Wyoming Rugged

Niki made a face. She couldn’t tell Edna about her hopeless passion for Blair, so she improvised. “I’m sick all the time. What sort of man wants a woman like that?”

“Your mother was sickly, too,” Edna said. “But your father loved her madly. It made no difference to him, except that he spent a lot of time taking care of her.” She smiled gently. “You love people for what’s inside them. You live with the problems they have. That’s what a good marriage is all about.”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever get married,” Niki said. “I don’t mix well with other people. Especially men.”

“You get along fine with Mr. Coleman,” Edna pointed out.

“Yes, but I’m not—what was that word you used, vamping? I’m not trying to vamp him.”

“Just as well,” Edna chuckled. “He’d put you down pretty quick if you tried. He thinks you’re way too young for him.”

“I know,” Niki said, averting her eyes so that Edna didn’t see the flicker of pain in them. “I guess I could get a job. There’s an opening at the company Blair owns in Catelow, that mining office. They were advertising for a clerk.”

“You have a degree in geology,” Edna began. “I heard Mr. Coleman say they had an opening for a field geologist, too.”

“Yes, they do,” she replied. “Can you really see me going out into the field and working? I’d have to wear masks and carry all sorts of inhalers and medications, and I’d probably still get sick.”

Edna grimaced. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s okay. I’m glad you don’t think of me as disabled. But in that sense, I am. My lungs won’t let me do a lot of things. I even have trouble sitting in church next to women who think wearing a bottle of perfume is the way to attract attention.”

“Never have understood that,” Edna agreed. “I have a friend who has migraine headaches constantly. She never sees a connection between the thick perfume she wears and the headaches. She wears a layer of bath powder that’s as bad as the perfume. Even started me sneezing in church last week,” she laughed.

“I suppose we’re all blind to our own faults,” Niki had to agree.

“You going to Yellowstone with Mr. Coleman, then?”

Niki shrugged. “I guess I am.” She didn’t add that she was nervous of being alone with him. Not because she didn’t want to be. But he was experienced, and she had no way to hide the effect he was starting to have on her. She’d have to try, though. It would just be too humiliating to have him know that he was the star in her sky.

* * *

THEY LEFT EARLY the next morning in the luxury car Blair had rented at the airport. He glanced at Niki to make sure she had her seat belt on. He smiled to himself at the picture she made in that soft yellow sundress with its spaghetti straps and long full skirt. She was wearing her beautiful blond hair down. It reached to her waist in back. She was very pretty. Very fragile. He frowned.

“Got your meds?” he asked suddenly.

She grimaced. “Yes.”

“Sorry. I don’t mean to sound like an overprotective parent.”

“It’s okay.” She didn’t mind if he treated her like a child. Of course she didn’t. She worried her shoulder bag in her lap and looked out the window.

“I’m sorry that I said what I did yesterday, too,” he added curtly. “But I meant it, Niki. You can’t spend your life hiding from the world because of one stupid drunken date.”

She drew in a long breath. “I guess not.”

“A man who cares about you won’t be rough,” he added. “He won’t try to force you.”

“I know.”

She didn’t know. He wondered just how much experience with men she really had. She’d told him that she was still a virgin the night he saved her from the overbearing date. But that had been before she graduated, two years ago. He shouldn’t be curious. It wasn’t his business, but...

“Have you ever been intimate with a man?”

Her faint gasp told him everything. His teeth ground together. “Maybe that brooch I gave you was more accurate than I realized. You really are a little hothouse orchid, aren’t you?” he asked through his teeth.

She bit her lower lip. She couldn’t look at him. “I go to church,” she began.

“A lot of people do. It doesn’t mean that you have to live a life of total chastity,” he said curtly.

She frowned. “I don’t...feel things. With men, I mean.”

His heart jumped. “What do you mean?”

She kept her eyes on the passing scenery. Far in the distance were the blue outlines of the Rockies. Closer, lodgepole pines grew in clumps across open pasture. She saw a deer leaping through the underbrush, then disappear into the forest.

“Niki?”

