Back in the Saddle: A Rough Riders

Story Featuring Cord And AJ James

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/back-in-the-saddle-a-rough-riders-story-featuring-cor
d-and-aj-james/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Wish You Were Dead: Quick Reads 2021: A Quick Reads

Short Story featuring Detective Superintendent Roy
Grace Peter James [James

https://ebookmass.com/product/wish-you-were-dead-quick-
reads-2021-a-quick-reads-short-story-featuring-detective-
superintendent-roy-grace-peter-james-james/

The War With Audin: A Portal Wars Story James E Wisher

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-war-with-audin-a-portal-wars-
story-james-e-wisher/

The Woman They Could Not Silence: The Shocking Story of

a Woman Who Dared to Fight Back Kate Moore

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-woman-they-could-not-silence-
the-shocking-story-of-a-woman-who-dared-to-fight-back-kate-moore/

Rough Submission: A Harmless World Novel (Rough 'n

Ready Book 1) Melissa Schroeder

https://ebookmass.com/product/rough-submission-a-harmless-world-
novel-rough-n-ready-book-1-melissa-schroeder/
The Palgrave Companion to Chicago Economics Robert A
Cord

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-palgrave-companion-to-chicago-
economics-robert-a-cord/

Rough and Tumble Khloe Summers

https://ebookmass.com/product/rough-and-tumble-khloe-summers/

The Italian's Pregnant Enemy (A Diamond in the Rough,

Book 1) (Mills & Boon Modern) Maisey Yates

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-italians-pregnant-enemy-a-
diamond-in-the-rough-book-1-mills-boon-modern-maisey-yates/

The Cowboy's Enemy: A BBW, Curvy Girl Enemies to Lovers

Sports Romance Story C.H. James

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-cowboys-enemy-a-bbw-curvy-girl-
enemies-to-lovers-sports-romance-story-c-h-james/

The Palgrave Companion to Oxford Economics 1st Edition

Robert A. Cord (Editor)

https://ebookmass.com/product/the-palgrave-companion-to-oxford-
economics-1st-edition-robert-a-cord-editor/
 Back In The Saddle
A Rough Riders Novella
Copyright © 2023 LJLA, LLC, All Rights Reserved.

Ridgeview Publishing
April 2023 Kindle Edition

ISBN: 978-1-941869-16-1

In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, scanning, uploading, transmitting in any form, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without prior permission
from the publisher is piracy and considered theft of the author’s intellectual property.

This book is a work of fiction. All names, places and situations in this book are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or
persons is coincidental.

Visit www.loreleijames.com

Cover Design by: Meredith Blair

Cover Photo by: photo.ua/Bigstock.com/112867757
Edited by: Lindsey Faber
Interior Designed and Formatted by: BB eBooks Co., Ltd. – www.bbebooksthailand.com
You wanted it, you got it! Thanks to all the readers who participated in the online poll and overwhelmingly picked Cord and
AJ for this new short story!
 Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
About Back in the Saddle
Back In The Saddle
Excerpt from Cowgirl Up and Ride
Connect with the Author
Other books by Lorelei James
Timeline for Back in the Saddle, a Cord and AJ short story; this takes place right before Redneck Romeo, around the same time
Dalton McKay returns to Wyoming.
 IT WAS OFFICIAL: her marriage had officially gone to the dogs.
Every day this week—heck, every day the past few months—Cord hadn’t kissed her goodbye.
AJ had been hopeful for a smooch this morning upon hearing him re-enter the house. She’d propped herself provocatively
in the doorway between the entryway and the kitchen, watching as he strode right past her to snatch the keyring he’d left on the
bench. Cord hadn’t spared her a second glance, but he had reached down to scratch the dog’s head before hustling out the door.
What happened after that…not her proudest moment, but she had been hopping mad.
She eyed their blue heeler, Chichi, who wore a suspiciously smug look. “If your master keeps that up, he’ll be bunking in
the barn with you.”
Chichi cocked her head.
“Piece of advice, pooch. Wagging your behind at him is a bust as far as getting his attention. Trust me. I’ve already tried it.”
She sighed. “Has it really come to this? I’m confiding my marital woes to the dog.”
Her annoyance probably didn’t qualify as a real marital issue to anyone else. But it bugged the crap out of her since this
weird disconnect with Cord had been dragging on forever. At first she’d chalked up his distraction to the demands of calving
season. But that season had come and gone, yet as this no kissy, no huggy situation lingered, AJ worried it’d become their new
normal. Or worse yet, Cord was utterly clueless that his daily show of affection toward her had dwindled to zero.
The first time she’d brought it up, Cord’s defensiveness had kicked in and he’d lit into her about all of his responsibilities.
The second time she’d mentioned it, Cord opted for sarcasm. AJ suspected if she brought it up again, he’d sigh, mutter sorry
darlin’ and offer a perfunctory peck on the cheek each morning in a half-assed attempt at placating her.
No thank you.
“Mama?”
She blinked and glanced down at her youngest son, Vaughn. “Yes, sweetie?”
“Why’re you sad?”
AJ ruffled his blond curls—he was the only one of their children who had inherited her hair color. “It’s nothing for you to
worry about.”
“Are you missin’ sissy?”
Avery, her only girl child, and the closest one in age to Vaughn, had recently started all-day kindergarten, much to Vaughn’s
dismay. “I’m missing something,” she murmured. Then she smoothed the hair she’d tousled. “Are you ready to head into town?”
“Yep. Got my backpack.”
She smiled at the massive camo backpack, stuffed to the gills with god only knew what a four-year old needed for six hours
away from home. “You’ve jammed a lot of stuff in there, pard. You sure you don’t need me to carry it?”
Vaughn scoffed, his expression so like Cord’s that her heart squeezed. “I’m not a baby, mama.”
“My mistake. Go get your boots on and I’ll be right there.”
With only one kiddo in her eight passenger Suburban, the too-quiet drive from the ranch into Sundance gave AJ too much
time to think.
Even when she understood it wasn’t fair to compare their past to their present, she couldn’t stop her thoughts from focusing
on the hungry way Cord used to look at her. Those work-roughened hands all over her all the time. The sexual tension between
them that needed an immediate release.
This wasn’t about sex, except recently that was the only time Cord showed affection. In the moment their bodies connected,
his blue eyes filled with a heart-stopping mix of love, desire and satisfaction. A look that hadn’t faltered over the years, a look
that belonged to her alone.
God. Maybe she oughta quit fretting over what she missed and be thankful for what she had.
Yet…what if she was at fault? She couldn’t stand the thought of this disconnect continuing much longer.
After dropping Vaughn off at the community center for preschool, she headed down the street and parked in her spot behind
the Sandstone Building. Juggling her messenger bag, Diet Pepsi and keys, she unlocked the back door, stepping into the cool
darkness. The ever-present scents of essential oils filled her nose and she breathed in a deep, calming breath. This space was
her sanctuary.
While she loved being home on the ranch with Cord and their kids, she’d continued to run Healing Touch, the massage
studio she’d opened the first year of their marriage.
After the birth of Beau, baby boy number two, AJ leased out part of her space to another massage therapist. Dante
Blackstone, a Casper transplant, specialized in rehabilitation massage therapy. He worked two days a week on location and the
other days in the studio. While they usually alternated days, sometimes their schedules meshed, and they’d be in the office
together. AJ expelled a sigh of relief Dante wasn’t around. She’d be tempted to blurt out all her frustrations and fears because
confiding in the dog had gotten her nowhere.
Striving to put her worries out of her mind, she popped in her earbuds and cranked the music as she cleaned and restocked
her space. Then her ten o’clock cancelled, leaving her at loose ends for an hour. Even online retail therapy hadn’t brightened
her mood.
Promptly at ten-fifty-seven, Ainsley Hamilton sailed in for her eleven o’clock appointment. As usual, the bank president
was smartly dressed: a cream-colored silk blouse and a royal blue A-line skirt that mirrored the stripes in the blue plaid suit
jacket. Gray open-toed pumps and matching handbag completed the ensemble.
AJ whistled. “Lookin’ good today, Lady A.”
Ainsley blushed. “Thanks. Big meeting this morning and Ben is taking me to lunch.”
“He’s coming into town just for lunch with you?” Ainsley’s husband Ben McKay and his older brother, Quinn, ran the
northern most section of the massive McKay Ranch and were Cord’s cousins.
“You sound surprised.”
“I am. I don’t know that Cord has ever specifically met me for lunch.”
“Ever?” Ainsley asked with genuine shock.
“Well, not since we were first married. If we have to take the kids to an appointment or something during the week, we
might stop for a bite before we head back to the ranch.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but that sucks. Especially since I doubt you two ever get to enjoy a quiet meal alone at
home.”
With all those kids…went unsaid.
Then Ainsley backtracked. “But I’m sure it’s fine if it works for you.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if it isn’t broken,” AJ muttered. But she knew Ainsley had heard her when her eyes narrowed. AJ
offered a quick smile. “Never mind. Hit the dressing room and I’ll meet you back there.”
Ainsley sauntered to the door off to the left. The dressing room had a rear passthrough that allowed the client to enter the
treatment room without having to backtrack through the reception area.
AJ washed her hands and selected the eucalyptus oil Ainsley preferred. For background noise she chose instrumental music
with soft chimes layered over gentle guitar chords.
Ainsley emerged and dropped her robe before she hopped up on the table. She stretched out on her belly, her arms above
her head. Her casual approach to nudity had actually shocked AJ; she’d expected the bank president to be modest. Ainsley had
noticed her shock and had laughed. “In my life BB—Before Ben—being naked in any situation made me burn with shame. My
husband has…reformed that attitude and now I’m practically a nudist.” That admission had forged an honest friendship
between them and AJ looked forward to their sessions.
“Am I working on your shoulders today?” she asked.
“Yes, please. And if there’s time, can you check out my right calf? I’ve had weird cramps there the past week.”
“No problem. What level do you need today?”
“Medium hard? Gentler on my arms.”
“All right. Now inhale. Let go of all the tension you’re holding. Exhale slowly. Good. Twice more.” She didn’t put her
hands on Ainsley until her last drawn-out exhale.
Some clients were chatty during their treatment. Some only spoke to ask for pressure adjustment. Ainsley fell somewhere in
between. During the most intense portion of the tissue work, she concentrated on breathing and keeping her shoulders relaxed.
But when AJ drifted to her lower back, she tuned in and made small talk. Ainsley surprised AJ when she said, “Is everything
all right with you and Cord?”
“Eh. It’s the same old same old with Cord.”
“And is that part of the problem?” When AJ didn’t immediately respond, Ainsley added, “Look, I know you’re close to
your sisters-in-law, and maybe you’ve mentioned whatever is going on with you and Cord to them, but it seems you need to talk
to someone now. I’m here and it’s not like I’ll blab far and wide about it.”
AJ snorted. “Here’s where you’ll remind me that you’re a banker used to keeping everyone in town’s secrets.”
“Here’s where I remind you that we are family, but mostly I’ll remind you that I was married before Ben. I know what it’s
like to question what you’re willing to live with or live without in a relationship.”
When AJ’s hands quit moving, Ainsley lifted her head and looked over her shoulder. “Or am I wrong?”
“That’s the thing; I don’t know what’s wrong. In the past few months, Cord has stopped being the affectionate man I fell in
love with. I mean, we still have sex. I get off, he gets off. But outside of the bedroom? No ass-grabbing, no playful swats, no
handholding, no reaching over to squeeze my leg as we’re driving. No crowding me and kissing my neck when I cook or
sliding me onto his lap when we watch TV. I can’t remember the last time he purposely sought me out and kissed me goodbye
before we started our days. And unless we go to bed at the exact same time, he doesn’t bother telling me goodnight. Maybe it
sounds trivial, but I’ve gotten used to constant affection from him. And poof, it’s suddenly gone.”
 “That is odd. His memory isn’t failing?”
“No more selective male memory than usual.”
“Have you tried tracking him down to kiss him before you leave?”
“Once.” AJ dug her thumbs into Ainsley’s thick calf muscle. “I followed him out to his truck but before I could put a liplock
on him, he said he did not have time to add another task to his to do list. So when I fantasized about putting him in a headlock, I
retreated like a dog with its tail between its legs.” She groaned. “I know he’s dealing with a million things, but I didn’t deserve
to be dismissed.”
“What did he say?” Ainsley asked.
AJ imitated Cord. “Christ, AJ, don’t you think I got enough shit to worry about without you addin’ to it? I’m sorry I haven’t
been playin’ grab-ass with you in the barn and sucking face with you in the kitchen, but it ain’t like I’m ignorin’ you. I’m right
here with you, every damn day, doin’ the best I can. What else do you want from me?”
Ainsley laughed. “You do a pretty good Cord imitation. But would he really say that?”
“Well, it was more like he barked it at me, which is ironic, since the damn dog gets more petting and stroking than I do.”
She blew out a breath. “You probably think I’m ridiculous.”
“I think you’re frustrated.”
“Mostly I’m scared if I do cowgirl up and demand he hear me out, that I’ll freeze and forget what I wanted to say or turn
into a madwoman who yells and throws things.”
A beat passed and Ainsley said, “Maybe if you practice talking to him like you were giving a speech, you’ll find the right
phrasing. Or at least avoid the words that’ll cause him to clam up or get defensive. I still have to do that before dealing with
touchy subjects with Ben.”
AJ gentled her kneading thumbs as she considered Ainsley’s suggestion. “Prepare a speech? That seems weird. Then again,
I’m out of ideas.”
“Just try it. What would you do if Cord walked in right now and heard us discussing this?”
A multitude of answers scrolled through her head. Blush? Laugh it off? Apologize?
No. She’d backtalk. Get him riled up. Because then she’d be his total focus and he’d have to listen to her.
“AJ?”
For a moment she imagined it was Cord’s voice, that little snap in his tone when he impatiently said her name. “Hold it
right there, McKay. Wipe that angry bull look off your face. I’m not trash-talking you; I’m talking to a friend about what’s
bugging me. Be glad Keely isn’t my confidante. Her advice begins and ends with slipping you Viagra because you’ve always
been a grumpy old fucker.”
Ainsley snickered but AJ kept delivering a smackdown to the phantom Cord. “This isn’t about sex. It’s about intimacy. And
affection. I’m worried you haven’t realized there is a gulf growing between us. When I’ve brought it up, you claim you’re doing
the best you can. But that’s not true. I’ve had your best for years and honey, this ain’t it.”
After a brief pause, Ainsley said, “That sounded perfectly on point to me. Now you just need to tell the person who needs
to hear it.”
“Yeah. I’ll fit that conversation in when we get a moment alone. Oh, right. That’s almost never.”
A muffled noise caught her attention. Where had that come from? She didn’t have another client scheduled for an hour. “Go
ahead and get dressed. I’ll meet you out front.”
AJ glanced around the reception area. No sign of a delivery. Didn’t look like Dante had popped by.
Then she noticed that the dressing room door was wide open.
Ainsley probably hadn’t gotten the door completely closed earlier. When the heater kicked on, the door blew open. That’s
probably all she’d heard.

