Her Bull Rider's Baby Read online

  “Could you go talk to Beau?” she asked.

  He’d nodded, then listened patiently to all her instructions for the bull barns. After her third reminder about a delivery that was supposed to come, he’d held up a hand and asked, “Do you want your laptop?”

  Her laptop would be awesome. But would working on it violate the bed rest decree? “Can I have it?”

  “I don’t see why not, as long as you stay on the couch. And you can send more instructions to Beau and me by e-mail.” He’d given a brief smile. “That should be fun for you.”

  Her heart had twisted at his smile. And at his general attitude. He wasn’t commanding her, he wasn’t throwing his weight around—he was trying to make this as pleasant as possible for her.

  This was the Adriano she loved. Bittersweet to get that Adriano this last week together.

  “Bed rest?” Bea’s voice snapped her thoughts back to their conversation. “Who’s taking care of you?”

  “It’s only for a week, just as a precaution.” Which didn’t really answer Bea’s question. “Adriano is here.”

  “Ooooh.” Bea knew the whole sordid tale. “Are you okay with that? I can cancel my trip.”

  “Things are… fine.” Except for how sad Adriano looked. And how quiet he was. And how she wanted to touch him but didn’t dare. “He’s bringing me my laptop.”

  “Wow. That’s better than roses.” For once Bea didn’t sound as if she were dryly tweaking her cousin. Bea probably did think a laptop was better than roses.

  “Don’t cancel your trip for me.” Although it was sweet of Bea. “What are you going there to get again?”

  “I finally got a permit to harvest some nightshade penstemon. It only grows on the east side of the San Jacintos at a very specific elevation.”

  “The government gave you permission to kill an endangered plant?”

  “Not all of it. And it’s for science.”

  Lil smiled at Bea’s exasperated tone. She was so easy to rile. “Who’s this dude Luke found to guide you?”

  “Uh, some firefighter he’s friends with.” Bea sounded more interested in the plants than the man. “Russell Cheng.”

  “Oh, I know him. Nice guy. Kind of goofy.”

  She could almost hear the needle scratch in Bea’s brain. “Goofy? What do you mean by goofy?” Bea didn’t do goofy. Or silly. Or even fun, really. She’d brought home some sullen assholes at times.

  “I mean he looks exactly like Goofy. Even played him at Disneyland one summer.” She bit her lip to keep from laughing.

  “Very funny, Liliana.” Back to the exasperated tone. “Speaking of goofy.”

  “No, he really is nice,” Lil assured her. “He’ll take good care of you. He leads backpacking trips every weekend out there.”

  The back door opened, sending Rufio scrambling over the back of the couch to bark at whoever was there.

  Adriano, with her laptop. Her skin pulled tight with electric awareness. But she was excited to get some work done, not to see him.

  “That’s Adriano now,” she told Bea. “Have fun on your camping trip. Don’t get lost in the woods or kidnapped by hippies.”

  “It’s a wilderness area. No one’s going to be there. Except for me and Fireman Goofy.”

  Lil laughed. “Love you, coz. Take care.”

  “Love you too. Take care of yourself. And of that baby.”

  Lil ended the call and stared at the phone wistfully for a moment. Bea really was an awesome cousin. She hoped this backpacking trip wasn’t too much for Bea’s carefully cultivated type A personality.

  Adriano came in, her precious laptop cradled in his hands. Such long, strong fingers.

  Stop that.

  He handed it over. “No getting off the couch, remember.” More orders. She’d actually kind of missed it. “I’ll talk to Beau and be back in an hour.”

  “You can stay longer if you want.” She carefully studied his reaction, even as she kept her tone casual. “To help Beau.” He wouldn’t want to sit around on the couch with her all day. He wasn’t built for that any more than she was.

  His eyes went dark. “I’m here to help you.”

  A shiver ran across her skin at the low, rough words. Almost as if he was saying much, much more than that.

  But he was back out the door before she could puzzle it out.