“I haven’t ever dated much,” she confessed. “Boys in my high school teased me just because I went to church at all,” she said. “One boy propositioned me right in the hallway, and he didn’t lower his voice. When I got flustered and blushed, everybody laughed.”

His heavy brows drew together. “That must have been awful.”

“It got worse. He thought it was so funny that he posted it on his Facebook page.” Her eyes closed. She didn’t see the expression on Blair’s face. “My dad found out. He called our attorneys. The post got removed. In fact, the boy had to close down his account. Dad has a really mean temper.”

His hand tightened on the steering wheel. “Good for him.”

“Anyway, that was the only really bad thing that happened. Until I went out with the football player in college.”

“You dated other guys before him, didn’t you?”

“Well, I went to the senior prom with my best friend and her boyfriend, in high school. I danced a lot, but I didn’t have an actual date.” She grimaced. “Word got around school, about the Facebook thing.”

“Damn.”

She leaned back against the seat. “Dad was very protective of me,” she said. “There was an inspector for the cattleman’s association who used to come out to the ranch, and a vet who did vaccinations for us. They both asked me out, but Dad got to them.” She laughed. “He said the inspector was married, and the vet had a reputation that made him blush.”

Blair didn’t comment. Todd had always been protective of her. He would have felt the same way. She was fragile. Beautiful. Sweet. A world away from that vicious, cold woman he’d been married to for two years.

“It’s funny,” she said suddenly.

“What is?”

“How I can talk to you about things like this. I can’t even talk to Edna about them.”

“I’m not judgmental. And I’m old. Compared to you, at least, Tidbit,” he added with a tender smile.

She sighed. “You’re too gorgeous to be old, Blair, even if you think you are. Look, isn’t that a buffalo?” she exclaimed, too occupied to notice the sudden flush on his high cheekbones at what she’d said. No woman in his life had ever talked to him like that.

He glanced out the window and smiled. “That’s a buffalo, all right.”

“I went with Dad to a buffalo ranch one time. There were warning signs everywhere,” she added. “And the area they were kept in was double-fenced. The owner said that they were a lot more dangerous than people thought they were. He was always cautioning guests not to get too close to the fence.”

“They can be dangerous,” he agreed. “But any wild animal can be.”

“And some people, too,” she added.

“Yes. And some people.”

It was a long drive to Old Faithful once they were inside the park. Periodically, cars stopped in the middle of the road and parked while their owners got out and ran to look at one of the park’s residents. Once it was a moose, another time a small herd of bighorn sheep. Another time, it was an antelope.

Niki was laughing, the sun shining out of her, at the antics of a couple of small deer following their mother.

Blair looked down at her radiant face, and every part of his body clenched. She was unspeakably beautiful. That dress fit in all the right places. It was discreet, but the top of her breasts showed. Her skin was creamy. Her shoulders were lightly tanned, her arms softly rounded. He imagined how they might feel climbing around his neck.

“Aren’t they cute?” a man about Niki’s age enthused, joining her. His eyes were eating her up. “I used to work in a wildlife park, taking care of the abandoned babies. I love animals.”

“So do I,” Niki agreed, but she wasn’t responsive. In fact, she moved back against Blair for security, tucking herself against one broad shoulder.

He melted inside. His big hand slid around her waist and pulled her back against him, closer than he meant to.

Niki fought to keep her heartbeat steady. It was sheer heaven to be so close to him.

“We’re on a day trip to see the geyser,” Blair told the young man. He was pleasant enough, but his eyes made threats.

“Are you? I’m here with my brother and his wife. We’re camping for a few days. Well, have fun,” he said, with one last longing glance and smile at Niki as he left.

Blair’s hand rode up her side, to rest just under her breast. He could feel her heart pounding. Her breath was wispy and quick.

“Be careful,” he said in a strange, deep tone.

“Careful?” she asked, fighting the urge to lean back against him, to coax that big hand to move up just a little, just an inch, just a breath higher...

He felt her body arching helplessly. He felt her reacting to him. He was reacting to her, too, but he didn’t dare let her feel how much.

“The cars are moving again. We have to go.”

He let her go at once and guided her back to the car. He put her in, got in himself, and drove slowly behind the line of cars.

She was still trying to catch her breath. She was flushed and nervous.

