Wyoming Winter

He chuckled. Her headlong reaction to him was delicious. He couldn’t remember a time when a woman had appealed to him so much in ways beyond the purely physical. He hated the memory of the call girl who’d shattered his pride and his ego. But that was in the days before he became experienced and sophisticated. That was before he learned to turn the tables, to make women beg for him and then walk away from them.

His pale gray eyes narrowed on Colie’s face. Could he do that to her? Make her beg, make her do anything he liked, and then just walk away? The thought of giving her up was troubling, even at this very early stage in their relationship. Better not to dwell on it. Live for the moment.

He smiled at her. “How’s the fish?” he asked, to relax the tension.

“It’s great,” she said. “I love the French fries, too. They make them fresh. No frozen stuff here.”

“I noticed. I’m partial to a good French fry.”

“I make them for Daddy sometimes. He likes fish and chips.”

“Your father doesn’t like me.”

“It’s not that.” She struggled for words. “He’s protective of me. He always has been. I go to Sunday school and church, I sing in the choir, I teach primary classes in Sunday school.” She gnawed her lower lip. “I guess that sounds painfully conservative to someone like you, who’s traveled and is sophisticated. But around here, it’s pretty much the normal thing. Not everyone is conservative,” she confided. “We have people in our congregation who live together and aren’t married, we have people who do drugs, we have people who have babies out of wedlock, stuff like that. Daddy never judges, he just tries to help.”

His eyes fell to his plate. He wasn’t in the market for a wife. Did she know?

“I know you’re not the settling-down kind, J.C.,” she said out of the blue. “But I like going around with you.”

His eyes lifted. He laughed shortly. “You really do read minds, don’t you?”

She grinned, green eyes twinkling. “I tell fortunes, too, but not where Daddy can hear me,” she whispered. “He thinks it’s witchcraft!”

He grinned back. “My father’s mother could see far,” he said. “She had visions. I suppose a doctor might say she had aura from migraines and was hallucinating, but her visions were pretty accurate. She saw the future.”

“Did she ever tell yours?”

He nodded. He scowled as he finished his meal and lifted the coffee cup with cooling black coffee to chiseled, sensuous lips. “Yes, but it made no real sense.”

“What did she say?”

He put the cup down. “She said that one day I’d want something out of my reach, that I’d make bad decisions and cause a tragedy that would hurt me as much as it hurt the other person. She said that a third person would suffer the most for it.” He paused and then laughed at her puzzled expression. “Sometimes she was vague. I was very young at the time, too. She said that I was too young to understand what she was telling me.” His face hardened. “I lost her at the same time I lost my mother. I lost touch with my grandfather. By the time I was old enough to search for him, he was long dead.”

“I’m really sorry,” she said quietly. “I know how it feels to lose people you love. At least, I still have Daddy and Rod.”

He understood what she wasn’t saying. She was saying that J.C. had nobody. She was right.

His big hand reached for hers and closed over it. “You have a knack for pulling painful memories out of me,” he said quietly. “I’m not sure I like it.”

She felt her heart soaring at the touch of his hand on hers. It was like tiny electric shocks running through her. She loved the way it felt to hold hands. “You don’t let people get close. I’m that way,” she confessed hesitantly. “But we’re different, because I trust people and you don’t. I’m shy, so I keep to myself.”

His thumb smoothed over her soft, damp palm. He studied her quietly. “I enjoy my own company.”

She nodded. “So do I.”

“But I enjoy yours, as well.”

She smiled. She beamed. “Really?”

“Really.” His fingers tightened. “We’ll have to do this again.”

“That would be nice.”

“Dessert?”

“I don’t really like sweets,” she confessed.

He chuckled. “Something else in common. Okay. Movie next.” He picked up the check, pulled out her chair and they left.

* * *

THE MOVIE WAS FUNNY. Colie thought she’d probably have enjoyed it, but her whole body was involved with the feel of J.C.’s arm around her in the back of the theater, in one of the couple seats. His fingers brushed lazily over her throat, her shoulder, down to her rib cage, in light, undemanding brushes that made her heart race, made her body feel swollen and hungry.

