Chapter 10 #2
“Not negotiable. In return, we won’t challenge your claim to Gizmo’s stud services.
You’ll get him, on your property, for ninety days.
” He rubbed his red nose. “We’ll also repay you everything you’ve spent on my brother and his horse.
It’ll take us a while to figure out where the money’s going to come from, but we’ll make it work.
With interest as well, though it’ll have to be reasonable or the dude ranch will suffer.
” He did grin when he met her gaze this time.
“Unless you’re willing to take Monopoly money. ”
She huffed out a laugh, her breath condensing on the air. The snowflakes had become little beads of ice, pelting her exposed cheeks as the wind whipped around her. “I’m afraid I tried the Monopoly-money approach at age five after I broke one of my Dad’s trophies.”
“Yeah?”
“I tried to pay him off in pink bills and hotels. Ironically, he took it. I still ended up grounded for breaking the trophy when I’d been warned to leave it be.
” The memory was a fond one now that she could look at it through the lens of time and with the benefit of age.
Her dad had been so serious, accepting her payment and then sending her to her room.
He’d come up later and revoked riding privileges for a week after lecturing her on responsibility.
Michael had sneaked her out twice in the following seven days to ride with him. Man, she’d loved him so much.
“Sounds as if you had a good father.”
Kenzie’s throat tightened. “I had... My family’s amazing.”
“Why the past tense?” Eli asked, openly curious.
“I lost my brother when I was a kid.”
“I’m sorry.” Eli reached out and fleetingly touched her arm, then withdrew. “I can’t know the reality of losing a brother, but I do know the horror of thinking I lost one.”
“Yeah.” The word was little more than a breath lost to the wind’s next gust.
“Stay, Kenzie. No matter the fight earlier, whatever you were to him hasn’t died. That much is obvious.”
“What do you expect me to be able to do that the doctors and therapists can’t?” she demanded. “I’m the one person he’s hell-bent on despising at the moment.”
“Don’t be so sure he despises you.” He shot her an amused glance, his smile revealing dimples no woman should have to combat.
“And you’re a woman with resources. I doubt there’s much you can’t accomplish when you set your mind to it.
Particularly where this man is concerned.
” He snorted and moved his horse a few strides away from her and Indie.
“Let’s just say the doctors and therapists don’t hold the same type of influence over him that I’m willing to wager you do. ”
“You want me to—”
“Help him find himself again, Ms. Malone. You’re the only one he’s responded to, the only one he seems willing to engage with.
Bring him back, not only to himself but to us.
Please.” When she didn’t immediately respond, he pressed on.
“Do this and...we won’t contest your right to Gizmo’s stud services.
” He glanced up at the sky. “Looks as if it’s about to get ugly.
” With that, Eli spurred his horse forward.
“The weather or this thing with Ty?” she shouted to the eldest Covington’s retreating form. He didn’t answer, so she shouted a second, more relevant question. “What does Tyson think about this arrangement?”
If he answered, she didn’t hear him. The snowstorm had intensified to near whiteout conditions, Eli’s silhouette fading fast.
She urged Indie forward. The mare didn’t need more than a free bit, and she took off after the man and horse, who were getting harder to see by the second.
ALMOST TWO HOURS LATER, Kenzie stepped into the one-bedroom cabin she’d been given and shut the door.
She struggled out of her wet boots, her feet so cold they were tinged blue.
Next came the soaked jacket, and then she started peeling off the jeans.
That was when she remembered her last question to Eli: “What does Tyson think about this arrangement?”
He never answered.
“Sneaky freaking lawyer,” she muttered.
Tossing her jeans into the stacked washer-dryer combo, she padded toward the bathroom on near-frozen feet.
She needed a hot shower to thaw out. Then she’d reassess.
The hardest part of the whole thing was that it was a half blessing as well as a half curse.
She’d have to get Tyson to be vulnerable by doing the very same.
How far can you take it without crossing the line marked This Point is Too Far?
She’d had a hard time living with the lies she’d told so far. What would it do to her to manipulate Ty into recovery? How deep an emotional marshland would she have to traverse to secure his buy-in? And finally, how many more lies could she—would she—have to tell to get out of this mess?
That was all disturbing enough. But a single question she hadn’t been brave enough to ask hung around, nagging at her conscience, demanding its due.
At what point, if any, did she confront the feelings she and Ty had been so actively avoiding? The ones that had been coming to a head prior to the accident?
Fear choked her.
What if he doesn’t remember that, either?
If she had to, she’d make him. Lord only knew how, but she’d find a way, because his reaction to what they’d had then said everything about how he felt about what they might have now.
How do I make a man closely examine something he doesn’t even want to glance at?
The answer was so easy that she grinned. You teased a little. You made it desirable. And then you made it irresistible.
Outside, the worst storm northern New Mexico had seen in thirty years raged on.
It was nothing compared to the storm brewing in her heart.
ONLY HALF-AWAKE, TY opened his eyes to find that the sunrise had set the world on fire, reflecting off the dazzling snow packed outside. He must have dozed off and left his curtains open last night. And he must have left the door unlocked, too. Because there was someone in his room.
Light created a brilliant nimbus around the individual.
He blinked his eyes, trying to bring her into focus.
Her? Yes, her. The swell of hips, the narrow shoulders and the outline of long hair pulled up in a sloppy topknot said she was female.
She turned a bit. High breasts and a tight ass presented a tempting profile.
No, she wasn’t “female.” She was 100 percent authentic woman.
