A Conard County Baby Read online

  Hope felt her face sag. “I’m really sorry.”

  “I’m not. It’s like the contrast between hot and cold. Always changing. At least I’m not bored.”

  The oven timer dinged, but before she could take care of it, he rose and went to the oven. She didn’t like being compared to cold, but she supposed there was some truth in it. Angie met everything with open passion, for good or ill. Hope, by complete contrast, met everything as if she were walking on eggshells. Trying to be perfect.

  But the air felt clearer to Hope now. It was pleasant having dinner without a glowering Angie. And yet, she still wasn’t sure the issue was settled. No matter how she looked at it, she knew she wasn’t experienced in any useful way when it came to Angie, and it was little help that Cash was apparently feeling the same way. But the more she thought about it, the more she became certain that he was right: maybe he’d been too easy on her because of what she’d been through. Maybe Hope was doing the same thing, trying to keep things smoothed over.

  After all, that’s how she had been raised. Keep everything on an even keel. Short of unavoidable catastrophe, stay calm and pleasant.

  “Donna Reed,” she said suddenly.

  They had moved to the living room with after-dinner coffee and tea. She sat on her end of the couch, and Cash sat on the other.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I was raised to be a proper wife,” she said. “You know, I’m sure you’ve run across references. Never complain about anything, always welcome him home with a smile and dinner, make sure he has a relaxing evening...”

  “Where were you supposed to fit into this picture?”

  “That was how I was supposed to fit in.”

  “The perfect doormat.”

  She winced, not liking the reference, but unable to deny it. “It was all about making him look good, making sure he didn’t have to waste any energy dealing with unimportant things.”

  “You weren’t important?”

  “I wasn’t looking at it that way,” she admitted. “He was going to be a senator. That’s an important job. I was supposed to do my share to help him get there, and stay there. That seemed important enough.”

  “I guess it could be. But it’s hardly fair to you. You must have had desires and needs of your own. Things you wanted to do with your life.”

  “I never thought about it. Maybe that’s the stupidest thing in the world, but I just never thought about it.”

  “It’s not stupid, but if you ask me it’s from another era.”

  She sighed and folded her hands over her stomach, feeling the infinitesimal pokes from her child. “What would you want from a wife?” she argued. “A helpmeet. Someone who could take some of the work around here off your shoulders. What’s so different?”

  “I would hope that a woman who wanted to be my wife wanted to do those things. I lost one because she didn’t. I’m not going that way again.”

  “Well, it’s the same thing.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I’d like, eventually, to find a woman who would be as happily involved in making this place work as I am. I know they’re out there. I meet them often, already married unfortunately. But it takes a special kind of woman to want to be a rancher’s wife. A corancher, if you will. A true partner. It’s a hard life.”

  “It’s a busy life, that’s for sure. I see how hard you work.”

  He leaned forward a bit. “Tell me why you wanted to get involved in the bookkeeping. Was that just to keep busy, or did you like it?”

  “I liked it, actually. It was fascinating, and I’d like to learn more. I’m enjoying learning to cook and clean from Hattie, too. Not just because I need to learn, but because it gives me such a sense of accomplishment. Next week she promised I could make a dinner all by myself. I’m really looking forward to that. Imagine a night without a warmed-up casserole.”

  He chuckled. “She’s a wiz with those casseroles, but I have to admit, I sometimes get hungry for a meal that isn’t in a single dish.”

  “I’ll do it,” Hope said firmly. “I will.”

  “I believe you.” He glanced at her hands. “Is the baby moving?”

  “Quite a bit. It’s still so small it’s hard to feel, though.”

  He hesitated. “Could I feel? I used to love that when Sandy was pregnant.”

  For some reason, she didn’t even hesitate. She reached for his hand and pressed his palm to her abdomen. “Just be patient,” she said.

  The warmth of his touch sent delightful shivers through her. Just like his hug, earlier this past week when she’d fallen asleep in his embrace. Amazingly, what Scott had done to her didn’t seem to have made her afraid of every man’s touch.

  Somehow, Cash had escaped the class of predator in which she had placed Scott. Because he had a daughter he was so worried about? Or was it something else about him? She closed her eyes, enjoying the moment of intimacy, hoping there could be more of them. All she knew was that Cash didn’t feel like a threat. She wanted him to go on touching her, touching her in other ways, as well. She just didn’t know how to tell him that.

  “Aww,” he breathed as he felt the first little movement, not really a prod, not yet. “It’s amazing.”

  Smiling, Hope opened her eyes. “Isn’t it?”

  “It’s wonderful.” He smiled back at her, but didn’t remove his hand. “Soon I’ll be able to let you feel the same thing in my cows. Interested?”

  “Absolutely. And if I’m here long enough, I want to see them give birth.”

  “Well, that’s not necessarily for the squeamish. Sometimes we have to help.”

  “I don’t think I’m squeamish.”

  He laughed, withdrawing his hand. “I guess we’ll see. It’s going to be an overwhelmingly busy time for about six weeks. We try to bring the heifers into pregnancy early because they tend to have more problems with the first calf, so we try to stagger things. Heifers first, then the experienced breeders. It kind of makes things go on for a long time.”

