Whatever was she waiting for? She placed her hand on his chest, barely touching.
He half-opened his eyes and looked at her. She lowered her lips to his mouth and planted soft kisses around it, following his jaw line to his eyes.
“Fiona, don’t do this to me.”
Her lips brushed his ear. “I am going to do this to you.”
She took his hand in hers and rose, tugging him up from the couch.
He stood facing her, his eyes questioning what she was doing.
With her arms she encircled his neck and pulled his lips to hers. Almost reluctantly, he placed his hands on her waist. His eyes still held the question that only she could answer. He stopped right before their lips touched.
“I love you, Fiona. I would never hurt you.”
“I know. I’m not playing with you this time, if that is what you are thinking. I’m serious now.”
He closed the kiss, and her body caught fire. It went up in flames like the old bunkhouse, unguarded, unbridled, meant to burn everything in sight. Jake responded in kind, and they danced around the room to a tune only they could hear. He eased the vest from her shoulders, and it dropped to the floor. She pulled his bolo tie loose, opened his vest, and he shrugged out of it. She threw tie and vest on the chair as they danced by, Jake maneuvering them in a halting two step down the hall to his bedroom. He stopped in the hallway and opened the buttons to her blouse one at time, pausing each time to watch the reaction on her face. She smiled and worked on the buttons of his shirt, following his lead.
“This is your last chance to say no,” he said in his low baritone whisper.
She unbuckled his cowboy belt.
“I take that as a yes,” he said, sounding like he was in pain.
She led him by the hand the rest of the way down the hall to his room and closed and locked the door behind them.
Opal rose early the next morning, feeling amazingly good for an old woman with a terminal disease. She dressed and had in mind to do some work in the garden before she had to go into town. She walked through the living room. Someone had left the table lights on and she walked from lamp to lamp, turning them off. She stumbled across something on the floor and reached down to see what it was. She held up a pretty black sequined vest that she had last seen on Fiona. Her eyes found the vest and bolo tie on the chair by the hallway that she had last seen on Jake. She smiled and looked down the hall to the closed bedroom door.
At last.
Sammie walked into the kitchen a little later.
“Fiona said she’d take you to town today. I’ll work in the garden.”
Opal smiled over her coffee mug. “Let’s change our plans. We’ll do the garden tomorrow. You can drive me in today.”
Jake finished showering and grabbed a big, white fluffy towel to dry off. He sang the words to Hey, Good Lookin’ in a low, happy voice. He smiled into the mirror, lathered his face and started shaving, still softly humming the old Hank Williams song. He didn’t want to wake up the love of his life who lay sleeping on his big, king size bed. He thought it would never happen, but it did, and what a night it had been. It was like the lid had finally blown off and all the pent up feeling they had for each other had finally manifested. It had gone on just about all night. Finally, toward dawn they had fallen asleep wrapped around each other.
He couldn’t remember when he had felt this good. Of course, all of it had to do with Fiona. Fiona, Fiona, Fiona. What a girl. God, he loved her. Finally, finally, finally. He felt like he had been waiting all of his life for her. Boy, when she decided to do something, she did it with all her body and soul. He felt like she had absorbed his whole being into hers.
He finished at the sink and walked softly into the bedroom. She turned over and opened her eyes. When he saw her beautiful body again, he wanted to jump back into bed with her. He slid in beside her and gathered her sleepy self into his arms. She was almost purring.
“Hey, are we going to start again?” she said.
“What about a little one?” he said.
“I don’t think you and I can have a little one,” she said and smiled into his eyes. “You’re all clean and smell good. Where are you going?”
“Got a ranch to run and the day is already half over.”
“What time is it?”
“Nine o’clock in the morning.”
She threw her arm back over her head and yawned.
He kissed her beautiful breasts. He couldn’t help it. Everything about her was luscious. She looked at him and smiled, and he pulled her to him. They started again, and, like Fiona had predicted, it wasn’t a little one. They lay entwined, enjoying the afterglow.
Jake checked his watch. “Good heaven, now it’s ten o’clock.”
“We could take the day off and stay in bed all day,” she said.
That was mighty tempting. Jake tried to remember what he had to do today. Monday morning was usually paper work. He had to call the bank to see if they had had made any decision about loaning him money to buy a ranch. Then he remembered Glory and Opal.
“Glory,” Jake said. “We have to check on Glory.”
“Oh, my, gosh,” said Fiona. “I was going to take Opal to town.”
“Considering the time, I’d say Sammie probably took her, but I’ll check. Be right back. Don’t go away, maybe we can take the day off and spend it in bed together.”
“I’ll take a shower while you check. It’s your fault. You made me totally forget that I was going to town this morning.”
He watched her cross the room to the bathroom. She stopped and smiled back at him over her shoulder. She had the longest, sexiest legs and the prettiest body. Slowly she closed the bathroom door. He shook his head, smiling. She was wicked. Wicked, wicked, wicked. He found his jeans, pulled them on and walked out into the hall to see if the ranch was running without his close supervision.
Opal and Sammie were gone. But he ran into Olympia in the kitchen. She looked surprised to see him.
“Wow, look at you,” she said. “Nice musculature. You’ll have to excuse my staring, but I notice things like that being a writer of romance. Are you just getting up? And where is my dear friend, Fiona? She is nowhere to be seen. I guess you haven’t seen her, have you?”
Jake felt the heat rising in his face.
She laughed. “You are holding her prisoner in your bedroom, I bet.”
Jake found his voice. “She came of her own volition. Actually, she seduced me.”
“Perfect. Great. This will make a great love scene in my next novel which I’m going to start today.”
She poured him a mug of coffee. “Here, you might need this.”
Jake smiled and said thanks. Olympia could grow on you after a while.
“What have you been up to?” he asked, taking an exploratory sip of the coffee.
She smiled. “I just got back this morning. I’ve been with Paul, the new love of my life. He’s an interesting guy. I like him. He took off this early morning for a consulting job down in Nevada.”
“Why didn’t you go with him?”
“I’m going to join him later this week. I found a ranch yesterday that I like, and I’m going to put in an offer today. It’s a real steal. Pretty setting, but the house and buildings are run down. I’m going to tear the house down and build a big old ranch house like Opal’s. Paul looked at it with me and says the soil and rock formations are good for ranching. I might even invest in a small herd.”
“Sounds nice,” said Jake. “Where is it?”
“Not too far from here. An old man has it and has to get rid of it because the bank is going to foreclose. He’s looking for a quick sale.”
Jake frowned. “What’s the old man’s name?”