  A week later, Lil was on the phone with Dr. Young. “My blood pressure looks great. And it has all week. Can I get off bed rest now?” She sounded like a kid begging for a Popsicle, but she was so, so sick of the couch.

  And being in such close quarters with Adriano… Torment. Purest torment. She had to get away from him before her heart cracked any further.

  “Hmm. It could stand to go a bit lower,” Dr. Young said.

  Lower? Any lower and Lil would be dead. “Uhh…”

  “Can Adriano stay on a little longer to care for you? Another week of bed rest wouldn’t hurt. Remember, we want what’s best for the baby.”

  How was she supposed to argue with that? “Let me ask him.”

  She moved the phone away from her mouth, her heart beginning to pound. He was right next to her on the couch, listening to her side of the conversation attentively. “Can you stay longer? I know you wanted to get back home.”

  She kept her voice casual, just a friend asking another friend for a favor. They’d been friends this week, friends without benefits, even though it was miserable. At least for her.

  He’d seemed perfectly content with it. And he actually hadn’t said he wanted to go back to Mato Grosso do Sul right away, but where else would he go until next year’s tour? Of course he wanted to return home. He talked to his mom at least twice a day, and she was sick, and… and he’d always been firm on that. He was leaving here someday. Someday soon.

  Her heart sounded loud in her ears as she waited for his reply, her mouth going dry.

  “I can stay.” He didn’t sound regretful or annoyed—only steady. He might agree to anything she asked of him with that even tone, happy to do whatever she requested.

  She let out a shaky breath. She shouldn’t want him to stay so badly, not when she knew he wanted to leave, not when it meant more bed rest for her—but she still did all the same. “He can stay,” she told the doctor, relief putting a wobble in her voice.

  “Great!” Wow, Dr. Young sounded really happy about it. “I’ll talk to you in a week then. Keep resting!”

  Lil put down the phone. Another week. Another week on the couch, of being just friends with the man she loved… She blew out a breath. This was how it would be when the baby came. She should get used to it now.

  And she still hadn’t called the lawyer.

  “Thanks,” she said weakly, staring at her phone.

  “No problem.” As if she’d asked him to pick something up at the store for her or an equally bland chore. “If the doctor says you need the rest…” Worry shaded his tone there. “Then it really is best for the baby.”

  Best for the baby of course. But not her heart.

  A week after that, Lil was canning peaches. Her early trees were finishing up and the late ones were starting, so they were awash in peaches. Adriano ate one at least every hour—she ate two, one for her and one for the baby—but even with that and grilled peaches and peach pie, they still had too many.

  She and Adriano had agreed in the middle of the second week, with her blood pressure holding steady at a pretty low reading, that bed rest could be interpreted more as house rest. She hadn’t fought for more; he hadn’t fought to keep her on the couch. An easy agreement, which made it all the more painful.

  She didn’t leave the house. Adriano did all the chores—taking care of the goats and the chickens and the garden and the orchard—and also went down to the bull barns for a few hours each day to help Beau and report back to her.

  They didn’t share a bed—he’d made no move to touch her unnecessarily, not even once—but they shared everything else. They’d fallen into an idyll of domesticity
, living in quiet contentment. It was nice… but she missed their fire. Of course, fire got a person burned.

  And it would end, no matter how nice it was.

  And she still hadn’t called the lawyer.

  She sighed as she set the lid on the pot. No sense wishing for more heartache. Their present situation held more than enough for her.

  He watched her closely as she put the lid on, no doubt in case he had to save her from the stove at some point. But he was smiling. “When do they pop?” he asked.

  “Once they’re cooling on the counter. You’ve got to be patient.” She set the oven timer. “Come December, when we’re only dreaming of fresh peaches, we can have these.”

  His smile dimmed.

  Damn. He wouldn’t be here in December. Which raised the sticky question of how they were going to split holidays. She pushed that away. She was supposed to be stress free right now.