CORD HUSTLED BACK to his truck, his heart thudding as fast as his booted feet.
Inside the vehicle, he curled his hands around the steering wheel and closed his eyes.
What the ever-lovin’ fuck?
After AJ had acted completely out of character this morning, he decided to check on her, so he’d come to town.
Rather than slipping in the back door as he usually did, he’d entered the studio through the front, intending to catch her
between clients. He planned to scroll through farm and ranch reports on his phone while he waited, when he’d heard—“Eh. It’s
the same old, same old with Cord”—not uttered in that loving tone his wife normally used.
Curiosity had gotten the better of him; an open dressing room door was an open invitation. And man, had he gotten an
earful, standing close enough to hear every blasted word about his failings and missteps.
He’d almost panicked when he’d heard “Hold it right there, McKay” thinking AJ had busted him, but she’d kept up her rant
and he’d listened until Ainsley had given AJ props for her practiced speech.
Then he’d beat feet outta there.
While Cord didn’t dismiss her concerns, feelings, whatever, it was a load of horseshit that he’d been that inattentive to her
for as long as she claimed.
You sure about that, McKay?
He snorted at AJ’s assertation that he never took her to lunch. Maybe he hadn’t done it in a while, but he had grabbed food
and shared it with her at her studio.
Not the same thing, buddy. Dropping off a burger because you were in town getting tractor parts is not the same as
setting up a time specifically for a meal with only her.
Okay, that was a valid point. It’d been longer than he cared to admit since he’d put effort into carving out alone time for
them. Granted, it’d become harder with each new kid they added to their family, but AJ hadn’t expressed disappointment to
Ainsley that they hadn’t gone on date nights or taken a couples’ weekend; her complaint centered on his inattention to her even
when they were in the same room.
Christ. There wasn’t any doubt he’d been moody and exhausted since they’d started haying. And maybe sharper in tone than
usual in his responses.
But his recall of the day she’d chased him to his truck played out a bit differently in his mind. No denying he’d barked at
her, but the woman hadn’t taken into account that he’d hauled his ass outta bed at four a.m. so Ky could help with the morning
cattle check before he raced to town for his first football practice of the day. He’d come home to refill his thermos after he’d
gotten a text from Colt that he wouldn’t be on hand, which left Cord working by himself. Again.
So yeah, he’d been pissed off and overwhelmed before she added to it by complaining he hadn’t been his usual horny self.
Or that’s how he’d taken it.
Appeared he’d taken it wrong.
Thinking back to the day a week or so later, when AJ had sauntered into the barn and remarked his horse got more daily
affection than she did…apparently his crack about riding her until she got all sweaty and finishing her off with a rubdown and a
sugar cube hadn’t been as funny to her as it had been to him.
How had they gotten so out of synch? From the moment they’d gotten together, AJ had been an open book. She hadn’t
played games. She tackled problems with a mix of fortitude, love and good cheer and wasn’t shy about sharing her opinions.
That’s why he loved her; she called him on his shit rather than putting up with it. What didn’t make sense was that she’d turned
this “he said/she said” miscommunication into a serious threat to their relationship. It was just a little hiccup.
They needed to get back on track. And sooner rather than later.
Cord scrubbed his hands over his razor-stubbled face. Alone time. Right. First things first ditching the kids for a night.
He called Keely.
“Hey big bro. What’s up?”
“I need a favor. Can you pick Vaughn up from preschool when you get the twins?”
“Sure. Is that all you need?”
Cord blew out a breath. “I don’t know. I’m tryin’ to surprise my wife with a date night—a kid-free overnight date night—
and I’m not sure how to make that happen. We McKays each have too many kids to dump the lot of them off with one family.
And I don’t wanna spring this on Mom and Dad last minute.”
“Well, I can pick up both Vaughn and Avery and keep them until noon tomorrow. Maybe Colby and Channing could take
Foster and Beau? They’d probably prefer to be with their boy cousin gang.”
“Good idea. I’ll call him.”
“Is this nookie-fest happening after Kyler’s football game tonight?”
Crap. He’d known Kyler had plans, but in his relief that he’d had one less kid to worry about shuffling off, he’d forgotten
why Ky wouldn’t be home. “Um, we’re skipping tonight’s game.”
Keely gasped. “You? Skipping out on Kyler’s game? You never do that.”
Wrong. He’d missed games when ranch business took priority, so Miss-Know-it-all didn’t know everything. “Do I need to
pack some stuff for the kids and drop it off?”
“Nope. I got you covered.”
“One other thing, don’t talk to AJ. I am tryin’ to keep it a surprise.”
“I won’t. I’ll text you when I’m home with the kiddos.”
“Thanks, K. I mean it.”
Next he called his brother Colby’s cell, but he didn’t answer so Cord tried reaching his sister-in-law Channing.
“Did you mean to call me, Cord, or was this another saddle dial?” Channing intoned sweetly.
“Butt dial someone once and they never forget it,” he groused. “I tried reaching Colby first, but he didn’t pick up.”
“He’s right here so I can put you on speaker.”
Shuffling sounds and murmurs crackled in his ear. “Hey Cord. You checkin’ up on me to see if I’m fucking around on my
lunch break?”
Cord snorted. “Even if I was, you’d take your time getting back to work just to annoy me. I’m calling because I need a
favor.”
“Yeah? Should I be worried about this favor you need since you never ask for nothin’?”
“Maybe I don’t ask ’cause you pop off a bunch of smart-ass questions when I do.” And it’s easier just to handle things
myself rather than deal with your excuses, Cord added silently.
Colby sighed. “Yeah, I am kind of a dick. So what’s up?”
“Any chance you can pick up Foster and Beau from the bus stop and keep them overnight, until noon tomorrow? I’m tryin’
to surprise AJ with a date night.”
“Ooh. Romantic,” Channing said, “AJ will love that. There’s no problem adding two more McKay boys to the mix of our
own. Just call the school and send a message to their classrooms to have them get off at our bus stop.”
“Will do. And thanks.”
“One last thing before you hang up,” Colby said. “You want me to finish mowing that section of ditch you started
yesterday?”
He frowned at his phone. “No. I can finish it on Monday. Why?”
“So you’re done workin’ for the day?” he said skeptically.
“Thought I made that clear?”
“What Colby is getting at,” Channing interjected, “is if you expect him to return to…umm…ranch stuff this afternoon, or if
he can continue to hover over me until it’s time to pick up the kids.”
Ranch stuff. Lord. Was AJ the only woman in this family who understood what the daily grind of ranching entailed? And
maybe, Cord thought bitterly, he’d like the chance to hover over his own wife, because apparently, he hadn’t been doing enough
of that. “Don’t know why the hell you’re askin’ me. Colby does what he wants, when he wants…or not at all. “Shoot me a text
when you’ve got the boys.”
Since Cord was in town, he stopped at the elementary school and signed off in person for the change in afterschool
transportation plans for Avery, Foster and Beau. Then he popped into the community center and changed the pickup form for
Vaughn.
He’d barely reached the outskirts of town when his phone rang. The caller ID on the truck’s display read Kyler. Frowning,
he poked the answer button. “Ky? Everything all right?”
“Yeah. Is everything all right with the brat pack? I saw your truck at the school.”
Only Cord seemed bothered by Kyler referring to his siblings as the brat pack. “Everything is fine.” He paused and said
sharply, “How’d you know I was there? Ain’t you supposed to be in class?”
“It’s lunchtime, Dad. A bunch of us were sitting outside. So what’s goin’ on? You’re never in town during workin’ hours.”
Another family member ascribing the word never to his behavior. Was he really that predictable? “I needed to deal with a
few things before I spring a surprise date night on AJ. Your brothers and sister are staying with their cousins. You still crashing
with Hayden?”
“Yep, me’n Anton both are. We’ll probably hang out after the football game, see if anything is goin’ on in town.”
“Sorry we’ll miss the game tonight.”
“Not a big deal. We’re playing Belle and they suck so I think coach is gonna mostly rest his starters.”
“Have a good game anyway. And don’t you boys go out stirring up shit that’ll get your uncle Cam hot on your tail.”
Kyler laughed. “Anton is a good deterrent. He doesn’t wanna piss off his dad either, regardless if he’s in his deputy
uniform.”
“Good. See ya tomorrow afternoon, son.”
Cord left the radio off as he drove back to the ranch, trying to come up with a more solid plan than a kid-free night. He
didn’t want things to play out in the usual pattern—dinner out, home to fuck, then fall asleep. He wanted to specifically address
her “the man he used to be” remark without any of this beating-around-the-bush bullshit.
Beating around the bush.
Huh.
He could work with that.
He cracked a huge grin. Oh, this was gonna be some fun.

