Knowing that she couldn’t succumb to his seductive persuasions on this matter, she purposely pushed at his shoulders to wedge a few cooling inches between them. “Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t feel right.”
Seeing she meant what she said, Quint grabbed her hand and began tugging her toward the door. “C’mon. I know somewhere we can go.”
“Go? Now?” she asked dazedly. “Where?”
“You’ll see. It’s not far.”
Unable to resist, Maura allowed him to lead her outside to the front of the house, where he quickly helped her into the cab of his truck. As he pulled away from the ranch house, a sense of reckless anticipation came over her and she looked at him as though they’d suddenly turned into sneaky partners in crime.
“What if Abe returns to the house and finds us gone? What are we going to tell him?”
Quint chuckled. “That I took you sightseeing.”
Maura groaned with misgiving. “In the dark? The man isn’t that ancient, Quint.”
“Does it matter what he thinks?”
He reached across the seat for her hand and as his fingers closed around hers, she could feel her heart throbbing with excitement. What normal woman wouldn’t thrill at the idea of her lover carrying her off in the dark to a secret hideaway?
“No,” she whispered truthfully. “It can’t matter.”
About two miles from the house, he turned onto a dim dirt road that led north toward the mountains. During her morning jogs, Maura had noticed the road, but never explored it.
“Are we still on Apache Wells?” she asked after he’d driven for another five minutes.
By now the road had grown bumpy and a dense pine forest had narrowed the road down to the width of a single vehicle. As the truck climbed the rough terrain, Maura gripped the seat in order to steady herself.
“Honey, you have to drive ten miles back to the main highway before you’re off of Apache Wells.”
“I wasn’t sure. We’re going toward the mountains. And it doesn’t look like anyone travels this road very often.”
“Only me. And if any cattle go astray, the ranch hands might use it. But that’s rare.”
She was peering out the windshield, wondering how much farther the truck could handle the rough terrain when suddenly the road planed out, and straight ahead, in the beam of the headlights, stood a small log cabin embraced by a stand of tall pines.
Quint quickly stopped the truck, then helped her to ground. As they walked toward the entrance, their footsteps made silent by pine needles, Maura got the sense that the structure was old. Possibly even older than the ranch itself.
Using his shoulder, Quint shoved the door inward, then ordered her to stay put until he provided light.
Standing in the doorway, the cool night air to her back and the silence of the woods surrounding them, a brief moment of stark sanity raced through her mind.
What was she doing here? With a man younger than her and definitely far less committed? Had she lost her senses and thrown every scrap of self-respect to the wind?
Commitment. Self-respect. She’d had those things before. Or so she’d believed. They had brought her nothing but heartache. Being with Quint brought her joy. And no matter how short-lived that joy was she was going to take it, savor it and be glad for it.
After Quint lit a kerosene lantern and a fat candle, he motioned for Maura to enter the small, one-room cabin. As she stepped onto the bare, wooden floor and glanced around at the crude fixtures, he said, “It’s a little dusty. But not bad. I’ll open the windows and that should give us some fresh air.”
At the front of the room, Quint unlatched two wooden squares that pushed outward to create window spaces. After he’d securely propped them and the cool night air rushed in, he walked back to where she stood by a tiny table holding the burning lamp.
“Alone. At last,” he said with a growl of satisfaction.
Maura’s heart leaped to a reckless speed as his hands settled at the sides of her waist. “You’ve taken a lot of trouble to get me up here,” she said huskily.
In the dim glow of the lamp, she watched his gaze travel straight to her swollen lips and her loins clenched with desire.
“And you’re worth every minute of it.”
He was not a man to hand her lines and as he pulled her into his arms, she wondered if he’d actually meant the words he’d whispered.
Don’t go trying to figure the man now, Maura. Just remember this time with him isn’t forever and you’ll be okay.
Closing her eyes, she turned her lips up to his and as his kiss swept her into a vortex of pleasures she forgot about his motives and plans or the condition her heart might be in tomorrow. Tonight was all about him and her being together and nothing else.
Before long he was removing her clothing and carrying her to a built-in bunk spread with a down comforter. From the small bed, she watched him undress in the dim yellow glow of the lamplight and as the soft shadows slipped fingers across his hard body, her throat thickened with emotions she didn’t understand or even want to analyze.
This amazing man wanted her. Needed her. That was enough for now.
At Chillicothe, she’d believed it impossible for Quint to thrill her more, to take her to even higher heights with his lovemaking, but somehow he did and it was a long time afterward before she could find the strength or composure to utter a word.
Lying in his arms, her body lax and replete, she rested her cheek upon his shoulder and savored the feel of his fingertips marking a gentle trail from her hip to her breast and back again.
“What is this place?” she asked drowsily.
“Our hideaway,” he murmured.
By now the candle had burned out and the single flame of the lamp mottled the chinked walls with golden splashes of light. Beyond the open windows and above the tops of the pines, she could see a portion of the black sky riddled with stars and at that moment it was impossible to think of a more beautiful place to be.
Her lips tilted to a dreamy smile. “I mean before.”
“The cabin was here before Gramps built the ranch and we figured pioneers must have lived here long ago. At one time Gramps used it as a hunting cabin. But now he’d rather feed the deer than shoot them. And so do I.”
“Do you come here often?”
He shifted ever so slightly, and then she felt his lips brushing against the crown of her hair. It was such a sweet and loving contact that her throat suddenly stung with tears.
“No. The last time I was here was more than a year ago, when I learned that my mother had kept a secret life from me and my sister, Alexa.”
“I heard bits and pieces about that even before I returned to Hondo Valley. Knowing your lovely mother, it’s still hard for me to imagine her having another family that no one knew about.”
He sighed and Maura could only imagine what the ordeal with Frankie Cantrell had done to him. It hurt to think of him going through such emotional turmoil. Like her, everything he’d believed in had been ripped asunder and she knew firsthand the deep wounds that deception left behind.
“No one knew about her first marriage but my father,” he said lowly. “And he took the secret to his grave. Seems my parents decided that it would be too hard on Alexa and me to know that we had brothers in Texas, but couldn’t associate with them. You see, Mom’s first husband was abusive. She was forced to run from him and didn’t stop running until she reached Ruidoso. He must have been a real