Authors: Patti Berg
Mike rode hard toward the mustang, needing to get to Charity, but he was too late. She flew from the stallion’s back and in an instant was lying on the hard, icy earth—and Satan disappeared, again.
Mike yanked his gelding to a stop, jumped from Buck’s saddle, and ran to Charity’s side. She was flat on the ground, her head mere inches from a lethal boulder. She wasn’t moving, and a prayer for her safety sped through his mind.
Dropping to his knees, he bent over her, slipping a hand under her scarf and gently touching a finger to the pulse point in her throat. Her skin was cool, her pulse strong.
His own pulse quickened. Every muscle in his body tightened. Charity Wilde wasn’t only trouble, she was danger in the worst sense, a temptress who could weave a spell around him or any man, even when she was lying deathly still.
Her eyes opened slowly, and even though he was wary of touching her again, he stroked a damp lock of hair from her cheek, his fingers weaving behind her neck to pillow her head.
It was the right thing to do. The only thing to do.
Then again, it was sheer madness.
A soft smile curved her lips. “I’m not dead, am I?”
She was going to be fine; however, he wasn’t sure about his own state of mind or body. Leaving right now would be the safest and sanest thing for him to do. But he couldn’t leave. It wouldn’t be right.
On top of that and most bothersome of all, he didn’t want to leave.
“If you don’t answer me,” she said, “I’ll never know if I’m dead or alive. I’ll just think you’re some figment of my imagination, like the rocks underneath me.”
“You’re alive,” he muttered.
Alive. And hot. So hot that she made his blood boil.
“Thank goodness.” She drew in a deep breath. “My life was flashing by me as Satan was running, and I realized there were a lot of things I still wanted to do before I died.”
“Pull another stunt like riding a wild stallion and more than likely you
will
end up dead.”
The muscles tightened in her jaws. “I don’t need a lecture.”
“Obviously you do.” He grinned as he lightly stroked away the mud and slush that had splattered her cheeks when she fell.
“Look,” she fired back, jerking upright, “I... I...” Agony swept across her face, stilling her words as her hands slid down the length of her leg and wrapped around her boot-covered ankle.
“You all right?”
“Yesssss.” She squeezed out the word through clenched teeth.
“Here, let me look at that.”
She cuffed his hand away. “It’s fine.”
The woman was ornerier than he was!
He sat back on his haunches and glared at her. “All right, since your ankle’s fine, get up. It’s cold out here and I want to go home.”
He thought she’d give in. Figured for sure that she’d tell him she’d never been in so much pain in her life and ask for help. But he should have known that Charity Wilde would do just the opposite of most women.
Putting her weight on her left foot, she pushed up from the ground. She could stand, but could she walk?
She stared at Buck, grazing a good twenty feet away on a few tufts of near frozen prairie grass, then took a tentative step, pain evident in the stiffness of her body. She didn’t give into it, though, she just kept on limping toward the horse, stopping only when Buck jerked his head up because she’d gotten too close.
The horse didn’t like women. He never had and he never would. Even Mike had disregarded women of late. But he liked this one—too much, he feared, but only because she amazed him. She was strong and willful and obstinate—too much like him. He wouldn’t ask for help, either. Never had; never would.
Buck moved a few feet away from Charity, but she didn’t give up; she walked those few feet, latched on to Buck’s saddle horn, and lifted her left foot toward the stirrup. A big mistake.
Buck decided he wanted to nibble on fresher grass and ambled slowly toward a patch in the distance. Still, Charity clung to the horn and let the horse drag her with him. When the gelding stopped, she again tried to put her foot in the stirrup.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mike rubbed his day-old stubble as he strode toward her.
“I’m getting on your horse so we can head back to the ranch.”
“Buck’s not crazy about women. I’m the only one he lets on his back.”
He was afraid she’d try getting on the gelding just to spite him, but her left foot dropped back down to the ground.
“Then I’ll walk.”
She limped away from Buck and, as he should have expected, she headed in the wrong direction.
Trouble. The woman was definitely trouble.