AJ’S PHONE RANG two minutes before her last appointment started. Normally she wouldn’t have answered it, but Cord was
calling. And he never called her when she was working.
“Cord? What’s wrong?”
 He chuckled. “Are my phone calls rare enough that you assume something bad has happened?”
“Maybe. Anyway, what’s up?”
“You’ve got the day off from bein’ a taxi service. I’ll handle the kids today. You just come on home when you’re done
workin’.”
Her forehead wrinkled with confusion. “You mean all the kids except Vaughn? I still need to get him since I’m in town?”
“Nope. Gotcha covered.”
“Are you sure? Because—”
“Just because you usually do all this stuff doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do it and can’t step in once in a while.”
“But…I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t, but you will.” A pause. “And for the record, baby doll? That’s one.”
The growly, sexy tone she hadn’t heard in a long time sent a shiver down her spine.
“Cord?”
Silence. He’d hung up.
Damn man.
Then Marguerite hobbled in, and AJ had no choice but to focus on her client.
An hour later she locked up for the weekend. She wondered if she should swing by the grocery store and grab something
quick for supper. Then she remembered Ky had a football game, and the kids would expect to load up on concession-stand
junk, so she was off the hook for tonight’s meal.
AJ barely registered the drive home. She parked on the concrete pad in front of the garage, next to Cord’s truck. She’d
cleared the first two steps when she noticed Cord lounging in the chair next to the porch swing.
She swallowed her disappointment that he hadn’t leapt up to welcome her home with a hug and a kiss. Then she noticed
he’d stretched out his long denim-clad legs and propped his bare feet on the log railing. A lowball glass rested on the table
next to him. He wore a white T-shirt that hugged his broad chest, highlighting the work-honed muscles in his arms, and the
slope of his belly. Good Lord the man was fine. “You look comfy.”
“I am.” He tipped his head to the chair opposite him. “Have a seat and I’ll pour ya a happy hour special.”
She tried not to show shock at his playful response. When was the last time she’d seen him this relaxed? Dropping into the
chair, she sighed. “It’s gonna be a beautiful night.”
“Yes, it is.” Cord handed her a glass three quarters full of amber liquid with a large ice cube bobbing in the center.
“What’s this happy hour special?”
“Crown apple.”
Her favorite. She smiled and held her glass up for a toast. “TGIF.”
He touched his glass to hers.
After the first sip warmed her throat, she basked in the last rays of sunshine and the quiet.
Wait. It was too quiet. “Where are the kids? Watching movies or something?”
“Nope. Avery and Vaughn are havin’ a sleepover at Keely’s. Foster and Beau are stayin’ with Colby. Ky is crashing with
Hayden after the game. So we’re all alone.”
AJ’s mouth dropped open. “That’s…”
“Surprising?” he supplied.
Not the norm for you to make personal plans for us, especially on a Friday night. Cord actually looked forward to
Friday night football games with her and the kids. “Cord. What is going on?”
His too-blue gaze locked on hers. “Why don’t you tell me?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she shot back.
“That. Right there. That’s what I’m talkin’ about. You’ve been downright pissy. Anytime I ask what’s wrong, you get snippy
and snap that everything is fine.”
She looked away. “Oh yeah? I can’t remember the last time you asked me what was wrong.”
That shut him up. Briefly. “I don’t think your memory is as reliable as you seem to believe.”
AJ knocked back another drink. “So what is this? Some kind of anger management intervention?”
“Should it be? ’Cause darlin’, you literally threw my lunch at me this morning.”
AJ felt a wash of shame again, remembering tearing out of the house after he’d so pointedly ignored her, whipping the soft-
sided lunch bag at him and yelling, “Have a nice day, asshole.” But she doubled down on her pettiness and retorted, “I’m not
sorry.”
“I know you’re not. Still confused about why you shouted woof woof before storming off.”
Oh. She’d forgotten about that last dig. “Speaking of…where is your faithful sidekick?”
“Chichi is tucked in for the night. Which is why it’s just you and me, workin’ through this mad of yours, without
interruptions.”
Her heart rate spiked with hope.
 “It’s been too goddamned long since we’ve been completely alone for more than an hour or two. And I’m truly sorry about
that. Goin’ forward, I’ll pay better mind to it. The kids will be back tomorrow at noon. So the night is ours. The morning too.”
AJ stared into her glass as she swirled the last of the whiskey around the ice cube. “What happens next?”
“That, my beautiful wife, is entirely up to you.”
She glanced over as Cord dropped a folded piece of fabric on the table, followed by a white sheet of paper. “What’s that?”
“Your choices on how we spend our time together.” He lifted the blank page. “Option one: you choose. Could be a
traditional date night. We get dressed up, have a nice dinner in Deadwood. Maybe do some dancin’. Whatever you want. You
call the shots.”
“And that option?”
Cord smirked at her and picked up the black bandana, running the folded section between his fingers. “This is a blindfold.
You put your blind faith in me and I call all the shots.”
For a panicked moment, she studied him. Had he somehow gotten wind of her conversation with Ainsley?
No, it’d definitely been the speedball—aka the lunch—she’d thrown him that’d convinced him to take action.
He dropped his feet to the decking and stood. Then he planted himself in front of her, his hands on the arms of the chair,
lowering his upper body until they were face to face. “I’m gonna lobby on my own behalf for you to choose option two.” Cord
rubbed the smooth part of his upper cheek across hers. “Please.”
The scent of him…she closed her eyes. Lime shaving cream. Laundry detergent from his clean T-shirt. Sun-warmed skin. A
hint of whiskey. And that heady, underlying musk that was his alone.
Then his lips were at her ear. “I wanna get us back where we need to be, baby doll. Here, in our own house, where we’re
the most comfortable bein’ ourselves.” He lightly tugged her earlobe between his teeth until she groaned. “You’ve got three
minutes to decide.” He pushed away from her and started for the front door.
“But—”
He paused and sent her a stern look over his shoulder. “That’s two.”
AJ had forgotten how his little counting game affected her: maddening and enticing.
She hadn’t needed the allotted time to make her choice.
Seemed longer than three minutes before she heard his feet shuffling across the decking.
She waved the bandana over her head in surrender.
Had Cord just exhaled a huge sigh of relief?
His hands landed on her shoulders and she jumped.
“Easy,” he soothed as his palms glided up her neck. “Just making sure this is tied nice and tight.” He adjusted the cloth and
fiddled with the knot until he was satisfied.
She heard a soft thud and felt his shoulders brush the insides of her knees. Warm palms squeezed the back of her calves.
Cord untied her work boots and slipped them off her feet. Then he removed her socks. His hands traveled up her body to her
hips. “Stand.”
After helping her up, he said, “Lift your arms.”
As soon as she complied, Cord yanked her shirt over her head.
But before she could protest, he’d buried his face in her cleavage while he unhooked her bra. “Christ, I love your tits.”
Then he performed a quick maneuver that brought her arms down between them, her biceps pushing her breasts together as he
used her bra to bind her forearms.
When she wobbled, he placed her fingers just inside the waistband of his jeans. “Hold on.”
That’s when she realized he’d taken off his shirt too.
“Tilt your head back,” he commanded as his teeth grazed her shoulder.
Cord didn’t speak. He didn’t give her a play-by-play of how he planned to turn her into a quivering mess of need; he’d
memorized and perfected that playbook years ago. His mouth knew exactly where to suck, where to lick, how to exploit the
secret spots where soft, wet kisses and heated breath turned her spine to jelly.
When he followed the contours of her body with those callused fingertips, AJ whispered, “Unfair,” and reveled in the
gooseflesh rippling across her skin. With a light touch, his fingers repeatedly followed the same course; up her sides, around
her shoulders, pausing at the nape of her neck to trace her spine down to the waistband of her jeans, then slowly up her back,
over her traps and down her arms.
AJ’s breathing turned choppy as she anticipated each touch. It’d been ages since he’d taken such care in drawing out their
foreplay. She went still. She hadn’t done the same for him recently either.
Cord paused in his delicious torture. “What made you tense up just now?”
“Guilt,” she blurted out. “I haven’t touched you like this, just for the sheer pleasure of it, for a while. And I’m sorry.”
“Hey, hey. No guilt allowed. I’m reminding both of us how much I worship this sexy body of yours.” Then he kissed her
until she melted into him, once again lost in the familiar heat that built between them.
The next time AJ shivered, he stopped. He uncurled her fingers from his waistband and untied her hands. “Let’s go inside.
It is getting a might nipply out here.”
Although she couldn’t see him, she imagined that wicked grin as he ogled her breasts. “Hilarious, McKay.”
He lifted her arms and placed them on his shoulders. “Jump up and wrap your legs around my waist.”
“You don’t have to carry me inside.”
“I want to carry you.”
AJ almost said, “But what about your back?” thought better of it, and changed it to, “You just want my tits in your face.”
“Always, baby doll.”
She held on while he meandered into the house, his mouth greedily sucking and his hands kneading her ass. Her back met
the wall and the restraint he’d had outside vanished.
His lust-filled growl vibrated against her skin and shot straight between her legs. After nursing four babies, her nipples
hadn’t regained full sensation, but she loved how much Cord was still obsessed with her tits, and his hunger fueled her own.
When he paused to drag the hard ridge of his cock across her clit, she ground against him, panting, “How long do I have to
wear the blindfold?”
“Until I take it off.”
Don’t say it.
Cord appeared to be awaiting her complaint. When she remained mum, he said, “I’d expected this sassy mouth to throw out
a few more buts, and I’m slightly disappointed I only ended up with two.”
“Two what?”
“You’ll see.”
“Not with this blindfold on I won’t.”
The man laughed.
Laughed. Damn him.
He stepped back and set her on the floor. “C’mon.”
AJ expected he’d take her upstairs to their bedroom, but given the scent of wood smoke, they were in the living room. “You
lit a fire?”
“Figured since you were gonna be nekkid for the foreseeable future you might like some extra warmth, but I won’t stoke it
again if you say the word.”
“I like it—not that I can see the crackling flames—I just thought—”
Cord’s mouth came down on hers. He lifted his lips long enough to murmur, “No thinkin’ tonight. Now strip outta them
jeans. Ditch that black thong too.”
Her fingers paused over the zipper. “How’d you know the color of my—”
“If you think I don’t pay attention when you’re half-dressed in our bedroom, then it’s my responsibility to remind you that I
do.”
Defiantly, AJ raised her chin. “I don’t want to be just another damn responsibility you have to see too, Cord.”
Framing her face in his hands, he gentled his tone. “Sorry, darlin’, I misspoke. I meant to say I notice everything about you,
every day, even when you think I don’t.”
“Oh. Well, okay then.”
A quick kiss, then he said, “Jeans off. Now.”
Ten seconds later, she said, “There. I’m bare-assed in my living room. You happy?”
“Yep, but that sass is gonna get you in trouble.”
“Bring it. I can handle it.”
He sighed. “And to think I’d started feelin’ guilty about this first part because you were bein’ pretty sweet.”
“This first part?” she repeated.
“Worried?”
“Nope,” she lied.
“Good.” He gripped her shoulders. “Take two steps back. Now sit.”
Her behind met cold wood. Curved cold wood. She wiggled and the thing squeaked. “Wait. Is this my new saddle stand?”
“Yep.”
“You brought my saddle stand inside the house?”
“I can’t do this in the barn, baby doll; you’d freeze your tits off. And with what we paid for this damn thing, it oughta have
multiple uses.”
Unbelievable. “Cord! This is for a saddle. It won’t hold my weight.”
“It will.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I caught all four kids sittin’ on it last weekend. Reach out and grab the sides. Good. Now widen your knees. Stay
just like that.”
 Her heartrate spiked when she felt rope circle her wrists, then the slight bite of pain as he cinched it by looping the rope
across her thighs and under her knees. She jumped when he brushed a kiss on the hollow below her ear.
“I’ve fantasized about tyin’ you to this thing from the moment we dragged it home. You oughta see yourself, trussed up with
a red rope, that pink pussy wet for me.”
Heat bloomed across her face and chest.
“You’re pretty as a picture, darlin’.” A pause then, “Smile.”
“You better not have taken my picture like this, Cord McKay.”
“Or what,” he whispered in her other ear. “Don’t pretend you don’t wanna peek at it and see how damn hot you look.”
That gruff voice sent tingles down her neck.
“Don’t worry. No one will ever see the only pic in my spank bank.”
“That’s not the point! How would you like it if I took a picture of your dick?”
He eased the blindfold down just enough to show AJ the twinkle in his blue eyes. “I’d love it. I’d even snap a pic myself
and message it to you, but only if you ask nicely because I don’t wanna be accused of sending unsolicited dick pics.”
AJ couldn’t help it. She laughed. His eyes were laughing too before he covered her eyes again.
“Now quit distracting me from meting out your penalties. Only two backtalking buts this time. I think you’ll be grateful you
held your tongue.” Then his hands were on her thighs as he lowered himself to his knees. “But that don’t mean I gotta hold
mine.”
This instant Cord put his mouth on her, she nearly screamed.
Long torturous licks from the bottom of her pussy to the top.
Sneaky soft nibbles on the flesh surrounding her clit that were there and gone.
Hard sucks on the insides of her thighs.
Hands stroking her calves.
Fingers dancing up her shins.
Palms enclosing her knees.
Breath drifting over her sensitive tissues every time he changed position.
AJ surrendered to him. Loving and hating how expertly he played with her. She’d forgotten how masking her sight had
increased the potency of her other senses.
Cord finally did that swirly tongue thing around her clit, and she automatically arched back, forgetting for a moment where
she was.
The saddle stand rocked, and the ropes tightened.
He righted her before she tipped over, murmuring, “Easy.”
“Cord. I can’t stay still.”
“Try,” he said, stopping that fantastically flicking tongue as he pushed a finger inside her. “Makes my dick hard that you’re
dripping wet for me.” He added another finger.
Her response morphed into a low wail as he suctioned his lips around her clit while he stroked her G-spot.
That tingling, pulling sensation started to gather steam. Her legs were shaking and she was seconds away from throbbing
orgasmic bliss, when Cord stopped.
“No, don’t stop! I’m so close.”
“I know.” He nuzzled her mound, then placed a kiss above her clit before he backed away.
Where did he think he was going?
“Cord?”
His breath tickled her ear and she jumped. “One down. One to go.”
“One what?” she panted. She was teetering on that knife’s edge of madness. Her sex was swollen and pulsing, and she’d
beg for release if she had to.
“One penalty down, one to go.”
Somehow those words permeated her lust-addled brain. “This is my penalty? You build me up and up and then…deny me
the orgasm?”
“Holdin’ you off will make the orgasm more intense.” His mouth followed the straining arch of her neck. “I could spend all
goddamned night gorging myself on your delicious cunt,” he said in the deep growly tone that made her shudder from head to
toe.
Except this time, all it did was make her mad. “You’re not serious about keeping me on the edge like this.”
“Oh, I assure you, baby doll, I’m very serious about it.”
“You bastard!”
The man had the audacity to chuckle. “Wanna take a break before I start round two?” She heard him rustling around on the
sofa. “I picked up a pizza for supper. Want me to throw it in the oven?”
“I don’t want any fucking pizza! I want to come!”
 Cord didn’t say anything. Then he sighed dramatically. “Fine. No break it is.”
“Cord. You can’t do that again. It’s not—”
He took her mouth in a hard kiss. He tasted of her. Of them. Instead of increasing her frustration, it settled her down.
Just as he knew it would.
“Here’s a quick history lesson, since you seemed to’ve forgotten.” Another hungry kiss only increased her unfulfilled ache.
“You agreed that any backtalk from you usin’ the word but when we were discussing important things, gave me the right to
administer whatever penalty I deemed fit. Since you’ve been withholding your feelings to the point you’re throwin’ stuff at
me…well, this penalty couldn’t be any more perfect.”
“Does that mean you’re ready to talk about things without getting all pissy with me?”
A sweet kiss softened the hard set of her mouth. “Oh, we’ll talk. Guaranteed. But it ain’t gonna happen when I have my
feisty wife completely trussed up and at my mercy.”
“Cord, I’m—”
“AJ. You know that I’d never do anything to hurt you.”
“But I’m hurting now,” she said in her most repentant tone.
His palms made another leisurely pass over her chest. “Then it’s a lucky thing I gotta redo the ropes.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“Then maybe you oughta say exactly what you mean.”
The pressure across her thighs eased. He maneuvered her onto her back while her hands remained bound to the saddle
stand, which was now above her head.
He pushed her legs apart, stretching out beside her, his bare hip against her thigh.
“Comfortable?” she bit out.
“Getting there.”
Silence.
“Are you just staring at me?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“Because lately all we’ve made time for is a fast fuck in the dark. So when I’ve got the time to admire this body, I’m gonna
do so.” He traced her jawline with the back of his hand. “You’re especially beautiful in the firelight.”
Why did the man have to be so sweet before he tortured her?
He planted a firm kiss on the upper swell of her left breast.
Then, “Ah, here it is.”
“What?” escaped a second before she heard the buzz.
No. He wouldn’t.
But he did. Of course he did.
He circled her left nipple with the tip of her vibrator.
She nearly shot out of her skin because they’d never played around with it there before.
And suddenly that spot wasn’t as numb as she’d believed.
Damn him and his evil little chuckle.
He delivered such sweet torment, sucking on one nipple while using the vibrator on the other and then switching, so the
wetness increased the sensitivity of the vibrations.
When she started to squirm, Cord arced the vibrating tip across her belly.
Her muscles tensed and her skin rippled with goosebumps.
She noticed his breathing had grown harsher with each downward arc toward her gleaming sex. It occurred to her that not
only was he denying her pleasure, he wasn’t getting any relief either. Which was a change from the other times he’d dealt out
penalties—they’d mostly benefited him.
“You bored?”
Startled by his voice so close to her ear, she jumped. “No. Why?”
“Seemed like you zoned out.”
A snort escaped. “Like that’d be possible.”
He nuzzled the curve of her breast. Then moved the vibrator up to draw lazy circles around each breast.
But what if it was possible to act zoned out? She could reverse fake an orgasm. She’d remain still when she felt the orgasm
start, just silently enjoying every throbbing pulse, then at the very end, she’d thrash around and pretend like she was about to
go off. She allowed her lips to curve up just a little; she’d show him.
It was a great plan—a brilliant one, and she’d been full of self-congratulations for outsmarting her husband, when he
nestled the vibrator between her pussy lips, like a hotdog in a bun. The entire length vibrated on high from her clit allllllll the
way down to the pucker of her ass.
 AJ’s hips bucked so violently she dislodged the vibrator.
Cord swore and trapped her restless pelvis down with one hand. “You’d rather I did this?”
What had she been thinking? There was no way she could remain still, for christsake, when he did that drawing-tight-
circles-around-her-clit thing with the pointed vibrating tip. “Oh yes. Just like that. Don’t. Stop.”
“Stop thinkin’ you can hold back, because I know how fast this thing gets you off, Amy Jo.”
“Then quit moving it!”
“Leave it here?” He slid it over her clit, then angled it down and pushed it inside her. “Or here?”
She groaned, “You teasing bastard.”
“Yep.” And Cord continued to pull it out, tease her clit mercilessly and then push it back inside her. Over and over.
She thrashed and called him names.
Like before, she was one clit twitch away from screaming her release, when the vibrations ended. “Noooooo!” Panting and
furious, she opened her mouth and screamed her frustration anyway.
When she finished, Cord said, “I didn’t catch that, sweetheart. Did you say something?”
“I said I hate you.”
He caressed her thigh. “No, you don’t. You’re just a little mad.”
“No, I’m big mad at you, McKay. I’m so horny I think I might die.”
“You’ll probably scream twice as loud as you just did when I finally fuck you.”
“Hah! Wrong-o, bucko. I’m never having sex with you again.”
That brought out his deep bark of laughter. “Hold still.”
He made quick work of untying her arms and helped her sit up. Then he cradled her face in his hands, his thumbs gently
stroking her cheekbones.
AJ let his touch soothe her.
She thought he’d been stroking her hair, but he’d unknotted the blindfold.
She blinked at him. Stupidly good-looking man. Yeah that never having sex with you again had been an empty threat.
He pressed her hand to his cheek. “Anything you need—besides an orgasm?”
“I’m thirsty.”
After another lingering caress, he stood.
Whoa. Cord was completely naked. And completely hard.
“Water or whiskey?”
“Both.”
“What about pizza?”
She scowled at him. “I already told you I don’t want any goddamned pizza.”
“All right. But when I get back, we’re gonna talk about why you believe I’m not the affectionate man you married.”
Her jaw nearly hit the rug. “You…how did you know?”
“Got quite the earful when I tried to surprise you for lunch today.”
“Omigod that noise I heard out front was you? Listening in?”
“I couldn’t help what I overheard.”
She groaned and buried her face in her hands.
“Hope you had time to prepare that speech, cause I promise you’ll have my full attention when you deliver it.”

