Across the cavernous hall, barbecued ribs and chicken sizzled on the grill of a huge old-fashioned chuck wagon while the caterer and her staff of gingham-clad cowgirls ladled up coleslaw and potato salad by the gallon. Nearby, bartenders in flannel shirts and derby hats served beer and wine to thirsty customers. As the bottles and kegs emptied, the noise level rose.
In the midst of the gaiety, Cassidy stood alone near the open doors of the main entrance, the silk tie he’d carefully knotted two hours earlier now wrenched free of the stiff collar, his patience thinned to tissue paper.
“Somethin’ tells me you’d rather be out chasing strays than proppin’ up the wall,” Travis Stockwell commented as he ambled Cassidy’s way.
Cassidy straightened, and for good measure, gave the knot of his tie another jerk. “You got that right,” he said as he saluted the younger man with the can of soda he’d been nursing for the past hour.
“‘Pears to me you’d do better to grab you one of these,” Travis advised, indicating the long-necked beer bottle in his big hand.
Cassidy gave it some thought. He hadn’t been drunk since the night of his father’s funeral. Now, on the rare occasions that he indulged, he limited himself to two beers. Eight years of watching his old man dive deeper and deeper into a bottle had made him cautious.
“Guess I’ll stick with the soft stuff,” he said, taking a swig. “Got me a mare ready to foal any minute now.” He’d been right to call Russell. Golden Girl had gone into labor an hour after they’d headed for town.
Travis nodded, one cowboy to another. “The bay?” he asked after taking a long pull on the bottle.
“No, the palomino, Golden Girl out of Goldenrod.”
“I’m guessin’ she’s a maiden, for all the worryin’ you’re doin’.”
“You guess right.”
Travis acknowledged that with an understanding nod. “Is that the mare you bred to that wild stallion I been hearing about?”
“Yeah. Took me two years to finally get a rope on that big white hellion. Bred him three times, last time to the Girl. Damn near lost two men trying to control him.”
Travis’s brown eyes gleamed. “Heard you set him free after he covered your mares.”
Cassidy nodded. He’d seen the stallion a time or two since, racing the wind across the wildest part of the Lazy S. As free as God made him.
“Word is you had a couple of sweet offers to take him off your hands, provided, of course, he was green broke.”
“One or two.”
“You figure he couldn’t be broke?”
Cassidy shrugged. “Didn’t seem right to try.”
Travis digested that in silence, then nodded. “You thinkin’ to sell the palomino’s foal?”
“Not unless I care to spend the rest of my life explainin’ my reasons to my daughter.”
Travis snorted over the sound of nearby laughter. “Yeah, I know what you mean. My sweet Virginia’s only a little past nine months and already she’s got me bustin’ my butt to make her happy. Peggy says I’m spoiling both my kids.”
Cassidy heard the note of self-conscious contentment in Travis’s voice and felt a sharp pang of envy. From rodeo gypsy to family man in the wink of an eye. A hell of a transition, he decided, but it seemed to suit Travis damned well. At least he had had a choice about becoming a father, Cassidy thought, then felt like an ass. Karen hadn’t gotten herself pregnant all by her lonesome.
“You still intending to take your family with you when the tour starts up again?” he asked during a lull in the music.
“Yep. Got me a honey of an RV and Peggy loves it. She’s got it all decorated real pretty, even has a corner fixed up like a nursery for the babies. Says it’s like taking her nest with her wherever she goes.”
Cassidy took a long breath. He and Karen had worked for days on the baby’s room, racing to get it done before Karen’s due date. Damn, if they hadn’t had fun, too. His heart ached at the memory of his new bride’s laughing eyes when he’d swung her off the ladder and kissed her senseless. They’d ended up making love on the floor amid paint cans and roller pans. He shifted, frowned. The hardness that had subsided started to throb again and he cursed the idiots who’d come up with the idea for this bash in the first place.
“Sounds like Peggy’s not planning on going back to work anytime soon.” Travis shook his head. “No way! She’s got all she can handle with me and the twins.”
Cassidy hid his jealousy behind a grin. “Guess it’s a toss-up who demands the most TLC, you or the babies.”
Travis chuckled. “You could say that, yeah. Course, me being the easygoing sort, I don’t take a lot of care. Mostly just the tender lovin’ part.”
After giving an obligatory chuckle, Cassidy took another sip of soda pop and let his gaze wander over the crowd. The dancing had started again, and he let his attention linger for a moment on one of the couples, friends of Karen’s from the hospital. Noah Howell and his wife Amanda. Both doctors.
The last time he’d done time in this suit and tie, he’d been attending their wedding. From the way they were squeezing up to each other tonight, their thighs rubbing in time with the waltz, he figured the honeymoon was far from over.
Give ’em another few years and the groom would be leaning against a wall and wishing he could go home while the happy bride was off on her own, gossiping with her friends. Like Karen, he thought as he shifted his gaze to the cluster of tables to his left where she was laughing with a sleek blonde in a filmy dress the color of wood smoke. It took him a moment to place the face. Olivia’s daughter, Eve, had come home for the funeral, and a few weeks later she’d up and married one of his poker-playing buddies, Rio Redtree.
Weddings and babies. Hell, it was an epidemic.
Karen said it was all due to the horrendous spring storm, and that a sociologist from Denver was doing a study to see if the increase in life-altering changes was the result of heightened emotions.
Emotions. Hell, he thought. It was sex that produced weddings, just like it produced babies. The hot, steamy kind of sex that took a man by storm and messed up all his well-ordered plans.
His body stirring once more, he watched Karen laughing at something Eve had just said and brooded on the long restless nights he’d spent lately staring at the ceiling, his body hard and aching to be buried in his wife’s soft warmth.
Before he’d met Karen, he hadn’t known he had any real tenderness in him. The women he’d cared enough about to take to bed had excited other things in him. Hot, turbulent needs that settled as quickly as they rose. Dark, angry emotions that set his teeth on edge, even as he exerted a will of iron to keep his hands from bruising and his need from galloping out of control.
But somehow, with Karen, the ferocity of his needs was tempered by the greatest contentment he’d ever known. Somehow, when he was holding her in his arms, his sated body still sheathed by hers, the accusing voice inside his head was silent, allowing him peace.
He’d been shaken right down to his boots to realize he’d wanted her love desperately, wanted something he’d stopped believing in on his tenth birthday. Wanted what he, himself, was no longer able to offer a woman.
He drew a breath and watched her lift her wineglass to her lips. He longed to feel that lush, sweet mouth on his, opening eagerly, her hands clutching at his shoulders as she made soft pleading noises in her throat.
Even now, when a part of him hated her for being so stubborn, he wanted her more than any other woman he’d ever known. His sweet wife, the mother of his child.