Spring at Saddle Run Page 24

  Joe needed the feed and large animal medical supplies, but he wished the driver, Donny Betterton, had come an hour earlier or later. Of course, Donny wanted to chat while he unloaded the supplies at a sloth-like pace. Joe pitched in, dragging off feed bags and dropping them into the barn before going back for more. It took nearly a half hour to get everything off the truck. Joe dashed off his signature on the invoice but then had to listen to a couple more minutes of small talk with Donny.

  By the time Joe hurried back inside, he was plenty sweaty and should have headed straight for the shower, but he stopped when he heard Dara talking to Millie. He was pretty sure they were just up the hall in her bedroom.

  “So, you think you and Dad will get married?” his daughter asked.

  Judging from the sound he heard next, Millie had gotten choked on her own breath. Joe had the opposite problem. His breath had gotten jammed up in his lungs and he couldn’t speak.

  “Things aren’t that serious between me and your dad,” Millie finally said. “We’re really just sort of seeing each other.”

  “You’re making him happy,” Dara concluded. “That seems serious to me.”

  No choking sound from Millie this time, but Joe figured she was mentally doing some hemming and hawing. It also occurred to him that he’d overheard more conversations in the two months since the Last Ride Society drawing than he had in his entire life.

  “Your dad and I are taking things slow,” Millie explained. “We could date for a while and then decide things aren’t going to work out between us. I don’t want you to be hurt or disappointed if that happens.”

  “Okay,” Dara said after a long pause, and she said it in such a way that Joe was certain she would indeed be hurt or disappointed when things ended with Millie.

  “And if your dad and I stop seeing each other,” Millie went on, “that doesn’t mean you and I will have to stop. We can still go on shopping trips and still talk if that’s what you want. I’ll be here for you if you ever want or need me to be.”

  It was the right thing to say, and it obviously pleased Dara, because when Joe stepped in the doorway of his daughter’s bedroom, Millie and Dara were hugging it out while they sat on the foot of her bed. The hugging stopped though when they spotted him, and Dara practically sprang to her feet.

  “I’ll get that snack now,” she said, obviously hurrying out to give Millie and him some alone time. Perhaps so he could propose marriage.

  Or kiss her.

  Actually, the kissing wasn’t a bad idea. Especially now that he knew Millie fully expected this—whatever this was—to come to an end.

  Smiling at him, Millie stood and went to him. She trailed a very provocative finger down the front of his shirt. “You’re sweaty. I like that,” she added when he started to step back from her.

  She leaned in and kissed him.

  Joe kissed her right back, and then he got that kick of heat. Both familiar now and unfamiliar, too. Familiar because it was a taste that he now knew well and had started to crave. But there was a new sensation, too. A new slide of heat that seemed to go one notch over the ache he had for her in his groin.

  Joe decided not to think about that right now. Especially since Millie had those other things to tell him.

  “What else did you find in Royce’s office?” he asked.

  The question caused her dreamy, aroused look to fade, and that caused him to curse. He made a mental note to put some money in his swear jar and hoped that Millie hadn’t been trying to soft-pedal it when she’d told him earlier that what she’d found wasn’t bad.

  “Apparently, Royce commissioned Ella to do the portrait of him,” she explained. “I’m still not sure how he knew to get in touch with her about doing that, but it could be because of the paintings I bought for the shop.”

  In other words, the painting wasn’t proof of an affair. “Why wouldn’t Ella have just told me that?”

  Millie shrugged. “I was hoping you’d have a theory or two about that.”

  Going with the “non-affair” angle, Joe couldn’t come up with much, and it felt like grabbing at straws. “Maybe Ella thought I wouldn’t approve of her painting Royce. Or people like him. You know, rich, snobby.”

  He winced a little because he thought Millie might be offended by that. The rich applied to her. Not the snobby though. But she only nodded.

  “Yes, that could be it, and that could explain why she wouldn’t have told you if she was a cousin match with Royce.” She smiled, latching on to that straw as if it were a lifeline.