CORD RETRIEVED THE happy hour tray from the porch. He’d forgotten about being nekkid, until he returned to the living room
and saw his bobbing dick in the dining room mirror.
“If I didn’t like that dick so much I might be tempted to punch it,” AJ drawled. She watched him approach with those wary
silver eyes.
Cord set the tray down on the floor. He added three pieces of split wood to the fire and snagged a pillow off the couch.
AJ had already drained the glass of water and poured them both two shots of whiskey. She’d also wrapped the fleece from
the couch around herself.
He reached for the other blanket and settled it across his lap. They faced each other, but his wife’s gaze remained riveted
on the ice cube in her glass.
After a big swallow of whiskey, he said, “AJ. I was kiddin’ about you giving me a speech. I heard everything I needed to
earlier today.”
“Are you mad?”
When he paused too long, she finally met his gaze. “No, baby doll, I’m not mad. You’ve got friends, you’re gonna talk to
them. But I am confused. Not about me bein’ an ass when you tried to talk to me, there’s no disputing that. I’m talkin’ about
when you said I stopped showing you any affection and it’d been goin’ on for months.”
“It has been. That’s the problem. You haven’t noticed.”
“When did all of this start?”
“During calving season.”
Cord raised an eyebrow. “It’s been goin’ on since February?”
AJ frowned. “Maybe the end of calving.”
“So April? When we went to Billings for Easter?”
“No. Things were fine then. Must’ve been around branding or when school got out.”
“We brand the first weekend in May. Kids got out of school at the end of May. So can you narrow it down?”
“I know things started to change after…well, it had something to do with cows or ranch stuff.”
And he’d been so confident his wife wouldn’t ever utter ranch stuff. “Like when we turned the bulls out the end of June?”
“No. I remember it being hotter.”
“So during haying? Which started mid-July?”
“That’s gotta be it.” Her eyes narrowed. “Hey. What’s up with the twenty questions? Are you denying you’ve been distant?”
“I’ll admit to bein’ distant recently, but you’ve gotta admit this disconnect hasn’t been going on forever, or months and
months, like you told Ainsley. Baby doll, it’s only been six weeks.”
“What? No. It’s been way longer than that.”
“Maybe it’s seemed longer, but I promise you, it’s only been six weeks.” He held up his hand to forestall her argument. “I
know that, because the last six weeks have been a goddamned blur since both Colby and Colt decided to take family vacations,
leaving me to figure out how to get everything done. I’m up at four a.m. which means I’m ready for bed after supper. Hard for
me to watch TV with you when I’m asleep. We haven’t held hands because we’ve always got the kids with us and between the
two of us, we only have enough hands to hold onto them. And no offense, but it’s too damn stuffy in the kitchen in the
summertime to steal kisses over a hot stove.”
She took another drink. “That’s what you meant when you said my memory wasn’t as reliable as I believed.”
He nodded. “But you were also completely on target when you said my distraction has been goin’ on since calving. This
year it seems the more I do, the easier it is for others to slack off because they know I don’t leave stuff undone. And by others, I
don’t mean Ky. Don’t know what I would’ve done if he hadn’t been around to help me out this summer.” Cord glanced down
into the glass in his hand. “Before you ask, I haven’t said anything to my brothers. Doesn’t mean I won’t, I’m just—”
“Hoping that things will sort themselves out so you don’t have to confront them?” AJ interjected softly.
“Yeah. So darlin’, when I heard you talkin’ today, I understood why you hesitated in bringing up your frustrations with me.
I’ve done the same damn thing with Colby and Colt. I really hate that you’re the one who’s suffered from me letting that
situation slide.”
“And I really hate that you were so exhausted that you couldn’t even talk to me about all you were doing trying to hold
everything together.”
The tears in her eyes hit him as hard as a hoof to the belly. “Darlin’, come here.”
She fit her body into his, finding the spaces that were empty until she filled them.
Cord rubbed his cheek across the top of her sweat-dampened head, releasing the berry scent of her shampoo and breathing
her in.
“Will it be enough if I tell you I’m sorry?” he murmured into her hair.
“Yes.” She absentmindedly stroked his chest hair. “But maybe we oughta have a code word to indicate when we need to
talk about serious issues.”
“Only if the word is blowjob. Cause darlin’, I promise every time you say blowjob, I pay close attention.”
She elbowed him. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
“You’re pushing your luck, McKay.”
Cord rolled them closer to the fireplace, keeping her beneath him. After tenderly pushing her hair off her face, he said, “Am
I still pushin’ my luck?”
“Only if you deny me an orgasm.” She stared back at him. “Cord, did that have a point?”
“Mmm-mmm.” He nuzzled her throat. “You thought I’d been withholding affection from you. So I wanted to show you what
withholding something really felt like.”
“Then you’d act generous and finally allow me to come?”
“Ah ah ah. You’re the one who claimed your frustration with me wasn’t about sex.” He teased the edge of her jaw with his
teeth. “So I had my hands all over you, just bein’ affectionate, touching you in that intimate way that had nothin’ to do with sex.”
“I don’t think your definition and my definition of intimate are the same.”
He lifted his head and focused intently on her eyes. “And that, baby doll, was the point.”
 AJ’s face softened. “Point taken, cowboy.”
“Good.” He rested his forehead against hers. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” She coasted her fingers down his back with such a light touch his skin broke out in gooseflesh. Then she
slapped his ass cheeks. Hard.
“Feel better?”
“I’m waiting for you to make me feel better.” She widened her legs and arched her pelvis.
He eased inside her, watching her face. As many times as he’d made love to this woman, he never tired of that dreamy
expression clouding her eyes. He still listened for the quick hitch in her breathing and groan of satisfaction as he filled her
completely. He whispered, “Slow or fast?”
“Slow.”
The firelight flickered over their bodies in motion. And he built the rhythm that reminded them both, at least in this, they
were always in perfect synch.