His cheek rested on her dark hair while they watched the screen. The theater wasn’t crowded, despite the great reviews the movie had gotten. There was an usher. He went up and down the aisles and left.

“Alone at last,” J.C. teased at her ear, and his lips traveled down her neck to where it joined her shoulder, under the lacy blouse.

She felt just the tip of his tongue there and she shivered. She’d never had such a headlong physical reaction to any man she’d ever known. The boys in her circle of friends were just that: boys. This was an experienced man, and she knew that if he ever turned up the heat, there would be no resisting him.

J.C. knew that, too. It should have pleased him. It didn’t. She wasn’t the sort of woman he was used to these days. She was like his grandmother. His mother. They were conservative, too. Neither of them had ever been unfaithful to their mates. His mother once spoke of being so naive that she hardly knew how to kiss when she married his father. They were women of faith, although his mother had been Catholic and his grandmother a practitioner of her native religion. They were the sort of women who loved their men and had families with them. J.C. didn’t want any part of that.

But he loved the feel of Colie’s soft body beside him. He wanted her, desperately. There were so many reasons why he should just walk away, cut this off now, while there was still time.

Her cheek moved against his hair. He could almost feel her heart beating. Her breath was shallow and quick. She was trembling.

He had to fight the surging need to push her down on the floor and have her right there. It was the first time in his life he’d ever wanted anyone that badly.

Because it shocked him, he drew away a little. He had to slow things down. He needed time to think.

She looked lost when he moved away. He caught her hand in his and held it tight, tight.

She relaxed. It was as if he was comforting her, cooling things down. She appreciated it, because she’d sensed his need. Perhaps he’d been alone too long, she thought, and he was hungry. That disturbed her. She couldn’t do what he wanted, not without some sort of commitment. She couldn’t shame her father in a town so small that gossip ran rampant.

She forced a smile and tried to concentrate on the movie.

* * *

J.C. DROVE HER HOME, still holding her hand. He liked her a lot, but he was getting cold feet. This was going to be a mistake if he let it continue. He should have left her alone. She was getting emotionally involved and he couldn’t afford to. He liked his freedom too much.

He walked her to her door. “It was a pretty good movie.”

“Yes, it was,” she agreed, thinking privately that she couldn’t remember a single scene.

He turned her to him and he was solemn in the porch light. “It’s unwise to start things you can’t finish,” he said after a minute.

Her heart sank, but she understood. He didn’t want involvement. She’d known that. It still hurt.

She forced a smile. “Still, it was nice. Fish and a movie.”

He nodded. He looked troubled. His big hand touched her cheek, felt its warmth, its smooth contours.

“You live in a conservative household,” he began. “You work at a conventional job. I don’t. I like risk...”

She reached up and put her fingers over his mouth. “You don’t have to say it, J.C.,” she said softly. “I understand.”

He caught the fingers and kissed them hungrily. Then he put them away. “You’re a nice woman,” he said after a minute.

“Thanks.”

“It wasn’t a compliment,” he said sardonically.

She laughed.

He drew in a breath and shook his head. She was a puzzle.

He stuck his hands in his coat pockets, to keep from doing what he wanted to do with them. He cocked his head and studied her through narrowed eyes. “What am I thinking?”

“That you’d love to kiss me good-night, but you think I might become addictive, so you’re going to rush out to your truck and go home,” she said simply.

His eyebrows arched. It was so close to the truth that it made him uncomfortable.

She laughed. “Now you’re thinking that I’m a witch,” she mused.

His breath rushed out in a torrent.

“And now you’re shocked,” she continued. “It’s okay. I’m used to it. One of the Kirk boys married a psychic. I’m not nearly in her class, but she said people wouldn’t even come into an office where she worked because they were afraid of her.”

“I’m not afraid of seers,” he replied.

“You’re just uneasy, because it’s one of those spooky things people keep hidden,” she said.

He burst out laughing and shook his head. “My God.”

“I don’t usually talk about it around people. I wouldn’t want my bosses to fire me because clients ran for the hills.”

“It’s a rare gift,” he said after a minute.

“It can be,” she said, but her face clouded.

His eyes narrowed. “You see things you don’t want to see.”

She nodded. “I know when bad things are going to happen to people I love,” she said sadly. “I knew when my grandmother was going to die. She had the gift, too.”