  “And as for why Royce wouldn’t have told me,” Millie went on, “it probably wouldn’t have occurred to him that it was something I’d want to know. In hindsight, we didn’t have a lot of conversation that didn’t revolve around his job, redecorating the house or us joking about the constant flow of dinner parties and such my mom was hosting.”

  She stopped, sighed and absently trailed her finger down the front of his shirt again. “The sweat is drying,” she remarked.

  “And will soon stink to high heaven. I need a shower, but I want to hear the rest of what you have to say first. There’s more, right?”

  Millie nodded and blew out a long breath. “Another hindsight—I don’t think Royce and I had a lot of meaningful conversations. The exception, however, leads me in a roundabout way to something else I wanted to tell you. The whole time Royce and I were married, I tried to get pregnant, but it never happened.”

  Everything inside Joe went still. Hell, was Millie about to tell him he’d gotten her pregnant? It’d only been a little over two weeks since they’d had sex, and they’d used a condom but maybe—

  “No,” she said, laughing. “I’m not pregnant. God, your face. You’ve gone pale.”

  Joe ignored her laughter, her comment on his paleness, and focused on the middle part of what she’d said. “I’m not pregnant.” That was such a relief that he kissed her, and the relief must have shown through in the kiss because she laughed again.

  “I mentioned my fertility issues,” she continued, “because I wanted you to know I bought a lot of pregnancy tests over the years. Word of that probably got back to Frankie because she asked me to buy her a test when she thought she might be pregnant. I don’t think it’s the first time, either. I believe she’s had other scares.”

  Joe mentally plowed through all that information, easier to do now that the blood had stopped rushing to his head. “She thought she might be pregnant with Tanner’s baby,” he concluded.

  Millie nodded. “And by telling you this, I’ve breached a very important female-to-female confidence and given you far more TMI than you’ve probably ever wanted about me or your sister.”

  Oh, yeah. The mother lode of TMI, but Joe thought he saw the little nugget of info in there that Millie was trying to pass along to him.

  “You believe Frankie asked Ella to buy her a pregnancy test,” Joe said.

  This time, Millie’s sigh had some relief in it. “I think it’s a strong possibility. I haven’t talked to Frankie about it, but I was thinking you might be able to work it into a conversation with her.”

  “A TMI conversation,” he mumbled, causing her to laugh.

  She smiled, patted his arm. “I have to go. I’ll see you in a couple of hours,” she said. “I want to see if I can work you up into another sweat.”

  And Millie got started on that sweating by dragging him to her for a long, promising kiss.

  * * *

  MILLIE FROWNED AT the Roaring Twenties porn in the upstairs room of her shop. Normally, looking at the weird contraptions and grainy naked pictures amused her. Perhaps added a smidge or two of titillation as well, but glancing through the porn offerings for the period left her with a “been there, done that” feeling.

  Of course, when Joe showed up for their date in twenty minutes or so, he’d probably still get a kick out of the numerou
s pictures of groups of women revealing their secret places for the camera. But she wanted more than a kick. She wanted a punch, something that would make him feel as incredible as she had when they’d had sex. The problem was, she’d never actually been sexually adventurous.

  But that was about to change.

  Joe had made it clear what they were doing together wouldn’t last, that he wanted it to be just temporary sex. She got that and was fine with it. Well, fine-ish, anyway, but he might be more inclined to stretch out the temporary sex if she kept him on his toes, sexually speaking.

  Millie caught a glimpse of herself in an art deco mirror rimmed with painted erect penises. Ignoring the penises, she studied her dress. Sexy enough, she supposed. It was snug and red, and she’d planned on slipping on a pair of heels before Joe arrived, but she was pretty sure she could make a better statement.

  Or a more direct one.