He let her go about ten feet, waiting for her to stop, to ask for help, but the fool woman never did. Why she was so mad at him was anybody’s guess. That she was going to be even angrier in another moment went without saying.
Trudging toward her and without asking permission—which Mike knew would be flat-out denied—he swept Charity up in his arms. Just as he expected, her eyes narrowed.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Taking you home.”
“I can walk.”
Dump her, he told himself. Just drop her right here and now, get on Buck’s back and ride away. He gave it serious thought, but he marched toward his horse instead.
Buck glared at Mike. It was late, he’d been ridden too long and too hard all day, and the horse obviously wasn’t thrilled about being ridden by two people instead of one, especially when one of those people was a woman.
But Buck stood motionless while Mike sized up the situation, trying to figure out how he was going to get both of them up on the saddle. It wasn’t easy—he reckoned nothing was ever easy with this woman—but he hefted her up until she straddled Buck’s withers, then he swung into the saddle and tugged the long-legged hellion into his lap.
“Is this necessary?” She unceremoniously moved his gloved hands from her waist and dropped them on the saddle horn. “I could ride behind you.”
“It’s freezing out here. I’m not dressed as warm as I ought to be on a night like this, and you’ll make a good windbreak while we ride back to the ranch.”
He expected a retort that never came. Instead, she struggled a bit, wedging her bottom between his crotch and the saddle horn. Riding this way was going to be one of the hardest things he’d ever done, but he gritted his teeth, grabbed hold of the reins, and turned Buck toward home.
“You know,” he said, when she wiggled again, “if you’ll quit fighting me and just stay good and close, you’ll get warm, too.”
She twisted around until her narrowed eyes found his. It looked like a slap was coming, but the harshness in her face softened slowly and a sparkle replaced the animosity in her hazel eyes.
“This isn’t any more comfortable for you than it is for me, is it?”
“Nope.”
“You’d rather be sitting in this saddle all by yourself, right?”
“Right.”
“I’m being a pain in the neck. Right?”
The discomfort was centered elsewhere, far south of his neck, but he’d never admit it. “I’ll survive.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She shifted in the saddle, her bottom nuzzling firmly against him, and with great effort he turned his concentration from her derriere, and the way it rubbed against his zipper, toward the sermon he needed to write.
Maybe he’d preach about celibacy when Sunday morning rolled around. There were one or two teenagers in the congregation who needed a lecture on that topic. Considering his current state of mind and discomfort he needed that lecture, too, but he figured his elder parishioners would dish out their own lecture after the service, chastising him for speaking about such an unspeakable subject in the Lord’s house, on Sunday morning to boot.
Charity wiggled again, and he forced his mind from sermons and celibacy to the men who’d applied for the horse trainer job he’d advertised. He’d interviewed four long-time cowboys and none of them had what he’d been looking for—an innate horse sense, a gentleness he himself didn’t possess. As usual, he expected a lot, and it frustrated him to think that he’d never find anyone who lived up to his standards.
He shifted in the saddle, looking for a more comfortable position. When that failed, he forced himself to think about the blizzard the weathermen kept predicting. Yeah, a major disaster was just what he needed to keep his mind off Charity. Of course, she was a tempest herself.
And as much as he tried, he couldn’t help but think about her sweet curvy bottom or just how good it felt nestled between his legs.
She scooted a little closer, and he bit back a groan when she twisted in the saddle and faced him. “I’m Charity Wilde. I’d shake your hand but a formal introduction seems a little redundant now.” A slight smile touched her lips. Luscious lips that matched her luscious body.
“Mike Flynn,” he said, aiming his gaze at the wide-open stretch of prairie in front of them. But even though he was looking straight ahead, he couldn’t miss the frown forming on Charity’s face, and then her wide-eyed surprise when she realized they’d crossed paths once before.
“The minister?”
“That’s right.”
Her frown deepened. “We’ve met, haven’t we?”