“What did she tell you?”

She shifted her purse in her hands. “She said that my life was going to be a hard one,” she replied. “That I’d make a very bad decision and I’d pay a high price for it. She said that I’d marry, but not for love, and that tragedy would stalk me like a tiger for several years. But that I’d have a happy, full life afterward.”

He was surprised at the commonality in the predictions his grandmother and hers had given for both of them.

“It is odd, isn’t it?” she asked, as if she’d read the thought in his mind. “I mean, that your grandmother would have told you almost what mine told me.”

“Odd,” he agreed.

“On the other hand, maybe they were both just rambling,” she said, and smiled. “Predictions are just that. Predictions. I don’t read the future at all. I just get cold, hollow feelings when something bad’s going to happen. Mostly when it concerns Daddy.”

“I’ve never had that.”

“Lucky you,” she said. She searched his lean face. “You’ve had a hard life, J.C. I don’t even have to know about you. It shows. So much pain...”

“Stop right there,” he interrupted, his jaw taut.

“Overstepped the boundaries, did I?” she asked, and smiled. “Sorry. I just open my mouth and stuff my foot in, all the time.”

That amused him and he laughed.

“It was a nice night out. Thanks,” she said.

He shrugged. “It was nice,” he agreed. “But we’re not doing it again.”

“Of course not,” she agreed, hiding the pain.

“I’m not in the market for a picket fence, no matter how attractive the accessories.”

It took her a minute, but she got it. She laughed. “Okay.”

“You’re quick.”

“Not so much.” She sighed. “It was fun.”

“It was fun. Good night.”

“Good night.”

“Tell Rod I’m still on for the poker game, if he is. He’ll understand,” he added as he turned to leave.

“I’ll tell him.”

He forced himself to walk to the SUV, open the door, get in and crank it. He didn’t look at her. If he had, he knew he wouldn’t be able to leave.

* * *

COLIE WATCHED HIM drive away. He didn’t wave. He didn’t look back. She felt a sense of terrible loss. But he was right. They had no future. Their outlooks were far too different. Still, he needed somebody. He was so alone, so tormented.

She opened the door and went inside. Her father was just coming out of his study. His quick glance showed him that it had been a conventional date, and that nothing had happened. He tried to hide his sense of relief.

“Have fun?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said, grinning. “It was a great movie. We had dinner at the fish place. I love their fries.”

“They’re good,” he said, nodding. He cocked his head. “Going out again?”

She shook her head. “He’s very nice, but he hates picket fences,” she said.

He moved closer. She was putting on a show, and he knew it. She was in pain. “Daughter,” he said gently, “there’s a reason for everything, a plan behind whatever happens to us. You have to let life happen. You can’t force it to be what you’d like it to be.”

She smiled and hugged him. “And we can’t get involved with people who aren’t like us. I know all that. It’s what he said, too.” She closed her eyes. “It still hurts.”

“Of course it does. But pain passes. Everything does, in time.”

“Yes. In time,” she agreed.

* * *

BUT IT DIDN’T PASS. Every time Rod mentioned J.C., Colie felt it like a stab in her heart. She knew that J.C. was totally wrong for her. It didn’t help. She wanted him. Loved him. Hungered for him.

She went to work, came home, cooked and cleaned, read books, went to bed. She got up the next day and did the very same things. But she felt as empty inside as a tennis ball.

* * *

SHE DIDN’T KNOW IT, but J.C. was having the same problem. Every day, he went to work and was haunted by the soft twinkle in a pair of loving green eyes. He was used to women who wanted him. But one who loved him...that was new. It was frightening.

Could he take her and walk away afterward? Could he not take her and live? He agonized over it.

His boss, Ren Colter, noticed his preoccupation while they were inspecting a downed fence on the edge of the property.

“That tree needs to come down,” Ren remarked.

“I’ll tell Willis,” J.C. replied. Willis was the foreman.

“What’s eating you?” Ren asked suddenly, and from the standpoint of the friend he’d been for years. “You’re not yourself.”

“Just a few sleepless nights, that’s all,” J.C. lied.

“Umhmmm. And it wouldn’t have something to do with Colie Thompson...?”

