The Rancher's Surrender

Chapter 14

For one solid week, everyone worked like crazy. The inside of the ranch house got its second coat of paint. The cottages were cleaned out and also painted, the arena and corral fences repaired, the barn finished, and they had daily meetings on all that their guest ranch would entail.

Advertising went out for their first season, which normally wouldn't start until next spring, but they couldn't survive without income through the winter. So they would open in the fall, have one very short season, then start again in the spring. For now, they would probably take winters off, until they were more comfortable with all that an incredibly heavy snow load would bring. They needed to hire a handful of experienced staff since it had become clear they would need help immediately.

Maddie wanted to create a first-class kitchen that would rival any five-star restaurant. Delia, always the social one, wanted to handle the decorating of the cottages and main lodge, then also the housekeeping, reservations and front-desk activities. Zoe would handle the financial aspect, manage the staff and also learn the outside duties. Ranch hands would take on the animals and the daily guided rides, overseen by Ty. They hoped to also provide hiking, rafting and big-game hunting.

At the end of an exhausting week, the weather turned unusually chilly. At dark one night everyone gathered around a hot, crackling bonfire. Cade was in town, and the five of them sat on fallen logs, relaxing for the first time in weeks.

Maddie provided hot chocolate, which Cade had liberally doctored with brandy, insisting it was necessary for warmth.

Unused to the alcohol, Zoe watched with fuzzy eyes as everyone's tongue loosened. She struggled with a dark mood, brought on by Cade's unhappy news.

No news on her mother. The need to know continued to gnaw at her, eating at her insides.

Cade helpfully refilled her drink often as she sat there and listened to the wood crackle pleasantly, the occasional cry of a coyote, a hoot of an owl. The scent of the outdoors was strong, too, of pine and fire and water. Easy to lose herself in her own world while the others talked and laughed around her.

"Truth or dare," Cade said suddenly, grinning broadly in the dark. "Let's play."

"That game is for the very young or the very drunk," Delia said haughtily, and Zoe smiled at the tone. Cade could have suggested a full shopping spree on him at Saks Fifth Avenue and still Delia would have scoffed.

"You first, Delia," Cade decided. "Seeing as you fit both the criteria. Truth… or dare?"

Delia lifted her nose and ignored him. To everyone's surprise, Maddie laughed. "Chicken," she chided, and Delia gaped at her.

"I'm no such thing!" She whirled on Cade. "I'm not chicken."

"Then play." He raised his eyebrows comically, daring her.

"Fine. Dare then, you idiot."

"Okay." Even in the dark he looked mischievous. "I dare you to kiss me."

Delia's jaw dropped. "What?"

Maybe it was the brandy, but Zoe burst out laughing at Delia's expression as all composure escaped her usually so-composed sister. It was just absolutely priceless.

As she laughed, she caught Ty's eye. He smiled slowly at her, an approving, warm smile that made her feel all the more fuzzy and dizzy, all the way to her toes, and her laughter faded.

Her warm, fuzzy feeling did not. She almost fell off her log staring at him as her bones melted away, and in return his smile turned hot and knowing.

Delia folded her arms over her chest, looking prim and proper in spite of how she weaved back and forth from too much spiked hot chocolate. "Truth," she said, lifting her chin. "Because all the brandy in the world couldn't make me desperate enough to kiss you."

Cade grinned, uninsulted. "Okay. Your most memorable sexual experience, then."

"What about it?"

"Tell us the details."

And if Zoe had laughed at Delia's expression before, she roared now, holding her aching sides as she let go.

Delia, horrified, just glared at her.

"You know what a forfeit is, dear Delia?" Cade asked sweetly, and they all roared again when Delia eloquently told Cade where to put his suggestion.

"Okay, never mind. I'll start," Cade relented, still grinning. "Um, let's see… most memorable sexual experience… In an elevator."

"An elevator?" Shocked, Zoe pictured the short distance between any two floors. How did that work? she wondered. "Wow, Cade."

