Outlaw Hartes: The Valentine Two-Step / Cassidy Harte And The Comeback Kid

Her glare would have melted plastic. “Neither. I know exactly where I’ve been and where I’m going. I’m very happy with my life and I really don’t care what you think about me, Harte.”

“Good. Then it won’t bother you when I tell you I think about you all the time. Or that I’m overwhelmed that you’d be willing to wade through blood and muck in your best clothes to save one of my horses. Or—” he finished quietly “—when I tell you that I think you’re just about the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen standing in my barn.”

Somewhere in the middle of his speech her jaw sagged open and she stared at him, wide-eyed.

“Close your mouth, Doc,” he murmured wryly.

She snapped it shut with a pop that echoed in the barn, and he gave a resigned sigh, knowing exactly what he was going to do.

He had a minute to think that this was about the stupidest thing he’d ever done, then his lips found hers and he stopped thinking, lost in the slick, warm welcome of her mouth.

For a moment after his mouth captured hers, Ellie could only stand motionless and stare at him, his face a breath away and those long, thick eyelashes shielding his glittering eyes from her view.

Matt Harte was kissing her! She wouldn’t have been more shocked if all the horses in the stable had suddenly reared up and started singing Broadway show tunes as one.

And what a kiss it was. His mouth was hot and spicy, flavored with cinnamon and nutmeg. Pumpkin-pie sweet. He must have snuck a taste in the kitchen when he was cleaning up.

That was the last coherent thought she had before he slowly slid his mouth over hers, carefully, thoroughly, as if he didn’t want to miss a single square inch.

Ellie completely forgot how to breathe. Liquid heat surged to her stomach, pooled there, then rushed through the rest of her body on a raging, storm-swollen river of desire.

Completely focused on his mouth and the incredible things the man knew what to do with it, she wasn’t aware of her hands sliding to his chest until her fingers curled into the soft fabric of his sweater. Through the thick cotton, steel-hard muscles rippled and bunched beneath her hands, and she splayed them, fascinated by the leashed power there.

He groaned and pulled her more tightly against him, and his mouth shifted from leisurely exploring hers to conquering it, to searing his taste and touch on her senses.

His tongue dipped inside, and she welcomed it as his lean, muscular body pressed her against the stall. His heat warmed her, wrapped around and through her from the outside in, and she leaned against him.

How long had it been since she’d been held by a man like this, had hard male arms wrapped around her, snugging her against a broad male chest? Since she’d been made to feel small and feminine and wanted?

It shocked her that she couldn’t remember, that every other kiss seemed to have faded into some distant corner of her mind, leaving only Matt Harte and his mouth and his hands.

Even if she had been able to recall any other kisses, she had a feeling they would pale into nothingness anyway compared to this. She certainly would have remembered something that made her feel as if she were riding a horse on a steep mountain trail with only air between her and heaven, as if the slightest false step would send her tumbling over the edge.

She’d been right.

The thought whispered through her dazed and jumbled mind, and she sighed. She had wondered that day in her office how Matt would go about kissing a woman and now she knew—slowly, carefully, completely absorbed in what he was doing, as if the fate of the entire world hinged on him kissing her exactly right.

Until she didn’t have a thought left in her head except more.

She had no idea how long they stood there locked together. Time slowed to a crawl, then speeded up again in a whirling, mad rush.

She would have stayed there all night, lost in the amazing wonder of his mouth and his hands and his strength amid the rustle of hay and the low murmuring of horses—if she had her way, they would have stayed there until Christmas.

But just as she twisted her arms around the strong, tanned column of his neck to pull him even closer, her subconscious registered a sound that didn’t belong. Girls’ voices and high-pitched laughter outside the barn, then the rusty-hinged squeak of a door opening.

For one second they froze, still tightly entwined together, then Matt jerked away from her, his breathing ragged and harsh, just as both of their daughters rounded the corner of a stall bundled up like Eskimos against the cold.

“Hi.” The girls chirped the word together.

Ellie thought she must have made some sound but she was too busy trying to grab hold of her wildly scrambled thoughts to know what it might have been.

“We came out to see if you might need any help,” Lucy said.

Ellie darted a quick look at Matt and saw that he looked every bit as stunned as she felt, as if he’d just run smack up against one of those wood supports holding the roof in place.

“Is something wrong?” Dylan’s brows furrowed as she studied them closely. “Did…did something happen to the foal?”

She’d forgotten all about Mystic. What kind of a veterinarian was she to completely abandon her duties while she tangled mouths with a man like Matt Harte? She jerked her gaze to the stall and was relieved to find the pregnant mare sleeping, her sides moving slowly and steadily with each breath. In a quick visual check, Ellie could see no outward sign of her earlier distress.

She rubbed her hands down her skirt—filthy beyond redemption, she feared—and forced a smile through the clutter of emotions tumbling through her. “I think she’s going to be okay.”

“And her foal, too?” Lucy asked, features creased with worry.

“And her foal, too.”

Matt cleared his throat, looking at the girls and not at her. “Yeah, the crisis seems to be over, thanks to Doc Webster here.”

“She’s amazing, isn’t she, Dad?” Lucy said. Awe that Ellie knew perfectly well she didn’t deserve in his daughter’s voice and shining in her soft powder-gray eyes.

Finally Matt met her gaze, and Ellie would have given a week’s salary to know what he was thinking. The blasted man could hide his emotions better than a dog burying a soup bone. His features looked carved in granite, all blunt angles and rough planes.

After a few moments of that unnerving scrutiny, he turned to his daughter. “I’m beginning to think so,” he murmured.

Nonplussed by the undercurrents of meaning in his voice, Ellie couldn’t come up with an answer. She flashed him a quick look, and he returned it impassively.

“Are you sure you don’t need our help?” Dylan asked.

She wavered for a moment, suddenly desperate for the buffer they provided between her and Matt. But it was cowardly to use them that way, and she knew it.

“No,” she murmured. “I’d just like to stick around a little longer out here and make sure everything’s all right. Both of you should go on back to the house where you can stay warm.”

“Save us a piece of pie,” Matt commanded.

Lucy grinned at her father. “Which kind? I think there are about ten different pies in there.”

He appeared to give the matter serious thought, then smiled at her. “How about one of each?”

“Sure.” She snickered. “And then I’ll bring in a wheelbarrow to cart you around in since you’ll be too full to move.”

“Deal. Go on, then. It’s chilly out here.”

Dylan sent her mother another long, searching look, and Ellie pasted on what she hoped was a reassuring smile for her daughter. “It was sweet of you both to come out and check on Mystic, but what she really needs now is quiet and rest.”

“Okay.”

“But—” Lucy began, then her voice faltered as Dylan sent her a meaningful look.

“Come on. Let’s go back inside,” she said, in that funny voice she’d been using lately. She grabbed Lucy’s arm and urged her toward the door, leaving Ellie alone with Matt and the memory of the kiss that had left her feeling as if the whole world had just gone crazy.