Hidden Away, page 9
part #2 of Hearts of Montana Series
She was so beautiful. He almost couldn’t stand it.
Leaning down, he softly kissed her, his lips grazing hers. She moaned against his mouth, and sensation rippled through his body.
She tasted the same. Kissing her lips felt like coming home.
He ran his fingers lightly down the sides of her arms and grinned at the gooseflesh that pebbled her skin.
The rain beat against the window, the drops falling harder now.
Cherry’s teasing bravado was gone. Her eyes were now vulnerable and full of desire.
He held her gaze as he knelt before her, then closed his eyes as he rested his cheek against her bare stomach. He heard her slight intake of breath as he laid a soft kiss on the spot right below her belly button.
Starting at her ankles, he ran his hands up the insides of her legs, slowly, caressing her skin as he moved closer to her center. Sliding his fingers under the elastic band of her panties, he slowly drew them down her legs, leaving her wearing only her bra.
And that seemed like still too much. He needed to see her. All of her.
He rose and skimmed his hand along her waist and around to her back.
Dipping his head, he kissed the soft tops of her breasts as they pushed up above the lace cups of her bra.
He found the clasp and released the hooks. He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath as he slid his fingers under the straps and slowly, torturously pulled the straps down her arms and let her bra fall to the floor.
He took a step back, releasing his breath, and just looked at her.
She stood naked before him, and he knew by the look in her eyes that she was baring more than her body to him.
“You are more beautiful than I ever could have dreamed.”
Her face broke into a shy smile, and the feelings tinkering around inside of his heart multiplied by ten.
All he wanted to do was make her smile.
Well…and also make her moan. And gasp. And make her claw at the bedsheets as she cried out his name.
She raised her arms and wrapped them around his neck, her flirtatious smile back. Nipping at his neck, she ran her tongue along his throat.
Okay, forget that earlier thought. She could make him moan.
Her breath was warm against her ear. “It seems to me that now you have entirely too many clothes on.”
He couldn’t agree more. He took a step back and stripped off his clothes. He wore a chain around his neck, a small gold key dangling from its center. Pulling off the chain, he bent to unlock his bedside drawer and pulled it open.
His holstered sidearm lay inside the drawer next to a pile of bullets and a box of foil-wrapped condoms. He grinned over at her. “I keep all my protection in this drawer.”
She laughed and pushed him onto the bed. Climbing on top of him, she straddled his waist, pressing her hands against his chest. “Do you think you need protection against me?”
A streak of lightning lit the room, silhouetting her naked body in a flash of blue light. Her hair was a wild mess of curls around her shoulders and her breasts hung free, full and ripe.
She looked like a goddess, sitting on top of him, and everything in him ached with need. With a fierce desire to kiss, to touch, to taste every part of her.
Yes. He was definitely going to need protection.
And although he intended to take advantage of several of those gold packets of protection, there was nothing in that drawer that could protect the actual part of him that he worried was in the most danger.
His heart.
Chapter Ten
Cherry rolled over and hit solid muscle.
Bright morning sunlight poured into the bedroom, and she gazed at Taylor’s face. His eyes were closed, and his breath still held the steady rise and fall of sleep.
He was so damn handsome. He’d always had the most gorgeous thick eyelashes. It wasn’t fair how great his eyelashes were.
She’d always thought that saying about a guy having a chiseled chin was ridiculous. But really, that was the only way to describe Taylor Johnson. His entire face looked like it could have been chiseled out of the finest marble.
A light layer of stubble covered his cheeks, giving him a rugged look, and she wanted to reach out and run her fingers along the short blond whiskers.
She wanted to just lie like this. To watch him sleep and soak in his beautiful face. Memorize every new feature. Every nuance that the last nine years had given to his appearance.
He had a little scar on the left side of his chin that she didn’t remember. She’d have to ask him about that. Hear the story of how that happened.
