Chapter Eight
Levi
L evi packed the bags of ice Dana had thought to purchase into Otto’s icebox, then stowed the perishable groceries inside while she filled the small fridge in her trailer that ran off the generator.
Something had happened while she was in Grand. He had no idea what, but she’d been preoccupied ever since her return. Maybe she was having second thoughts about her decision to stay. Maybe how isolated they were had finally struck her. Maybe she’d run into someone in town who’d recognized her—she became different around fans.
Whatever it was, she’d shake it off when she was ready.
In the meantime, he’d brought some barrels and cones from the Endeavour so she could work with Tanoa. The cones, placed around each barrel, helped rider and horse pinpoint their approach. The trick was in taking things slow so that Tanoa didn’t become anxious and end up rushing her turns. A stumble at those speeds could injure the horse and be fatal for the rider.
He watched from the stoop while she guided Tanoa through the cloverleaf pattern, over and over.
His thoughts soon drifted toward Shauna Walsh, the differences between the two women, and why he preferred the one who had the least interest in him. Big city women like Shauna found men like him appealing—in the same way some people liked to collect exotic pets. He was different from the men they were used to.
They were different from the women he was used to as well, and he’d succumbed a few times, even learned a few things, but it hadn’t taken long for him to lose interest in them, despite what he’d learned.
Because Montana women—the ones born and raised here…
They were something else. A whole different breed. They knew how to dress up and be pretty and they knew how to flirt. They also knew how to get their hands dirty and get a job done.
The way Dana was doing right now. No one saddled her horse or brushed it down for her. She drove her own truck and hauled her own gear. She mucked out stalls and lugged buckets of water and feed. She might not have the same level of education he did, but she wasn’t stupid and didn’t waste time pretending to be. She knew her own worth.
And when she put on a dress to go out for an evening, she left the girls from New York in her dust. She was about as Montana as a Montana woman could be, and he was in love with her—lock, stock, and cloverleaf-patterned barrel.
She didn’t love him in return. She liked him, though. Enough to make it plenty clear that she’d be willing to take him to bed. But that was as far as things would go.
She glanced over at him. A smile burst past pink lips and cheeks and blue eyes the way a sunbeam cut through delicate layers of cloud. His heart caught on fire. She loved horses and racing, and this was the first display of real, unfiltered happiness he’d ever seen her show.
“What do you think?” she called out.
That he wished he could make her smile for him the same way.
His talk with Otto resurfaced. The one about regrets. He’d been handed an opportunity to spend alone time with her, and even if it wasn’t going to end the way he wanted it to, was he stupid to let it slip through his fingers? Who would it hurt?
The only person who’d really be hurt by it was dead. If she expressed any further interest in a night or two of benefits with him, he’d take Otto’s story to heart. Better to regret a chance he’d taken than an opportunity he’d blown. Lying awake all last night had confirmed it.
But thanks to last night, he might have already blown it. And this wasn’t exactly the right time or place either, all things considered. The universe conspired both for and against him.
None of which answered her question.
“I think Las Vegas had better watch out, because you and Tanoa are coming,” he said.
*
Otto died three days later.
Levi woke in the morning, and when he checked on him, he was gone. It came as no shock. After the first day, Otto had refused medication, food, even water.
“No point in prolonging things,” he’d said, and when Levi approached Dallas about it, Dallas concurred.
“What do you want me to say?” Dallas said. “Why not leave him be, as long as he’s at peace with his decision?”
So, Levi left Otto’s decisions alone, and after he passed away, drove to the Endeavour to call for an ambulance—which struck Levi as ironic, because over my dead body was the only way anyone would ever have gotten the old man inside one.
Then he notified Ryan and George and promised George he’d stay and take care of the horses until after the burial and the reading of the will.
Dana agreed to stay, too. “It’s only right that Otto have people with him when he’s laid to rest who genuinely cared about him,” she said, and Levi admired her for it. Doing the right thing was easy when people were watching. Doing it because it was right showed what she was made of. Otto did deserve to have people who cared for him standing by.
Pastor Harm Addams, from the small Methodist church where Otto had arranged to be buried, stopped by. He’d buried Tanner Shannahan in the church graveyard, too, but Dana had no interest in reminiscing with the pastor, so she’d taken Tanoa out for a ride.
It was just as well she’d gone off on her own, because Ford Shannahan arrived not too long after Pastor Addams departed.