CORD AND AJ were snuggled up in front of the dwindling fire. It’d cooled off in the past hour and he really oughta get up and
restoke the fire…but that’d be too much trouble.
Suddenly AJ shivered and threw back the blanket. She hopped up and grabbed her glass of whiskey, knocking back the
remainder. Then she stepped over him.
“Where you goin’?”
She sent him a saucy look over her shoulder. “To the hot tub because I’m cold.”
“Wait. I need—”
“Some extra recovery time?” she asked sweetly.
“Like hell.” Cord threw off the blanket so she could see his cock rising to the challenge.
“Then come on. And bring the bottle.”
She sashayed away, not bothering to look back to see if he’d follow, because she knew he would.

GROANING AT THE unnaturally bright shaft of light, Cord untangled their entwined limbs and rolled closer to the nightstand,
squinting at the clock.
Jesus. Was it really ten a.m.?
“No, don’t get up,” AJ complained, scooting her body closer to his.
“Sorry, baby doll. The kids’ll be here pretty soon, and we left a helluva mess downstairs.” Cord swung around and
dropped his feet to the floor. He ran a hand through his hair. “Guess we’ll have to skip the romantic horseback ride I’d planned
for this morning.”
AJ snorted.
He turned and looked at her. “What?”
“Did you really think I’d be eager to have a horse between my legs after you rode me four times last night?”
“Hey, that last time was your idea,” he retorted with a grin. “Not that I’m complaining.”
“I am. Lord. My ass is sore.” She yawned. “And I’m hungry.” She held up her hand. “Don’t suggest pizza; we ate it all,
remember?”
His thoughts were a bit muddled about what time AJ had brought the pizza into their bed, he’d definitely remembered
devouring it and then devouring her. “We could hit the Tasty Place in Hulett before the kids get back.”
“Excellent idea. But I need to shower first. Pretty sure I reek of sex.”
Cord rolled back onto the bed and pinned her beneath him. “I love it when you look all mussed up and well-fucked. I
especially love how my beard smells after I’ve had it all over your pussy all night.”
“And I’ve got the beard burns on my thighs to back up that dirty comment.” She sifted her fingers through his hair. “Thanks
for last night. We needed it.”
“We sure did.” He kissed her. “And remember any time you want my full attention, just whisper blowjob.”
She rolled her eyes. “I guarantee if you don’t talk to your brothers and your cousins this week about them pulling their
weight on this ranch, I will yell blowjob at the top of my lungs until you take care of it. You cannot keep doin’ this on your own,
Cord. It’s affected your health and our family life.”
“I know. I will. I promise.” Another kiss. “Come on. Let’s get dressed and go.”
 WHEN THEY RETURNED from Hulett, Colby’s truck was parked by the barn.
The side door opened and it seemed a dozen kids streamed out—Colby’s five and four of theirs, so only nine. But close
enough.
While Foster and Beau were too cool to race to their parents, Avery and Vaughn immediately bounded over.
AJ scooped Vaughn into her arms and kissed both of his cheeks. “Hey pard. Miss me?”
“Daddy!”
Cord looked down into his daughter’s freckled face. “Hi punkin.” He smoothed back her hair, avoiding the strands coated
with glitter. “Didja have fun?”
“So much fun.” Avery put her feet on the tops of Cord’s boots and demanded to be danced around while detailing every
minute of their time at Aunt Keely’s.
Colby waved as he loaded up his crew and took off.
Not thirty seconds later, Kyler pulled in, rap music blaring from the open windows of his pickup.
Foster and Beau headed that way first, followed by Avery and Vaughn.
Ky hopped out and announced, “Threw two TDs last night.”
“Congrats. Did anyone tape it?”
Ky rolled his eyes. “You mean record it? Dad, no one says tape anymore.”
Cord muttered, “My bad,” low enough only AJ heard him.
She snickered. “Pretty sure no one says that anymore either.”
They watched as Kyler loaded Vaughn—and his big backpack—into a piggyback ride and the rest of the brat pack followed
him inside like ducklings.
Cord leaned over and kissed her cheek. When she turned her head, he kissed her square on the mouth. Twice.
“What was that for?”
He draped his arm over her shoulder and pulled her close. “Because I wouldn’t want you to forget I’m a pretty affectionate
man.”
If you enjoyed Cord and AJ’s short story, continue reading for a snippet of their original story in Cowgirl Up and Ride, which
is currently available in KU.
 Chapter One

AMY JO FOSTER had loved Cord McKay her entire life.