"Oh, don't encourage him!" Delia tried to hold on to her frown, but gave in with a laugh and a quick swig of her laced drink. "Fine, then," she said, refortified with courage and brandy. "Started in an open field, blanketed by wildflowers." She lifted a saucy brow at Cade. "Satisfied?"

Of course he wasn't, he was full of trouble, and it shone from his eyes. "Started?" he said, wanting clarification. "Or finished? It makes all the difference, you know."

"Bees. Lots of bees," Delia said with a remembered shudder. "Ruined the mood."

As they laughed and drank more hot chocolate, everyone turned to Maddie, who went beet-red. "I can't think of anything," she said quickly, so obviously embarrassed that no one had the heart to press her.

"Zoe?" Cade asked, and all heads swiveled to her expectantly.

Her amusement quickly faded. "This is so immature."

"But wicked fun," Cade encouraged. "Come on. Your turn. Most memorable sexual experience."

"Um…" With brandy buzzing her veins and everyone looking at her, it was hard to think, but she felt no one's gaze as much as Ty's, and suddenly she couldn't come up with anything.

It might have been the fact she had consumed far more alcohol than she was used to.

It might have been that she had only one experience in her life to even discuss, and that had been pathetically short and completely unsatisfying.

Or it might have been that she didn't want to talk about it in front of the one man in her entire life she'd actually fantasized about. Other than Mel Gibson, that is.

"I can help you out here, I think," Ty said kindly.

"You can?" Relief was so great. Zoe beamed at him, thinking he was pretty darn nice as well as gorgeous. Maybe even as gorgeous as Mel.

"Uh-huh." His smile spread, causing her stomach to do little flip-flops that had nothing to do with the brandy. "Let's see…" He considered her seriously as he stroked his chin. "I'd have to say in the barn."

Wait, Zoe thought, befuddled. Wait a minute. He was talking about him and her! Ty laughed, a low, sexy sound that had heat and longing spearing Zoe's skin.

"Alas, also unconsummated," he added regretfully.

Delia's eyes widened. "Zoe? With… you. In the barn?"

Zoe decided Ty wasn't nearly so cute anymore. And not nice at all. In fact, she was going to kill him, just as soon as her vision cleared and she could figure out which one of his two heads was the right one.

"Oh, boy," Maddie whispered. Then she giggled, slapped her hand over her mouth and started to shake with laughter. "Oh, boy."

Delia bit her bottom lip, but couldn't bold back. Soon the two of them were screaming with laughter, tears spilling down their faces as they struggled not to fall off their log.

"I don't see what's so funny!" Zoe stood, wavered on her feet, than glared down at her sisters. "And you didn't ask him why it was unconsummated. For your information, I punched his lights out!"

"Uh, Zoe? Actually, you slugged me only the first time," Ty corrected her helpfully. "The second and third time we made out, you kissed me back. A lot."

Zoe stalked off into the night then, in tune to Maddie and Delia's shrieks of laughter. Face hot, heart racing, she stormed, her legs churning up the rough ground.

Definitely going to kill him, she thought, stumbling over her own two left feet. The nerve, the absolute nerve! That he had been correct didn't matter in the least. "I wish I could just forget the whole thing," she muttered, passing the barn in a huff.

"No, you don't."

At the sound of the man who had just given her sisters ammunition to tease her with for years to come, Zoe sped up her pace, refusing to even look at him. "Go away."

She didn't look at him, just kept going, needing a place to be alone where she could wallow in her mortification in peace.

Ty followed; she could hear his footsteps, much smoother than her own clumsy ones. Why had she drunk so much? She never drank. In the morning she was going to kill Cade, too, just on principle.

Her own breathing rang sharp in her ears as she passed the cottages, and on the cold night, her breath fogged in front of her face. Behind her, Ty wasn't even laboring, which only infuriated her all the more.