  She barely heard him. Her entire being seemed to have focused on the withdrawal of his touch. She wanted it back. She wanted him to touch her. Mostly, she thought, she wanted to be able to share the miracle inside her with someone, a joy that had been denied to her, but it was more than that and she knew it. Her breathing speeded up with longing, and fear that longing would not be met.

  “Hope? Talk to me. You’re...nervous.”

  He’d wanted her to be honest with him. She just wondered if she could. Expressing her own needs had been denied to her for a long time. When she had tried to express them about Scott, she’d met with fury, dismissal and house arrest. The whole experience hadn’t encouraged her to express anything. Her hands fisted and she closed her eyes, seeking courage. Inside her, her child moved, reminding her that courage had brought her this far. Now she was sitting with a man who made her aware that she had other needs, who caused her heart to race and her body to ache hungrily. She needed to reach for him, for freedom, for a future.

  “I...liked it when you touched me. When you hugged me.”

  She heard him draw a deep breath. “That’s dangerous,” he murmured. “I told you I’m attracted to you. I can behave myself but only to a point. Are you sure you want to risk it?”

  “I need to,” she admitted, her voice cracking. “You wanted to know what I really think. I’m telling you. I thought I’d never want a man again, but I’ve been wanting you since I first set eyes on you. I need to know.”

  There, it was out in the open. No escaping back into her carefully maintained facade. She’d just expressed the most basic of human needs; she felt emotionally naked and frankly terrified. Terrified that he might turn her away.

  Instead, he astonished her by sliding over and wrapping his arms around her. She sagged into him, melting, feeling so wonderfully welcome
d. As if she’d found a new and better place, one she never wanted to let go of.

  “Ground rules,” he murmured. “You draw the lines. What you say goes. I don’t want to scare you all over again. Clear?”

  She managed a nod against his shoulder.

  “I mean it, Hope. You’ve been hurt once. I don’t want to add to it.”

  She didn’t think he could. He wasn’t that kind of man. But she’d been wrong about a man before. The thought caused a little trickle of ice in her, but it quickly vanished in Cash’s embrace. He wasn’t pressing her in any way, simply holding her. There was nothing to fear in that.

  But she had to know how broken she was. She had to know what love would be like with Cash. Mostly, she wanted Cash. All this week that desire had been growing in her, quickly swept under her mental rug, the one that allowed her to present that smooth face to the world.

  That rug had been slowly shredding for months now, and it seemed to be completely gone. Rightly or wrongly, she had become raw nerve endings. Exposed and needy.

  * * *

  Life had taught Cash that many a man could screw up, and avoiding mistakes had become a major goal with him. Not only for his ranch, but in his personal life. Sandy leaving and taking his daughter with her had nearly gutted him, and he’d had plenty of time to think about where he’d gone wrong. The problem was, he couldn’t change his situation or who he was. He was a rancher, he’d always be a rancher. Unless some windfall came his way, his workload would remain heavy. This was no nine-to-five job.

  But he could avoid repeating his mistakes, and he wondered if he was about to make a huge one. There was no escaping his desire for Hope. It had awakened in him almost from the instant he’d brought her home, and it remained hot within him. But he knew he didn’t have to give in to it. He didn’t have to make a mistake.

  But Hope was asking him for it. He hadn’t encouraged it in any way that he could see, yet she wanted him. Maybe she only wanted to find out how damaged she was. If so, he ought to back out of this right now. He didn’t want to turn into a bad lesson for her. He’d hate himself.

  But she had said she wanted him. He was no saint, and given that they both wanted the same thing...well, being wanted in return by this woman was something he hadn’t even allowed himself to wish for. Not really.

  He’d considered her too fragile, which maybe wasn’t fair to her. She’d proved herself to be anything but fragile, taking off on her own with no plan except to keep her child. He couldn’t imagine the kind of courage she’d needed to stand up to the pressure she had faced, and then flee all on her own.

  “Do you do know how strong you are?” he murmured.

  “Running isn’t usually considered strong.”

  “It is when it’s your only out. I can’t imagine withstanding months of pressure to marry the guy or have an abortion. If you weren’t strong, you’d have gone one way or another.”

  “I had to save the baby. And I couldn’t stand the sight of Scott anymore. This was the only other option.”

  “It had to be scary.”

  “It was,” she admitted.

  Now here she was in his arms and the urge to protect her nearly overwhelmed him. But was he truly protecting her if he gave in to the passion that pounded in his blood? Because he was hotter than a bottle rocket all of a sudden, hungering for her in a way he had seldom hungered for anyone. Everything about her called to him, made him hot and heavy.

  But that wasn’t enough, was it? Maybe for her it would be. Maybe she just needed to know that she could still find love and security in a man’s arms. A simple enough thing, but it must look like a huge mountain to her after Scott. She might just need to test the waters and discover if she had hope for a normal life after all this.

  He didn’t know if that would be enough for him. He had his own experience of love and loss to act like an alarm. Could he make love to this woman only to wake in the morning and find she was done with him, sure only that she wasn’t completely broken?

