Page 14 of Claimed By A Cowboy
“Come here, honey,” I whisper in the golden shimmer of twilight.
Lifting her down from the horse, I pull her close. Wynn sighs, shaking her hair out of her face as she gazes up at me. Her hands slide up my chest, coming to lace at the nape of my neck. A shudder runs through me as she pulls me even closer, seeming as desperate for my touch as I am for hers.
“This scar,” I start softly, head bent against hers. “Back home, I rode with some other guys. One night…there was a stupid fight. I stepped in to stop it. Only I was too late because I was drunk, I was high. I thought the worst of it was this scar, the doer was swinging wildly with a switchblade.”
“This was not the worst of it?”
“No. The doer was my best friend. He started that fight, and like always, I was there to clean it up. But I was too late. He stabbed another man and cut me up in the melee. They…everyone bailed before the cops got there. I was bleeding, I had the blade in my hand…”
“Oh, no, baby,” she coos, cradling my face in gentle hands. Her voice is so soft, her endearment waking my stilled heart.
“I spent five years in prison for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When I got out…everything I knew was different. Or gone. I found the rodeo and then I found this place.”
Wynn presses against me, both of us breathing the same air. Her head tilts and my mouth finds hers and it’s bliss. The sweetest, slowest, hottest kiss of my life. Our tongues parry, in, out, twisting together. Her fingers tangle in my hair, knocking my hat off my head. I don’t care. All I care about is how she feels in my arms, how she whimpers my name when I break away.
“Honey, let me get you back to the ranch. If I keep you here after dark, I won’t be able to help myself.”
Wynn presses her lips to mine once more and I hold her, wishing we could stay out here under the stars forever.
Chapter Seven
Wynn
Being a cowgirl might be the life for me.
Riding horses, mending fences, and feeding the goats and the few cows has been the best time of my life. As darkness falls, I am exhausted, filthy, but so fulfilled I want to spend a hundred days this way.
Watching Wylder with the horses is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. He joked about me being a horse whisperer with that one temperamental filly—look at me, talking cowgirl—but he is the real deal. He talks to them as if they understand him and I think they just might.
To be honest, watching that man do just about anything is special. It feels as if he has peeled back his shutters to give me a glimpse. A glimpse that he rarely shares with anyone else—one I feel privileged to witness.
“Lots of folks would give up on horses like Hyde,” he explains as we linger in the stalls at the end of the day.
We rode for hours together this afternoon. Being alone with him is worth a hell of a lot more than I bid for. He might be slow to laugh, but lord when the man laughs, his cobalt eyes light up and it’s a melodic sound. He smiles for me often, and I think I am luckier than most to get that smile.
“Here you go, honey,” he murmured softly when he took me to meet the goats. “Go slow, they want to let you in.”
His words felt very tongue in cheek. We have been flirting back and forth since last night. Whatever I thought about men was wrong. At least Wylder is proving me wrong. He is gentle, kind, patient, and so damn sexy just his touch sets me ablaze.
We talked about everything on our ride through the sprawling acres of the ranch. He told me about where he had grown up, the trouble he had gotten into, and how remorseful he was. When he told me where his scar came from, my heart broke for him.
Not because he was sent to prison, though that is reason enough. When he told me about coming home to nothing, my battered heart broke a little. His father had passed without him being there, his childhood home was gone, and all the people he had called friends had abandoned him.
For my entire life, I have been alone. I made friends with Jillian through work—my best friend is a travel agent who books most of my trips. If not for her, I would have no one.
To have no one hurts, it is an emptiness that seems so big and so deep when you let yourself sit with it. But to have a father, even if he was a bit of a jerk, and friends you trusted, and have them ripped away. That kind of pain surely cuts a lot deeper than any scar.
“They won’t hurt me will they?”I had responded, neither of us talking about the goats now.
“No, honey. They would never hurt you. They just want attention,”his lips had brushed my ear as he whispered this, our hands both reaching out to feed the little goat.
All day as we groom the horses, play with the little goats, and tour the entire ranch, we dance around our attraction to one another. I found the courage to flirt during dinner at the main house, and when we were in town. When I am alone with him, I do not trust myself.
Watching him with Hyde, for example…all I can think of is what a good father he will be. How patient he is. How gentle he is with the huge, powerful animal. He looks tough, he even acts it sometimes, but he is the gentlest, most giving man I have ever known.
“She knows you won’t give up on her,” I whisper to him as he brushes her down, his other hand feeding her carrots.
“I won’t. Not on any of these horses. This place,” he stops, setting aside the brush to turn towards me. “It saved me from myself. After the rodeo, I was still so angry, still so lost. I had two go’s at life and I screwed them both up. This was my last chance. Just like it is theirs.”
