The Courting Cowboy Read online

  So what was she doing sitting in her car in front of the Sky Canyon Ranch homestead on Thanksgiving eve with a suitcase in the backseat?

  Taking chances. The answer was obvious. She was taking a big chance with a near total stranger whom she might be falling in love with. But then, didn’t all people start out as strangers? With only a powerful, irresistible attraction to pull them together and make them something more?

  Of course they did. And if the truth were known, her attraction to Ty Garrett was very powerful and irresistible. He confused her, but she wanted him. With his kisses he had awakened needs in her she’d never known existed.

  Would it be so terrible if just once in her life she did something the way other people did? If just once in her life she let nature take its course? Both her father and Charles had always emphasized the rare opportunities she’d been given, to travel, to study, to be in the hallowed company of themselves—to always be the youngest person in a fifty-mile radius, to be sheltered from sophomoric conceits, whims, and fancies, to never have to put up with silly adolescents her own age. It had been a mixed bargain at best. Would it be so terrible if just once she did something normal, if she just once gave herself a chance with a man her own age?

  Probably not.

  So here she was, trembling with excitement and nerves, about to embark upon a four-day expedition the likes of which she’d never known. There wouldn’t be any ancient awe-inspiring buildings, no documents steeped in historical arcana, no quizzes afterward. There would be only Ty Garrett, his son, and the matchmaker, Lacey. There would be only Ty, and his kisses, and the way he made her feel. High adventure. Her first trip into the uncharted waters of the human heart. Her stomach knotted in anticipation.

  Taking a deep breath, she forced herself out of the car, telling herself she was being ridiculous. Uncharted waters, indeed. As a mere child she’d crossed the Rub‘ al Khali, the Empty Quarter, on camelback. Before her fifteenth birthday she’d navigated portions of the Nile, the Amazon, the Mississippi, and the Yangtze. Good Lord, at seventeen she’d survived three back-to-back excruciatingly proper months at Lady Blackwood’s School for Young Women. Four days with Ty Garrett could hardly compare to all that.

  Could it?

  * * *

  If her first evening was any indication, Victoria knew she had sorely underestimated the thrills and excitement possible with the men of the Sky Canyon Ranch. They’d taken a ride before supper and watched the sunset gild the amber cliffs of the escarpment on the north end of the Garrett land. They’d spooked a golden eagle off its kill on the way back home and had watched with wonder and amazement as the huge bird had spread its wings and lifted off into the darkening prairie sky.

  Dinner had been the promised steaks, though Victoria would have sworn hers was actually a roast. She had left most of it on the serving platter and suggested they use it for sandwiches for the next few days, or possibly the next few weeks. Ty had laughed and proceeded to eat not only his huge chunk of all-American beef, but hers as well. She was duly impressed, as she was with the pudding he served for dessert.

  “Corey made it,” Ty said with a note of pride in his voice. “It’s real cooked pudding too, not that wet-and-shake stuff.”

  Victoria wasn’t sure what wet-and-shake pudding was, but she was grateful Corey had advanced to the cooked kind. “It’s very good, very chocolaty.”

  “I put extra in,” Corey said. “The pudding comes in a box, but then I put in chocolate chips while it’s cooking, a whole bunch, and I add a little extra milk, and then I stir it real well. It’s kind of like a scientific experiment. Sometimes I get too many chips in, and sometimes too much milk, but we always eat it, no matter what it looks like.”

  “You could make a chart,” Victoria suggested. “If you measured the chips and the milk and kept track of your measurements, you could eventually get perfect pudding every time. I could even give you extra credit at school.”

  “Hey, neat. Maybe we can make some more tomorrow and start our measuring.”

  “Certainly,” Victoria said, and wondered if after four days of eating with the Garrett men, all of her clothes would fit as snugly as her Chinese dress.

  “Corey, it’s your night to do dishes, son.” Ty pushed away from the table and reached out for Victoria’s hand. “I’m going to take Miss Willoughby out to watch the sunset.”