  Millie peeled off the dress. Her underwear, too. Then, she glanced around the room for props she could use. The dominatrix-looking corset with the metal tassels would almost certainly hurt like the dickens so she went with a feather boa that she wrapped around her neck. She pulled on a pair of black garters, but switched them out when she saw these, too, had penises on them and opted for ones with sparkles. No way would she shimmy into any of the antique underwear, which all appeared to be size zero, so Millie went with letting the boa dangle from the front of her midsection.

  She had another look at herself in the penis mirror and nodded. Joe definitely wouldn’t be expecting this.

  Millie was still at the top of the stairs when she heard the knob rattle on the back door. Naked, and nearly tripping over the boa, she hurried to the door and would have thrown it open for Joe had she not heard the voice.

  Not Joe’s.

  But a woman’s. She was whispering something while the doorknob continued to jiggle.

  Millie put her eye to the recently installed peephole and saw her mother. And Laurie Jean wasn’t alone. There was someone just to her right, but no matter how Millie angled her eye, she couldn’t see him.

  “She changed the locks,” Laurie Jean snarled. “I can’t believe she did that without giving me a key.”

  Millie nearly blurted out that the reason for the lock change was so Laurie Jean couldn’t get in to do whatever she was planning on doing. Millie would have thrown open the door and confronted her mother if she hadn’t been wearing only a boa and garters. Instead, she ran to the front of the shop and, staying back from the display windows where someone could spot her, she peeked out, hoping to get a glimpse of her mother and lover.

  But nothing.

  Laurie Jean had obviously had the good sense not to go out on the sidewalk on Main Street, which meant she’d no doubt sneaked away using the alley that ran along the backs of Once Upon a Time and the other shops on each side of it.

  However, speaking of sneaking, Millie saw someone doing just that. Joe. He was on the sidewalk, but he stopped well before he got to her shop and ducked between the other buildings. Heading toward the back, so that’s where Millie headed, too. She looked out the peephole again, waiting for him, and the moment he came into sight, she jerked open the door.

  “Did you see them?” she blurted out. “They were just out here a couple of minutes ago.”

  Joe opened his mouth. Closed it. And ran his suddenly very interested gaze down her body. “Are we playing a porn game?” he asked.

  Frustrated, she shook her head. “No.” She took hold of his arm and pulled him inside. She locked the door, had another look out the peephole.

  No one was out there.

  “Then, what are we playing?” he asked, fingering the boa.

  Millie huffed, but the huff wasn’t for him. Especially when his finger skimmed her nipple. That had some of the annoyance about her mother melting away. The annoyance vanished completely when he moved his finger lower to her navel ring.

  “Laurie Jean and her lover just tried to get into the shop,” she explained. “I changed the locks so they couldn’t get in and they went away.”

  The skimming and fingering stopped, and his eyes came to hers. “Who’s her lover?”

  “I didn’t get a good look at him, and if he spoke, I didn’t hear his voice.” She paused. “But I think it might be Mr. Lawrence. I know Tanner said the guy had black hair, but Tanner saw him from a distance in the dark. He could have mistaken Mr. Lawrence’s hat for his hair.”

  Joe’s forehead bunched up for a couple of seconds, and she expected him to laugh or ask why he’d think that, but he finally nodded. “I guess he’d be your mother’s type. He’s somewhat like your father, only friendlier and with that upper-crust artist vibe.”

  “Yes,” she quickly agreed. “He does have a lot in common with my father, and that’s why I’m skeptical that he’s the one. I mean, why would Laurie Jean go after someone who’s so similar to the man she already has?”

  She waved that off before he could even attempt an answer. Millie truly didn’t want to get into any discussion that could be turned around to Royce and Ella.

  “It could be Rico Donnelly,” Joe threw out there.

  It took Millie a moment to make the leap that Joe was putting Rico in as a possibility for Laurie Jean’s lover. Millie considered it, shook her head. “He’s so not her type.”

  But considering she’d just made the argument for Mr. Lawrence being too much like her father, maybe Laurie Jean had gone for the opposite of her husband. And Rico was definitely the opposite. He was also two decades younger than her mom. Still, Rico was a player, one with black hair, and he could have tempted Laurie Jean into sampling down and dirty sex.

