Page 38 of The Cowboy and the Stray

We passed the telescope back and forth beneath the sprawling Texas night, naming stars and tracing the shapes they made. Orion. Gemini. Canis Major.

Well, this was wildly unfair. I came here to lay low, not fall in love with astronomy... and him.

In between turns at the lens, I paged through the stack of dog-eared astronomy books. Red giants and white dwarfs, pulsars and nebulae. Things that existed out there in the depthless black. But it was the little notes scribbled in the margins that made my chest tighten, glimpses of the boy Calder had been.

"Betelgeuse," I read aloud, smiling at the wobbly letters. "Equals best name ever." I pointed up at the star in question, a reddish glimmer at Orion's shoulder.

Calder ducked his head, rubbing at the back of his neck. In the porch light, I could just make out the hints of embarrassment climbing up from the collar of his shirt. "What can I say? Kid me had his priorities straight." He was adorable. Damn it. This was getting worse by the second.

I wondered what kid me would've thought of Calder Maddox and his crooked smile, his gentle hands, the telescope he'd saved up for dollar by precious dollar.

She would've liked him, I decided. Would've sat right here next to him and dreamed of impossible things, infinite things, things bigger and brighter than the confines of our own hurting world. And then she would’ve tried to marry him by age nine.

Struck by a sudden swell of gratitude, of something even more dangerous, I clutched the book to my chest. "Thank you for this," I whispered, barely audible over the crickets. "For sharing this with me. I... just, thank you."

Calder reached out, and this time his fingers found mine. A tentative curl, hooking our pinkies together in the seashell's curl of my palm. The touch shimmered through me, a livewire, a falling star.

I looked up and found him already watching me. Not the stars, not the vastness of the sky. I didn't turn away from the intensity in his eyes. I let him look. Let him see me, astronomy books and blanket and scars and all. He saw all of me and didn’t flinch. I was doomed.

Something shifted in his gaze then. Sharpened and heated. His fingers tightened on mine, a single point of searing contact. I recognized the look on his face. I'd seen it directed at horses he was trying to calm.

It was longing, pure and distilled. And it was all for me.

My heart tripped and stumbled, picking up speed. I'd tried so hard not to want this. Not to want him. But looking at Calder now, I couldn't remember why. Couldn't find a single reason not to sway into the solid warmth of him, to tip my face up and discover if his lips were as soft as I'd imagined.

Kissing him would be a terrible idea, and I was absolutely going to do it.

Calder swallowed, his throat working. His gaze dropped to my mouth, then back up. "Tess," he said. Just my name, but it sounded like a plea.

I leaned in, a flower to the sun, helpless to resist. Calder met me halfway. Not tentative now but intent, a man dying of thirst faced with a wellspring. His free hand came up to cradle my jaw, fingertips rasping against my skin as he slotted his mouth over mine.

I made a small, shocked sound against his lips. Then I was kissing him back, the astronomy book tumbling forgotten to the porch floor. Calder groaned softly and hauled me closer, dragging me across the scant inches that separated us. I went willingly, eagerly, winding my arms around his neck and opening to the slick slide of his tongue.

He kissed like he did everything else. Thoroughly, skillfully, with an undercurrent of barely restrained hunger. It lit me up from the inside, set every nerve ending ablaze. I clutched at his shoulders, his hair, anything to anchor myself against the deluge of sensation.

Calder gentled the kiss, easing back enough to run his nose along the bridge of mine. To brush his lips over my cheekbones, my fluttering eyelids, the crown of my head. "Been wanting to do that," he murmured against my hair. "Been wanting to do that since the first time I saw you in my barn."

I pulled back just far enough to see his face, my palms sliding to press against his chest. His heart thundered beneath my splayed fingers, an echo of my own wild pulse. "Why didn't you?" I asked. My lips tingled, kiss-damp and tender.

Calder smiled, crooked and endearing and tucked a curl behind my ear. "These past few weeks, I wasn't sure you wanted me to. Wasn't sure I should. Thought it might scare you off, and that's the last thing I want."

I reached up to catch his hand, turning to press a kiss to the calloused center of his palm. "I'm not scared," I said. "Not of you. Not anymore." I should've been. But somehow, I wasn’t. And that terrified me the most.

For the first time since I'd run from Lance, from Las Vegas, from the life that had turned into a waking nightmare, I didn't feel the clammy clutch of fear wrapped around my throat. I felt safe. Cherished. Seen. Somehow, I knew they weren't the kind that would hurt me. Calder would never.

The realization was staggering in its intensity. It brought tears to my eyes. I blinked hard, fighting them back, but Calder caught one on the pad of his thumb as it slipped free.

"Hey," he said, so softly. So gentle I ached with it. "It's okay. We can go slow. I'm not going anywhere."

I nodded, not trusting my voice and let him gather me close and tuck my head beneath his chin, curling into the shelter of his arms. Behind us, Sloane's violin sang on, its notes floating up to twine with the stars.

We might have stayed like that for minutes or hours, trading slow, drugging kisses. Calder's hands roamed my back, my waist, slipping under the edge of my shirt to skate across the sensitive skin at the base of my spine. Each touch sparked and sizzled, lit me up from the inside out like a struck match.

Holy crap. I was falling. Really hard, and really fast.

19. CALDER

The acrid scent that rode the hot breeze could've been rust. Could've been rotted insulation or burnt motor oil cooked up from some rancher's scrapyard. But it had a sour petroleum edge I'd smelled before on drilling sites, where good shortgrass prairie got carved up and spit out. Trouble always smelled like that. Like metal and chemicals and old death.