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“I want that too,” she said, one hand moving up his chest.
Trey froze and held very, very still as the beautiful Bethany Dixon crowded into his personal space. Everything on his face felt too dry, and as she curled her fingers into the ends of his hair, he sucked in a breath.
“You know what else I want?” she whispered.
“What?” The word was made of air and little else.
“I want my stipulation fulfilled.” Her wounded hand found a spot on his shoulder as she pressed into him. “Right now.”
Trey used one hand to swipe his cowboy hat from his head and the other to slide along Beth’s waist. He pressed his hat to her back as he leaned down, his aim sure and steady. He hadn’t kissed a woman for a while, and he hoped he didn’t crash and burn, right here on her ranch.
His eyes drifted closed a moment before his mouth touched hers, but he still saw the most spectacular light show with this kiss. Everything inside him urged him to go faster, but thankfully, he managed to keep the movement slow.
Beth kissed him back, and she was every bit the woman he’d thought she was. Smart, determined, and beautiful.
He hadn’t come right out and said he wanted their relationship to be real. She hadn’t either. But a kiss like this… This level of pulse-pounding passion could only come from something absolutely real.
Chapter Four
Beth’s whole world had narrowed to the man in front of her. The man holding her right where he wanted her. The man kissing her with a level of adoration she hadn’t felt in a long time. Even when Danny was still alive, he hadn’t kissed her like this. Not in the last six months of his life.
She couldn’t believe where she was or what she was doing.
At the same time, standing in Trey’s arms as he kissed her was the only thing she should be doing.
He eventually broke the kiss and settled his hat back on his head while she tried to inhale an adequate amount of oxygen. She needed to get her brain working again.
Trey draped his arm around her shoulders, still saying nothing. He’d always been the silent, hard-working type, though he usually had plenty to say when he offered to do something for her, and she refused.
She guided them over to a couple of errant hay bales and sat down. He took the spot next to her, and she leaned into his chest as she partially reclined to look up at the sky. The stars had started to prick through the blackness above, and she smiled at them.
“There’s something magical about stars, don’t you think?” she asked.
“Mm.” He traced his fingers up and down her forearm, and she wished she wasn’t wearing a sweatshirt so their skin could touch.
Beth let her mind go down any path it wanted, something she rarely did. Tonight, though, it didn’t seem to matter, because within the safety of Trey’s embrace, nothing could hurt her, not even her own thoughts and memories.
After a few minutes of lovely, comfortable silence, she said, “My husband was cheating on me,” in a voice barely above a whisper.
Behind her, Trey tensed, his muscles and chest turning to stone for a second. “How do you know?”
“He was distant for at least six months before he died,” she said. “He was in an accident on a highway twenty-five miles from where he’d said he’d be. From the egg exchange he was supposed to be at.” She breathed in, the story she hadn’t told anyone but her father tight in her chest.
As she exhaled, it left too. “There were no eggs in the car. His wallet wasn’t there. The only reason they were able to identify him and notify me was because of the registration and the license plates.”
Trey’s hand gripped her forearm, and she liked that it grounded her slightly.
“About a week later, I got his wallet in a package in the mail. The funeral was the next day, and at the time, I was so glad to have his wallet back. It was like this personal piece of him, you know?”
“I can see that,” Trey murmured.
“After the funeral, and after I don’t even know how long—a few weeks probably—I opened his wallet and tucked right behind his driver’s license was a note. Handwritten, by a woman.” She could see it as plainly now as the first time she’d looked at it.
Her heart started to pound the same way too. But she’d come this far, and she only had a little bit more to tell. “It said, ‘If you want to talk, you can call me.’ It had a phone number on it.”
“Did you call?” he asked when she didn’t go on.
“No,” she said. “I gave the number to Hugh, who had one of his friends look it up. I said it was for something Danny had ordered for the ranch, but I couldn’t find the invoice. All I had was this number.”
