Boone’s Bounty Read online

  He couldn’t believe that such a small hand could have such a huge impact on his system. Sparks of excitement sent off a chain reaction throughout his body.

  While Boone was still dealing with the sweet pressure of Shelby’s handprint on his skin, Josh pressed his ear against Boone’s chest, right over his heart. “It’s beating,” he said.

  “I should hope so,” Boone answered.

  “Fast. Thumpity, thumpity, thumpity.”

  “I guess that’s what the cold does to you,” Boone said.

  Then Josh turned and pressed his other ear against Shelby’s chest. “You must be cold, too, Shebby.”

  “Mmm.” Her hand stayed very, very still.

  Light though her touch was, he felt the imprint of each of her fingers. He even imagined the spiral patterns of her fingerprints leaving a mark on his skin.

  “I like this.” Josh sounded sleepy.

  “Good,” Shelby said. “Now go to sleep.”

  “’Kay.”

  Boone loved the sound of Shelby’s voice in the dark. He loved the warmth of her body inside the circle of his arm while the wind howled and battered at the windows and the snow covered the world in white. He loved the delicate pressure of her fingers against his back. Sure, sex was on his mind, but his body wasn’t raging out of control. Mostly he felt incredibly right being here in this tiny bed with her and Josh, keeping them safe.

  He’d known them for such a short time, and yet he felt as if he’d slipped into the most perfect spot in the universe. He hadn’t thought he could sleep in such a cramped bed with such a tempting woman so close, but gradually contentment crept through him, lulling him into one of the deepest sleeps of his life.

  “VROOOM! Vrrrrooom-vrooooom! Beep, beep!”

  Shelby woke to the familiar sound of Josh playing toy cars on the floor beside her bed and the unfamiliar sensation of being cuddled spoon-fashion against a very big, very aroused male body. From the steady sound of Boone’s breathing, she was sure he was still asleep.

  But his sexual instincts were wide awake. His erection pressed against her bottom, and his arm shifted slightly so that his big hand cupped her breast. The contact felt…wonderful.

  Daylight seeped in around the closed curtains and the bedside clock blinked rapidly, flashing twelve o’clock. The heater fan whirred and clanked, so it was no real surprise that the room was warm once again. Power had been restored.

  But Shelby was more interested in a different sort of power, the sexual kind issuing from the man cradling her body in his. Boone would be very embarrassed if he knew what he was doing, she thought with a soft smile. Apparently both of them had been so exhausted they hadn’t awakened when Josh climbed out of bed. They’d simply shifted positions.

  Shelby liked this position. In a minute she’d need to slide out from under Boone’s arm and get out of bed before he realized how forward he’d been with her. But for now, she’d close her eyes, draw the sheet up to her chin and pretend to sleep a little while longer so that she could enjoy her fantasy.

  She’d never quite admitted to herself that she had a fantasy man in mind, but during that childhood trip to Yellowstone she’d wandered away from the cabin and become lost. A cowboy on horseback had found her and returned her, scared and crying, to her family. He might not have been a very large man, but to a kid of seven, he had seemed enormous in his boots and ten-gallon hat.

  Maybe that cowboy was one of the reasons she hadn’t ever fallen in love enough to consider marrying. Maybe all along she’d been hoping to find her big, brave cowboy again. What a silly, girlish dream. And yet, lying here tucked against Boone, she didn’t feel the least bit silly or girlish. In fact, if Josh weren’t in the room, she’d stay right in this bed and see what happened when the big guy woke up.

  He might be shy at first, and that fit right in with her fantasy because it meant that he didn’t have tons of experience with women. She suspected that when this man gave his heart, he gave it for keeps. He would be a tender and considerate lover, but if a woman knew how to push the right buttons, she’d bet that he’d turn into a real force of nature.

  A picture of Boone filled with wild passion certainly got her juices flowing. Considering the size of the erection pressing against her, he might even be a little scary. Her heart beat faster with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Ah, but he was also a gentle man. The combination of size, power and gentleness was nearly irresistible to her.