“I suppose you could call it that.” He’d thought about asking her to dance the night of Lauren’s wedding, thought about holding a woman close for the first time since Jessie had died. But Charity had walked right past him and latched on to another man.
They were sitting so close right now that he could feel her gulping down her embarrassment, could feel her entire body tense. Without a doubt, everything she’d said and done that night was coming back to her.
“I thought you lived in
“You thought wrong. I live here.”
She swallowed again. “You didn’t hear what I said to Max and Lauren at their reception, did you?”
Sarcasm wasn’t his usual style, but he hit her with it anyway. “You mean about not liking ministers?”
“I don’t think those were my exact words.”
“Close enough.”
“I suppose you’re going to hold that against me?”
He wasn’t a vindictive man. It went against his nature, but Charity didn’t need to know that.
“Maybe.” He grinned. “Maybe not.”
Actually, it wasn’t ministers Charity
didn’t like. It was the
preaching
. The moralizing. The lecturing. And most of all, the constraints. Her father’s hell-fire-and-brimstone sermons weren’t just for show. He didn’t espouse one thing on Sunday and something else during the week. Oh, no. Chaplain Mattingly ruled his household strictly. His word was gospel and heaven forbid anyone disobey.
Pastor Flynn seemed to see things in the same light. He felt that wild horses needed to be constrained and controlled; so did wild women, which meant she and the good pastor were doomed to butt heads. Too bad, because he was the most devilishly handsome creature she’d ever encountered.
He didn’t look like a preacher, nor did he look like the kind of man who could stand at a pulpit—or anywhere for that matter—and lecture about right and wrong, about righteousness, morality, or the sins of the flesh. He looked and acted like he could break every commandment except “Thou shalt not kill”—but then, there had been a few moments tonight when she thought he might be capable of doing just that.
He had an amazing way of controlling his temper—there was that control factor again—but she could see it seething beneath his surface. There had been no doubt at all that he was hotter than hell when she stood between him and Satan, and ready to explode after Satan got away. She figured Mike could easily strangle her for instigating that fiasco.
But here he was taking care of her, in spite of her waywardness. She supposed that was the ecclesiastical thing to do, but there was no telling what was going through his mind. He probably assumed she was a trollop, a no-account showgirl who’d go to hell for sure. Her father and mother thought that, in spite of their love for her, so why shouldn’t he?
She let go of her frustration on a sigh, knowing full well that it didn’t do any good to brood over the disdain her parents felt for her profession, a career that meant everything to her.
“Something troubling you?”
For the past ten or fifteen minutes she’d been staring at the moonlit prairie, but now she twisted about and looked at the man whose legs she sat between.
Mike Flynn not only controlled his temper, but he seemed to have extraordinary control over his anatomy as well. She’d danced with men who had no interest in her at all, but let her breast brush over them or her fingers accidentally sweep between their thighs, and they’d pop to attention, hard and ready. Most of the time the reaction didn’t last—but it happened.
Not to Mike, of course. The good pastor was too self-restrained for that. Thank goodness. She’d long ago tired of men who put the make on her, thinking she was a tease, that she was easy, when she was anything but. Mike, of course, was above all that, which pleased her to no end. She had enough other sins to contend with without being indirectly responsible for a minister’s downfall.
“Are you going to stare at me or answer my question?”
She frowned as she struggled to remember what he’d asked, and slowly it came back to her. “Of course I’m not troubled.” It was only a small white lie. Her thoughts about him troubled her, but she didn’t think she’d get struck by lightning for fibbing about that, not now, especially when she was riding with a man of God. “I was just wondering how long it would be before we get back to the ranch.”
“It’s less than a mile from here. Shouldn’t take long.” He watched her for a moment, a question still in his eyes as if he didn’t believe her response, and then his gaze went back to the snowy prairie, all show of concern gone as quickly as it had come.
Somewhere in the distance she could hear a coyote howl and not too far ahead of them she saw a small herd of antelope racing across the prairie, the patches of white on their bodies illuminated in the moonlight. It was peaceful out here. Quiet. And far more comfortable than she ever would have imagined, even though the saddle horn was rubbing her intimately and the icy cold had made her fingers and toes begin to burn.
