Rodeo Father

She should tell him to be careful, to check for injuries, but couldn’t find her voice.

His hand brushed a strand of hair from her forehead, the leather soft against her skin. Grasping the tips of his glove with his straight white teeth, he tugged it off, then did the same with the other. Still mesmerized, Rachel stared, swallowed and stared some more.

Again he reached for her hair and ran his fingers through it, massaging her scalp. Rachel almost purred like a cat.

“Soft,” he said. “Calf’s ear.” He wasn’t making sense, but Rachel was too captivated to question him while he touched her with such gentle grace. Her traitorous desire overrode her common sense.

She moaned low in her throat.

He moved his hand to the back of her neck, urging her close to his chest. As pliable as a rag doll, she allowed it. His lips touched hers with velvety moisture and a faint exhalation of coffee-scented breath.

She hadn’t touched a man since Davey. Davey. Her late husband. Her eager, playful lover.

Pull back, Rach. Don’t allow this. Davey is only six months gone. You should—

He deepened the kiss. Taking his time, he caressed her tongue with his. His skill. Oh, his earnest, deep skill. Yes, to his awesome finesse. She’d known it would be like this. Heavenly bliss.

Rapture. Joy.

Need simmered inside her. In the months since Davey’s death, what she had needed most was his touch, his soothing physical support, one last endless night of blazing lovemaking.

A woman should be allowed to say goodbye to her husband. Rachel’s anger wrestled with her guilt and desire.

Fireworks blazed. Buried dreams came to life. This man’s touch, his mouth, soothed away aching, aching grief.

Rachel sighed and lost herself in his kiss, exploring his mouth with her ardent tongue.

She’d never kissed, had never been kissed, so slowly and intently. Her mind went blank and her body limp.

Elizabeth announced her presence with a hard kick to Rachel’s belly.

She pulled back. “Ouch.” She’d been kneeling too long.

“Ouch?” Travis’s voice sounded lost in a sensual fog, echoing how she felt.

“The baby kicked me. I need to stand up.”

“Baby?” Coming out of his daze, his eyes widened.

Horror spread across his features. “Sorry! God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You’ve had a shock,” she managed to bite out, while she really wanted to blurt, Don’t be sorry. I’ve never been kissed like that in my life. I needed it. After all of the turmoil, and the crazy worries about the future, I needed something for me. Purely, selfishly, for just me.

But that was a daydream that required a hasty burial. Just me was not possible these days.

She eased away from him and rubbed her belly to soothe Beth.

“Are you okay?” she asked, striving to pretend she hadn’t been rocked by a stranger’s kiss, that this was nothing out of the ordinary.

“Yeah.” He nodded with a perplexed frown.

Did he understand any better than she what had just happened?

“Should I call an ambulance?”

“No ambulance. No hospital. I’m good.”

The cowboy she’d met a short while ago was gone, replaced by a motorcycle rider. “No head injury? You were out cold.”

“Naw. Not out cold, just winded.”

“But you didn’t move when I was checking you for injuries.”

“No, I didn’t.” His jaw hardened, so briefly she barely caught it. She didn’t have a clue what was going on.

He stood and winced. “This head’s pretty hard. I’ve survived worse. Gonna be bruised tomorrow, though.”

Rachel struggled to get to her feet. Travis rushed to help her. “You shouldn’t be kneeling in your condition.”

In her condition. For a brief moment, she hadn’t been a pregnant woman, but a desirable one. He’d looked past her circumstances to her.

She stared at him. “Are you serious, Travis? I thought you were unconscious. I needed to check you. You could have been badly hurt.”

“I appreciate your concern,” he said, his hands strong beneath her elbows, lifting her as though she weighed no more than a sack of potatoes. “I’ll be stiff the next few days, but that’s all.” He made sure she was steady on her feet, took her hands in his and squeezed before he released her, his rough calluses a jolting return to reality.

She needed reality, needed to get her head back onto her shoulders. So, he hadn’t been knocked out, but maybe he’d been in shock. How else to account for that kiss? He hadn’t known he was kissing her. Maybe he’d thought she was an old girlfriend. Or a current one? After all, she was nothing to him.

His leather jacket had a tear along one arm. Travis could have been killed.

On a dime, those awful memories raced through her again. Davey, Davey, Davey.

Her blood arced and swooped through her arteries. Her pulse skittered worse than on a caffeine high. “You sure you don’t have internal injuries?”

“No injuries. Everything feels fine. Good thing I slowed down to take the turn.”

Rachel reached down to swipe dirt and gravel from her knees. A fine tremor ran through her. Anger overtook the fright he’d given her.

She couldn’t fend off images, thousands of Davey carefree and laughing, and that one horrifying imaginary picture of him broken by the side of the road thanks to his damned obsession with motorcycles. Because of them, he was gone for good, and her children were fatherless. What was it with men and their stupid, dangerous toys? Unfair, Rachel. A motorcycle is just a tool. Davey’s reckless speed had been the real problem.

Common sense held no sway, only anger. “Maybe you should stop riding motorcycles. They’re dangerous.”

At her sharp tone, he shot her a hard look. “Not if you know what you’re doing. Was that your cat that ran out in front of me?”

“No, it was Abigail’s.”

“Who’s Abigail?”

Rachel pointed to the aging Victorian. “That was her house.”