The Last Wilder Read online

  He gave them another nod. “You trust me to do my job, and I’ll trust you not to do anything that might get yourselves hurt or arrested.”

  An hour later, David Raymond Lewis, named for Grady’s brother and father who’d both been killed in a plane crash two years earlier, made his entrance into the world.

  Rather than expose the newborn to a roomful of people, regardless of how eagerly they had awaited his arrival, he was taken to the nursery. The family, plus Dane and Stacey, gathered outside the big glass window as Grady held his son up and showed him off.

  “Look at all that black hair,” Belinda said.

  “The poor kid didn’t stand a chance for anything else,” blond-headed Laurie joked. “Not with a Shoshone for a father and a Wilder for a mother.”

  Dane stared through the glass at the tiny baby, all red and wrinkly in Grady’s hands, and felt a tightening in his chest. Was this as close as he would get to a family of his own? A child of his own? The thought had never bothered him before, that he might never marry and have children. So why, here and now, was his gaze drawn from the baby to the woman at his side? And why did this terrible sense of yearning that he’d lived with since getting to know the Wilders seem to change focus in that moment? Now it had nothing to do with Ace, Jack, Trey or Rachel. Now it had to do with a blue-eyed, angelic trespasser with an alias.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was after dark when the group finally broke up and left the hospital. They seemed reluctant, Stacey thought, to leave the baby and Rachel, even though both were sleeping the sleep of the exhausted.

  “Do you have a bag in Dane’s car?” Ace asked Stacey.

  “What?” His question took her by surprise. Only after she asked what he meant did she remember that Dane had been taking her to Ace’s home that morning when they’d come upon Rachel.

  She couldn’t go home with the Wilders now. Not tonight, after this day of family closeness. It was bad enough that she had intruded, no matter what they’d said about her welcome.

  “A bag,” Ace said, a teasing glint in eyes that were almost the exact same shade as Dane’s. “Clothes? Makeup? Stuff?”

  “Oh, uh, well, yes. In Dane’s unit.” She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t leave Dane to go home alone, couldn’t bring herself to leave him. Not yet. Another day, that’s all she needed. A day for the Wilders to settle back into their routine after the birth of their newest family member.

  A day to put a little distance between her and all the emotions that family stirred in her. She very much feared she had come to care for them entirely too much. She needed time to steady herself. Away from them.

  “We’ll get it, then, and you can ride back with us, save Dane a trip.”

  Beside Stacey, Dane bit back a protest. They would think he was crazy if he protested. He wanted her to go home with Ace, where she would be safe while he tracked down his former deputies. But somehow, during the day, he’d forgotten that he would be going home alone, that she wouldn’t be with him. He was so used to her company, so used to thinking about her, being around her, it was going to seem odd without her. Lonely.

  “But I can’t go,” Stacey said, her words rushed one on top of the other.

  Dane stared at her, wondering what she was up to. He tried to decipher the look she gave him, but wasn’t sure what it meant. Her eyes seemed to be pleading with him.

  “What do you mean, you can’t go?” Ace asked. “I thought it was all settled?”

  “You know we want you to come,” his wife Belinda said.

  “I know,” Stacey said, her voice sounding almost desperate. “And it was all settled, but…but John, Dane’s detective, we saw him when we went for sandwiches.”

  Dane frowned. They hadn’t seen John. The tips of her ears were turning red. What was she up to?

  Stacey flicked her tongue across her lips in a nervous gesture and darted another look toward Dane, then back to Ace. “John said he had some more questions for me and asked me to come in to the office in the morning. Didn’t he, Dane? I guess we just forgot to mention it when we came back, what with all the excitement about the baby.”

  Dane’s choices were few. He could call her a liar, but then, he couldn’t, really. He could back her up, but tell her John had changed his mind and wouldn’t need her after all. Or, he could play along and have her with him one more night. Maybe even kiss her one more time before she was out of his life for good. Which was exactly where she would be as soon as he arrested Wilson and James.