  Beneath the hand he’d cupped over her breast, her nipple tightened. Okay, she needed to get out of this bed now, before she embarrassed herself, as well as Boone. Shifting her weight slightly, she took hold of his wrist and tried to move his arm away. It was like trying to lift a felled tree.

  His arm didn’t budge, but his fingers flexed against her breast.

  She closed her eyes again, trembling slightly. His touch felt so good. She’d been so focused on Josh since—well, really since he’d been born—that she’d had no social life, let alone a man in her bed. The guy she’d been seeing when Josh was born hadn’t been interested in babies and couldn’t understand why she’d felt such a responsibility for her nephew. After she’d broken off that relationship, she hadn’t bothered to cultivate another.

  Under different circumstances, she wouldn’t mind cultivating this one. But she couldn’t get involved with Boone, not when she needed all her energy to keep Josh safe. With regret, she got a stronger grip on Boone’s wrist and attempted to pull his arm away.

  Still no dice. He moaned her name softly and pulled her in tighter, pressing the crotch of his jeans hard against her bottom. Her pulse raced as she wondered if he was only faking sleep. But no, his soft snoring told her he was truly zonked. At least the name he’d mumbled was hers. That gave her a great deal of satisfaction.

  But he was too strong for her to budge him. She hadn’t fully realized just how strong he was, and without his brain and conscience in gear, his basic needs had taken over, keeping her prisoner. She’d have to wake him up.

  She shook his arm as best she could, considering it was wrapped around her like a steel band. “Boone. Wake up.”

  Josh scrambled to his feet and came to the edge of the bed to stare at her. “I woked up.”

  “I see that.” She was glad the covers disguised the grip Boone had on her breast, although Josh wouldn’t think anything of it. After all, a three-year-old didn’t know anything about sex between a man and a woman.

  “I goed potty and then I played trucks.”

  “Good for you. You’re a big boy. Boone! Isn’t Josh a big boy?”

  “Huh?” Boone came awake with a start, released her breast as if it had burned his hand, and fell out of the far side of the bed with a terrific thud.

  5

  BOONE HAD his boots on, his shirt snapped and his coat buttoned faster than his buddy Travis could rope and tie a calf, and Travis was known for his speed. “I’ll check on breakfast,” he said as he clapped his hat on his head and charged out the motel room door.

  He hadn’t dared look at Shelby, and one quick glance at Josh confirmed that the little boy was staring at him as if he’d just grown ears and a tail. Which he practically had.

  Damn! How had he ended up plastered against Shelby’s backside, clutching a handful of her breast? What had happened to the kid who was supposed to sleep between them and keep everything respectable and proper? Who told that boy he could get out of bed, anyway?

  And that was another thing. Boone, the macho protector who had assigned himself the job of staying alert to the slightest danger threatening either the boy or the woman, hadn’t even realized when Josh had left the bed. Boone had promised to keep watch. Some guardian he’d turned out to be.

  He snorted in disgust at himself as he stomped through knee-high drifts toward the café. The sun was out and the sound of heavy machinery from down the road indicated the snowplows were working. Most of the cars and trucks that had been parked at the motel the night before were gone. Squinting up at the su
n, Boone judged the time to be around nine in the morning. Late. Fowler should already be on his way to Colorado Springs.

  Boone’s face still felt hot with embarrassment, so he paused, leaned down and scooped up a handful of snow to pat over his cheeks. He used to think he couldn’t trust himself when he drank. Now apparently he couldn’t trust himself when he slept, either.

  He’d been having a dynamite dream about Shelby, which must have been inspired by the way he was groping her in his sleep. He wondered how long he’d been doing it, how long she’d had to endure his fumblings while she tried to escape without making a big deal of it in front of Josh.

  In those first groggy seconds of waking up, he’d been aware of two things—a full erection shoved right up against Shelby’s soft bottom, and the weight of her breast cradled in his left hand. The pleasure of both sensations had lasted for the space of a breath. Then his brain had cleared enough to allow humiliation to come roaring through to destroy that pleasure completely.