“Sorry,” she said in a thick tone. “He made me nervous.”

“You’re beautiful,” he said through his teeth. “You can’t expect men not to notice.”

“I didn’t flirt with him!”

“That isn’t what I meant.” He took a deep breath. “This is why you stay at home all the time, isn’t it, Niki?” he added. “Men react to you. You don’t like it.”

She grimaced. “I feel...hunted.” By every man except the one she wanted, she could have added, but she didn’t dare.

It was an odd way to put it, but he understood. He glanced at her. She was fidgeting, uncomfortable.

“I wouldn’t have let him near you,” he said.

“I know that.” She swallowed. “Thanks.”

He was overly possessive of her. He’d wanted to punch the boy just for trying to flirt with her. She was years too young, but he wanted her. God, how he wanted her! “Hell,” he burst out.

Her head turned. His face was rigid. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing. Not a damned thing. There’s the turnoff, if we ever get to it,” he added, noting a sign in the distance that pointed to Old Faithful. “Now all we have to do is hope that we’re in time for the next eruption. They’re spaced hours apart. We won’t be able to wait for it.”

She knew that. It was a very long drive. As it was, it would be dark before they got back home to the ranch.

He pulled into the parking lot and drove around to find a spot near the enormous hotel and gift shop.

“I’d still be driving around half an hour from now looking for a parking spot,” she said with an attempt at humor. “You always hit a great spot.”

“Luck,” he said.

He got out, helped her out and locked the car. They walked to the spot where the geyser was located and read the sign. It gave approximate eruption times. The next one was in a half hour.

Niki looked up at him with a question in her soft eyes.

He got lost in them. His hand smoothed down her windblown hair. His face was impassive. “We can get coffee and look through the gift shop while we wait,” he said.

She smiled. “Sounds great. Thanks.”

“Why haven’t you ever been here before?” he asked on the way inside.

“I have, actually. I took a course in anthropology in college. Our class came here. But we didn’t get to see the eruption.”

“I minored in anthropology, back in the Dark Ages,” he said with cold humor.

She stopped just inside the gift shop and looked up at him. Niki’s slight figure was dwarfed by his height. The top of her head barely came to his nose. He was broad, like a wrestler. He moved with sensuous grace, and she remembered with some embarrassment how he looked without his shirt. She’d wanted so badly to touch him there, when he’d been sick and she’d nursed him.

He reached out and drew his thumb softly over her lips, parting them. Her reaction was arousing. He knew without asking that she was attracted to him. No woman could fake these signs, and they were blatant. His face hardened. He couldn’t afford to indulge her hunger. She was very young, just feeling her power as a woman, and she was innocent. He couldn’t take advantage of something she couldn’t even help. Worse, those years between them were like a stone wall.

He dropped his hand as if her mouth had burned it and turned away. “Let’s have coffee.”

He didn’t say another word until he was halfway through with his coffee.

“You’re brooding again,” she accused.

He looked up, both eyebrows arching.

She made a face. “We can go back now, if you want to. I don’t want to make you wait for the eruption of Old Faithful. I imagine you’ve got things to do.”

“I don’t mind waiting,” he replied. His narrowed eyes were on her face. “I’ve never seen it go off, either.”

Something in the hardness of his face made her curious. “You’ve been here before, haven’t you, Blair?” she asked softly.

His jaw hardened. “I spent my wedding night here.”

She caught her breath and looked guilty. “Oh, darn, I’m sorry!”

“You didn’t know.” He looked away. “It was my idea to come, anyway, not yours.”

That made it worse, somehow. He was reliving a failed marriage. Niki hadn’t known about the connection to Yellowstone. Impulsively, she slid her small hand over his.

“You’re always saying that I’ve let a bad experience lock me up in the past. Aren’t you doing that, too, Blair?” she asked quietly.

His eyes were troubled. He felt the coldness of her hand. He turned it, locking it with his own. “I had great expectations.”

“Did you?”

“She was beautiful, cultured, experienced,” he said, smiling wryly. “She said she loved me. I married her and brought her here—” he looked around them “—to let her prove it.”

She waited, just watching him, curious.