  The decision, it seemed, was simple. “That’s right,” he said. “I guess I forgot to mention it. Like she said, the excitement and all. My apologies, Ace. I’m going to need her one more night. I’ll call you tomorrow and give you an update.”

  Ace Wilder was nobody’s fool. He knew there was something odd going on, but he chose to keep that knowledge to himself and hope Dane knew what he was doing. “Fair enough,” he said. “Whenever you want to bring her out to the house, you don’t even need to call. Just bring her.”

  “Thanks,” Dane said.

  “Yes,” Stacey said, her voice sounding weak and thready. “Thank you. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “What,” Dane said, his voice tight with tension, “was that all about?”

  It was so cold, even inside the Blazer, that his breath made white puffs in the air. He’d waited to voice his question until they were two blocks away from the hospital.

  Stacey let out the breath she’d been holding. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t go home with them, not tonight. Not after a day like today.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It was a day for closeness, for family. Tonight they’ll want to talk about it, about Rachel’s labor, about the baby. I have no business intruding on that. I just couldn’t do it.”

  “You wouldn’t have been intruding. Hell, we were both there all day. You saw how they treated us, as if we belonged. They wouldn’t have considered your presence an intrusion. When Ace said ‘Welcome home,’ he meant it.”

  “He would welcome you, too,” she said. “They all would.”

  Dane felt the ache around his heart, the ache he felt whenever he thought of the family he refused to claim. As he turned onto his street, he had to admit that Stacey was probably right. They would accept him. Once the yelling was done. They would not take kindly to realizing he’d waited two years to come clean with them.

  “You know they would,” Stacey added.

  “Maybe.” He backed into his driveway and killed the lights and engine. “But not tonight.”

  As was his habit, Dane had left a lamp burning in the living room. He had it on a timer so that if he didn’t make it home, it came on at dusk and went off at midnight, to give the impression that someone was home. The precaution was probably not necessary in Hope Springs—they had very little crime. But old habits from the big city had stuck with him.

  He helped Stacey off with her coat, then hung it with his on the coat tree beside the door. “Are you hungry?”

  “No.” She looked up at him, then quickly away. The light from the lamp made her hair glow golden.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  She used her crutches to move a few feet away from him. “Nothing.”

  “You’re not using your foot. Did you overdo it? Is it hurting?”

  “No. Just a little ache, that’s all.”

  “Then why won’t you look at me?”

  She turned, then, slowly, until she faced him. There was an earnest plea in her eyes he hadn’t seen before. “You will tell them, won’t you? Soon?”

  “Why is it so important to you?” Without thinking, Dane reached out with one fingertip and nudged a strand of hair off her cheek.

  It was the barest of touches, almost not there at all, but it was enough to reignite that spark of awareness inside Stacey that had been banked since they had kissed last night in his office. “Don’t.” She turned her head aside, away from his touch.

  Dane didn’t need to ask what she
meant. He’d felt it, too, that sudden, heated awareness. On some level he’d been feeling it all day. Feeling that, and much more. So much more that it was all jumbled up inside him and he didn’t know what to do about it. She was probably right. He shouldn’t touch her at all, not even casually.

  But he wanted to. Wanted to badly.

  “Why?” He wasn’t sure if he was asking the question of himself—why did he want her?—or of her—why shouldn’t he touch her?

  She ducked her head and moved away. “You’re the one who said it wasn’t smart.”

  “I was talking about kissing you.”

  Slowly she turned back toward him and met his gaze with a directness that held him glued to the spot. “Yes,” she said softly. “You were.”

  “What are you saying? That touching you is the same as kissing you?”

  She sighed and sagged on her crutches. “I don’t know what I’m saying. Don’t pay any attention to me. After today I’m feeling a little shaky.”

  “You’ve been on that foot too long,” he said, frowning. “Sit down and prop it up.”

  Stacey let out a chuckle and rolled her eyes. Wasn’t that just like a man, to misinterpret every little thing? “I didn’t mean that kind of shaky. I meant emotionally.”