  Something that she absolutely didn’t want to think about.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  It was automatic for her to lie and say she was fine, but she wasn’t. “I hate that my self-righteous mother tried to sneak into her love nest. I especially hate that the love nest is a room I love and use often—for sleeping,” she clarified. She’d never be able to do that again.

  “We can reschedule our date,” Joe offered.

  “No.” She didn’t have to think about that. She wanted to be with him. And she especially wanted to be with him when he did more fingering. This time, to her other nipple.

  “No,” she repeated, and this time there was an aroused, dreamy tone to her voice. “But I did go with a change of plans. No perusing Roaring Twenties porn. Instead, I’ll be the porn.”

  Smiling, he hooked his index finger under the garter that was high on her thigh, and he used the grip to inch her to him. “You do the porn justice,” he drawled. “But FYI, I don’t need props or porn to want you.”

  Oh, it was so the right thing to say, and Millie felt herself melting like butter in the hot Texas sun.

  “I just want to keep you interested,” she managed even though he’d started to slide his very clever fingertips down her belly.

  “I’m interested,” he assured her in that drawl that was so much more titillating than decades and decades of porn. “So, do you have costumes for me, or will butt naked work?”

  “Butt naked will always work when it comes to you.”

  He pulled out the big gun and smiled. Joe also used his finger hook around her garter to draw her just a little bit closer. Just enough so that her breasts brushed against his shirt.

  “You have a choice of adventures tonight,” she said over the little hitch in her voice. “We could go into the Tarzan memorabilia area.” She fluttered her hand to the back right side of the shop. “Loincloths, ropes. Jane spilling out of whatever she’s wearing. Second option. The Sherlock Holmes display.” She fluttered her hand in the other direction. “There’s nothing remotely raunchy in there, but it does have a comfortable settee.”

  “Option two,” he said, and he yanked her the rest of the way to him.

  Mouth met
mouth and, just on meeting, Joe jumped from first base to practically a home run with the way he kissed her. It was hungry and hard. Just the way he was, she realized, when her center landed against his erection.

  Since it was obvious Joe wasn’t going to play around too long with the foreplay, Millie started moving them in the direction of Sherlock’s lair. It was really just a cubby in the back corner, but she doubted they were going to need much room. Or time. While they kissed, walked and bumped into things, she started undoing his belt.

  “I’m on fire here,” she muttered against his mouth. “Let’s go for a quickie and then something longer.”

  It was possible he made a sound of agreement. Possible, too, that he even spoke, but Millie’s heart was thrumming so loud that she wouldn’t hear him. The mindlessness soon followed when he kissed her neck hot spot and slipped his fingers between her legs.

  Good thing he was holding on to her, because her legs buckled, and Joe had to sort of drag her along. The moment they reached the display, Millie dropped onto the settee and pulled him down with her.

  Joe landed on top of her, but he quickly remedied that by sitting so they were face-to-face again. Just the way Millie wanted. Her hands were free to start getting him naked. Her mouth was in the right place to kiss him long and deeply. And her knees were free to clamp around his thighs so she could wiggle against his erection. That gave her more than a few thrills and jolts, but it was obvious that it was torture for Joe.

  She helped him out of his misery by ridding him of his shirt because, hey, even a quickie didn’t mean they couldn’t be bare chest to breasts. Her breasts obviously approved of that because her nipples hardened and peaked. Joe did some torturing of his own when he lowered his head and kissed those peaks.

  It didn’t take long, mere seconds, before Millie was frantic to get at him. She went after his zipper again. Freed him from his boxers and would have had him inside her if Joe hadn’t stopped her.

  “Condom,” he reminded her.

  It seemed to take an eternity for him to get the condom from his pocket, and while he put it on, he continued to kiss her in all the right places. He nudged her in the right place, too, when she felt the tip of his erection push inside her. He went slow again. As if savoring it. And her. Before that one final, hard push into her that robbed her of every bit of her breath.