  An apology was definitely in order, but he couldn’t picture himself trying that maneuver in front of Josh. No telling what Josh would think he was trying to apologize for. In Josh’s world there was nothing wrong with people “snuggling” together.

  Boone wondered what Shelby must be thinking right now and groaned aloud. Maybe she’d refuse to go with him to the Rocking D, figuring she’d take her chances on her own rather than trust her safety to a sex maniac.

  Well, he couldn’t force her to go with him, but he could make sure Fowler was gone before she set out, then follow her until she’d made it over the pass and onto dry pavement. But hell, he wanted her to go with him so he could guarantee she wouldn’t run into Fowler. Somehow he had to convince her that he would never, ever lay a hand on her again.

  He stomped the snow from his boots before walking into the café. A gray-haired woman he’d never seen before was behind the counter serving coffee to a couple of men in heavy coats seated on stools. The waitress was probably Edna, Boone decided, remembering the other employee Eugene had talked about. He saw no sign of either of the Sloans, and best of all, no sign of Fowler.

  Sitting at the counter next to one of the men, he grabbed a menu from the aluminum holder in front of him. “Guess the road’s open, huh?” he commented to the guy beside him.

  “Sure is,” the man said. “We came through about twenty minutes ago, and they got it cleared pretty good both north and southbound. I hear a few folks were stranded here last night.”

  “Yep.” Boone studied the menu and tried to think what Josh and Shelby might like him to bring them for breakfast. He’d been so hell-bent on getting out of the room he hadn’t stopped to ask. He rubbed his chin and reminded himself he needed to get his shaving kit out of the truck.

  “Including you?”

  “Yep. Say, what do you think a three-year-old boy eats for breakfast?”

  The man chuckled. “That’s anybody’s guess. Mine used to like cold spaghetti.”

  “Or cold pizza,” added the man next to him. “With the cheese congealed into this globby mess on top. My kid loved that for breakfast.”

  The waitress turned from the coffeemaker. Sure enough, her name was Edna. “Peanut-butter toast is your best bet,” she said. “Unless he’s allergic to peanuts.”

  Boone shook his head, dazed at the odds of lousing up such a simple thing as breakfast. “I’ll try an order of peanut-butter toast for him,” he said. “But I’ll find out about the allergy thing before he eats it.”

  “Okay.” Edna took her order pad from her apron and started writing. “This will be to go?”

  “Yes. All of it. I’ll need two large coffees, the toast, and…” Boone paused to scan the menu again. “Milk,” he decided, figuring Josh could drink it and Shelby could use it for her coffee if she took her coffee with cream. He couldn’t believe he’d fondled a woman’s breast, yet he had no idea how she took her coffee, or even if she drank the stuff.

  But her nipple had been tight. Tight and aroused. The tidbit of information must have been buried under layers of his own embarrassment, but when it surfaced, it was a revelation to him. Maybe she hadn’t endured his touch, after all. Maybe she’d even liked it. Maybe she’d even wanted it.

  Well.

  “Anything besides the toast, coffee, and milk?” Edna asked.

  “Huh?” Boone glanced up in confusion.

  “On your order,” Edna said, smiling a little. “Or should I get you some coffee first so you can function? I know how I am before my first cup in the morning.”

  “Uh, no!” He was afraid he was blushing. “I mean, I can finish up the order without a cup of coffee. Let’s see—how about two orders of scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, and a couple of sweet rolls?”

  Edna’s smile broadened. “Working up an appetite, are you? Want any juice?”

  “Yeah, juice. Orange. Three glasses. That should do it.” He closed the menu with a decisive snap. As it turned out, he did have an appetite, now that the idea of returning to the room and facing Shelby wasn’t quite so embarrassing. Maybe she’d been turned on, too. She might even have been the one who’d cuddled up to him, once Josh had climbed out of bed.