There were so many things that had happened in the last decade.
They had lived completely separate lives from each other.
She wanted to hear everything. Every story. She wanted to get to know him again. To learn everything about him.
Before he was gone.
Before this fake engagement and this perfect little pretend life came to an end. Because this couldn’t last. This would eventually have to end.
And she would have to go back to her real life. A life without Taylor. And this lovely soft bed.
And that amazing thing that he did with his tongue last night.
“What’s that grin all about?” Taylor’s eyes were open, and he smirked at her as if he knew exactly which part of the previous night she was replaying in her head.
She smiled back, already feeling the heat of a blush creeping up her neck. “Um, I was just thinking about that thing, last night, you know, when you did that—”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I know exactly what thing you’re talking about.” He ran his fingers lightly down her bare arm, sending delicious shivers up her spine.
Before they’d fallen asleep the night before, she’d put the dreaded MSU shirt on after all and a pair of Taylor’s drawstring gym shorts. They were too big, but she didn’t want to have to worry about being covered up if Sam had another nightmare and she had to run into his room again.
“Taylor. Cherry. Get up. I need your help.” Sam burst through the bedroom door and jumped on their bed.
Cherry sat up, her eyes searching his small body for injuries or blood. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
Sam tried to catch his breath. “It’s not me, I’m fine. It’s Rex.”
“Who’s Rex?”
“My dog. I named him after my favorite dinosaur.” He slid off the bed, grabbing her arm and pulling at her. “Come on. He got into the cow pen, and I can’t get him to come out. Those cows are too big, and Taylor told me to stay out of the corrals.”
Taylor was out of bed and pulling on a T-shirt. “It’s okay, Sam. The cows won’t hurt the dog.” He stuffed his feet into the pair of sneakers lying on the floor at the end of the bed.
“They might step on him.” Sam was already at the bedroom door, waiting impatiently as Cherry slipped on her flip-flops. “Come on.”
They followed Sam outside and across the driveway.
Sure enough, the dog was racing around the cow pen, barking and trying to herd the cows. Where he was trying to herd them to was a mystery.
The rain the night before had turned the pen into a muddy mess, and the dog kicked up little flecks of mud as he ran.
Taylor stood at the fence and whistled. “Here, boy. Come ’ere, Rex.”
The dog completely ignored him.
“What should we do? He’s gonna get trampled.” The alarm in Sam’s voice was almost heartbreaking.
Taylor chuckled as he crawled between the fence railings. “I guess we’re gonna get muddy.” His foot made a squishy sound as his tennis shoe sunk into the thick mud. He crossed the corral and shooed the cows back.
They looked at him with boredom in their eyes, but some of them lumbered toward the other side of the fence.
“Come here, pup.” Taylor held out his arms and tried to cajole the dog to him.
Rex obviously thought he had a new playmate and raced back and forth across the corral at top speed.
“He’s coming your way. Grab him,” Taylor called out.
Now that most of the big heifers were across the corral, Sam seemed less afraid and followed Taylor’s lead as he climbed through the bars of the fence.
“Be careful,” Cherry said. She stepped up to the fence, trying to sidestep the majority of the mud.
The little dog raced toward Sam, barking playfully and having a great old doggy time. He stopped a few feet in front of the boy and flattened his chest on the ground, declaring Sam his alpha dog, but also challenging him to a chase.
Sam moved sluggishly through the mud, trying to reach the dog.
Rex ran around behind him and stopped in front of her, his pink tongue lolling out the corner of his mouth.
She stuck her head through the bars and reached for the dog. Rex took that moment to do a full body shake, flinging flecks of black mud across her face, hands, and chest.
“Aahhh. Gross.” She looked down at her mud-flecked chest then up at Taylor and Sam who wore matching grins. She narrowed her eyes at Taylor. “What are you laughing at? These are your clothes.”
He chuckled. “They’ll wash. And that color of mud looks good on you.”