Before she knew it, she had come to the edge of Triple M and stood staring down at Ty's much smaller spread. He'd left the lights on in his house. It looked warm and inviting, and confusion welled as she wavered.

"You're the only one," she whispered, facing the night but talking to the silent man behind her. "The only one I've ever let see me. You know, the real me."

His voice was just as hushed. "Have you asked yourself why?"

She hesitated, feeling emotionally stripped. "I don't know why. I don't understand. No one else… ever," she trailed off lamely. She shivered and he made a low sound of… regret?

"Come on," he said, touching her hand with his. "You're cold. I'll make more hot chocolate-without the brandy."

"I'm not drunk." But she went meekly with him, suddenly realizing she had to concentrate on each footstep, one at a time, because walking had never been quite so difficult.

"How many times did you let Cade fill your mug?"

"At least one too many."

He laughed softly in agreement. They went down the hill, into the most beautiful wilderness she'd ever seen. Of course she couldn't see much now, not in the dark. But she didn't have to see, she could remember. It was forever imprinted on her soul, this new home of hers. The wildflowers, which were so abundant they were show-offs in the day's breeze. The trees, which outnumbered the trout in the river, but not by much. She knew Lewis and Clark had called this land Paradise, and she thought they were right. It was paradise. Her paradise.

The night seemed to swallow them. Zoe shivered again. Ty let go of her hand and wrapped a strong arm around her, and never in her life could she remember feeling so safe.

"I want to be able to forget our kisses, but you keep reminding me," she said, bewildered. Definitely too much brandy. It loosened her tongue.

"Why would you want to forget?"

Now he was breathing heavily and she realized it was because he was supporting her weight as well as his. Good, served him right. "Because they felt so good. Why is that, Ty? Do you practice a lot?"

"No." But he was grinning, she could heard it in his voice when he spoke. "Man, are you going to be mad at yourself tomorrow."

"It's not my fault, really, that I melt when you kiss me. It's because I haven't been kissed like that in…" Forever. "Well, a long time," she said defensively. "You can't blame me for turning into Jell-O when you touch me."

"Can't blame you one bit," he agreed, hoisting her closer when she threatened to slide down to the ground.

She waved her hand when she talked, nearly slapping him in the face. "And now Maddie and Delia will never let me forget that I've kissed you, not when I've been pretending to hate you."

He tucked his tongue into his cheek and vowed to get her drunk more often.

Finally they made it to his front door. When he got her inside, he headed toward his fireplace, wanting to get her warmed before he drove her home.

"Your house. It's… lovely." She craned her neck, looking around. He knew what she saw-high wood-beamed ceilings, rustic interior, sparse but comfortable furniture.

She met his gaze as he hunkered by the fireplace, match in hand. "It's a home," she said with some surprise. "A real one."

"Yes." He knew exactly what she meant, for their backgrounds weren't all that different. Neither of them had belonged before, had ever had a true home. The ranch house was his first, and it gave him one of his few good pleasures because it was warm and cozy and everything he imagined a real home should be.

"But…" Distress filled her expression. "I don't want to know this about you," she whispered, suddenly looking stone-cold sober. She wrapped her arms around herself, confused. "I don't want to know you're capable of this, that you can…"

He lit the kindling, then rose to his feet in one movement, suddenly restless. "You don't want to know I'm a real man with real needs like warmth and comfort and love and affection?" Anger was a slow, inexorable burn in the pit of his belly. "A man who maybe isn't just after your land, but maybe something much, much more important?"

"Yes, that," she agreed softly, backing up as he took a step toward her.

The fire crackled, the night outside the windows was complete. Inside was close and toasty and soothing. It absolutely terrified the woman in front of him in a way he understood better than anyone else would.

"You said we'd go slow," she whispered hoarsely as he came close.

"Yeah, well, I think I've just ran out of 'slow'." He tossed aside the matches and reached for her. "Face it, Zoe. You're not mad because I told your sisters we kissed. You're mad because you liked it, because you know you want more. But mostly you're mad because you know that those kisses meant more than just sexual tension-which, by the way, is running between us so hot I can no longer even function."

