had real pretty feet.”
“We need to interest more people in adopting these horses. The BLM had an auction out in Wyoming last month and sold less than half the number they projected. If they don’t find any more takers and we can’t make room for them, some of them will end up…” She glimpsed movement below the hill and to the right, but she had to turn her head to see what it was. Her right eye was going out on her again. Damn. “Look!” She pushed the binoculars against his arm. “Stop! Hurry, before they get away.”
“Look, stop, hurry?” He complied, chuckling. “How about hurry, stop, look? Or—”
“Shh!” She tapped him with the binoculars again, and he took them and focused. “How many? Can you tell?”
“Eight. Nine.”
“See any you like?”
“Nice red roan. Three buckskins. Aw, man, would you look at that bay.”
He offered her a turn with the binoculars, but she shook them off. “I can’t use those things. But I know which one you mean. He looks just like his daddy. Fabulous Spanish Sulphur Mustang stallion we call Don Quixote.” She nodded as he put the binoculars up to his face again. Stop, take a look, really see. “Give that boy another year, and you’d have yourself an endurance racer, a cutting horse, whatever your pleasure.”
“You won’t have any trouble finding him a good home.” He glanced at her. “If you’re having trouble with numbers, show me what’s left after the next auction.”
“We can usually place a few more with special programs. Police units, military, youth programs, even prisons.”
“After all’s said and done, show me what’s left. Never met a horse I didn’t like.” He handed her the binoculars. “I’d sure like to see that bay up close.”
“You will. They’re getting cut this week.”
“All of them?”
“Only the ones with balls. If you like the bay when you see him up close, he could be spared.” She smiled at him as she snapped the glove compartment shut. “Which puts his balls in your court.”
“Damn.” He chuckled as he lifted his hand to the key in the ignition.
“He’d make a wonderful stud.” She stayed his hand with hers and slid to the middle of the bench seat. “This is my favorite time of day. Between sunset and dusk. Late meadowlarks, early crickets.”
He said nothing. The enigmatic look in his eyes wasn’t what she expected. Maybe she’d misread his signals. Maybe her receptors were on the blink. Life’s ultimate joke. Just when she was getting the go light on all major systems except her troublesome right eye, which wasn’t a major system at the moment.
She would not take this lying down.
Who was she kidding? She’d take him any way she could get him, but in a small pickup, lying down wasn’t gonna happen.
Alternatives?
“Did you ever go parking in your father’s C10?” she asked.
“He was dead and the pickup was gone by the time I started meetin’ up with girls after sunset.”
“Where did you meet them?”
“Down by the river. You’re fifteen and you get a chance to be with a girl, you’re not lookin’ to take the high ground.”
“Fifteen?”
“Late bloomer.” He moved the seat back as far as it would go and put his arm around her. “I like this time of day, too, Sally.”
He leaned over her slowly, fingers in her hair, thumb grazing her cheek, lips moistened and parted just enough to make hers quiver on the cusp of his kiss. He made her feel dear and delicate, and she was having none of it. She slipped her arm around his neck and answered his sweet approach with her spicy reception. She was no weak-kneed quiverer. She could match him slam for bam and thank you, man. She didn’t need coddling, and she told him as much with a heat-seeking kiss.
The catch in his breath pleased her. The new-found need in his kiss thrilled her. She answered in kind, kissing him like there was no time like the present. Because there wasn’t. Deep, caring kisses like his were rare. She drew a breath full of the salty taste and sexy scent of him and grazed his chest with her breasts. They drew taut within her clothing. She pushed her fingers through his hair, curled them and rubbed it against the center of her palm. She would fill her senses with him while she could, because she could. She slipped her free hand between them, found his belly, hard and flat as his belt buckle. She took the measure of both.
He nuzzled the side of her neck and groaned. “I’m not fifteen anymore,” he whispered. “I can wait.”
“Why would you? I’m not a girl.”
He raised his head and smiled at her. “In this light you could be. Young and scared. A little confused, maybe.”
She frowned. “But since I’m none of those things…”
“I don’t know that.” He caressed her face with the backs of his fingers. “Who said you could call all the shots?”
“Is there something wrong with me?” She swallowed hard. “I mean, something you don’t like?”
“Uh-uh. Everything looks just right.”
“Looks can deceive.” She dragged her fingers from his belt to his zipper. “But this feels right.”
“You don’t wanna believe that guy.” He moved his hips just enough to let her know that there was nothing wrong with him, either. “No matter what the question, he’s only got one answer.”
“He’s honest,” she whispered. “Stands up for what he believes in.”
He kissed her again, so fully and thoroughly that the taste of his lips and the darting of his tongue, the strength of his arms and the sharp intake of his breath satisfied all her wishes. She had feeling in every part of her body. She didn’t want it to go away, not one tingle, not one spark, and she reached around him and held him the way he held her. Maybe more so. Maybe harder and stronger and more desirous of him than he could possibly be of her, but she was honest. Her embrace was true to what she felt, and feeling was everything.
“Easy,” he whispered, and she realized she had sounded some sort of alarm, made some desperate little noise. “You okay?”
She nodded. Laughed a little. God, she was such a woman. She was the one who was scaring him.
“Look at Phoebe,” he said, and she turned toward the back window and laughed with him even though she couldn’t really see anything. Her right eye had gone dark and her left was looking at the top of the seat. “I’m not hurtin’ her, Phoeb. I swear.”
The dog barked.
“Tell her,” he whispered.
“I’m okay, Phoebe.”
The