Ford shared his family’s blond, Nordic good looks, but that was as far as the familial resemblance went. He was a big man, with none of the Irish affability his surname implied, or that his siblings possessed, but every stitch of some marauding Viking ancestor’s terrifying charisma. If any neighboring villages around Grand were ever plundered in the dead of night, fingers would point his way.
But he was an excellent horseman. Otto’d had nothing but the greatest respect for him, and that said a lot. And if Ford was curious about the horse trailer with living quarters parked next to the barn, he gave no indication.
In his usual abrupt way, he cut straight to the reason behind this sudden desire for a social visit. “You should have called me and told me Otto was sick,” he said to Levi.
It wasn’t quite an accusation, but it came close.
“Otto didn’t want anyone to know,” Levi said.
“I’m not anyone.”
No, Ford wasn’t. But he didn’t like being helpless, and he’d taken his brother’s loss hard, and Otto was sensitive to such things.
“Neither am I,” Levi said. “I only found out because he couldn’t get out of bed a few days ago.” He left out the part where it was Dana who’d found him. Dollars to donuts Ford had noticed her horse in the field, and if he wasn’t going to bring it up, then Levi wouldn’t either. “How did you find out? He only passed away this morning.” Even by Grand standards, the news had traveled fast.
“George Cooper called me.”
Made sense. Otto had likely left Ford a horse, too.
Ford’s grim, stoic face unfroze long enough to expose a glimmer of grief. “I’ve been too busy to visit him lately. If I’d known, I would have made time.”
Ford managed the Grand Master Brewery and Taproom in town. Levi had heard whispers of a side hustle he had going, although not what it was, and no one had been brave enough to come right out and ask. While professional hitman was a stretch, it didn’t defy credibility, either.
“I’m sorry,” Levi said, which as far as adequate responses went, scored roughly a zero.
“Me too.”
Ford didn’t stay long after that. “Call me if there’s anything I can do to help out.”
Dana returned close to suppertime, face pink from the sun, dark curls tangled in the strings of her hat. Lady, her ears attuned to her owner’s return, sidled up to the fence in search of the sugar Dana kept in her shirt pocket.
Meanwhile, the stud in the neighboring pen was focused intently on Lady. Levi had taken the two bred mares out of the pen the previous day, and now, the stallion had turned his attention to the newest arrival.
That Lady was approaching estrus was not in question. Levi had caught her winking at the stud a few times already, and urinating in front of him, both indicators that she was receptive. The stud’s restless interest warned Levi that Dana should either let Lady be bred or remove her from the source of temptation.
He’d bring it up with her later, over supper. Right now, she’d been gone for hours and had to be hungry.
He’d pillaged the Endeavour’s cookhouse when he went to find Dallas, so fresh bread, cheese, and cold cuts, along with double-chocolate brownies for dessert, were on tonight’s menu. He spread a blanket on the grass and laid out the food. The weather had been good all week, so they’d taken to picnicking next to the horses, near enough to the cabin if Otto should need them, but far enough away that they all got a break.
Dana joined him on the blanket after she’d rubbed Tanoa down and turned her loose in the pasture. The sun, exhausted, began a drawn-out, bedtime routine of tucking itself in beneath red and gold blankets.
Opportunity versus regret.
It had been a tough day. The next few days would be tough, too. Levi didn’t want to think about Otto, or how another good friend had passed from his life. He preferred to think about Dana and how to help her get through another funeral in Pastor Addams’s church, but addressing it head-on would only make her defensive. She’d withdraw and bury her feelings. Her public face would emerge. He’d learned that much about her.
Distraction was a much better approach.
“If you don’t intend to race Lady anymore, why not breed her while you’re here?” he suggested. “You won’t have to sell her, not if you don’t want to, and this way, you’ll get a good foal out of her.”
Dana’s sandwich hovered an inch in front of her mouth. She lowered it without taking a bite. Temptation and conflict played hide-and-seek on her face. “Isn’t that called stealing?”
“Technically, I suppose. But only if the new owners make it a problem, and I can’t see why it would come up.” Otto’s family would have no way of knowing when the breeding occurred. Besides, if they had complaints, they’d be about the horses Otto had given away—but it might be best not to bring that to her attention. “Better to do it now while Lady’s health is good, and with such a good-natured stud, who’ll go easy on her. She isn’t young anymore.”