Everything looked good on him. Even wearing mud up to his shins, he still looked hot.
She kicked off her flip-flops and crawled through the fence. Thick, cold mud squished up between her toes and she grimaced. “Ewww.”
Sam’s eyes were wide with surprise, like he couldn’t believe she’d just stepped into the muddy pen.
She smiled at him. “What? I was already muddy.” She clapped her hands. “Now let’s catch that silly dog.”
Sam laughed. A wonderful, free laugh filled with joy.
He raced across the pen, chasing the dog. Rex barked and sprinted between the three of them, running circles around them and eluding their attempts at capture.
He circled close, and she thought she had him. She reached forward, but the dog slipped through her arms, and she lost her balance. Tumbling forward, her arms pin-wheeling, she fell face-first into the mud.
She could hear Taylor’s gleeful whoops of laughter and Sam’s uncontrollable giggles.
“I think I hurt myself,” she said, waving Taylor over. “Can you help me up?”
Taylor’s laughter died as he rushed across the pen to her side. He reached out his hand. “Are you okay? What did you hurt?”
“My pride.” She grabbed his outstretched hand and pulled him down into the mud.
“No, you didn’t,” Taylor said, his teeth extra white against his muddy face. He grabbed her around the middle and pulled her onto his lap then tipped them both into the mud.
Sam shrieked in delight and ran forward, jumping onto the dog pile.
The actual dog ran in excited circles.
The next few minutes turned into a frenzied mud fight, the three of them laughing and flinging handfuls of mud at each other as they ducked and dodged and tried to crawl away.
She felt hunks of mud stuck to her hair. Any other day, she would be mortified. But today, she couldn’t be happier. She was having the time of her life.
And so was Sam. It was so good to hear him laugh and see him play. It was worth every smear of mud on her body, including the glob she could feel in her ear.
Blissfully happy, she laughed as she grabbed a handful of muck and threw it at Taylor.
The sound of a car engine had them all looking up as a brand new black Chevy Denali drove down the ranch’s driveway.
Oh. Shit.
Not just oh shit. But HOLY shit.
Cherry recognized the car right away.
It belonged to her cousin Reed, and her heart sank at the thought of getting caught sitting in the mud in front of her cousin.
The car came to a stop, and all of her happy feelings deflated like air from a balloon.
Her day had been going so well.
She hadn’t seen or heard from the Hill family since the funeral the weekend before. They had all sat together in the long front pew of the church. Sam had looked so small, his legs swinging from the pew as he sat between her and Taylor. The words of the minister had seemed faint and far away as Cherry’s mind raced with memories of her cousin.
The ladies from Stacy and Greg’s congregation had put together a potluck in the basement of the church, and Cherry’d suffered through hugs and tearful words of sympathy as she waited for the day to be over. All she’d wanted to do was go home and sleep.
But she had Sam to take care of now so she’d soldiered through the day, leaning on Taylor for support. And he had been a rock. He’d never left her or Sam’s side. Sam had been so precious, quietly sitting through the service. He’d fallen asleep right after, and against her great aunt’s wishes, she’d had Russ take him back to the ranch. She didn’t care if it made them mad, they were always mad at her for something anyway.
She’d put all of her focus on getting through the day and getting home to the ranch. To the place that made Sam happy. And her, too. At least until this moment.
The back door of the Denali opened. Her Great Aunt Bea emerged, and her day went from bad to worse.
“What in tarnation is going on here?” her aunt asked as she pressed her cane to the ground.
Cherry gave Taylor a panicked look.
They scrambled out of the mud and slogged to the fence railing, their previous joy gone, replaced by a feeling of dread.
She could tell that even Sam and the dog felt the shift.
The boy quietly followed Taylor as they crawled back through the fence, and the dog stuck close to Sam’s heels.
Reed and Olivia had emerged from the big SUV, and the three Hill family members were standing in a row, all wearing matching expressions of disdain.