J.C.’s pale gray eyes flashed. “Listen, just because I took her to a movie...!”

“Oh, can it,” Ren said shortly. “You’ve been mooning around here for a week, like a ghost trying to find a place to haunt. I hear she’s doing the same thing.”

“She is?” J.C. asked.

The other man’s expression was like a statement. Ren chuckled. “You have to take the path to see where it leads. Ask yourself, are you happier now?”

“No.”

“Then why don’t you do something about it?”

J.C. clenched his jaw. “Her father’s a minister and I don’t want to get married.”

“You don’t have to propose just because you take her out on dates,” was the reasonable reply. “Do you?”

J.C. sighed. “It will complicate things.”

“Life is too short to avoid complications.”

J.C. studied him. After a minute he laughed shortly. “I guess it is, at that.”

* * *

COLIE WAS JUST getting into her old beat-up pickup truck in the parking lot of the law firm where she worked when a big black SUV pulled into the spot beside her.

She turned and J.C. was getting out of it.

He stopped just in front of her. He looked angry, conflicted, worried. He drew in a breath. “The hell with it,” he said curtly.

“What?” she began.

He pulled her into his arms and bent his head. “We’ll take it one day at a time,” he whispered as his mouth burrowed softly, slowly into hers.

She would have questioned him, but a shock of pleasure ran the length of her body and left her trembling. She reached up and held him, hung on for dear life, while he made a five-course meal of her soft, eager mouth.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS A long time before J.C. lifted his head. The kiss had filled a hollow place inside himself that he hadn’t even known about. Colie’s face was flushed, her pretty bow mouth swollen, her green eyes soft and drowsy with feeling. It puzzled him that she didn’t kiss him back so much as she allowed herself to be kissed. Perhaps, he thought, her other boyfriends hadn’t cared about foreplay. He was used to experienced women who didn’t care much for it, either. They were usually so hungry, so eager, that they just went at it.

He gave one last thought to his suspicions about her, but Rod was a rounder and he was a minister’s son. J.C. figured that Colie was probably as sexually active as her brother, but she put on a good show for her father. She certainly wasn’t protesting.

J.C. had her so close that she could feel how aroused he was. She’d never felt a man like that, but she was a great reader. She knew from her romance novels how men’s bodies changed when they wanted a woman. It thrilled her that J.C. wanted her so much.

She didn’t want to discourage him, but she wasn’t sure how she was going to live with what he was certainly going to want from her. She’d lived a moral life, she’d never put a foot wrong. And yet here was temptation and sin, wearing blue jeans and dying for her.

She sighed. “That was nice.”

“Nice.” He chuckled, looking around as he moved a step back. “Lucky thing that there isn’t much traffic on this side street at this time of the day.” He leaned close. “I was starving.”

“I noticed,” she whispered, and flushed.

He ruffled her hair. “I’ll come get you in an hour. Long enough for you to serve something up for your father and Rod?”

“Oh, yes,” she lied. She’d manage something. There were leftovers that she could reheat. “Where are we going?”

“To Jackson Hole,” he said with a grin. “I’m going to take you to a nightclub. Got a flashy dress?”

Her face fell.

Damn! He’d forgotten. Her father wouldn’t be encouraging that sort of thing. She probably didn’t own an evening gown.

“Change of plan,” he said abruptly. “Wear jeans and we’ll hit a casino over near Lander. I’ll teach you how to play the machines.” He grinned.

She laughed. “I don’t own an evening gown. I guess it showed, huh?”

“We’ll have to do something about that,” he began.

“No, we won’t,” she replied curtly. “I pay my own way. Just in case you were thinking you’d buy me one.”

His eyebrows really arched now. “It’s just a dress...”

“I pay my own way,” she repeated. She had a stubborn look on her face.

He recognized it, because he had one just like it. He chuckled. “Okay, Miss Independence. We’ll do things your way.”

She smiled. “Fair enough. I’ll be ready and waiting.”

She was still flushed. He loved her reaction to him. No coy withdrawal, no teasing; she just went in headfirst when he touched her. It boded well for the future. He had one slight twinge of conscience, but it passed quickly. She was old enough to know the score, and he was certain he wouldn’t be her first man. Why did that disturb him? It was stupid. He’d never been the first man.