She swallowed and took another step away from him, her gaze glued to his lips, which made him instantly hard.

"Tell me, Zoe," he said quietly, stalking her in the living room, unable to handle her distance. "Tell me now, when you're staring at my mouth as if you could devour it, tell me, dammit, the truth. That those kisses meant more than anything, more than even your wildest dreams."

"I… I don't want them to."

"It's too late."

"No! Don't you understand?" she cried. "I can't give myself when I don't even know who that is!"

That stopped him. "You know who you are."

"No, I don't, I know nothing about myself. Nothing! Not what kind of place I came from. Not my heritage, my culture." Slowly she shook her head, staring off into space. "I don't know if my father ever held me. Hell, I don't even know if he knows I exist! It drives me crazy that I can't remember."

"You were only three," he said softly. "Just a baby, Zoe. It's not your fault."

She wanted to believe that. "I just wish I knew why my mother left me."

"You could try to find her," he suggested quietly.

"I've tried. Cade's working on it, but there's nothing. She's gone and I have no idea who I am."

He was shaking his head. "You decide who Zoe is, no one else can do that. It doesn't matter if you were born in the gutter, no one can take you away from you."

He was talking from experience, they both knew that.

"And then there's you," she whispered. "You make me feel things… things I don't want to feel. You want to know me, you want me to let you in…" She let out a pained laugh. "You want me to let you in when I can't find the door to open. I mean, I can't even tell you what my father's name was, Ty."

"Zoe." There was compassion in his voice and something that sounded very much like pity, which she couldn't take. She was going to break down right here in front of him if she so much as blinked.

"I'm sorry," he said so gently her eyes filled. She needed out. Now.

"I'm thirsty," she muttered, and dashed into the kitchen, swiping at her eyes.

When Ty followed her, he found her standing in front of his opened refrigerator.

"I need something to eat," she said with a hitched breath.

"I thought you were thirsty."

"Well, now I'm hungry."

He sighed. "I'll take you home."

"You… you want me to go?"

He looked at her, saw the fear and nerves, and cursed himself for pushing her. Cursed himself for caring so much.

"Fine. You won't talk, but you want food." He yanked a tub of ice cream out of the freezer and dropped it on the counter. Grabbing a can of whipped cream from the refrigerator, he shoved it at her. "Go for it."

Reflexively she took the can, clutched it to her chest. "I don't know what you want from me."

"I want…" What did he want from her? "Hell," he muttered.

"See?" she cried. "It's not that easy, is it?"

"Yes, it is," he decided. "I want you to open up and talk to me."

"No, you want me to tell you how I feel about you."

"That, too," he agreed.

"But- But you've never told me how you feel."

No, he had to agree, he hadn't.

"Tell me, Ty."

Without warning, his heart started pumping, because she was right, it wasn't nearly as easy to define as he'd thought. He stared at her, struggling. "Zoe-"

"Oh, forget it." Turning from him, she touched the container of ice cream. "I don't want to know how you feel, anyway."

A blatant lie, but one he was willing to let her have at the moment, because for some reason he was frightened, truly frightened. Big, bad, tough Ty Jackson, scared to death by this woman. "I want you," he said to her back. "There's more, but I'm not sure I'm ready for the rest."

"Convenient."

"Honest," he corrected her. "I won't ever hurt you with lies, Zoe."

"So you want me. That's not really that big of a secret, Ty."

"Neither is the fact you want me back."

She stiffened and clammed up, which infuriated him. "Eat," he said, opening the carton. "Go on. Keep pretending you're not the least bit affected by me, that you feel nothing-"

She whirled around. "At the moment, I don't have to pretend a thing!"

"You're so full of-"

She popped the top off the whipped cream and sprayed it in his mouth and on his face, muffling the rest of his sentence.