A brisk breeze blew across them, carrying with it bits of sage, sand, and ice that stung her face. She shivered, and Mike’s arms tightened around her, drawing her against the warmth of his chest, his hands and the reins resting just under her breasts. Their bodies melded together and an unfamiliar heat spread through her veins.
If this kept up, it was quite possible the good pastor might contribute to
her
downfall.
“How’s the ankle?” he asked, his breath hot against the chilled skin of her ear.
Buck’s gait had been so smooth and easy and Mike’s hold on her had been so gentle but strong, that she’d forgotten the pain. It hadn’t left her completely, but Mike had made sure her feet— not his—were in the stirrups to support her twisted ankle.
She tilted her head to answer him—to thank him—and her lips brushed against his bristled cheek. This time it wasn’t warmth that spread through her but a jolt so electrifying that her whole body tingled. “I think it’s going to be okay,” she said, but she wasn’t certain about the rest of her.
“I’ll take a look at it when we get back, just to make sure.”
That’s all she needed. It was one thing for Mike to hold her when she was wearing layer upon layer of clothing, but she had no idea how she could survive the touch of his bare hands on her naked flesh. This man could, quite possibly, batter down her resolve to remain a virgin.
Good heavens! She shouldn’t be having such thoughts about a minister, especially a minister who was staring straight ahead at the prairie, who spoke with little emotion, who couldn’t possibly be feeling any of the things that she was feeling.
Her entire body was brimming with nervous energy. She’d been quiet too long. She’d sat in his lap too long. Their conversation was too staid. She had to lighten things up or she’d explode.
She took a deep breath and blurted out the first thing to come to her. “So, you’re a cowboy, a minister, and now I find out that you’re a healer of sore ankles, too. Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Can’t sing. Don’t dance too well.” He shrugged. “Other than that, I’m perfect.”
Beneath his black stubble she could see a dimple at the left of his mouth, a dimple made even more pronounced by his off-kilter grin. His piercing green eyes twinkled. Mike was right—he was close to perfect except, of course, for his streak of bossiness.
“How much do you really know about fixing twisted ankles?”
“I’ve delivered foals and calves and patched up more wounded cows and horses than I care to count. One ankle shouldn’t be much of a problem.”
“I’m not a horse or a cow.”
His grin widened as he aimed his eyes toward her. “I’ve noticed.”
Mike’s broad smile and his comment flickered quickly through her mind as the ranch house came into view. He dug his heels into Buck’s flanks and the horse shot off as if he were more than anxious to find a pile of hay and to get rid of the burdens on his back.
Charity was just as anxious to get her bottom out from between Mike’s legs. It was a feeling she wasn’t the least bit accustomed to.
It was a feeling she liked too darn much.
The house was dark except for the light at the back porch. She wished Max or Jack or somebody were awake to help her up the stairs and into bed so she wouldn’t have to put any pressure on her ankle, but it had to be well after
Somehow she’d get to her bedroom on her own. Mike had done enough already, and considering the odd—lustful—feelings she was having about the man, she figured she’d be much better off going upstairs alone.
Apparently Mike had a differing opinion on how she should get to bed. No sooner had he brought Buck to a halt, but he swung down from the horse and pulled her into his arms.
“I can walk now,” she protested, but he didn’t loosen his hold.
“I’ll carry you.”
“It’s really not necessary.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Look, Mike,” she said as he opened the squeaky screen door, “if you’re doing this because you want to show me how heroic you are ... well, I’ve already seen the moon glinting off your shining armor, and nothing could be brighter than that halo you wear.”
“I’m not a hero, I don’t have a halo, and the only reason I’m carrying you is so you don’t fall down the stairs and break your neck, just to prove that you can walk all on your own.”
“Are you always so stubborn?” she asked, giving in to his protests far too easily and wrapping her arms around his neck.
“Always.”
He carried her into the mud room, forgetting to catch the screen door before it slammed with a repeated thump, thump, thump.