  Corey’s smile slipped off his face and he gave his father a distressed look. “The sun’s already down, Dad.” Behind the words were disappointment that his father could have made such an embarrassing blunder in front of the divine Miss Willoughby, his science teacher, a woman who knew all about sunsets and stars and planets, a woman who was bound to notice that the sun was already down.

  Ty read the message in his son’s eyes loud and clear. It was a constant source of amazement to him, Corey’s lack of faith in his ability to woo and win Miss Willoughby.

  “I’m sure we’ll find something to look at while you do the dishes. You just stay hard at it, and when you’re done you can put in one of those movies we brought home.” He didn’t know what else to say to reassure his son that he had everything firmly in hand. Probably nothing short of a wedding ring would do the trick.

  He guided Victoria out onto the porch after bundling her into one of his jackets, a fleece-lined blue corduroy coat. He had deliberately avoided her brown coat, having decided it must have belonged to Charles’s Aunt Sarah.

  The night sky was black and soft above them, filled with thousands of stars and a large, bright moon. Off to the west, the lights of Talbot emitted a hazy glow against the horizon.

  “Your place is beautiful,” Victoria said when they reached the end of the porch and stood looking out over the prairie grasses and the Sky Canyon outbuildings.

  “The ranch is a little rundown in places, but we’re trying to keep it up and improve it.” He moved closer behind her and pointed over her shoulder. “See those two sheds over there on the right?”

  She nodded.

  “Next year Corey and I are going to tear them down and use the lumber to add on to the barn. We’ve already decided to use some of the money out of our next calf crop to get a tin roof, and by the year after we’re going to paint the whole shebang, barn and house. Corey is in charge of picking the color. He wants something besides what he calls flaky white. Can’t say as I blame him, though I’m not sure about the pumpkin color he’s been looking at.”

  “Pumpkin is a—a nice, homey color,” Victoria said haltingly, very aware of his breath blowing against her ear. The man turned her mind to mush. All she could think about was him kissing her. It could happen at any moment.

  “I’m all for homey,” he said after a long silence, his arm coming around her shoulders and giving her a squeeze.

  Victoria couldn’t help herself. She responded by looking up at him. After a moment of meeting his eyes he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her—just the way she’d known he would. Moving into his arms, she welcomed his touch, amazed at how easily she’d become accustomed to his kisses and to being held by him. Every time they were close seemed more natural than the last, as if she’d finally found the one place she belonged—in Ty Garrett’s arms. The thought was foolishly sentimental and romantic, not at all worthy of a scientist, especially a Willoughby scientist. But his mouth made her believe in things she never would have considered before.

  Ty wanted only to kiss her. He didn’t want things getting out of hand. He didn’t want to push her for more than she was willing to give. Since she’d come to stay for the weekend, he was supremely confident of making her his. Whatever it took, sooner or later she would be his.

  Victoria knew she would be his too. She’d known when she’d first decided to come, and she’d known every step and mile of the way to his house. But she didn’t know how, or when, or where, other than she was pretty sure the actual physical act couldn’t take place on a person’s front porch. She was safe for the moment to enjoy herself.

  Or so s
he thought until his hand slid beneath her coat, and she melted deeper into his arms. Suddenly anything seemed possible. He kissed her longingly, molding her to his body until she felt every hard plane and angle. It was incredible, the heat and hardness of him, the overwhelming strength and gentleness. His touch was reverent, but thoroughly skilled in finding the peaks of her breasts and arousing her.

  She gasped and clung to him, and Ty cursed himself for starting something it was impossible to continue to a satisfying conclusion, not on his front porch with his son inside and the temperature dropping. So he teased her instead, not wanting her to forget how easily they struck flame out of tinder. He unbuttoned her blouse beneath the coat and unclasped her bra. All the while he kept kissing her, long, drugging kisses meant to teach her the rhythm of lovemaking. He played with her breasts and stroked her with his tongue until it dawned on him that she wanted him, really wanted him.