It didn’t matter he was thirteen years her senior. Or he’d once dated her older sister. Or his little sister was her best friend.
She fell for him hard the day she’d fallen off her horse.
That hot, dusty afternoon teased the edges of her memory. She’d been clip-clopping along on the gravel road connecting the
Foster and McKay ranches when a rattler spooked her pony and bucked her off. She’d twisted her ankle on the unexpected
dismount, unable to scramble away from either the angry snake or the truck barreling toward her.
Her life flashed before her eyes.
But the tires on a big Ford dually locked up and the truck skidded to a stop. A young man jumped out, swooped in and
picked her up. His work-roughed hands tenderly brushed rocks from her knees and wiped the tears from her dirty face. He
carried her to the passenger side of his truck, burned rubber over the snake and drove her home, keeping hold of her hand as
she sobbed.
Amy Jo had a devil of a time climbing out of his rig, not because of the injury to her ankle, but mostly because she hadn’t
wanted to get out. She remembered sitting in that truck cab, surrounded by the scent of horses, of chewing tobacco, of hay, dust
and the underlying tangy aroma of his cologne, and she’d wanted to stay right there with him forever.
With his dark good looks, bold smile and gentle ways, Cord had become her ideal, her dream, her savior, her prince
charming in battered cowboy boots and a sweat-stained white Stetson.
No man had ever held a candle to him.
She’d been a whopping five years old at the time.
So, Amy Jo secretly worshipped Cord McKay throughout the years. Even after he moved to Seattle. Even after he returned
to Wyoming married to a floozy from the West Coast. Even after the woman birthed a son. Even after the idiot abandoned Cord
and their baby Ky.
She’d especially loved Cord then because she’d ached to pick up the pieces of his broken life. To make him whole. To
crack the bitter shell he’d erected around his heart. To show him real, everlasting love was worth waiting for. In her core, her
heart, her very soul, Amy Jo knew she was meant to be that one special woman.
Problem was she hadn’t been a woman at the time either; she’d been a shy eighteen-year-old girl.
Too young.
The other problem was Cord hadn’t seen her beyond the clumsy blonde pig-tailed friend of his little sister. Or as a family
acquaintance with a neighboring ranch. Or recently as his son’s babysitter.
That’d been the worst kind of torture. Being in Cord’s house. Hearing Ky rambling from sunup to sundown about his father.
Seeing Cord’s unmade bed—one side rumpled, one side pristine. His lone coffee cup in the sink. Catching a whiff of his
shaving cream as she lingered in front of the same bathroom mirror he used every day.
Seemed Amy Jo spent her life waiting for her chronological age to catch up with the age of her soul. Waiting for other
people to believe she was old enough to know her own mind, even when she’d made it up at the tender age of five.
Now that she was twenty-two, she could stake her claim.
Standing in front of her bedroom mirror, she adjusted her cleavage in the skin-tight shirt the color of ripe apricots. She
applied a coat of shiny pink lip-gloss. Finger combed her hair and inhaled a deep breath.
In all the hours she’d fantasized about Cord McKay, he’d never really noticed her.
Come hell or high water, Amy Jo would change that tonight.
Cowgirl Up and Ride
 If you want to keep track of what’s happening in and out of the writing cave, here are places to find me:
Blog sign up to see weekly exclusive material from Lorelei
Pop over to the Lorelei James Facebook page
Follow Lorelei James on Twitter
Follow Lorelei James on TikTok
Stop by Lorelei James website
Check out Lorelei James on Instagram
Join the Lorelei James Discussion Group on Facebook
Sign up for Lorelei James newsletter
Sign up to receive text messages when Lorelei has a new release
Lorelei James is the NY Times and USA Today Bestselling author of steamy westerns in the Rough Riders series and the
Blacktop Cowboys® series, steamy romance in the Mastered series, contemporary romance in the Need You series and Want
You series, and the New Adult Rough Riders Legacy series, as well as several stand-alone novels and novellas. Lorelei lives
in western South Dakota—yes, by choice—with her husband, and Copper, their crazy corgi who has made their empty nest
more interesting.
 Other books by Lorelei James
Rough Riders Series
LONG HARD RIDE
RODE HARD
COWGIRL UP AND RIDE
TIED UP, TIED DOWN
ROUGH, RAW AND READY
STRONG SILENT TYPE (novella)
BRANDED AS TROUBLE
SHOULDA BEEN A COWBOY
ALL JACKED UP
RAISING KANE
SLOW RIDE
COWGIRLS DON’T CRY
CHASIN’ EIGHT
COWBOY CASANOVA
KISSIN’ TELL
GONE COUNTRY
SHORT RIDES (anthology)
REDNECK ROMEO
COWBOY TAKE ME AWAY
LONG TIME GONE (novella)
SILVER TONGUED DEVIL
COWBOY BITES: A ROUGH RIDERS COOKBOOK w/ slice of life stories from some of your favorite couples

Rough Riders Legacy Series

UNBREAK MY HEART

Wild West Boys Series

MISTRESS CHRISTMAS (novella)
MISS FIRECRACKER (novella)

Blacktop Cowboys® Series

CORRALLED
SADDLED AND SPURRED
WRANGLED AND TANGLED
ONE NIGHT RODEO
TURN AND BURN
HILLBILLY ROCKSTAR
ROPED IN (novella)
STRIPPED DOWN (novella)
WRAPPED AND STRAPPED
STRUNG UP (novella)
HANG TOUGH
TRIPPED OUT (novella)
RACKED AND STACKED
WOUND TIGHT (novella)
SPUN OUT

Mastered Series
BOUND
UNWOUND
SCHOOLED (digital only novella)
UNRAVELED
CAGED
 Single Title Novels
RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL
DIRTY DEEDS

Single Title Novellas

LOST IN YOU (short novella)
WICKED GARDEN
BALLROOM BLITZ

Need You Series

WHAT YOU NEED
JUST WHAT I NEEDED
ALL YOU NEED
WHEN I NEED YOU

Want You Series

I WANT YOU BACK
WANT YOU TO WANT ME

Mystery Novels Written As Lori Armstrong

Julie Collins Series – Private Eye Mystery

BLOOD TIES
HALLOWED GROUND
SHALLOW GRAVE
SNOW BLIND
BAITED (novella)
DEAD FLOWERS (novella)
BAITED/DEAD FLOWERS
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 “If I had only hung up a stocking for her!” she cries inwardly; and then
derides herself for the puerility of the thought. “What gift capable of
gladdening Lavinia’s Christmas morning could Santa Claus himself put into
her stocking? If it were not so late!” she says to herself, a moment
afterwards; “if the bell would not wake Sir George——”
Restless with the thought of the other’s forlorn neighbourhood, suddenly
feeling that it is impossible to lay down her own tired limbs until they have
carried her over the way to the mournful house darkening on the hillside
above her, Susan rises, and, pulling aside the window-curtain, looks out—
since the Rectory does not belong to the solid-shuttered breed of its
eighteenth-century neighbour—on the night. It is such as the afternoon had
promised—still, black, and murk; the little absurd finger-nail-paring of a
moon wholly vanished behind the opaque vapours.
“I could find my way blindfold!” is the undeterred looker’s thought; and
so goes out into the hall, snatches a bowler hat and an Inverness cape from
the stand, and, unbarring the hall-door, starts back with a sudden shiver of
alarm; for, before her, stands a tall dark figure, with a lantern in its hand.
“I was just making up my mind to ring!” says the voice of Lavinia.
“What! Were you going out? Were you coming to me?”
“Great wits jump!” answers Susan, with a tremulous laugh, “Come in!
come in!” and so pulls the girl over the threshold by her cold gloveless
fingers, and into the glowing warmth.
“I must not forget my lantern! I do not know what I should have done
without it! I could not see an inch before my face!”
“It is a pitchy night!”
Each utters her banalité mechanically—the elder in a strange moved
shyness; the younger taking hungry possession, with her drawn eyes, of
each familiar object.
“I had just been reproaching myself for not having hung up a stocking
for you!” Susan says, with another nervous laugh.
“What would you have put into it?”
They are standing opposite each other on the hearthrug, Lavinia’s hand
still lying in Mrs. Darcy’s clasp. Is it possible, the latter asks herself, in
astonished self-chiding, that this stupid new shyness has mastered her so far
as to make her wonder how soon it would be proper to release it? Lavinia
herself solves the problem. Gently disengaging her fingers, she throws back
the hood of her cloak, and, for a heart-beat or two, they take silent stock of
each other. The long thick wrap conceals the girl’s figure, but face and
hands betray that Miss Carew has dwindled to half her size. Yet did ever
saner eyes look out from under level brows? Whatever else has happened,
Mrs. Prince’s lugubrious prognostic is not fulfilled. Lavinia Carew’s reason
has not given way.
“You have grown very thin!”
“Do not you remember that Rupert always used to laugh at me for my
dread of getting fat?” Then, seeing the startled half-frightened look in her
friend’s face, “You wonder that I am able to mention him? Well, I have had
good practice; for five months we have never talked of anything else!
No!”—correcting herself—“I am wrong. Sometimes we have talked of Bill,
but never, never, NEVER of anything else!”
“For five months?”
“Every day for five months—sometimes twice a day, for his mind is a
good deal gone—I have given him all, or”—with a slight shiver—“almost
all the details of the—the accident! If I had been asked beforehand, I should
have thought that even an allusion to it would drive me mad; and I have had
to describe it twice a day!” She makes her narration in a perfectly collected
level voice, and her friend’s false shyness dies for ever, overwhelmed by an
avalanche of compassion.
“How are you alive?” she asks almost inaudibly.
“You must not pity me!” returns the other, still with the awe-inspiring
calm of one that has reached the limit of possible suffering, and come out
beyond it into the dead waters of numbed endurance. “Other people—all
other people would do that; but I expect you to understand. I am glad to be
punished! glad to be working out my sentence like a convict. It is the only
thing that has given me any ease! I think that even Rupert, if he can see me
—I do not think that he much believed that he would be able”—with a
dragging accent of sorrowful reluctance—“but if he can, even he will think
the expiation is not out of proportion to the offence!”
“It is an idea that would never have occurred to him!” says Mrs. Darcy,
in a tone of the gentlest chiding. “You are forgetting him!”
“Forgetting him!” repeats Lavinia, slowly. “Yes,” after a slight pause,
“you are right; crediting him with dismal dogmas of retribution, that he
would have abhorred! Yes, I must be forgetting him!”
“My dear,” comes the voice of the rector, opening the door and looking
in, with a brow cleared by having decided to omit the ’96 flower of speech,
and defer the allusion to Rupert till New Year’s Eve, “what has possessed
you to unbar the hall-door? It surely is not a night for star-gazing! Miss
Carew!”
* * * * *
The Darcy Christmas Day has been worked through with its usual
cheerful thoroughness. The reciprocal presentations; the church services;
the workhouse dinner; the school-children’s tea, with its posthumous
accompaniment of oranges and crackers; the servants’ evening party;—
nothing has been scamped. The family Christmas gift to the poodle has
been a photograph of Binning, which he wears upon his brow—all other
available parts of his person being already occupied by the effigies of
general officers—when he is walked by his beautifully frilled fore paws
between Phillida and Daphne into the mistletoed kitchen to open the ball.
* * * * *
Lavinia’s Christmas Day has been worked through too, though in a
different fashion. Mrs. Prince may cast her eyes upon the Campions’ seat in
church without any fear of a shock to her nerves, for it is as empty as it has
been for the last five months. Sir George is too much tired by his journey
for his niece to leave him; yet in the afternoon—an afternoon furnished
with the apposite Christmas brightness which had been so lacking yesterday
—he insists upon being dressed, and leaning on Lavinia’s arm walks, with
less of tottering in his gait than she had feared, to the churchyard, to see the
new cross, about which he has been restlessly talking, asking, wondering,
through half the night.
“I should personally have preferred granite, but as usual I was
overruled!” he says fretfully; then divining and remorseful for her distress,
adds, “But it is not amiss.”
Both are silent for a little space, reading the inscription, which, by long
debating over, amending, altering, has grown so familiar to both.
“It was his own choice to lie out here!” says Sir George, presently. “It
would have seemed more natural that he should be buried with the rest of us
—with his mother; but he always was rather a sport among us!”
Lavinia assents with a little heart-full nod.
 “It is dull of me,” pursues the old man, while a puzzled look comes into
his dim eyes; “but I can’t recall how we learnt his wishes! He could not
have told us.”
“We found them written on a sheet of note-paper just inside the middle
drawer of his writing-table,” replies Lavinia, with the gentle ready
distinctness of one who, with perfect patience, has given the same
explanation many times before.
“Ah, yes! that was it, of course. He was always fond of scribbling, poor
fellow!”—with a look of relief at the recovered explanation. A moment
later, in a low key of compunction, “And I used to get so out of patience
with him, and ask whether he was writing a sonnet to his own eyebrow!
What right had I to sneer at him because he was not cut on the same pattern
as myself?”
“He did not mind, dear,” very softly, with a pressure against her side of
the wasted arm leaning on hers. Another silence, while about the steady
peace of the church tower the jackdaws fly and call in cheerful harshness,
and from behind the bravery of his little orange-tawny breast a robin throws
out his living gladness across the Christmas-decked graves.
“Two brave boys!” says Sir George after a pause; but now there is a note
of triumphant pride in the father’s voice. “I always knew that I had one! but
I little thought the day would come when I should be able to say that there
is not a pin to pick between them! not a pin to pick between them!”
CHAPTER XXV
 “It is for homely features to keep home,
They have their name thence; coarse complexions
And cheeks of sorry grain have leave to ply
The sampler, and to tease the house-wife’s wool.
What need a vermeil-tinctured lip for that?
Love-darting eyes, and tresses like the morn?”

