Big Sky Summer Part 18

Casey whirled slowly for his benefit, like a runway model showing off the latest fas.h.i.+on, fairly exuding irony.

Walker frowned. "Whose shorts are those?" he asked.

Suddenly, Casey's green eyes twinkled and, though she was still careful to keep her distance, she actually smiled. "Jealous?" she retorted.

"Hardly," Walker replied, still frowning. Whoever had owned them was a scrawny dude, obviously.

"They used to be Shane's," Casey generously informed him, all in her own good time. "He decided they were geeky and gave them a toss."

Relieved to learn that the boxers hadn't been left behind by some lover of Casey's, scrawny or not, and willing to die before he'd let on that he'd been the least bit worried, Walker smirked a little. "I'm with Shane," he said. "They're definitely geeky."

"Get used to it," Casey replied, saucy as all get-out. "I have half a dozen other pairs and I always sleep in one of them."

Walker locked his gaze with hers and tossed back the covers on her side of the bed with a smooth motion of one arm. "There are some things a man can't be expected to get used to," he answered, grinning now. "And sleeping with somebody in boxers definitely falls into that category."

Casey hesitated, then hotfooted it over to the bed and jumped in beside him. Most likely, Walker thought, she was afraid somebody was hiding outside in the shrubbery with a camera, ready to record her wedding-night attire for posterity.

Fortunately, none of the windows lined up with the bed-he'd made double-sure of that earlier. Besides, the blinds were all pulled.

She huddled on her side of the mattress, sheets and lightweight blankets drawn up almost to her chin. Her eyes were huge.

Walker became exasperated. "Will you please stop acting like a scared virgin?" he asked, tossing aside one of the two pillows he'd been propped up on and lying down flat. "It's only been about a week, in case you've forgotten, since the last time you were in this bed, clawing at my back with your fingernails and begging for more."

Color washed up from her neck to her cheekbones to her forehead. Her temper was rising, which, as far as Walker was concerned, was a good sign. He'd been starting to think she really was afraid of him.

"I hope you bought better-quality condoms since then," she said. Then, after a regretful pause, "Not that we're going to need any of those."

Walker rolled onto his side, propped his head on one elbow and regarded her steadily. "You're right about one thing, Mrs. Parrish," he said, in a low rumble. "We're not going to need condoms."

Again, her eyes widened. "What do you mean by that?" she asked.

As if she didn't know.

"I mean," Walker murmured, his mouth very close to hers now, "that that particular horse is not only already out of the barn, but halfway across the county by now. And you and I have never had much luck with condoms anyway, have we?"

She blinked. "You're not planning on kissing me, are you?" she asked.

"I'm planning on doing one h.e.l.l of a lot more than that," Walker replied. "But if you want me to stop at any time, all you have to do is say so."

Her mouth opened, and her throat worked, but no sound came out.

Walker chuckled, covered her mouth with his and, at the same time, hauled those boxer shorts down over her knees and then her ankles.

With a groan, the kiss having turned into a sparring match between their two tongues by then, Casey kicked free of the boxers and wrapped her arms around Walker's neck.

He dealt with the T-s.h.i.+rt next, pus.h.i.+ng it up until not only her silky belly but her luscious b.r.e.a.s.t.s were bared to him, felt a soaring triumph when she broke the kiss just long enough to pull the garment off over her head and hurl it away. An instant later, she was burying her fingers in his hair, initiating the next kiss herself, her perfect body already inviting him into her depths.

There was no foreplay that first time, because neither one of them could wait that long. Their bodies, in full mutiny, remembered the glorious fire of their last encounter viscerally, at the cellular level, and would not be denied the fusing they craved so fiercely.

Casey spread her legs wide, and Walker positioned himself between them, found the velvety entrance to all the heaven he needed at the moment and took her in a single thrust of his hips.

She crooned and arched her back as she received him, and she gasped his name. Again, their mouths sought and found each other, and their tongues did sweet battle, and Walker deliberately slowed his pace.

It wasn't easy, especially with Casey doing everything she could to drive him over the edge, but Walker called on every ounce of self-control he possessed, determined to make this ecstasy last.

Casey's hips flew, and she was warm and soft, everywhere, inside and out. Her palms roamed over his back, his shoulders, his b.u.t.tocks, urging, taunting, claiming.

Walker nearly lost his mind, but he didn't surrender.

Slowly-very slowly-he moved, sheathing and unsheathing himself in Casey, breathing her name, pausing now and then to nibble at an earlobe or suckle one of her hard and waiting nipples.

She grew more and more desperate, whimpering and writhing, gasping out his name in ragged bursts.

When at last she began to climax, he knew it by her cries and the way she tightened around him, seized him, held him captive inside her. With one last thrust and a low, raspy shout of nearly unbearable pleasure, Walker let go.