  A slow, coiling tension wound through his body with the knowledge, bringing him to full arousal. She wasn’t just kissing him anymore. The soft sounds she made in his mouth and the ripening of her body beneath his hands were more than signals. They were surrender.

  He murmured her name and held her close, resting his cheek on her wild curls. He breathed deep to slow down the pounding of his heart even as the ache in his loins grew.

  She was leaning into him for support, her hand clenched around the lapels of his coat, her breathing quick and shallow. Without meaning to, he lowered his head and kissed her again, and then again. Her mouth rose eagerly to his, and all he could think was that he couldn’t possibly make love to her on the porch, and that there was no way to go inside to his bedroom or the guest room, not with Corey home. But he had to do something.

  He broke the kiss and took her hand, heading for the barn. “Come on, honey.”

  He wasn’t the only cowboy who knew how to make love in a barn, but he doubted if the thought had ever crossed Victoria Miranda Elizabeth Willoughby’s mind. No matter. He wasn’t giving her time enough to think about it. He just got her there, closed the door, and pulled her back into his arms.

  Her first kiss was hot and sweet and willing, all the encouragement he needed to open the blue corduroy jacket and slide his palms over her breasts. The soft fullness of her in his hands was a sweetness beyond belief. He opened his mouth wider to deepen the kiss.

  Victoria was drowning in sensation. She hadn’t know what to expect with his kiss, but she hadn’t expected this, to be taken by storm. His hands were everywhere, unfastening clothing and baring skin, then doing wonderful, startling things to the skin he uncovered. His mouth was on her breasts and her belly, and through it all he told her how beautiful she was, how much he wanted her.

  She was trying desperately to maintain some sense of decorum, but it was impossible with her clothes falling off. Every time she tried for a bit of modesty, he did something to make modesty seem like madness. It was so much better, so very much better to let him touch and pleasure and shock her.

  There was nothing furtive about Ty’s lovemaking. He was bold and sure, and his caressing touch between her thighs made her sizzle and melt and want more. She pressed herself against his hand and wished only that she was naked so she could feel him better. In the next moment her wish was granted.

  Ty had felt her response and the need behind it. He shrugged out of his coat and spread it on top of the bales of hay in the corner. Drawing her back to him, he began unbuckling the dainty leather belt holding up her gray slacks. Light from the full moon spilled through the one window in the barn and spread over her skin in a shimmer of silver.

  “I feel like I’ve waited forever for you.” He unbuttoned the top of her pants and kissed the corner of her mouth.

  “It’s been only two, no . . . maybe three weeks at the most, I’m sure. I’m pretty sure.” Her voice was breathless and doubtful.

  He lifted his head and looked at her. Her eyes were full of wariness and anticipation, a veritable war of conflicting emotions. He stopped himself from lowering her zipper and instead began tugging his shirttail out of his jeans. With little effort he snapped the shirt open from bottom to top.

  “Making love with someone the first time can be a little awkward,” he said, working his buckle free.

  “Yes,” she whispered, her gaze carefully holding his.

  “Basically, it’s one of those really simple and incredibly complicated things.” He began unfastening his jeans.

  “I see,” she said, though she most certainly did not. Her voice was the barest of whispers and her eyes widened without ever leaving his.

  “I’ve thought of about a hundred different ways I’d like to do it with you.” With graceful ease he lifted each of his feet and pulled off his boots.

  “Oh.” It was the absolute most she could come up with as commentary.

  “And one of the things I’ve thought about most is you touching me.”

  Not even a hushed “oh” could get past that astounding confession. She had a better than vague idea of what he meant, and it took everything she had not to lower her gaze and look her fill before doing what he asked.

  “Come on, Victoria.” He took a step closer and shucked his jeans. “Please.” His whisper ended on her lips as he took her hand in his and placed it on his chest. “It’s been a long time, and I want you so very badly.”

