.

Amanda knew that if she looked into his eyes again, the very foundation of what little self-control she’d managed to cling to would be shaken. But she couldn’t resist. Couldn’t deprive herself of the chance to see those dark brown eyes flashing with need again.

The moment she did, she felt herself falling into a whirlwind of emotion. Long-buried feelings resurfaced with a vengeance and were tangled up with something new. Something still fragile, but so much deeper than anything she’d known before.

Their dance ended abruptly. He shifted his grip on her, sliding his hands up to cup her face. His thumbs traced the edges of her cheekbones and his gaze moved over her features hungrily. She felt every nerve in her body leap to attention. Every square inch of her wanted him so desperately she trembled with the need.

It would be so easy to give in, she thought wildly as she lost herself in the dark chocolate of his eyes. To surrender to her body’s demands. To push away the past and think only of the now. But where would that put them? Where would they go from here?

“Nathan, this is crazy.…”

“Nothing wrong with crazy,” he murmured and leaned in to leave a light-as-a-feather kiss on her forehead.

She swallowed hard. “But if we do this—it will only make living in this town together harder.”

He snorted a laugh. “I can’t get much harder.”

“Oh, God.” Her breath caught in her lungs as he pulled her in close to him. Close enough to discover that he was right. Much harder and he’d turn to stone.

A burn started low and deep within her, spreading with a swiftness that made her feel as if she had a sudden fever. A fever only Nathan could assuage.

Shaking her head both at her own thoughts and at him, she pulled free and took a staggering step backward just for an extra measure of safety. Not that she was afraid of Nathan. No, she was more afraid that her good intentions would be blown out of the water by her own need.

“Damn it, Amanda,” he said roughly. “You want this, too. I can feel it.”

“Yes,” she admitted when she could talk around the knot lodged in her throat. “I do. But I’m not going to do it.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because it wouldn’t solve anything, Nathan.”

He threw both hands high and wide then let them fall to his sides again. “Why the hell does it have to solve anything? We’re not kids anymore. Can’t it just be what it is and leave it at that?”

“Not between us,” she said, a little steadier now that he wasn’t touching her. “It’s never simple between us, Nathan, and you know it.”

He shoved both hands into his jeans pockets and let his head fall back briefly as if looking for patience in the wide Texas sky above them. When he looked at her again, he said, “You can’t let go of the past, can you?”

Bristling a little, she countered, “Can you?”

Shaking his head, he pulled one hand free of his pocket and ran it over his face. “Not entirely, no.”

“Then how can us sleeping together help?”

“How can it hurt?” he argued.

“Nathan, sex doesn’t solve a problem, it only creates new problems.”

“Maybe that’s enough for now,” he said tightly.

“Not for me,” she answered.

“What the hell do you want, then?”

A thousand disjointed thoughts swept through her mind in one confusing instant. What did she want? Him, mostly. She’d tried to fool herself into believing that she just wanted to move on. To find a new man and build a life with him.

But there were no other men for Amanda. There was only Nathan, now and always. She wanted what they hadn’t had before. Trust. Love. A future. And she knew Nathan wasn’t interested in anything like that.

So that left her exactly where?

Alone, she thought. She’d be alone.

He closed the gap between them in one long stride and grabbed her up close again. Here was the danger, she thought. Feeling him pressed close to her, knowing that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. But want wasn’t enough, as they’d already discovered.

“Don’t make this harder,” she whispered.

“Why should I make it easy?” he asked.

She looked up at him and when he kissed her, Amanda lost herself in him. His mouth covered hers with a fierce tenderness that quickly became a dance of desperation. Their tongues met again and again, stroking, caressing, tasting. Hunger built and spread, wrapping them both in a wash of heat that was inescapable. His hands swept up and down her back and finally came to rest on her behind. He held her tightly to him and ground his hips into hers. She gasped and lifted one leg instinctively, wrapping it around his thigh, trying, but failing to bring him even closer.

His mouth continued to overwhelm her and all of Amanda’s good intentions were swept away on a tide of passion too staggering to fight. Her mind splintered under the onslaught of too many sensations. It had been so long, was her only coherent thought. So long since she’d felt his hands on her body, his breath on her face. How could she not have him? What did it matter what happened tomorrow, if tonight, she could have this?

One of his strong hands held her thigh up along his hip, his fingers digging into her flesh. With his free hand, he lifted the hem of her skirt, then slipped his hand beneath the hem of her panties and down to the trembling, heated core of her.

At the first brush of his fingers, Amanda gasped, and tore her mouth from his. Reeling, she tipped her head back and stared into his eyes as he stroked her hot, damp center. His brown eyes were flashing with fire and need. His breath came as fast and sharp as hers. Her fingers clutched at his shoulders, as she fought for balance and for the orgasm that was rushing toward her.