He laughed coldly. “She smiled. All the way through it. The whole time.”

Her lips turned up. “She enjoyed it. Why should that make you unhappy?”

He stared at her. Gaped at her. She had no clue what he was talking about. He swallowed, and averted his eyes. “Drink your coffee. We can look around the gift shop until it’s time to go.”

He’d let go of her hand. She didn’t understand why he was so disturbed. Perhaps it was one of those male things, a broodiness that women didn’t understand. She finished her coffee, waited while he paid the check then followed him out into the huge gift shop.

* * *

SHE FOUND A bracelet she loved, rawhide with a small round piece of deer’s horn attached.

“They have silver and turquoise,” he reminded her, puzzled by her delight with the simple, very inexpensive trinket.

“I like this. It’s elemental, isn’t it?” she added. “A piece of life itself.”

She was a constant puzzle to him. Her father was well-to-do, but nowhere near as wealthy as Blair was. She could have picked the most expensive thing in the store, and he’d have bought it for her. She had to know that. But she was like a child in her desires; she liked the simple things. He remembered his wife and her greed, the way she searched out the most expensive diamonds she could find in a jewelry shop and begged for them when he was dating her. She’d found a very expensive set of turquoise jewelry here, in fact, and demanded that Blair buy it for her. He’d been so smitten that day, just after they were married, that he’d have bought her the entire inventory. Then he’d taken her to bed, and all his dreams had died...

“You’re doing it again,” she said when they were walking out toward Old Faithful.

“Doing what?” he asked abruptly.

“Brooding.”

He stopped and turned toward her. “You don’t really like expensive things, do you?” he asked bluntly.

She blinked. “Well, I’m partial to emeralds and pearls,” she said. “But my jewelry box is full of them. And I really love this bracelet.” She was puzzled.

“My wife picked up a squash blossom necklace, earrings and bracelet set here,” he said, referring to the highly expensive pieces of Native American jewelry, silver and turquoise, that had been in the display case, probably from a Navajo artist even though it was a Wyoming shop. “And had me buy it for her.”

She searched his black eyes quietly. “You loved her very much, didn’t you?” she asked softly.

His face hardened. “Yes. At first.”

“I’m so sorry that it didn’t work out for you.”

He was scowling. His hands, in his pockets, were clenched. He hated the memories, especially how it had been here, in this hotel, with his wife that first night. He hated the humiliation, the crushing blow to his pride, his manhood. He hated how it had locked him up inside himself.

“You have no idea, do you? About life?” he wondered aloud. His face hardened as he looked down at her. “You’re still in patent leather shoes and frilly little dresses, gathering Easter eggs in the park.”

Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

He turned away. “It’s going off.”

She followed him to the geyser, adrift. She didn’t understand what he was saying, what it meant. He was sad. She wondered why.

Then she remembered what he’d said about his wife. Why did it make him angry that she’d smiled at him? For heaven’s sake, didn’t he want her to enjoy what happened between them on their wedding night? Men were so odd.

She put it to the back of her mind as the wind blew the spray from the geyser into her face, and she laughed like a delighted child.

CHAPTER FOUR

BLAIR LOOKED DOWN at Niki, at the glorious beauty of her young face, when the spray from Old Faithful hit her and she laughed. She held up her hands, enjoying the mist. She was so young. His heart clenched at the sight she made. Other men, even married ones, were staring at her, their expressions as revealing as Blair’s. Niki was like spring personified.

The spray was making patterns on her bodice. Under it, her nipples were hard from the cool sting of the water. She laughed, glancing at two young men nearby who were staring at her so intently that Blair felt himself bristle. The way they were staring at her was disturbing. One of them started to move closer, smiling like a predator. She stopped what she was doing and glanced at Blair worriedly.

“Come here,” Blair said in a hushed tone, and curved her into his side, holding her so that her soft breasts were pressed gently into the warmth of his broad chest. He gave the approaching man a glare so hot that he went back to his friend, and they quickly left the geyser.

“Why were they staring at me like that?” she asked under her breath.

He looked down into her wide, curious gray eyes. Eyes like a September fog, he thought to himself. Soft and warm, full of dreams.