  Both of them had been under a strain. If they’d needed a little human contact, they couldn’t be blamed for that. He certainly didn’t blame Shelby.

  The two men paid for their coffee and left, wishing him a good trip. While his breakfast order was cooking, Boone paid a quick visit to the café’s rest room. He looked like a goddamned derelict, he thought, grimacing at his reflection and trying to finger-comb his hair.

  And he continued to think about Shelby’s nipple. If her nipple had been like that, then maybe the rest of her had responded, too. She might have been lying there all warm and damp and ready.

  He might never know, but he sure felt good thinking that she might have. And if things were different, if he didn’t have Elizabeth and Jessica to consider, then he’d have devoted some effort to finding out how she reacted if he touched her like that again. As it was, he’d better not try it. He was in no position to start something he couldn’t finish.

  His order was packaged and ready when he returned to the counter. As he headed out the door of the café with two paper sacks, Eugene walked in. He looked tired, but he’d obviously taken the time to shave, shower and change clothes. Boone felt grungy in comparison. Once he’d taken care of breakfast, he really had to see about cleaning up. He wondered if he dared risk using the shower in Shelby’s room, or if that was asking for more trouble.

  “Hey, Boone,” Eugene said. “Glad to see you made it through the night okay.”

  “Yeah, I, uh, did.”

  Eugene lowered his voice. “You went to warn that young woman when you left here last night, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. That guy creeped me out.”

  “Me, too, but then I couldn’t figure out where you were going to sleep. Did you spend the night in your truck?”

  Boone shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Actually, she—well, she needed someone to sort of guard her and the boy, so I stayed.”

  Eugene smiled. “Good.” He glanced at the sacks Boone was holding. “Breakfast for all of you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I won’t keep you, then. But if it makes you feel any better, that fellow was one of the first ones out of here. He took off the minute the snowplow came through.”

  Boone nodded. “Did you happen to notice what he was driving?”

  “Sure did. Black Land Rover. Fancy.”

  “That’s good to know. Thanks. Listen, I’ll be taking Shelby and Josh with me and she’s going to leave her rental car here.” He hoped Shelby hadn’t reconsidered the plan because of what happened between them in bed. But he had to go on the assumption that she still wanted his help. “We’ll call somebody to come up from Santa Fe to get the car, but I wanted you to know.”

  Eugene’s smile deepened. “Sounds like you’re doing a little rescue work yourself.
Like that lighthouse thing you talked about last night. Or in your case, maybe it’s more like a knight in shining armor.”

  “I’m going to try.” After last night, Boone figured his armor was tarnished, but he still intended to keep Shelby and Josh safe.

  Eugene gripped Boone’s upper arm and gave it a squeeze. “You’re a good man, Boone. Stop by any time you’re on this road. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

  “Thanks.” Boone returned Eugene’s smile. “I’ll look forward to that.”

  THE MINUTE Boone was out the door Shelby had got dressed in record time and then helped Josh into his clothes. After they were totally ready and nearly all packed, she’d neatly made the bed, thinking that would help Boone feel less awkward when he returned. She smoothed the spread so that it looked as if no one had slept there, let alone cuddled and fondled and enjoyed…oh, she had to stop thinking about that.

  But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to put the thought of Boone’s hand on her breast or the bulge of his erection out of her mind. When he knocked on the door, she was still thinking about it. She glanced out the window to make sure it was him, and the sight of his big, beautiful body made her palms sweat.

  Josh had scrambled up to the chair to look out the window with her. “Boone’s here!” he shouted and ran to the door to fumble with the lock. “He gots presents!”

  “Food,” Shelby said, going over to help him with the lock. Josh’s eagerness broke her heart. She wondered how she’d ever console the little boy when he had to tell his new friend goodbye. “It’s only breakfast, Josh.”

  Josh threw open the door. “Hi, Boone! Whatcha gots for me and you?”

  Boone grinned at Josh as he walked through the door with the bags balanced in one arm and his free hand behind his back. “Wait’ll you see,” he said as Shelby closed the door behind him.