Cold stickiness clouded his brain so that for a moment he could only gape at her, he was so shocked. She was shocked, too, if her wide eyes were any indication. Slowly those eyes blinked, then ran over his face, stopping at the sight of the cream around his mouth. Ty licked his lips to speak and her eyes were riveted to the action.

Heat spiraled through him irrationally. He didn't stop to think about the wisdom of his actions, he simply reached for her, but she was quicker. Backing up a step, she aimed the can at him and looked comically fierce. "Don't take another step," she warned.

No way was she going to squirt him again, he thought, taking another step.

She shot him in the chest and stomach, layering whipped cream over his shirt.

"You're going to be very sorry for that," he promised, grabbing her, wrestling the can from her hand and, without qualm, using his superior strength to wrap a long arm around her, holding her immobile against his side. He held up the can with a nasty smile.

"Don't you dare," she choked, wriggling against him in a way that had his blood boiling.

"Never dare me, Zoe." With that he deliberately and slowly shot whipped cream over her, ignoring her struggles and squeals. Or maybe using them as an excuse to shoot lower, across her front. Her outer plaid shirt, unbuttoned, had come off her shoulders in the struggle, pinning her arms to her sides. All the more perfect, he thought diabolically. It took only a couple of more squirts to have her T-shirt plastered to her breasts, the firm curves perfectly outlined for his enjoyment.

Her nipples were hard and straining against the thin cotton, and his mouth watered. His body tightened and he held her still, staring down at the sight he'd created, wondering how in the hell he was supposed to let her go now.

"I'm going to scream," she gasped, but her eyes told him something entirely different.

"Yeah?" he whispered thickly. "Do it." Still holding her, he bent her back over his arm and put his mouth to her throat, sucking the gooey stuff from her skin in little love bites, waiting to see if she made good on her threat.

She didn't scream at all, but moaned and clutched at him. He trailed his tongue down, licking as he went, and Zoe went wild in his arms, leaving no doubt in his mind as to what she wanted. He dragged open-mouthed kisses down, down, then hovered over an aroused and waiting nipple.

She stopped breathing.

So did he.

He felt as though he were drowning in desire, needing her beyond all sanity. His tongue darted out and licked at her through her cotton T-shirt and she did scream then, arching up so that he could suck her breast into his mouth.

When she was without reason, Ty lifted his head, gazing down into her flushed, damp face. "This is where you belong, Zoe. In my arms. I'm going to prove it to you."

Her eyes cleared and flashed, her mouth opened, surely to claim otherwise, and he took full advantage, swallowing her angry words with his lips. He could taste the lingering brandy, and her own sweet breath. Could taste her desire, and the fear of that very thing. Could taste the confusion and remembered pain of her past, and that hurt he tasted touched him as nothing else could have.

Gentling the kiss, he drew her even closer, sank his fingers into her glorious, now-sticky hair and deepened their connection. She responded immediately, pressing against him with an urgency he understood all too well. This had been too long in the coming, too much tension, and he had no idea if he could slow down enough to do it right.

But then he slid his hips against hers and she stiffened in his arms, inexperienced and uncertain. There was just something about her, so wise and yet innocent, and it tugged at his soul.

And he knew in that moment that for her, he could slow down.

He could do anything.

"Zoe."

She looked at him from beneath slumberous green eyes. Their bodies were glued together by the whipped cream, belly to belly, chest to chest. He wanted to make love with her, but he wanted so much more. And even more shocking, he wanted her to want those things, too. "I want-"

"Kiss me again, Ty."

"But-"

"Dammit, you started this, now kiss me!"

Taking matters into her own hands, she wriggled her hands free, grabbed his ears and pulled his head down to hers.

The kiss was wild, and he was weak, losing himself in the woman holding him as if she'd never experienced anything like it before. As if he were all she could ever want.

A nice fantasy, but he wanted it to be a reality. His reality. "Zoe-"

"You talk too much," she murmured against his lips. "Make love to me instead. Please, Ty. Make love to me."