It seemed like forever before their mutual releases finally subsided and they collapsed onto the mattress, landing hard, like a pair of skydivers whose parachutes had failed to open.

Because bolting out of bed on a surge of moral regret was Casey's usual M.O., Walker was ready for it. He pinned her beneath him, gently clasping her wrists and pressing them into the pillow on either side of her head.

"Say it," he challenged, getting hard again, letting her feel him pressing against her thigh. "Say no."

Casey made a sighing sound instead, closing her eyes.

I love you, Casey Elder, Walker thought with soul-sundering clarity, but he knew better than to say those words out loud. She'd either throw them back in his face or pretend she hadn't heard, and there was no telling which of those reactions would have hurt more.

They remained as they were for long moments, skin on skin, breath on breath, heartbeat on heartbeat, savoring those things, neither of them moving a muscle.

Walker, having admitted the truth, if only to himself, might have seemed still, but inside he was busy grappling with wild surges of emotion. He'd probably loved Casey from the instant he laid eyes on her, but the realization had taken a long time to surface, like a seed planted too deep in the ground.

Presently, she opened her eyes again, and they shone like molten emeralds, casting the kind of spell that lasts forever.

Did she know what she was doing to him?

Walker doubted it. There was a certain confounding innocence, a sort of reckless navete, about the woman-fame, fortune and two children born out of wedlock notwithstanding. She was part firebrand and part angel, and he liked her that way.

Casey might be infuriating at times, but she was never dull. There was too much rip-roaring, pepper-and-vinegar, go-for-broke life in her.

They searched each other's eyes, and Walker finally ground out a rusty "Well?"

She smiled a little, nodded, welcomed him inside her.

WALKER SLEPT SOUNDLY, like the thoroughly satisfied man he was, and Casey, sitting up in bed, watched him, loving the way a lock of his hair fell across his forehead, loving the sweep of his unfairly thick eyelashes, the rise and fall of his muscular chest. She rested her palm over his heart, lightly, so she wouldn't wake him, and delighted in the smattering of silken furriness.

I love you, Walker Parrish, she vowed silently.

When had she fallen for him, exactly?

Hard to tell. Maybe it was that first night, when they met in a run-down cowboy bar after a rodeo held on the back acre of nowhere, and slow-danced to the jukebox. The next day, with her heart wedged into her throat and her eyes scalding with inexplicable tears, she watched him ride a bull named Say Your Prayers.

Watched him win.

When the weekend was over, they'd parted ways-Casey had some bookings coming up, and he was headed back to Montana-but running into each other became something of a habit in the months to come.

They'd taken their time becoming lovers-Casey, while not a virgin, was inexperienced, and Walker-well, suffice it to say, he'd had a reputation for knowing his way around a woman's body-but when it finally happened, in a motel room in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the skies split open and the angels sang. At least, that's how it was for Casey.

She'd been astounded by the things Walker made her feel, taking her outside herself the way he did, curling her toes with a simple kiss, causing her heart to take wing and soar, like some great bird glorying in its wildness.

And she'd been terrified. Friends warned her that Walker Parrish was the love-'em-and-leave-'em type, and she could believe it. Women swarmed around him, in bars, behind the chutes at the rodeo, even in parking lots.

Still, their paths continued to cross-Casey couldn't deny that she'd booked herself and the band at as many rodeos as possible-and each time they made love, she became more determined to guard her heart. And each time, that was harder to do.

Then Clare was conceived. Casey's career was just starting to take off by then-she was opening for some of the biggest acts in country music, and she'd just signed a recording contract. To say that pregnancy was inconvenient would have been the understatement of the modern era, and Casey knew the advice she was receiving-put the baby up for adoption-made sense, from a practical standpoint.

But her heart wouldn't hear of it.

Word had gotten back to Walker, and he'd shown up at the stage door one night, determined and bristly.

And she'd lied to him, having convinced herself that she couldn't have done otherwise, swearing that another man had fathered her child.

Walker hadn't believed her at first, but she'd kept on insisting, and, finally, she'd seen something fracture behind his eyes.

Watching him walk away was one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do, and she'd had to fight to keep herself from calling him back, telling him the truth, letting fate take over from there.

Now, she thought, with a bittersweet pang crowding her throat, things had come full circle. She was married to Walker, for better or for worse. They didn't get along any better than they ever had, except when they were having s.e.x, and what were they supposed to do the other twenty-some hours of the day?