They were all dressed in their Sunday best, and Cherry had a sinking feeling they had just come from church.
Due to the diner’s long hours, she didn’t always make it to church every Sunday, but she and Stan tried to work out a schedule where they could take turns. With the fire and everything happening with Sam, she hadn’t even realized it was Sunday.
And evidently, this had not been the Sunday to skip.
Olivia wore a crème-colored designer dress and had her arms crossed across her chest. Clad in her standard black old lady dress, Aunt Bea’s sour face looked like she’d just tasted something bad.
“We thought we would just stop by on our way home from church today,” Olivia said, raising a hand to pat down her perfectly coifed hair.
Stop by? Yeah, since Taylor’s ranch was just a mere hour and a half out of their way.
“Yes, we spent our morning worshipping in the Lord’s house.” Aunt Bea nodded her head at their muddy bodies. “It doesn’t look you all made it to church this morning.”
“We’re going tonight,” Taylor said without missing a beat. “The evening service is more contemporary, and we’d thought Sam would enjoy it more.”
Oh my gosh. She could have kissed Taylor Johnson right on the mouth.
Oh wait, she had, last night. Several times.
And also on the… Well, now probably wasn’t the best time to be thinking about that. Not with her pious aunt currently peering down her morally supreme nose at her.
As if he were a Supreme Court Judge, Reed stepped forward and glanced down at Cherry with a barely-disguised look of scorn. “We just came out to make sure Sam was doing okay and to check on the state of the environment that he was living in.”
“They have these things called telephones. You could have called first.”
A sneering smirk covered his face. “I’m glad we didn’t. This way we got to see Sam in his natural environment.”
Natural environment? What was he talking about? “He’s a child, Reed, not an animal at the zoo.”
“You could have fooled me.” Bea said, her voice full of contempt. “It looks like animals were exactly how you were behaving. Just look at yourselves.”
Cherry looked down. Thick smears of mud covered her bare legs, and chunks of mud stuck to her clothes. Bits of hay dotted the dark mud, and she could feel a glob of the muck hardening across her cheek, like a redneck facial treatment.
If the state of Sam and Taylor were any indication, then she must have looked terribly filthy, too. Sam’s blond hair stuck up in mud-filled spikes, and Taylor’s arms were covered in the brown gunk.
In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a good idea for Sam’s cast to get that muddy. That was going to be a booger to clean.
“Look, we were trying to catch the dog, and we got carried away. We were just having some fun.” The explanation sounded weak even to her ears.
Most people would look at the rag-tag muddy group and bust out laughing. But not the Hills. And not when they were looking for ammunition to take Sam away from her.
“Well, I guess we got the information we came for,” Reed said and turned toward the car.
A flicker of hope blossomed in Cherry’s chest. Maybe this would be okay. Maybe they would see that she was making Sam happy. “You’re leaving?”
“Of course we are.” Olivia stepped forward. “And we’re taking Sam with us.” She reached out for Sam’s arm but looked like she couldn’t quite figure out where to grab.
“No. I don’t want to go with you.” Sam shrunk against Taylor’s leg.
“Listen here, young man, you’ll come with us now, and I don’t want to hear anything else about it.” Bea leaned forward, her eyes set in a hardened glare.
She reminded Cherry of the wicked old crones in so many fairy tales. Except she didn’t have a poisoned apple or a cauldron of brew. But for all Cherry knew, she would make Sam do all the housework and would lock him in a dungeon at night.
She couldn’t let that happen. They were not going to take Sam away. “He’s not going with you.”
Aunt Bea turned her menacing gaze toward her. “Don’t smart talk me, missy. This was all a mistake in the first place. Stacy never should have set you up as the guardian. You can’t even take care of yourself.”
Reed held out his hand. “Come on, Sam.”
The boy held on to Taylor’s leg. “No, I don’t want to go.”
“I’m not asking.”
