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For some reason, although he hadn’t said anything scary, Keena felt like he’d been telling her a ghost story. She clutched the blanket tighter around her and peered out into the dark woods, for the first time wishing they had gone back to the ranch. At least there, if she got nervous, she could flick a light on. Here she was, at the most inopportune time, thinking about how that guide had said there were bears in the Rockies.
She must have made some scared-rabbit sound because Ryan all of a sudden turned back to her and scooped her up to sit on his lap as he sank to the ground. He repositioned the blanket so it covered them both, and he kissed her lips before he continued with his story. Keena basked in his hold, not questioning it, just enjoying it.
“We were attacked. The guy jumped on Anne and knocked her to the ground. I fought him off the best I could, but then he turned on me.” He hesitated. “I was injured. When Anne later found out the seriousness of that injury, she no longer wanted to be with me. She left and soon after filed for divorce. That was five years ago.” He ended on a monotone, his eyes focused on the fire in front of them.
Keena thought about how she had seen every bit of Ryan’s delicious body all day long, and she had not seen any evidence of an injury. He had the basic scars like most people, like one would get as a child, a cut or a scrape, but nothing that would make his wife leave. She shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe she would be so shallow. Your body is perfect. If there was anything, she should have waited, and even if it never quite healed, she should have loved you enough to stay.”
Ryan’s lips compressed. She thought she might have offended him talking about his ex-wife like that, especially if he still loved her, but he said, “My herbs do wonders.”
She laughed. “Yeah, even your herbs wouldn’t be that powerful.” She touched his cheek and kissed him. “Anyway, you’re better off. Isn’t that what everyone says when you’ve had your heart handed to you, like that’s going to clean up the destruction someone else dealt?”
“Hmm. You know about that?” He watched her with expectance in his gaze. “You don’t have to share.”
She chuckled. “But you did, so why can’t I?” She turned away and faced the fire, but leaned back into his embrace. Somehow, it felt right to have him there, to be the one to share her hurt with. She could only hope that rightness wasn’t because she was falling for him. That would be a huge mistake. While he told his story, Keena became convinced that one experience, where his wife abandoned him because she felt he was less than a man, had destroyed Ryan. No amount of sex by the lake would fix that kind of destruction, she was sure.
“Okay, fine.” She tried for nonchalance and failed. A tightness started in her chest just from her knowing that she would open her shame to him. And why should she feel ashamed? Steven was the jerk who had cheated on her, and that whore China. Keena closed her eyes remembering how innocent she had been, how she preened in the mirror that day, thinking he wouldn’t be able to take his eyes off her because she looked so good.
“Stupid.”
“Hmm?” Ryan asked.
She sighed. “I was stupid. I fell for a weak, cheating bastard.” She curled her fingers in the blanket at her sides, but Ryan loosened them and intertwined his with hers.
“Squeeze as hard as you need to. I can take it,” he told her.
She stared into h
is eyes. Tears spilled from hers, and Ryan moved to rest his cheek alongside hers, whispering words of comfort. A shudder passed through her. How had she thought him heartless? He was so much more than that, but he hid it from everyone. Funnily enough, he had shown her glimpses from the very start. Maybe she had magic she didn’t know about. That thought made her smile through the tears.
“I got all the way to my wedding day, but he left me there, didn’t show up,” she blurted out in a flat tone. “He was with my half sister, China. She was the most beautiful woman you ever wanted to lay eyes on, and for me to think he, or any man, would resist someone like her when she tossed herself at him was stupid.”
“So you’re blaming yourself for this?”
“Of course not!” She tried to pull her hands from his and move away, but he held on. Ryan found her mouth with his and kissed her until she felt drunk on his lips. He tilted her head up and made her look into his eyes. He said nothing, but in the flickering light, she became lost. Somehow the suffocation in her chest released, and the doubt about herself, the fears eased enough for her to relax.
Ryan pulled her head to his shoulder. “Weakness in another person is not your fault. It’s theirs.”
She waited for him to put Steven down like she had done with Anne, but he didn’t even mention him, as if what Steven felt or did didn’t matter, but how well Keena was now, how she dealt with what happened to her, did. He was so unlike anyone she’d ever met. From that first day, Ryan had felt her pain and seemed to want to heal it. Maybe that was why he had pursued her, more so than the sexual attraction. She shook her head. No, she couldn’t make him into something more than he was. He was just a man, like every other one.
“I know it’s not my fault. It’s theirs. My rational mind tells me that’s true.” She shrugged. “Anyway, I used to have a dream of getting married and having a bunch of kids. That dream is over. I don’t think that, even if I did find someone special, that I’d ever believe in those fairy tales again. Guess I grew up.” She uttered a shaky chuckle.
Ryan straightened the cover out beside them and with a gentle touch pushed Keena to her back. He threaded a thigh between hers, which sent chills all over her that had nothing to do with the night air. On the outside of her thigh, she felt his hard-on and knew he was ready to make love again. Deep inside her, desire for him unfurled.
“Come, let’s forget them and everyone else,” he whispered, “and let’s take from this night all it has to offer. Open yourself to me, Keena.”
Keena raised her chin and closed her eyes while spreading her legs. Ryan filled her and began a slow stroke, which between that and his kisses, drove all thoughts of Steven and China out of her head.
* * * *
On their way back to the ranch, Annabel, following Ryan’s horse, loped along with Keena on her back. For the hundredth time, she pressed the back of her hand over her mouth to cover a yawn. All she wanted to do was sleep for a solid week to make up for getting little the night before. Every time she opened her eyes after a brief doze, she found Ryan watching her as if he never slept. Then this morning, the man had the nerve to look refreshed.
Irritable and missing her coffee, she waved him off after he dropped her at her cabin with an offer to take Annabel back himself, and trudged inside to fall flat on her bed.
By the time she woke four hours later and showered, it was nearing lunchtime. Her growling stomach was grateful. Keena left her cabin to the noise of excited chatter extending up from outside the main lodge. She rounded the slight bend in the road to see guests carrying food and supplies out to the picnic tables. A section in the same area as the picnic tables, but some feet away, was reserved for the sizeable grill the ranch put in use on days like this when lunch would be barbecued. The scent of ribs hanging in the air made Keena pick up her step.
When she reached the tables, she glanced around for Ryan, but he was nowhere in sight. She spotted an older man who she was sure she hadn’t seen before around the place. He carried himself with authority yet had a kind face, and she wondered if he was the ranch’s owner. He stood speaking to Mirabelle near the grill. Keena joined them.
She smiled. “Hello, sir, Mirabelle.” Their conversation halted. Keena took a step back. “Oh, sorry, am I interrupting something?”