The August sun is assuring the Rectory garden, as plainly as his beams can
speak, that no scurvy trick shall be played with the marquee erected this
morning with some trepidation of spirit—since the two previous days have
been rainy—on the cricket-ground. In proof of his good faith, the God of
Day is dragging their hottest spices out of the petunias and heliotropes, and
out of Miss Brine the prudent counsel, addressed to her pupils, to put
cabbage leaves in their hats. But how can paltry apprehensions of the off-
chance of a sunstroke influence minds occupied by the knowledge that the
whole air is full of the sense of approaching festivity? Have not the hen-
coops been moved from the banks of the Tugela River, in order that
rounders may be played there? Is not there to be a tug-of-war on the grass
plot before the front door? Has not a “donkey” been erected in a clear space
of the shrubbery? Are not numerous old boxes being chopped up into trays,
to be used for tobogganing down the steep slope above the parterre? That
the treat to the choir boys of St. Gengulpha’s Church, Martin Street, Soho,
London, which in her maiden days Mrs. Darcy used, for the sake of its
excellent music, to frequent, is an annual one, does not lessen the
excitement with which the arrival of the early afternoon train, and the hired
brake and Rectory waggonette that convey the guests from Sutton Rivers
station, is expected.
That blissful date is still three hours off, for eleven o’clock has just told
its last stroke from the church tower as Mrs. Darcy, calm with the
consciousness of made cakes, garnished dishes, and arrived chairs, puts foot
across the threshold of the cool drawing-room of Campion Place. There is
purpose in her eye, and resolution in her step, as she lightly crosses the
carpet, and lays her hands on the shoulders of a black figure, sitting with its
back to her, writing at a bureau. The figure puts out an abstracted hand
backwards in acknowledgment of what is evidently a very familiar
interruption, but her attention remains rivetted upon the “slips” before her.
 “Isn’t it astonishing that the corrector of the press can let such mistakes
pass?” she asks, indignantly. “Twice they have printed snouts for ‘shouts,’
and liver for ‘lover’! It makes such dreadful gibberish of the lines.”
Mrs. Darcy looks over Lavinia’s shoulder, and verifies the blunders
alluded to; but it is clear that the attention given is but a half-hearted one. In
the early days of black emptiness which had followed Sir George’s death in
the previous January, of occupation gone, and spirits drooping to the very
earth that had closed over the last of her “men,” Susan had welcomed for
Lavinia the editing of Rupert’s “Remains” as a salutary distraction; but of
late she has remorsefully to own to herself that she has grown rather tired of
that “volume of posthumous verse,” which takes such a long time in
preparing for the press, and the emendating, noting, and prefacing of which,
by her friend’s not very practised pen, has robbed the latter of so many of
the little out-door joys which stand first in the pharmacy of grief-healing.
Miss Carew apparently divines the faintness of her friend’s sympathy,
for she changes the subject.
“I sent the spoons and forks this morning! Have you enough now?”
“Plenty.”
“Do you want any knives?”
“Bless your heart, no! Mrs. Prince has lent enough to cut the throats of
the whole township.”
“And how about fruit? There are still a good many white currants under
the nets on the north wall.”
“Currants!” repeats Mrs. Darcy, with affected scorn. “If you could see
the size of the grapes that arrived, personally conducted by Féodorovna, just
as we were sitting down to dinner last night, you would blush for such a
suggestion.”
“I withdraw it,” replies the other, with a slight grave smile; adding, “One
laughs at them, but they really are wonderfully kind.”
“This was not a case of undiluted kindness,” says the rector’s wife, with
her light and stingless sarcasm. “The grapes were but incidental; the real
object of her visit—I wish she would not pay morning calls just as the soup
tureen is entering the dining-room—was to ask for an invitation for to-day
for her organist.”
“And you gave it?”
 “Of course! Am I ever harsh to true first love?” ironically. “She went
conscientiously through his achievements all the same. How well we know
them, don’t we?”
“As a little boy of ten he won sight-reading prizes at local competitions,
while earning his bread as organist of Sutton Rivers Church!” replies
Lavinia, the long-absent dimple showing itself cautiously in her left cheek,
as she responds promptly to the call upon her memory.
“He had to go to the College of Music unusually late,” rejoins Susan,
snatching the words out of her friend’s mouth in triumphant patter; “but,
nevertheless, took his A.R.C.M. in theory, the stiffest exam. the Royal
College affords, with ninety-nine marks out of a maximum of a hundred!”
Lavinia breaks in hurriedly. “He is composing an organ fugue in G
minor, which has something of the strength and purity of design of Bach!”
They both pause to laugh; but Lavinia’s eyes, falling on the MS., grow
suddenly serious again.
“I wonder has she yet offered him marriage?” she says, a remnant of
amusement piercing through the habitual sadness of her face.
“It is time that she did,” replies Mrs. Darcy, in the same key; adding,
after a moment’s reflection, and in a lower tone, “It is quite fifteen months
since she last proposed to any one.”
Lavinia lays down her slips upon the blotting-pad, and sits looking
straight in front of her, while with an awful clearness rise before her mind’s
eye the events so inextricably entangled with Miss Prince’s declaration to
Binning.
“Why did you say that?” she asks, after a pause of quickened breathing,
to which her friend listens with a trepidation which does not hinder a very
valiant resolution to persevere.
“Because you never allow me to mention him; because, as I may not
speak of him naturally and simply, I must drag him in by the head and
shoulders.”
No answer.
“Isn’t it a puerility to banish him from your speech—to go half a mile
out of your way to avoid speaking his poor name—when we both know that
he is never for one moment out of your thoughts? No; don’t interrupt me! I
will have my say out this time! Never for one moment out of your thoughts
—not even when you are laying eucharis lilies on Sir George’s grave, or
editing Rupert’s poems.”
Lavinia’s only answer is to take her hands off the manuscript before her,
as if the indictment made against her rendered her unworthy to touch it; and
her long arms drop to her side.
“Can you deny it?” asks Mrs. Darcy, her spirituelle pale face flushing
with excitement, thinking that she may as well be killed for a sheep as a
lamb, and kneeling down beside her friend to get compelling possession of
one of her hands. “I insist upon your answering me!”
For a moment or two of misgiving it seems to the rector’s wife as if her
audacity of asking were to break against the same obstinacy of morbid
silence as has rebuffed all her previous efforts to speak a forbidden name;
but, after a while, Lavinia answers, a great sigh seeming to tear the words
out of her breast—
“I do not deny it; though why you should have the brutality to force me
to own it to-day, particularly, I do not know!”
“Because he is in England!” replies Susan, speaking very softly, with a
kindly dew of moisture, making tender her usually keen eyes; “because, this
morning, I had a letter from him, with a London postmark!”
The slips of Rupert’s poems blow off the bureau, and on to the floor,
wafted to earth by the irony of a warm gust from the honied garden-beds
outside; but Lavinia is not aware of it. The one hand that she has at liberty
flies up to her forehead, as though she were blinded by a sudden light.
“You must have seen in the papers that the Isis, with his regiment on
board, had reached Southampton; but, perhaps”—with a slight return of
satire lightening the gravity of her eager tones—“perhaps—to be consistent
—you do not allow yourself to glance at the war news.”
“I did not at first,” answers the girl, still looking straight before her, with
eyes that yet feel dazzled; “I thought it ought to be part of my punishment;
but,” faltering, “I had not resolution enough to keep to it. And, even if I
had, it would have been no use. The children——”
“Yes,” returns the mother, with a rather quivering pride in her voice; “it
would be difficult to be long in the company of my progeny without hearing
the name of Binning”—pronouncing it with a ringing clearness. “They, at
least, are faithful to the one hero whom they can call friend!”
 At the thus audaciously syllabled name, whose utterance has been tacitly
prohibited between them for over a year, Lavinia gives a low cry. But in the
over-set face that she suddenly turns upon her friend there is no anger, only
an immense mazed joy, fighting its way out of the Bastille of the long
remorseful sorrow that has prisoned and gagged it; and her fair head falls
forward on the shoulder of Binning’s advocate. Through the thin fabric of
her gown Mrs. Darcy feels the glow of the hidden face, and it spurs her to
fresh effort.
“Are you not rather tired of being dead?” she whispers. “It is all very
well for a time, but it must pall! Come back to life! Put off these hateful
weeds, put on a white gown, and come back to life to-day! Believe me”—
with an accent of exulting persuasiveness—“you could not choose a better
moment!”
* * * * *
The party to the choir boys of St. Gengulpha’s is being put through with
the thoroughness which, since Mrs. Darcy’s advent, fifteen years ago, has
characterized all the Rectory functions; and, indeed, is drawing towards its
close. For four sunshiny hours, twenty happy boys in flannels, with sharp
towny faces, have been expatiating about the grounds, and have drunk to
the full of the varied entertainments offered them—entertainments shared
by half the neighbourhood, annually compelled by Mrs. Darcy to come in to
her aid. The Vicar of St. Gengulpha’s and his curates—lean men with
intellectual faces, supported by the gamest of their pale choir boys, have
stretched muscles that yet remember the playing-fields and the Isis, in the
best tug-of-war in the Campion records, against the rector and his inferior
songsters. The smartest young ladies of the neighbourhood have not
disdained, though hampered by long-tailed swishy gowns, to join in a game
of rounders with the visitors, nor do the inelegance of their futile efforts to
get their draperies out of the way, nor the potency of the sun’s beams at all
reduce the good will and perseverance with which they arduously scamper.
The “donkey” has repeatedly conquered and been conquered. The donkey is
an apocryphal animal, with a wooden head; and, for body, a revolving
barrel, mounted on whose elusive convexity the rider has to snatch a
threepenny bit from its distant nose. Many are the ignominious falls given
by him, many the glorious victories won over his treacherously turning
barrel-stomach. For the lesser boys the threepence is placed further up the
nose, within easier reach of the little anxiously grabbing hand; and frequent
are the cheaply generous petitions proffered by elder lads in behalf of their
small companions.
“Mightn’t ’e ’ave it a bit nearer, sir? ’e’s only a little chap!”
And the rector, in flannels, having laid aside his pompousness with his
broadcloth, hot, genial, turning the handle of his wooden steed with right
good will, feigning to be inexorable, always accedes. Then, after tea in the
tent—tea in whose distribution every one, even to Serena and the poodle,
assist; after Orpheus glees sung in the dining-room, comes the crowning
final joy of the toboggan.
“One! two! three! Are you ready?”
The eager scramble up the hillock; the emulous turning round the bag
which sits at the top on a sort of milestone; the getting on to your tea-tray;
the difficulty of keeping your feet on it—an indispensable condition of
success; the mad sliding run down to the grass at the foot—once or twice
the impetus carrying the boy divorced from his tray, and landing him on the
gravel walk, with barked elbows and shins;—who can wonder that, in
comparison with such pleasures, the donkey himself grows pale?
The party has been in full swing, before a guest, who, if an oath to
appear at it had not been exacted from her, would certainly never have
found courage to face it, is seen to be in the midst of associates from whom
she has been so long withdrawn. Lavinia is late—a tardiness not to be
accounted for by the simplicity of her toilette, since no one knows with
what a long delay of backward-looking apology, with what remorseful
cryings-out for forgiveness to her “men” for seeming to forget them, she
has put off her black gown, and invested herself in the white muslin which
feels like a travesty. It is with something of the shamed shyness of one who
suddenly finds himself in broad daylight among a party of ordinarily
dressed men and women, clad in the extravagance of a fancy garb, that Miss
Carew appears among the acquaintances from whom, for over a year, she
has held aloof.
What has she to do amid all this movement and colour and gaiety?
Because she has been dragged out of her darkness into light, and had her
fetters suddenly knocked off, does that make her a fit member of this happy
company? They look at her or she fancies so, strangely; some to whom she
has been perfectly well known in former days, not even recognizing her.
That she is changed in appearance she has long been indifferently aware;
colour and flesh melted away in the smelting-pot of her great affliction,
branded with the broad arrow of her uneffaceable suffering. But that she
should have become unrecognizable! The unexpected smart of that
discovery blinds her to the fact of how faint a hold upon another’s identity
is possessed by any human being; of how small a change of costume,
locale, or circumstance, will confuse the doubtful and inaccurate knowledge
which we can master of even the exterior of our fellow-creatures! Nor does
she realize that in the general centreing of attention on the objects of the
entertainment, the unobtrusive addition of one more to the already
considerable number of tall white maidens on the grounds may
momentarily pass without notice. It is with relief and gratitude that, as she
moves along in humiliated shyness, with that mazed sense of unreality
which has been upon her ever since Mrs. Darcy’s morning visit, she hears
herself interpolated by the familiar voice of Mrs. Prince.
“Lavinia! Why, I can scarcely believe my eyes!”
“You at least know me!” replies the girl, holding out a hand that seems
scarcely to belong to herself, in the unfamiliarity of its white glove.
“Know you, my dear? Why should not I know you when I see you
almost every day of my life? Why, in Heaven’s name, shouldn’t I know
you?”
“Other people don’t!” replies Lavinia, sombrely. “I passed Lady
Greenhithe just now, and she looked perfectly blankly at me. And even
Féodorovna; but then she was——” Miss Carew apparently alters her
intention of finishing her sentence, for she pauses.
“Féodorovna!” repeats Mrs. Prince, an anxious furrow on her brow
becoming suddenly more pronounced. “By-the-by, where is she? She
disappeared almost as soon as we arrived. Did you say that you had seen
her?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“At the back of the tent.”
“Was she—alone?” with a very apparent apprehension as to what the
answer will be.
“No—o; Mr. Sharp—the Shipstone organist, I mean—was with her.”
Mrs. Prince heaves a mortified sigh that is yet tempered with philosophy.
 “I wish she had stuck to the army!” she says, shrugging her shoulders.
“Neither Mr. Prince nor I would have objected to an army man!”
 CHAPTER XXVI