  “I’m going to check my e-mail,” she told him. “You can stay here and wait for the timer if you want.”

  He shook his head and followed her into the living room. He settled next to her on the couch, then laid his arm behind her.

  She froze in the middle of entering her password. He hadn’t touched her once. Hadn’t even made her think he wanted to touch her.

  It had hurt along with everything else, knowing that his attraction to her was gone. Only, maybe it wasn’t. He didn’t usually sit like that on the couch. And he was closer to her than he’d been… in forever.

  Don’t think about it. Don’t expect anything. It will only hurt worse if you expect things.

  She finished entering her password. And opened the first message with dread.

  Bob Stanton. If he wanted to scold her again…

  Only he didn’t.

  She leaned toward Adriano, tapped him on the belly. God, it was firm. “Look at this. Bob changed his mind. He thought about what I said, and he’s decided to sell me those cows.” She smiled at the laptop. Huh. Apparently it had been a good idea to be conciliatory with him. Not that she still wasn’t pissed about what Bob had said—but at least she was getting her cows from him.

  Finally, a victory. A small one, but she’d take it. Maybe a bigger one was on the way. She still hadn’t heard back from the rodeo committee.

  “That’s great. Compromise works, huh?” His arm slipped down the back of the couch a hair. But didn’t land on her.

  She scrolled through the rest of her messages, aware of how close he was. Aware of how he wasn’t touching her. She ached with it, her skin crackling with the urge to touch him, if only accidentally.

  Why didn’t he do something? Did he even know he was tormenting her?

  She decided to be daring. She used to be daring with him, before she’d lost her heart to him.

  She scooted down, set her head on his thigh, resettled her laptop onto her belly. It made a good table now.

  She peeped up at him. His lips were slightly parted, his gaze hooded. “Do you want to watch some videos with me?” As if she lay like this every day with him. “The Birmington ranch just put a bunch of their latest bulls out.”

  “Sure.” But it felt like he was agreeing to something else. Something more intimate, judging by the darkening of his eyes.

  She called up the videos, started the first one. Halfway through the second video, he set his hand on her hair. Not on her scalp, only on her hair. Then he began to stroke the strands as they lay across his thigh. Gentle, soothing strokes that lulled her into a half-asleep state. The video played on, but neither of them was watching.

  She watched him through half-closed eyes as he kept on with his gentle caresses. His breathing was slow and deep, as if he were as hypnotized by this as she was.

  Then ding, ding, ding from the kitchen.

  She smiled up at him, feeling sleepily content. “They’re done.”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he lowered his head and kissed her, soft and slow. Like they’d never really kissed before. No heat, although it was warm, no passion, although it was intimate. It wasn’t a kiss that would lead them to sweaty wrestling on the couch—the kiss itself was both the journey and the destination.

  It was delicious and agonizing all at once. Delicious because he was touching her again after all this time. Agonizing because she loved him and this kiss felt like… like love. And for all his care and concern the past few weeks, she wasn’t certain that he loved her. Not like she did him.

  After several long moments, he lifted his head. His gaze was intent, heavy, emotion pooled in his golden eyes. He wanted to tell her something.

  She waited, breath still. Maybe…

  But he only said, “Let’s check the peaches. I want to hear the pop.”

  She let him help her off the couch, pushed her disappointment away, held the tears deep in her throat. Don’t expect anything.

  It was good that she didn’t—or at least tried not to—because he didn’t touch her again.

  Three weeks in and her blood pressure was still fine. And Dr. Young said she still needed to be on modified bed rest. But they’d “discuss” it at tomorrow’s appointment.

  Lil didn’t even know what was going on anymore with the doctor—was her blood pressure something to worry about or not? And she certainly didn’t know what was going on with Adriano.

  At the moment, they were cleaning up after dinner, working together in quiet harmony. Luke was gone again—he was up to something, but she wasn’t sure what—so it was only her and Adriano. As it had been for the past three weeks.