  Slowly their hands slid together down the satiny skin and hard muscle of his chest and belly until she closed her fingers around him and realized with utter certainty that she had gotten much more than she bargained for.

  “Oh,” she said softly. “Oh, my.”

  Suddenly much of her research and reading finally made sense. Ty Garrett was different, much different, from Charles. To begin with, he was sturdier, much sturdier, which she supposed would make possible any number of things she had once considered quite unlikely. But holding Ty made her appreciate for the first time the absolute correctness of the term “thrust,” a word she had seriously used only in conjunction with rocketry. It certainly hadn’t been apparent in her sex life with Charles.

  There were other differences too, most notably size and temperature. Ty’s whole body radiated heat, and the part of him she held was no exception.

  “Oh, my,” she whispered again in wonderment, unconsciously stroking him, measuring him, and in turn becoming intensely aroused. Touching him made her pleasure double back upon itself.

  Ty was way past the “oh, my” stage. Her open blouse and coat were draped to the sides of her breasts, where they pressed against his chest. Unable to resist, he lowered his head and opened his mouth over her, sucking as he unfastened her slacks and shoved them over her hips to the floor.

  He pushed her back on the makeshift bed of hay bales and coats, mesmerized by the growing boldness of her caresses, needing to press against her, to be inside her. When he did slip inside, she sighed his name and urged him onward, surprising him with the soft welcome of her body. She was made to be loved by him, and he loved her well, slowly and sweetly bringing her to climax so he could fill himself with her pleasure. His own release came in the midst of hers, melding them together and banishing all the lonely nights and unshared seasons.

  * * *

  “Are you cold?” he asked a few minutes later, still holding her in his arms, still pressing gentle kisses on her face. He stroked her hair back with the palm of his hand and kissed her mouth.

  “A little,” Her voice was shy, but her hands were bold in exploring the warm expanse of his chest. “That’s the most incredible thing that ever happened to me. I didn’t know making love could be so—so totally involving.”

  He kissed her again. “Can I come to your room later, after Corey is asleep?” He hadn’t gotten enough of her, not nearly enough.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  The rest of the evening was very proper, with the two of them watching with Corey the movie he’d chosen, an adventure saga crossing the galaxy and mixing up lives. The two of them were polite but distant
, sitting on opposite ends of the couch. For her part, Victoria didn’t trust herself to get within two feet of Ty without having to touch him. Even at three feet she was afraid she’d find a way to brush up against him somehow. Once brushed up close, she’d find a way to linger, and once lingering, find a way to caress, and so on, until she’d proved herself to be a total wanton.

  It sounded wonderful.

  She slanted him a look from across the couch, over the bowl of popcorn and yesterday’s paper, and found him watching her with exactly the same ideas going through his mind. He checked his watch. She checked hers—and they waited through impending doom and certain disaster, through startling revelations and amazing stunts, until the quest was fulfilled, the planets were saved, and justice had been served. It had taken forever.

  “I think it’s time to hit the sack, son,” Ty said to Corey. “We’re going to have a big day tomorrow, getting all the chores done and helping Lacey.”

  “Sure, Dad,” Corey said without a hint of protest, pushing himself out of the chair he’d been lounging in in every direction. “Can I get you guys some more popcorn?”

  “No. We’ll be fine.”

  “How about sodas? We’ve got plenty in the fridge.”

  “Victoria?” Ty asked, turning to her to see if she needed another soda.

  “No, I’m fine,” she assured both of them. Ty turned back to his son and shrugged. “I guess we’re okay.”

  Corey didn’t look convinced, but he was backing out of the room. “Well, just so you know you guys don’t have to go to bed just because I am.”

  Victoria blushed and turned to Ty. Ty held his own and kept looking at his son.

  “Maybe we’ll watch another movie,” he said. “Miss Willoughby doesn’t have a VCR at home, so there’s a lot she hasn’t seen.”