“I’ll see you in an hour,” he told her.

“Okay.”

She watched him leave. She got into her old, beat-up truck that guzzled gas and looked at herself in the rearview mirror. She looked...loved. Her breath caught as she relived the hungry, passionate kiss, the first of its kind she’d ever had. She was in love with J.C. And he must feel something for her, because he’d come back when he said he wouldn’t.

She smiled all the way home. She only stopped when she had to tell her father she was going out with J.C. and saw the disappointment and sorrow on his face.

* * *

ROD WAS STILL away when she got ready for her date. She’d fixed a meager supper for her father. She wasn’t hungry. Excitement robbed her of any appetite.

“Where are you going?” her father asked gently as he finished the impromptu meal.

She ground her teeth together. “To Lander,” she said with a forced smile. “It’s over near Jackson Hole...”

“Casinos,” her father said with a deep sigh. He studied her guilty face quietly. “It’s your life, Colie. I won’t interfere. But you’re headed down a path I wouldn’t wish for you. I think you already know that J.C. isn’t a person of faith.”

“I know that. People can change,” she said stubbornly.

“They can. But most don’t,” he said, uncharacteristically negative. He locked his hands around his coffee cup. “Try not to let him influence you in bad ways. You were raised to have principles. Don’t discard them for a man who’ll never marry you.”

“He’s not a bad man,” she began.

“I didn’t say that he was. I’m only saying that he’s used to a very different lifestyle than you are.” His eyes were old and wise as they met hers. “People of faith are very challenged in the modern world. It’s hard to hold on to ideals when so many people live without them.”

“I know that, Daddy. But I’ll still be myself, whatever decisions I make.”

He knew that further argument would be futile. He could see in her eyes that she was already too much in love with J.C. to deny him anything.

He managed a smile. “You’ll always be my daughter, whatever choices you make, and I’ll always love you. I’ll be here when you need me.”

“I know that.” She felt her regrets deeply. She was disappointing him, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted J.C. more than she wanted to go on living. “I love him, Daddy,” she said simply.

“I know that, too.”

“It will be all right,” she said. She only wished that she could believe that.

She fed Big Tom, who rolled around her ankles with such fervor that she laughed, picked him up and kissed him before she left.

* * *

THE CASINO WAS big and noisy. The place was run by the Eastern Shoshone tribe, and it was a huge boon to the economy of the Native people. Located near Lander, and the Wind River Range, the view must have been spectacular. It was dark by the time J.C. and Colie arrived, but the beautiful, colorful glitter of lights out front lessened her disappointment in not getting to see the view.

“It’s so...glittery,” she enthused, holding tight to J.C.’s hand as they walked around the huge room.

“I can see the wheels turning in your head,” he teased. “Sinful gaming! I expect your father had a lot to say about this trip.”

“Enough,” she confided. “But it’s my life. I have to make my own choices.”

He glanced down at her. He did feel a pang of regret. She was so sheltered, in so many ways. She didn’t live in the real world, in his world.

She looked up in time to catch that expression. She wrinkled her nose. “Don’t look so guilty. You’re not leading me astray.”

“Feels that way,” he said softly. He searched her soft green eyes and felt a shock of pleasure all the way down to his toes. He smiled reluctantly. “On the other hand, maybe you’re leading me astray,” he mused. “I don’t like attachments.”

“I’ll never send you an email that has any,” she promised.

He chuckled and pressed her hand tight. “Torment.”

“I brought five dollars,” she said, glancing around. “Let’s see how long it lasts!”

He was privately of the opinion that she’d lose it in the first three minutes, but he only nodded.

* * *

AN HOUR LATER, she was still playing.

“This has to be some sort of record,” he said when the fruits lined up on the screen for her.

“I’m lucky,” she said, distracted. She glanced up at him. “Otherwise, I’d never be here with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re gorgeous, J.C.,” she said softly, and her eyes echoed it. “You could have any woman you wanted, but you’re going around with me.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Everything,” she said miserably. “I’m not pretty.”

He scowled. “Of course you’re pretty,” he said curtly. “You have wonderful qualities. You’re kind and sweet and you never complain, even when you should.”