On top of that, she'd bet her first guitar that she was pregnant-for the third time. Which only went to show that some people never learned their lesson.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

CASEY SAT AT THE KITCHEN TABLE, her feet tucked behind the rung of her wooden chair, studying a dog-eared cookbook she'd found in a drawer, its margins crowded with handwritten comments from way back, judging by the faded ink and formal penmans.h.i.+p. There were also sticky notes jutting out from many of the pages, different, more recent observations, written in a loopy scrawl and plentiful as the feathers in a bird's wing.

The finer points of food preparation still eluded her. What did it mean, for instance, to "braise" a cut of beef? What happened when a batch of fudge "sugared"?

She eyed her smartphone, the source of easy answers-run a quick search and the mysteries of braising and sugaring would be revealed, she figured.

Too bad about the hard answers, though, replies to questions like How do I love Walker Parrish without losing myself in him completely? and Besides Casey Elder, superstar, who am I? Is there more to me than my singing voice?

The landline rang then, startling her out of her musings.

Since Walker was outside, conferring with his foreman, Al Pickens, Casey got up, crossed to the nearby counter and picked up the cordless receiver. Still distracted, she practically croaked, "h.e.l.lo?"

"Good," a female voice said on a sigh. "It's you."

"Who is this?" Casey asked, frowning, back to the cookbook again, riffling through it, determined to find a recipe she could conceivably follow well enough to make something Walker might actually eat.

Unlike last night's effort at spaghetti, which wound up as one big clump of half-done noodle-substance and would have had to be cut into slices, if served in the first place, instead of spooned out in lovely, steaming dollops.

"It's Brylee," came the answer, patient but a little breathless. "Your sister-in-law?"

"Oh," Casey said, closing the cookbook, which was roughly the size of a cla.s.sroom dictionary. Now that she was tracking the conversation, her first question was, as always, "Are the kids okay?"

"So far," Brylee said, causing a little trapdoor to swing open in the pit of Casey's stomach, one she might just fall through if she didn't hold on. "We're at the supermarket in Parable, and we're surrounded."

"By what?" Casey asked, nerves jangling like a pocket full of small change.

"By reporters," Brylee answered, almost in a whisper. "There are all these-these people out in the parking lot, with cameras and microphones. Even vans with satellite dishes on top. Evidently, they've been keeping out of sight, waiting for us to come out of your house, so they could follow us. They keep calling out Clare and Shane's names, and the manager locked the doors, but he's worried about keeping customers out, too. And in, of course. It's like being under siege."

Casey paced, too agitated to sit or even stand still in one place. She strode over to the back door, opened it and yelled, "Walker!"

"Oww," Brylee complained, probably wincing and holding her cell away from her ear.

"Sorry," Casey threw out.

Walker immediately broke off the discussion he'd been having with Al and several of the ranch hands, looking worried, and hurried in her direction.

"Stay put," Casey said to Brylee. "Tell the manager not to open those doors until Walker and I get there-"

"Wait," Brylee broke in, calmer now. "The manager just called the sheriff's office-Boone Taylor is on his way over here right now, with a couple of deputies for backup. He'll get us to the ranch okay, so there's nothing to fret about."

Nothing to fret about. Casey fought down a swell of exasperation; this was no time to lecture Brylee on mob psychology.

Walker burst in from the porch just then, almost tearing the screen door off its hinges in the process. His face was stony with concern, his eyes narrowed. "What is it?" he demanded, shuffling to one side so he wouldn't step on Doolittle, squeezing past him through the slim gap.

"Put Clare on for a moment, will you, Brylee?" Casey asked, and mouthed Stay calm at Walker while she waited to hear her daughter's voice.

"Mom," Clare said, moments later, a note of panic in her voice. "The tabloids came out early-special editions, evidently-and we're all over them, you and Walker and Shane and me. The headlines-they're all about us being your guilty secrets, and they're calling you a liar-"

"Clare," Casey broke in, "never mind the headlines for now. We can talk about all of that later, when you and Shane are back here, with us, where you belong."

Walker was glowering by then. He looked like an old-time gunslinger facing a showdown and more than ready to draw and fire. "I don't read lips," he informed Casey in a scratchy whisper.

Casey waved her hand, tried to ignore him. Not easy, since he seemed to fill that kitchen from wall to wall and ceiling to floor, he was so-present.

"Do we, Mom?" Clare's voice was small, shaky. She was used to living in the limelight, but this latest development was clearly getting to her. "Do we belong anyplace, Shane and me? What's real and what isn't?"

Those questions pierced Casey like the tip of a poisoned spear. "Listen to me, sweetheart. Boone-Sheriff Taylor-will be there any minute. He'll bring you home and we'll deal with the situation then, when we're all together."

"Okay," Clare whispered uncertainly.

Once, she'd believed Casey would keep her and her brother safe, no matter what. Now, her faith had been shaken, maybe toppled, and little wonder. She'd been lied to, by her own mother, repeatedly.