Some stallions got overly rambunctious, and even though a few days of rest had done Lady good, and no one looking at her would suspect she was arthritic, the damage was there.
“Are you sure they’re the right match? Neither horse has a real fire in them.”
He was sure. So sure, in fact, that if he didn’t take a chance on an additional match now, he’d regret it forever.
“I study aggression in bulls, remember?” he said. “Some breeders can’t understand that aggression and determination are two separate things.” Ryan O’Connell came to mind. “That fire you talk about… Aggression’s a hot flame. It’s for show. It riles up the animal and blinds it to reason. Determination, now.” He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear, letting his fingers trail the length of her throat, sending a message along with his touch. “It’s a slow burn. It utilizes patience. Steadiness. A refusal to be turned from the goal. It’s the real mark of a winner—no matter what type of animal we’re talking about.”
Dana tipped her head, trapping his hand between her cheek and her shoulder. Lovely, quiet eyes studied him in a way that had him rethinking the whole slow, steady approach he normally favored.
“If you don’t make a decision soon, it’s going to be taken out of your hands,” he added.
To prove his point, Lady sashayed to the fence and presented herself to the stud, who made a half-hearted lunge at the fence before veering away, as if testing its strength.
“Dammit.” Levi sprang to his feet, scattering brownies and bread. Even a well-mannered stud was only so patient. “I don’t want to have to mend that fence tonight. Get a halter on Lady so you can hold her, then let her through the gate. I’ll handle the stud.”
Normally, Otto let the stud and the mare take care of business themselves. But Levi had handled the stud for him a few times, when he’d had a mare that had never been bred before, and he hadn’t known how she’d respond. The trick was in not manhandling the stud, or trying to dominate him, but to guide him and keep him from getting overexcited. The halter he used had a chain that slipped under the horse’s chin, which created just enough friction to gain his attention but not enough to cause aggravation.
Levi gave the stud a long lead, then let him walk up to Lady on his own terms to introduce himself to her. Dana held Lady steady, but the mare proved receptive, and from the first nuzzle of greeting, other than for Levi holding the mare’s tail aside while she was covered, human intervention was unrequired.
Levi slipped the halter off the stud before turning him loose. Dana did the same with Lady. They’d leave the two horses penned together for the next three or four days, so the mare could be covered again, but until then, they’d be fine on their own.
They stood for a while, shoulder to shoulder, watching the horses from the other side of the fence. Twilight slowly settled, cooling the air, but not unpleasantly so. Bands of red gold bled into the navy horizon.
“I feel like I committed a felony,” Dana said.
“Then I guess we’re partners in crime, although calling it a felony seems extreme,” he said, teasing her a little. “It’s more the equivalent of having one too many items in the express lane at the supermarket. Nobody’s counting, but you know it’s there. Besides, we just saved the new owners a fence. That’s worth compensation.”
She turned toward him, easing into his arms, and hooked her thumbs into the beltloops of his jeans at the small of his back. She crinkled her nose and smiled up at him with her eyes. The outside of her thigh rubbed against the inside of his. Levi’s heart trembled. She was so beautiful, and he wanted her so much .
Now he was the one who could use a distraction.
“Otto wasn’t much for record keeping,” he continued, once he could breathe enough to get the words out, even if they were pitched too high, “but he does keep a notebook accounting for the mares this stud has bred. Do you want me to write Lady down? Proof of lineage will increase the value of a foal, if she carries one to term.” There was always the chance that she wouldn’t. Horses were finicky breeders, with miscarriages common, and she was old for a first timer.
He waited while Dana weighed her conscience against the reward.
“Write it down,” she finally said. “I’ll deal with the problem if it becomes one.”
It wasn’t going to be a problem for her, because he’d simply record yesterday’s date. His handwriting appeared in Otto’s notebook often enough for it to pass unremarked. And as for his conscience weighed against the benefits to Dana?
Her benefits beat his conscience hands down.
She stayed in his arms with their bodies connected. The pads of her thumbs casually mused up and down either side of his spine. She increased the friction against the inside of his thigh, and the crotch of his jeans grew uncomfortably tight. Her hands stroked his ass, coaxing the bulge in his jeans to align with her pelvis, and there went any self-control he possessed. She had to know what she was doing to him.