  But tomorrow, if the doctor lifted her bed rest, Adriano could be gone. Would be gone. He’d said nothing about staying. It hurt to think of him gone, the two of them only meeting to hand off Gabriela, but it was more than time to pull this Band-Aid off.

  She set the last plate in the dishwasher and cheerily said, “If Dr. Young says I can come off bed rest tomorrow, you can head back home. Visit your mom, see how she’s doing.” She said it like it was the best thing in the world—for both of them. “I know you miss it. And her.”

  Surprising that even though all of her ached to say that, she managed to keep the pain out of her voice.

  He placed a pan in the drying rack with deliberation, his expression shuttered. “I do miss Brazil. It will be nice to visit.” Visit. That was an interesting choice. “I haven’t been back in years, you know.”

  She swallowed hard as she shut the dishwasher. She hadn’t known that. She wasn’t planning on asking him to stay, but after hearing that, she knew she absolutely couldn’t.

  But she’d known that all along, hadn’t she?

  “Well, now you can have a nice long visit. Until the tour starts up again. Or I guess until the baby’s born.” Her voice caught on that, on the agony of having to see him again, but not being with him. She curled her fingers around the counter, held on for dear life. It was that or grab for him one last time.

  “Lil.” A rough, needy scrape as he pulled her hands from the counter. And then he was kissing her, all raw want and bitter desire.

  She kissed him back just the same, fire igniting along her veins. If this was how they’d say good-bye, she’d take it. After all, this was how they’d said hello, way back in Vegas.

  He’d be leaving soon. Perhaps not tomorrow, but he would, in the end. Taking her heart, and perhaps even their baby.

  She anchored his face between her hands, devoured his mouth, because if this was the last scrap of him she could have, she’d snatch as much as she could.

  He unbuttoned his jeans with sharp, urgent movements, never giving up her mouth. He spun her around, pressed her against the counter, careful of her belly. A quick flip of her skirt, a tug at her panties, still not fast enough—it would never be fast enough for her—and then he was inside her.

  The counter was cold and smooth beneath her palms, her neck twisted so that she might see him, and his cock was hard and urgent as he thrust inside.

  This was how she loved it between them—fast, fierce, the pleasure
building to a razor-sharp peak in seconds.

  His mouth rubbed along her neck, stubble scraping, lips caressing, and soft phrases of Portuguese pouring into her ears. He was pleading with her, begging for something, but she didn’t know those words—he hadn’t taught them to her. So she couldn’t answer.

  Instead, she pressed back against him, asking for more, telling him he could take what he needed. And, in the process, give her what she needed.

  She heard the smack of his hand coming against the counter, his taut arm pressing hard against her side as he braced himself. His free hand slipped around, found her clit and teased it. Oh Jesus. In this position, with him still muttering against her neck—she was going to come hard and soon.

  He shifted his stance, hoisted her onto his thighs, her heels leaving the floor as his fingers kept working her clit, his cock moving deep within her. A few thrusts like that, held so precariously but so tightly by him, and she was done. The climax was sharp and sustained, almost painful in its shattering.

  And it would be the last time.

  One last thrust, a final plea that she still couldn’t understand, and he came inside her, warmth and wetness beginning to slide down her thigh.

  The tears slipped from her eyes then to fall to the counter beneath her face. Adriano breathed hard on her neck as he set her carefully back down, his cock leaving her as he did.

  The tears came harder until she was fighting for air.

  He turned her around and held her as she sobbed, his hand rubbing slow circles on her back. And she wept and wept, this farewell breaking her open, her grief spilling out.

  This wasn’t good-bye to him. She’d see him again.

  This was good-bye to them.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  They sat in the truck in the parking lot of the doctor’s office, neither speaking.

  Adriano curled his hands around the steering wheel but didn’t start the engine. He knew he needed to, but once he did, he’d start the journey home. The journey away from her.

  She was gorgeous today, not that she ever wasn’t, her eyes bright, her skin glowing, her body rounded with pregnancy.