  He’d survive it, he decided. She hadn’t been around so long that he couldn’t recover when she moved on. But other doubts filled him, too. This woman had been violated in a horrible way. What made him think he could do the right things to help her heal?

  His inability to reach his own daughter was enough to make him wonder if he was nuts to even consider riding into this situation like some kind of rescuing knight. He was no knight, just a rancher, and this could be well above his grade.

  But she felt so soft and welcoming within his arms. He became acutely aware of the mounds of her breasts, her curved hip, the gentle swell of her pregnancy. She fit against him as if she belonged there.

  “Cash?” she whispered.

  “Easy. I’m trying not to rush my fences here.”

  “Is it that hard?”

  “Damn it, you’d better believe it. I’m so hot for you I could start a forest fire on a wet day.”

  Amazingly, he heard her giggle quietly. “That’s a nice thing to say.”

  “It’s true.” It was. The drumbeat in his blood was growing stronger by the second, and he was trying to cling to the shreds of sense. They seemed to want to dry up and blow away before the fire in his veins. The throbbing between his legs was driving him harder than a racehorse in one direction.

  Slow. He had to take this slow so as not to inadvertently bring up memories of her bad experience. God, this was going to be hard.

  He felt her hand move, then froze with astonishment. As bold as you please, she slid her hand between his legs and cupped him.

  “Oh...” she whispered.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to stiffen. “You’re playing with fire.”

  “I never have before,” she murmured. “I like it. You want me.”

  “Didn’t I say so?” He pried his eyes open to look into her face. Her eyes were closed, but she was smiling, damn her. “Hope, what the hell?”

  Her smile faded a little.

  “Talk to me,” he demanded hoarsely.

  “It’s hard to talk.”

  No kidding, he thought, as her hand squeezed him gently. At that moment she could have led him around by a nose ring.

  “I was...I was a virgin. I never ever...” Her eyes opened sleepily. “I never even fooled around in the backseat of a car. I want to know...I want it to be like it is for everyone else.”

  “I don’t want to scare you.”

  “Scott scared me. You’re different.”

  It sounded so simple. He was different. Of that he was sure, but he was so acutely aware of the hurdles they might face here...

  “Cash, take me. Show me.”

  Well, no man could resist that unless he’d been gelded. A willing woman, passion thrumming hotly through him, no secrets left given where she was holding him...

  Hoping he wasn’t making the biggest mistake of his life, he pulled away from her, then scooped her up off the couch and carried her upstairs. He’d wanted to know what she was really thinking behind that always-smooth facade, and he’d just found out.

  She wanted to be loved like a woman. Like any woman, by her choice. Soon enough he’d find out if Scott had left a minefield behind.

  * * *

  Hope felt an amazing thrill as Cash lifted her easily and carried her upstairs. She wondered if she was losing her mind, but one thing was certain: she wanted Cash. And now that she was no longer hiding from it, she knew the strength of her desire for him.

  She wanted him. She had never wanted Scott this way. She’d seldom felt anything for him approaching the hunger that Cash awoke in her. And to think she had been planning to marry Scott. The thought appalled her.

  Later, she told herself. Think about what that meant later, think about the way she had been funneled into an engagement that had been nearly passionles
s. She’d been serving a purpose, but that purpose had had nothing to do with what she needed or wanted.

  Maybe she had pushed Scott to the brink with her coolness. Not that that excused rape, but she certainly had never felt for him what she was feeling now. He must have known it.

  But later. She could think later. Right now she just wanted to be alive, to experience, to discover.

  Cash lowered her carefully to her feet, then gripped her shoulders. “Hope? If you’re going to change your mind, now would be the time.”

  She wasn’t going to change her mind. Nothing could stop the tsunami that was sweeping through her.

  She’d seen his bedroom before, with its big bed and dark colors. If his wife had left any signs behind, they were long gone. This was a man’s room.

  But she hardly noticed it. She looked up into his weathered face and brilliant blue eyes and felt certainty nail her feet to the floor. Raising her arms, she laid her hands on his shoulders. “My mind is made up.”

  And the rest of her was trembling from nerves, hope, need, anticipation. She wondered how long her legs would hold her.

  He bent his head slowly, as if to give her time to flee, then his mouth settled gently over hers. From that very instant, Hope knew this would be a totally new experience.

  Men, she had always thought, seemed to think that a kiss needed to be hard to show passion. Invariably her lips would get crushed, and her mouth plundered, and she didn’t especially enjoy it. Not her first kiss, so long ago in college, and not her last. In fact, her experiences had probably been the leading reason she had remained a virgin until Scott forced himself on her. If the rest of the experience was like that, who wanted it? Scott had made the rest of the experience very much like that.

  She couldn’t imagine why she was allowing her attraction to Cash to push her forward into something she had never before enjoyed. Was she hoping to find out that she’d been right all along, or that she’d been wrong? She honestly didn’t know. She had all the normal urges—she just didn’t want them answered. Until now. Now compulsion seemed to be driving her.