He dipped one finger and then two into her depths, stroking both inside and out as he plunged and withdrew in a rapid rhythm that tortured as it pleasured. Amanda’s hips rocked into his hand as she struggled to find the release that he was promising her. Her mind was shutting down. Who needed to think when he was offering her so much to feel?

Again and again, she whimpered and twisted against his touch. His thumb rolled over one sensitive spot and she cried out his name in a broken voice torn from a throat nearly too tight to allow breath.

“Come for me,” he whispered, kissing her mouth, her eyes, her nose. “Come now, Amanda, and let me see you shatter.”

Stars shone overhead. A Texas wind caressed her bare skin. Her lover’s eyes held hers. And Amanda surrendered to the inevitable with a groan of release and a whispered sigh that was his name.

Seven

She was limp in his grasp and Nathan had never felt more alive. His body hard and aching, his pulse scrambling, he continued to stroke her intimately, loving the feel of her slick flesh beneath his fingers. Her breath hitched and she jerked in his arms as her still-sensitive body reacted to his touch.

No woman in the world affected him like this one did. With just a sigh, she could inflame him or bring him to his knees. Which is why he was here, he reminded himself. This was the plan. To have sex with her again so that he could walk away. He looked down into her face and saw a soft, satisfied smile. Saw her meadow-green eyes glazed with passion. Saw the rapid pulse beat at the base of her throat and he wasn’t thinking about walking away. He was thinking only of burying himself inside her. Feeling her body close around his again.

“Nathan…that was …”

“Foreplay,” he groaned past the hard knot of need lodged in his throat and waited for her reaction. He touched her again and she trembled. In his arms, she felt vulnerable, soft, and every protective instinct he had roared to life. In that moment, he wanted to stand between her and the rest of the world. He wanted to always see her like this, looking up at him with stars in her eyes and a breathless plea on her lips.

Seconds ticked past as she looked into his eyes. He held perfectly still. He wouldn’t touch her again until she said yes. Until she admitted that sex was the one thing they both could agree on. That they both needed. He hoped to hell she’d say it. If she still said no, it just might kill him.

She lifted one hand to cup his cheek and stroked her thumb along his cheekbone. “I’m tired of being sensible,” she said. “I don’t want to think about tomorrow. I only want tonight. With you.”

He waited a beat or two, letting her words sink in. Then, for his own sanity, he demanded, “You’re sure?”

She smiled and linked her arms behind his neck. “About this, yes.”

“Thank God,” he muttered and spun her around in a quick circle before lowering her to the quilt spread beneath the gnarled, twisted arms of the oaks surrounding them.

Quickly, they worked to clear the quilt, setting the wine aside and shifting the cooler off into the thick grass. The radio played on, music shifting now to a low, throbbing beat that seemed to echo what each of them was feeling.

They turned to each other, tearing at clothing, needing to touch only skin. Needing to feel the heat that flesh against flesh created. The summer wind slid over them as hands and mouths rediscovered the magic that pulsed between them.

Nathan couldn’t seem to touch her enough. The feel of her soft, smooth skin beneath his fingers fed the fire inside that was engulfing him. His brain hazed out, his vision narrowed until all he saw was her. The woman who had haunted him for years. The woman he’d lost and never forgotten.

He eased back, taking a moment to just look at her, enjoy this moment when she was his again. Her hair spilled across the quilt beneath her. Her long, tanned limbs were lean and smooth and her breasts were high and full. His hands itched to cup them, to tease those pebbled nipples until she was moaning and arching into his touch.

Shaking his head, he murmured, “Been thinking about this since that first day I saw you in the diner.”

She laughed a little and the sound rose over the roar of the river to become part of the music of the night. “You mean when you walked in all fiery-eyed, wanting me to leave town?”

“Yeah, only I didn’t want you out of town as much as I just wanted you,” Nathan told her, dipping his head to taste first one dark nipple and then the other.

She gasped, then sighed, a slow exhalation of breath that seemed to slide right into the heart of him. When he lifted his head again, she looked up into his eyes and said, “You hid it really well, being all crabby.”

He gave her a quick grin. “Couldn’t let the town gossips know what I was thinking. Hell, I didn’t want you to know what I was thinking.”

“Oh, me neither,” she admitted, holding his head to her breast. Her fingers threaded through his short hair, her nails dragging across his scalp.

He was on fire. His whole damn body felt as if it were lit up from the flames about to swallow him. “Shoulda done this days ago.”