“Blair?” she prompted.

He bent his head so that his lips were right against one small ear. “Your body is reacting to the mist, but they thought it was them.” He said it through his teeth. He didn’t like other men staring at her. “Especially the one who started to talk to you.”

“I don’t understand,” she whispered, shaken by the feel of his powerful body so close to her own, by the heavy thud of his heartbeat right against her.

He drew back. The black eyes that stared down into hers were narrow and glittery with some undefined emotion. “Don’t you?” he asked, and he moved away from her just a breath, his eyes on her bodice.

She looked down at herself, but she didn’t see anything that should disturb someone. Her wide eyes searched his.

She was so damned innocent that he wanted to throw back his head and scream. She didn’t know. She had no idea what secrets her body was betraying.

He half turned toward the erupting geyser. “I’ll explain it to you when we get back to the car. Watch the geyser.”

His arm contracted. She pressed her cheek against his broad chest, aware of hard muscle and soft, cushy hair under his cotton shirt. She loved the way it felt, being close to him. The people around them vanished. The geyser was erupting, and she hardly noticed it. Blair’s arm was strong and comforting, and just for these few minutes, there were only the two of them in the whole world. It was a moment out of time, out of space, when the impossible seemed possible. She closed her eyes, savoring his breath against her forehead, drinking in the sexy, masculine scent of his cologne, loving the warmth of him against the faint chill of early spring air.

Blair was trying not to notice his own body’s reaction to Niki. She was sixteen years his junior. They were a generation apart. But her breasts were firm and soft, and he wanted to touch them with his mouth. She needed a younger man. Her heartbeat was so strong, she was shaking, he could feel it. She was struggling to breathe normally. He looked down at her pretty bow-shaped mouth and wondered if she’d ever been kissed by anyone who knew how.

“Gosh, that was great!” a young boy exclaimed from nearby. “Can we stay until it goes off again, Dad? Please?”

There was a deep chuckle. “Sorry, kiddo, we’ve got hotel reservations in Billings, and it’s almost an eight-hour drive.”

“Awww, Dad...”

The voices drifted away.

Blair moved back from Niki, averting his eyes. “We’d better get moving, too,” he added. “It’s a long drive home.”

“It really was something to see,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes as she smiled. “I’ll remember it all my life.” Truth be told, the geyser wasn’t what she’d remember, but she wasn’t about to confess that to him.

* * *

HE PUT HER into the car and slid in beside her.

“You said you’d tell me what happened, at the geyser,” she reminded him.

He stared at her quietly, his black eyes narrow and somber. “Niki, what you know about men could be written on the head of a straight pin,” he sighed. “You don’t have a clue what was going on.”

“You could just tell me,” she prompted with a smile.

His big hand touseled her long, pale blond hair affectionately. “It will sound stark.”

“So?” She searched his eyes. “You’re my friend.”

“I am.” He drew in a long breath. “Honey, a woman’s body gives away secrets. The spray hit your blouse, and the tips of your breasts went hard.”

She flushed, but she didn’t look away. “And...?”

“And cold water isn’t the only thing that makes them that way. Desire has the same effect. You were getting some pretty intense attention from two men nearby, especially when you smiled at them. They thought it was a come-on,” he added quietly.

“I...didn’t know!” She averted her eyes and folded her arms across her breasts. “Oh, gosh!” She grimaced. “I went all the way through college, and I didn’t know that, about my own body,” she added miserably.

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” he said roughly. “Niki, I never meant to embarrass you. I’m sorry.”

She shifted, her eyes out the window as she fought down raging self-consciousness. “They never talked about things like that in health class,” she said. “Dad never had that sort of conversation with me, and Edna’s just as repressed as he is. I didn’t know!”

He pulled her into his arms and wrapped her up tight, burying his face in her throat, against her soft hair that smelled of wildflowers.

“You’re so uninhibited,” he groaned. “I love it. Men want you, honey. It’s a very natural reaction. You’re very pretty.”

She drew in a breath, so happy that she could have died of it. She sheltered in his arms, feeling safe, secure. Her face nestled in his warm throat. She had to fight the hunger to kiss it.