“If I depart from thee I cannot live;

And in thy sight to die, what were it else
But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?”

After all, Lavinia is not unrecognizable. Scarcely has she left Mrs. Prince,
whose brow is still creased by the thought of an imminent son-in-law, when
one and another claim greetings from her, and in half an hour she has
shaken hands with three parts of the gathering; has been presented to the
strange clergy—St. Gengulpha’s has a new vicar since last year—and been
cordially pressed by Christopher to feel the biceps of one of the East End
curate’s arms, which has shown its merits in the just-ended tug-of-war.
In the eyes of all them to whom she was already known, has been
welcome, a little hesitating surprise, and a not unkindly curiosity. They
know that she has passed through deep waters since last in her bloom and
bonniness they had looked upon her, though they little guess the awful
Dead Sea bitterness of taste of the waters that have gone over her. Is she
recovered enough to be treated like any one else? Will it be better to allude
to her long absence, rejoicing in its having ended; or to take her
reappearance for granted? Some answer the question in one way and some
in the other, as tact or insight diversely guides them; and she responds
quietly to all, with a gravely grateful look from under the frills of her white
muslin hat, and that overpowering sense that the acquaintances that accost
her are no more real than she herself. But she is not unrecognizable!
Through the haze that enwraps her sensations pierces a throb of joyful
reassurance, proportioned to the apprehension that had forerun it—an
apprehension not formulated to herself, that if she has so changed as to be
unknowable by persons, many of whom have been acquainted with her
from childhood, she may, in the dim and distant possibility of their ever
meeting again, be passed unrecognized by one whose whole knowledge of
her had only covered six weeks.
She has come back from the grave! Is it any wonder that at first she
walks in a maze—as one suddenly awakened from a century of sleep,
doubtfully re-entering the kingdom of life? Glad voices are in the air around
her; glad movement on the pleasant earth about her; a misty gladness, dim
and vast, somewhere deep, deep down in her own being; and through it all a
bewildering misgiving that this feast of life cannot be spread for her; that
she does but dream, and will presently awake to the black gown, and the
manuscript on the bureau, and the long treadmill of remorse and expiation.
She is roused from her trembling fantasies by the reality of Mrs. Darcy’s
slender arm commandingly hooked into hers, and whirling her away to
plaister a barked shin and stem a bleeding nose. But it is only as long as the
need for her cobwebs and cold keys lasts that she can keep a hold upon the
solid commonplaces of existence. Even while “God save the Queen” is
melodiously ringing across the evening meads, even while the gratefully
vociferous boys are making their sweet voices hoarse with prolonged
cheering from the vehicles packed for their return, she falls back into the
uncertain domain of the dream.
In the bustle of subsidiary adieux that follow those of the choir, in
reciprocal congratulations upon success and thanks for help, Lavinia steals
away unnoticed. She gives no directions to her feet whither to carry her,
but, though otherwise will-less in the matter, they know that she shrinks
from at once regaining the mournful emptiness of the house on the hill.
Anywhere else—anything but that! It is all one to her!
Only a step to the hop-garden at the foot of Campion Place, only a rough
cart-track running between the old red-brick wall of the latter and the green
battalions of the hop-poles, now clothed with twining verdure from top to
bottom. She strolls, still in a dream, along a green aisle, looking down a
vista of apparently unending length, the bines, that have been tied round the
poles to prevent their straggling, waving defiant strong tendrils over her
head to stretch out and embrace the opposite rank, and make pointed arches
of Early English in the green cathedral. Showers of pallid green blooms
hang above her, so light and fairy-like in their airy droop, that it seems
blasphemy to connect them as necessary concomitants with that
contemptible creature—small beer! Parallel aisle upon aisle of riotous
verdure, making one gigantic green fane!
At the end of the lofty silence beneath which she is passing burns an
altar fire of evening sunshine; and towards it her feet, still without any
conscious direction on her part, slowly carry her. But when the end of the
vista is reached, and its verdant glow exchanged for the evening red of the
fair pasture outside, the altar fire has moved further away, and is blazing
with ruddy promise for to-morrow behind the trees of Rumsey Brake. Will
she pursue it even thither? where for fifteen months her steps have never
trod, which has been to her a banned place since——? Yet her feet still bear
her onwards. In the sloping meadows through which she passes, lambs on
that day were butting and bounding; there is neither butt nor bounding in
the fleecy adults dully cropping and waddling to-night. There were
buttercups—millions of buttercups—that day; to-day there are none! To-day
the gate that leads into the Brake is open; on that day it was locked. With a
shiver of retrospective passion, she recalls the roughness with which she
had rebuffed his offer of help, knowing what a conflagration even so casual
a contact must light in them both. After all, it might as well have happened
then as later! She is on the very path now that they had paced in their
burning pain—that woof of pain whose warp was stinging pleasure.
On that day the moor-hens were leading little dainty broods out of the
sedge; to-day there is no life at all on the sunset-painted mirror of the pool.
Only that hot blaze that has turned it into the semblance of a cup full of the
rosy elixir of life! Here is where they paused to listen to the nightingale.
Intolerable nightingale! forcing them to hear things forbidden—things that
drove them away in terror of him and of each other; drove them away in the
vain hope of averting what must happen, what had to happen!
Had to happen! Yes, and did happen! A sort of exaltation in what she has
hitherto always shuddered from as the memory of a crime, takes possession
of her. It was a sin! Under the circumstances it was a sin and a treachery!
But she has paid for it. No one can say that she has not paid for it! and oh, if
it could only happen again! The memory of her fault and her suffering alike
grow faint; while with her whole tingling body and craving soul she feels
again the grip of his arms, the thundering beat of his heart against her
breast, the scorching insistence of his lips. She will go to the very spot
where it happened; will tryst him there in the aching realism of a memory
that seems for once to have been given the never-given privilege of saying
to the dead past, bound hand and foot in grave-clothes, “Stand forth!”
Slowly she paces—her knees trembling a little in the vividness of that
deliberate reconstruction—to the very place of their parting. A bend in the
grass over-flung path hides it from her till she is close upon it. The
intervening curve is rounded, and her goal is reached. Rooted to the earth
she stands; for hasn’t the force of her compelling passion evoked his spirit
to meet hers? Yet had ever spirit such shoulders? such a sea-tanned face?
such a blaze in such eagle eyes? It is no spirit; it is in very truth, in gallant
bodily presence, her own dear upstanding fighting man, in the glory and
vigour of his manhood, such as till now she has never seen him.
“I can neither live nor die without you, and I have come to tell you so!”
And the grip of his arms is no dream!

FINIS

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAVINIA ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S.

copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in
these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it
in the United States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of
this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept
and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and
may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the
terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of
the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as
creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research.
Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given
away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with
eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject
to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
 PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free

distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or
any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and

Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree
to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be
bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from
the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in
paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be

used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people
who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a
few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic
works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.
See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with
Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.