Why not? What was holding him back? Sex was as good a distraction as any and better than most. He kissed her lips. Slowly. Thoroughly. With no more than the light stroke of his tongue, and a great deal of promise, because he was incapable of saying no to her twice—and if he was going to be pulling this night out of his memories for the next fifty or so years, then she would be, too. Guaranteed.
Her eyes were drowsy when he lifted his head. Faintly astonished. Wide and unfocused. Filled with hunger.
“My God,” she said softly.
Her palm drifted to his aching groin, where his responding hunger for her was on prominent display. Confident fingers wandered the length of hardness that strained at his zipper. He sucked in a breath.
But those years spent with city girls in New York had taught him not to think with his dick. Women, he’d learned, were a study in contradictions. The boldest in public were often the shyest in private, and the reverse often held true.
While Dana had never been shy, right now, there was nothing ladylike about her either. He didn’t kid himself that she wanted anything more from him than the physical act, which was all those city girls were ever interested in.
The difference between Dana and them, however, was that to her, he wasn’t some exotic, alien species. Today had been rough for them both, and even if he was more invested in her than she was in him, what could be more life-affirming than sex?
He wasn’t going to take her here, on the grass, though. Not when the warmth of a soft blanket beckoned a short distance away. Where he could undress her. Watch her face by the fading light as he touched her. He could think of five different ways to bring her to pleasure off the top of his head, and he’d use them all. He’d make a game out of it. The night had barely begun.
“Come with me,” he said.
*
Dana
Dana took his hand and allowed herself to be led.
“I’m on the pill. And I passed my last checkup.” She dredged the information out of her head, because safety first, and she wanted to get it out of the way while she could still think.
“I’m clean, too.”
They ended up on the blanket with their unfinished picnic. He tossed the remains in the plastic cooler while she waited, her brain a churning jumble of upended misconceptions. The insides of her thighs tingled while her heart scurried around in her chest.
She’d assumed that she’d be in charge. That he’d do her bidding. That he’d be a considerate but passive lover, favoring a slow burn over a hot flame. His kiss said how mistaken about that she was. She wanted him so badly right now, she didn’t care. She’d always enjoyed sex and the one thing she was sure of was that Levi had put a lot of thought into this.
“We have several options,” he said, proving her right about this much, at least. “We can take the edge off with fast and dirty, which is okay, because then we can slow things down for the rest of the night.”
He took his shirt off as he spoke, and she lost all interest in any other options he might have in mind. He was broader than she’d imagined. More muscular through the chest, with a narrow waist and flat stomach. A thin line of dark hair arrowed into his zippered jeans, drawing her eye and drying her mouth.
“Fast and dirty,” she said quickly. She reached for the buttons on her shirt so she could take hers off, too. She wore the pretty bra and matching thong she’d bought at the lingerie shop and couldn’t wait to see his reaction. Levi was a man who paid attention to detail.
He caught her hands before she could undo more than the top button. “Not that fast. Not until you’ve heard all the options.”
She found herself splayed on her back on the blanket, looking up at the emerging stars, with him kneeling shirtless above her, her legs pinned beneath his and her hands over her head. Her vision spun with the deepening sky.
“Option number two,” he continued, “is that we conduct a bit of mutual exploration. Familiarize ourselves with each other through sight, touch, and taste. Taking turns and keeping things fair, of course.”
She forgot all about the first option. She couldn’t imagine anything she’d like more than exploring what more he had to offer, considering what had been hidden under his shirt. “Option two.”
“I’m leaning toward that option, myself,” he confessed, the hint of a laugh in his voice. “But there’s one more option you should consider before making a final decision.”
He shifted both of her hands into one of his, holding her arms over her head, then tracked the tip of one finger along the curve of her cheek. He pressed another kiss to her lips, along with a firm, deep thrust of his tongue. Bending forward to kiss her had brought a great deal of his hardness to her attention, setting her body on fire at all points of contact. That was all it took for her brain to lose any remaining ability to reason.
“Option three.” He carried on as if unaware she was prostrate with need and ready to weep from frustration. “Three is a combination of options one and two. I take off my clothes, then I take off yours. And as I take yours off, I find all the places you like to be touched, because what excites you, excites me. If I can get all your clothes off without you having an orgasm, then fast and dirty’s back on the table. I’ll even let you choose the position.” He leaned forward so that his mouth was next to her ear as he whispered in it. “But if you do have an orgasm, then once we’re both naked, Lady Dana, the choice of position is mine.”