“Oh, yeah,” she whispered and arched into him as he moved down her body, trailing damp kisses along her skin…down her chest, along the line of her stomach and across her abdomen. She tasted of summer and smelled like a spring meadow. He was surrounded by her taste, scent, touch. And still it wasn’t enough. His body ached like a bad tooth. He needed her and damned if he wanted to need. Being sucked into a maelstrom of emotions hadn’t been the plan. The plan was simply to bed her, so he could get her out of his system once and for all.

The plan. He fought to hold on to it. To remember why it was important. Nathan Battle didn’t do anything without a damn plan and once it was made, it was golden.

And yet…his brain shied away from thinking at all. Nathan wanted to concentrate solely on this moment, not what had led to it or what might come after. All he wanted right now was to revel in finally having her here, beneath his hands again.

Her body was long and slim with just the right amount of curves to tempt a man. In the starlight, her skin seemed like warm honey. He dragged the tips of his fingers across her flat belly and smiled to himself when she sucked in a gulp of air. He traced the tan lines that striped over her breasts and then along the narrow strip of paler skin that lay across the triangle of light brown curls at the juncture of her thighs.

“You wear a tiny bikini,” he murmured and wished he’d seen her in it.

She smiled. “No point in wearing a big one, is there?”

“Nope, guess not,” he agreed, sliding one hand down to cup her heat. “What color is it?”

She gasped and rocked her hips into his hand. “What? Color? What?”

“Your bikini, Amanda,” he whispered, “what color is it?”

He dipped a finger into her heat and she hissed a breath. “Is that really important right now?”

“Humor me,” he told her and swirled the tip of his finger around an already sensitive spot.

“Okay, okay, just don’t stop,” she ordered, then swallowed hard. “It’s white. With red …” She broke off and shuddered, as he continued to stroke her with slow deliberation.

“Red what?”

“Huh? Red? Right.” She nodded, licked her lips and wiggled her hips into his touch. “Red, um, dots. Polka dots.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Uh-huh,” she whispered. “I’ll be sure to show you sometime. But for right now could we …”

“You want more?” he asked, knowing she did, drawing out the suspense, the waiting, the wanting, for both of them.

“I want it all.” Her eyes snapped open and she met his gaze squarely. “Honestly, Nathan, if you don’t get inside me within the next minute or so …”

“You’ll what?” He grinned at her, enjoying the frustration in her eyes, in her voice. “Leave?”

She blew out a breath and scowled at him. “Funny. No, I’m not leaving, but Nathan—”

He rose up over her, looked down into her eyes and whispered, “You’re still so beautiful.”

“I’m glad you think so.” She sighed and reached for him, but he pulled back, grabbed the jeans he’d tossed aside a few minutes before and rummaged in the pockets until he came up with a foil square.

“Pretty sure of yourself, weren’t you?” she asked wryly.

“Pretty sure of us,” he told her as he ripped the foil open, then took another moment to sheathe himself.

Her expression was carefully blank as his gaze met hers and she asked, “Is there an us, Nathan?”

That was a good question, he thought, his eyes locked on hers. And he didn’t have an answer. Yesterday, he might have flatly said no. Tomorrow, he might do the same. But now…“There is tonight.”

A flicker of sorrow danced across her eyes and was gone again so quickly he could almost convince himself he hadn’t noticed it at all. He didn’t want to hurt her, but damned if he’d pretend something that wasn’t so. Besides, he didn’t want to think beyond the moment. Us? No, there was no us. But there was now.

“No more thinking,” he murmured and ended any further conversation by taking her mouth in a kiss that left them both breathless. His brain went blank and his body took over. Her hands slid up and down his back, her neat nails scraping across his skin, letting him know that the hunger that crouched inside him lived within her, too.

The past dropped away as they found each other again in the most elemental way. Every touch was a reaffirmation of what they’d once been. Every kiss and gasped breath was a celebration of what they were discovering now. In the warm summer air, they gave and took from each other until passion was a living, breathing entity, wrapping them so tightly together they might never completely be apart again.

They rolled across the quilt, arms and legs wrapped around each other as the river rushed on and the music continued to pump into the night air. Wind whispered through the trees and their strained breathing added to the symphony.

His hands moved over her body and every touch was achingly familiar while, at the same time, it all felt new, electrifying. As if this were their first time coming together.

He pushed her over onto her back and went up on one elbow to look down at her. She looked like a summer goddess, stretched out on that blue-and-white quilt, with starlight dancing on her skin. His breath caught when she licked her lips and smiled up at him. Her eyes were glazed with a burning desire that reached out to engulf him in the same flames. The fire felt good after so many years in the cold, he thought wildly. But he wasn’t about to wait another damn minute before claiming her and all she was.

He shifted, kneeling between her legs and when she parted her thighs and lifted her arms to him in welcome, he groaned in satisfaction. He pushed himself home in one long, smooth stroke and hissed out a breath at the sensation of her hot, tight body gripping his.