“Shhh.” She put a finger to her lips, and then whispered, “There’s no need to wake everyone up. Do you want the whole house—including the kids—to rush into the hallway and see you carrying me to my bedroom?”
He stopped halfway up the semi dark stairwell. One black brow rose as he stared at her. “All I plan to do is look at your ankle. Did you have something else in mind, something you think we need to hide?”
“No, but people have a tendency to jump to conclusions.”
“Let them.”
He continued his climb and she would have struggled, but she didn’t want to accidentally kick the wall or make any unnecessary noise. She’d been branded a tramp on more than one occasion. The accusations were false, completely and utterly untrue, but she didn’t want her family and newfound friends thinking she was a harlot, to have them think she was leading their preacher down the road to heathenism.
“Where’s your bedroom?” Mike asked when he reached the landing.
“Third one on the right.”
Her heart beat far more rapidly than the light thud of his footsteps on the floor. There was nothing immoral about what they were doing, but it looked far from innocent. Deep inside she wondered if Mike had any lascivious thoughts on his mind. He might be a minister, but he was also a man, and she couldn’t imagine any man carrying a woman to bed—and then leaving without trying ... something.
Much to her dismay, he didn’t leave her. He set her down gently in the middle of the big soft mattress and fluffed some pillows behind her back. A fat dollop of nervousness settled in her throat as he dropped his hat, gloves, and coat on a chintz-upholstered wingback chair, sat on the edge of the bed, and drew her booted foot into his lap.
Okay, so maybe he
was
just going to look at her ankle, but his gentlemanly ways didn’t ease her nerves.
He put one hand on the heel of her boot and the other just above her ankle. “This might hurt.”
“I’m pretty tough.”
His gaze settled on hers for just a moment, and he smiled softly. “I’ve noticed.”
She noticed him, too, and she concentrated on him as he carefully worked at removing the boot without jarring her ankle. His hair was as black as a starless night, flattened at his temples from his hat, but she could easily see that it was thick and neatly trimmed around the ears and the nape of his neck. With her imagination running amuck, she envisioned a wavy lock falling over his forehead. Wasn’t that a prerequisite for all gorgeous men?
And his body. She couldn’t see his muscles, but she knew they were hard and well defined, after all, they’d been stuck in a saddle together, their bodies rubbing against each other for the longest time, and she’d been able to feel his power even through their heavy clothes. He stood a good six-foot-four if not more, so tall that even she would have to stand on tip toes to kiss him—if she wanted to kiss him, which she didn’t, but the thought had surprisingly crossed her mind.
She’d noticed all those things and more about him when she’d seen him that first time at Lauren and Max’s wedding, but she’d forgotten the breadth of his shoulders, the strength of his chest, and just how flat his stomach was. She remembered now, and she doubted she’d ever forget.
Was it a sin to admire a minister’s body? she wondered.
A jolt of pain ripped through her ankle and up her leg when he slid the boot from her foot. Was that payback for thinking about Mike’s physique?
His gaze shot toward her. “You all right?”
She nodded, then laughed inside at her ridiculous notions. The world would be in pretty miserable shape if everyone who’d ever took delight in gazing at a marvelous body was found guilty of committing a grievous sin.
She rested against the pillows Mike had stacked between her and the headboard and breathed slowly, easily, as she watched Mike pull off her heavy wool sock. He cupped one hand around her heel and with the other gently examined her ankle. “Does this hurt?” He moved her foot easily, checking to see if it was swollen, to see if he heard any cracks or pops, but she didn’t feel anything more than the tenderness of his touch, the heat of his fingers.
“I’ve sprained it a few times. I know the difference between twisting it and doing real damage.”
He didn’t turn his head from what he was doing, but he looked up at her through thick black lashes. “And you still dance?”
“Would you give up being a minister if you had a sore throat?”
He shook his head slowly.
“Dancers don’t give up because of sprained or tender ankles, either. Fortunately I’m between jobs right now, so this little mishap won’t be much of a problem.”