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His arms wrapped around her, his hands sliding up her spine and under her long braid. With deft fingers, he worked her hair loose, combing through it until her every nerve tingled to life. In a smooth sweep, he rolled her onto her back, her legs hooking around his waist. A fresh whiff of bluebonnet perfume wafted up from the press of their bodies. Already, she could feel the swell of his erection between them. What she wouldn’t give to be with him, out here in the open.
“Stone,” she whispered between deep, luscious kisses, “we should go back to my cabin.”
“This is my land,” he growled possessively, nipping along her jaw and up to her earlobe. “No one’s going to find us.”
“Yours?” Her head fell back, gasping. “I thought it was all jointly owned.”
“We each have a section that belongs exclusively to us. This became mine on my twenty-first birthday.”
“Why did you never mention that before when we came here for picnics?” She swatted his bottom lightly. God, she loved the way he filled out denim. “It would have been nice not to worry about people stumbling upon us.”
He angled away, propping himself on one elbow to look directly into her eyes. “You pegged it when you said I was holding back. I planned to surprise you on our wedding day with plans for a home.”
A pang shot through her chest at the fairy tale he’d tried to give her. As much as she knew she’d made the right decision then, she’d missed out on a lot of happy moments, too. Her throat burned until she cleared it.
“I would have liked that.”
“Except there wasn’t a nursery in my plans.”
The burn in her throat shifted, moving down into a cold knot that settled in her stomach. “You know how I feel about that, and I’m beginning to understand why you feel otherwise. I’ve watched you for years as you helped out the staff with games for vacationers and I guess I always thought you would change your mind.”
“Liking children and being a father are two different things.”
She sifted through his words, wondering what he was trying to tell her by bringing her here, because clearly he had something on his mind. “But you want a space away from here, a home in your bluebonnet field.”
“I never had a regular home like other kids.” He picked up one flower petal after another and placed them in her hair. “Not with my mother zipping in and out of my life. A couple of times she even took me with her when she left.”
“Jade ‘took’ you? That had to be confusing.”
“Hell, yeah, it was. Especially the time the cops stopped us at the Mexican border and charged my mother with kidnapping. My grandmother had legal custody at that point.”
She searched his face, shadows making it tougher with the sun surrendering fast. “Why Mexico?”
“Easier access to drugs, most likely.” He said it so nonchalantly her heart broke. “She dodged prosecution for custodial interference by agreeing to go into rehab. Again. But if we learned anything over the years, we know that unless the junkie is committed to coming clean...rehab is just a temporary, Band-Aid fix.”
She kissed him again because there just weren’t any words for all he’d been through with his mother. Having her here now when he was still reeling from his grandmother’s cancer news had to be overwhelming. Johanna poured all her love into the kiss—and yes, she loved him so damn much, always had, ever since she was a teenager with a colossal crush that had matured into so much more.
Groaning, he trailed kisses along her jaw, her cheek, her forehead before burying his face in her hair. “Johanna, more than anything, I want to be with you out here, just us on a blanket in my field full of bluebonnets.”
“Of course, I want that, too.” She slid her hand between them, palming the length of his steely erection. A moist ache settled between her legs.
“Before we’re together again, we need to be sure it’s forever. No more pretending we could ever have a fling.”
Her heart sped in her chest like a hummingbird. “I agree.”
“So we need to clear up one last issue.”
The little bird in her chest sped faster. The only remaining issue had to do with children. Where did she stand and how far was she willing to compromise?
“If we make love now, we don’t need a condom.”
She blinked in shock, certain she couldn’t have heard him right. Terrified to hope. “You’ve changed your mind about having children?”
“Hell, that’s not what I meant, Johanna.”
His eyes squeezed shut tight for an instant before he opened them again, sapphire-blue eyes so full of regret she only had a second to prepare herself before he continued.
“There’s no easy way to say this. I’ve had a vasectomy.”
Eleven
Stone knew he’d just lost Johanna. He could see it in her eyes. Just as he’d feared, once he told her everything, it was over.
That didn’t stop him from trying to hold on to her. He wasn’t giving her up so easily, not this time. So he sat on the quilt beside her and waited to take his cue from her. Her whole body was rigid. She shook just a little, trembling from the aftermath of a direct hit to her tender, sweet heart.
A heart he didn’t deserve, no matter how much he wanted to claim it.
She blinked quickly, her eyes as green as clover even in the dimming day. “You...you did what?”
“Just what I said, and God, Johanna, I am sorry to have to say it at all.” He took her hand, her fingers quivering, and he hated that he’d brought her this pain. “I had a vasectomy right after I met my biological father, which also happened to be around the time my mother checked out of rehab early again. I knew her next fall was inevitable. And I was right.”
He’d been so damn sure of himself and his choices.
Her breath was as shaky as his hand. “You were so young. You still are.”
Her words echoed the mandatory counseling session he’d been forced to sit through before the surgery. It made a whole hell of a lot of difference hearing it from the woman he loved instead of a well-meaning health care professional who’d made the same speech a hundred other times. He could have never predicted loving someone so much it made him question everything he’d ever believed.
“It was way before you and I started dating. Because I swear to you—” and he meant it with every fiber of his being “—if I’d had an inkling of what having you in my life this way would mean, I wouldn’t have done it.”
“Have you ever considered having the procedure reversed?” she asked, each word carefully enunciated, her breathing fast and shallow. Clearly, she was holding on by a thread.
“Not until I met you.”
“How do you feel now?”
“If you want a child, I will do that for you.” Even saying the words scared the hell out of him, but the thought of losing her scared him more. For Johanna, for their kid, he would figure it out. He refused to fail as a parent. “But you need to understand that the more time that lapses the less chance a reversal has of working. Do you have any issues with adoption?”
She shook her head, but there was still something about her stunned expression that made him uneasy. This was too much, too fast for her. She’d barely had time to process the first bombshell he’d dropped.
He waited for her to speak but she kept looking around the field of bluebonnets, the horses grazing, the circle of trees—anywhere other than at him.
Nerves strung tight, he pressed ahead. “I have two drug addict parents. I was born a crack baby. Consider me a broken model. As far as I’m concerned, I would rather fund orphanages and adoption agencies to help babies like me that didn’t have a rich grandma to step in. But if you have faith I can handle being a parent, then I’m going to trust you.”
“Thank you,” she said woodenly. “I understand how difficult that was for you to say.”
“Then why do I still see smoke coming out of your ears?”
“First of all. It’s not just smoke. It’s pain, Stone. Real, deep hurt.” Her hands clenched into fists, and she drew her arms in closer to herself, away from him. She kept shaking her head slowly from side to side. “But yes, there’s anger, too. All those months we were together using birth control, you were lying to me, letting me believe that you might be open to having a family someday even though you knew otherwise.” She shoved to her feet, dusting the flower petals off her jeans in angry sweeps. “It wasn’t just one lie by leaving out something in your past. It was a lie every time we made love. I’m having a difficult time wrapping my brain around that.”
She thrust her hands into her hair, pressing against her head as she paced.
“Yes, it was a cop-out on my part not telling you.” He stood, walking off the quilt and toward her, wary. “I’m an even bigger jackass than you imagined.”