Below the covers, his cock stirred. He jolted, tipping his chin down as far as he could with his neck brace on but loose. How long had it been since he’d woken with his typical morning arousal?
“You awake?”
In the haze of half-sleep, he wondered for a moment if she was talking to him or his groin. “Has to be you,” he mumbled, blinking faster.
“Who else?”
Grumpy tone or not, her voice glazed his skin and wound around his senses. Allure and sensual promise. That was what she was. He recognized it. Recognized her.
His cock shifted. Arousal crowded out everything but the memory of his hands on her body. Her response and his overwhelming desire to fill her senses and her mind.
Her. It was her. She’d been responsible. Mackenzie Malone.
“What are you doing here?” he rasped, throat dry from another night of sleeping on his back and breathing through his mouth.
“Came to check in on you.”
His stomach did a lazy, nauseating roll. “I thought we left things pretty clear yesterday.”
“They may have been clear for you, but I still have some things to work out. Besides, I can’t leave now anyway.” She gestured absently toward the window. “Snowed in.”
Ty cleared his throat and half rolled, half flopped to a sitting position. Straining against his neck brace as much as he dared, he lifted his flat stare to hers. “I told you I’d pay you back.”
“You really should know me better than that. I’m not worried about the money.” With cautious steps, she moved to the edge of the bed.
“Then, what is it that has you so worried you’re in my room at—” he looked at the clock “—barely six thirty in the morning?”
“May I sit?”
Before he could deny her request, his erection punched at the single-button fly of his flannel sleep pants. The damn thing would leap into her hands if Ty didn’t keep it quarantined.
She noticed his physical reaction. Her answering smile revealed a single dimple. Years of knowing each other as intimately as they had created another private joke they would laugh over in the future.
There is no future.
Ty struggled to keep from shifting toward Kenzie as the mattress dipped with her slight weight. Their hips brushed. His erection strained toward her.
Eyes crinkling in unabashed amusement, she tipped her chin toward his lap. “I assume New Mexico has strict laws about keeping crotch creatures like that chained for the public’s well-being.”
He barked out a laugh. “Crotch creatures?”
She shrugged. “You have a better name for it?”
“As a matter of fact...” he started.
Kenzie waved him off. “Of course you do. Pretend I didn’t ask.” Twisting her fingers together, she settled her hands in her lap and trained her gaze on them.
The longer she sat like that, Ty wondered if he should prod her to say or do something. After all, she’d come to him. Then she spoke.
“I have a proposition for you.”
Used to be conversations that started like that would have been full of promise.
Now? Not so much. Anger burned through him, its heat far more brilliant than the sun on the pristine snow.
“There’s no point propositioning a broken man, Mackenzie.
And in case you somehow failed to notice, I am broken.
” The words lashed out with enough force they could have—should have—drawn blood.
Her chin snapped up, those fiery eyes blazing. “You aren’t broken.”
He chuffed out a bitter laugh and closed his eyes. Instant anger—just add a dose of disabled cowboy. “Right. Just go, Mackenzie.”
“Don’t know what I was thinking.” She pushed off the bed, nearly toppling him over.
“Go easy there, Sasquatch,” he muttered as he regained his balance.
Halfway to the door, she froze. Her steps were slow, precise and measured as she rounded on him.
“Go. Easy.” She arched a shaped brow with more sarcasm than had likely ever been conveyed by a single facial gesture.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? If I—hell, if everyone—went ‘easy’ on you.
” A wicked smile curled her lips up. “How long are we supposed to dance around you and your fragile psyche, Covington? What’s the timeline here, because it’s already getting old. ”
“What, you need to know how long you should pretend compassion?” The second he said it, he realized he’d pushed her too far.
Kenzie’s eyes narrowed to furious slits.
“Pretend compassion, is that what this is? When have I ever pretended? When have I ever been anything other than sincere with you?” She flinched, a shadow flitting through her gaze.
He started to call her on it, demand an explanation, but she was already moving toward him with a hip-swinging grace any blues singer would have been proud to work.
Closing the distance, she gently pushed him backward on the bed before crawling up his body like the lithe lover she’d once been to him.
She braced one hand on either side of his head and leaned forward until their eyes met.
Heart in his throat, Ty reached up and pulled her hair loose so it cascaded around them. The thick curtain of waves hid them from the world. He tucked a rogue curl behind her ear. “What are you doing, Malone?”
“Making a point.” With extreme gentleness, she slid her jean-clad core up and then down the length of his erection.
He hissed. “Which is?”
Leaning into him, she stopped with less than a breath between them. When she spoke, her lips moved over his. “This doesn’t feel like the body of a broken man.”
He began to breathe heavily, his eyes widening. “I can’t do this.”
She brushed a featherlight kiss over his lips. “At some point you’ve got to get back in the saddle, cowboy. Now’s as good a time as any.”
“Kenzie,” he started, her name little more than a growl. “If this is about Gizmo—”
“Ty, your horse is in the stable. Leave him there.” Slipping forward that last fraction, she claimed his mouth in a soul-stealing kiss.
She lit him up from the inside out. He was the sun to her solar system.
Alive. Feel so alive.
He ran his hands through her hair, reveling at its silky weight.
Fisting his hand in her hair, he canted her head to one side and encouraged her to take the kiss even deeper, to give up some of the control she clearly struggled to maintain.
The need to own the moment swept through him like a Chinook wind, melting the remnants of his heart’s long winter solstice.
For the first time in ages, he was warm.
More than warm. Heat burned through him, chasing away the cold.
In her arms, Tyson Covington was reborn.