  “And for that, you don’t want me to touch you? You didn’t seem to mind touching me last night in my office.”

  “No,” she answered honestly. “No, I didn’t mind. But you were right, it wasn’t smart.”

  “Because you distract me.”

  Stacey didn’t know what made her say what she said next. Maybe it came out because it was so huge inside her. Or maybe some part of her wanted to chance that he might feel the same. “Because it makes me want more.”

  In the wake of her confession, every argument about why they shouldn’t get involved flew right out of Dane’s head. “You can’t tell me something like that and expect me to walk away.”

  “I’m just trying to be honest.”

  “Okay,” he said, moving in on her. “That’s fair. How’s this for honest?” He took her face in his hands and kissed her.

  This time there was no teasing brush of lip across lip, no soft, slow savoring. This time he showed her exactly what he was feeling. He dived in and devoured.

  There was no time, no chance for Stacey to protest. No thought of protest. She wanted this. Wanted him. It no longer mattered that he was all wrong for her, that she was only with him temporarily. It only mattered that he want her, and that he satisfy the terrible yearning that threatened to suck her under until she simply disappeared. That would be all right, if only she could be sucked under and disappear with Dane.

  It wasn’t lost on her that she’d never felt this way about a man before, not even the one she had married. In a saner moment, these overwhelming emotions, this heated yearning, might terrify her. But now, this minute, they only made her return the kiss.

  His mouth was hard and insistent, his tongue like hot, rough velvet. When his hands left her face she felt bereft. When he reached down and tossed aside her crutches, she felt grateful, for now she could wrap her arms around him and hold on tight.

  He made her heart pound, took her breath away, and it was liberating in a way she’d never dreamed was possible. Then he pulled his mouth from hers and she gasped for air, certain she would wither and die on the spot if he didn’t bring his lips back to hers. His name came from her on a gasp.

  The sound of it, all breathy and desperate, nearly buckled Dane’s knees. His chest heaved with the effort to draw in much-needed air. “If this is any indication,” he managed between breaths, “I’d say we’re both more than a little needy.”

  “Well,” she said, her breath finally returning. “As long as it’s mutual.”

  He nuzzled his nose into her hair. He loved the smell of her hair. “I’ve left you standing on one foot.”

  “Yes.” She leaned into him, pressing her chest against his and making him want to groan, it felt so damn good. “You have.”

  He trailed kisses from her temple to the corner of her mouth. “Is that a problem?”

  She turned her face until her lips brushed his. “It could be.” Her tongue, that clever, clever tongue, crept out and took a delicate swipe at his lower lip. “Maybe you should take me somewhere so I can get off it.”

  Dane paused, pulled back enough to see her face. “Somewhere?”

  “The couch?” With her hands behind his head, she pulled him down to meet her. “The bed.”

  Heat, white and hot, rushed to his loins. He couldn’t remember ever being with a woman so bold about expressing what she wanted. He liked it. Liked it a lot. “The bed.” Eagerly he swept her up in his arms and kissed her hard and fast. “Definitely the bed.”

  Not her bed, he decided swiftly. His. He wanted her in his bed. When he laid her gently on the comforter and joined her there he knew it was right. She might be his only for a short time, but she was his. He felt it in his bones. He’d been drawn to her on a dark, lonely night, found her in the least likely place he could find a woman. He’d claimed her with the beam of his flashlight, and she’d been his. He’d lifted her from the dirt and gravel of the ravine and carried her to his car, and she’d been his. He’d fed her, given her a place to stay, tended her injury.

  Oh, yes, the lady was his. He went about claiming her in the oldest way possible. But he wouldn’t simply slake his lust, because there was more going on between them than that. How much more, and how important it might be, he didn’t know. He only knew that she was here, and she was willing, even eager, if the way she threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled him down for another kiss was any indication.

  Her fingers in his hair sent shivers of excitement racing down his spine.

  He thought to take his time with her, draw it out and make it last. Savor every sweet inch, every second, and rein in the driving impulse to take her here and now. But her hands slid down his neck and over his shoulders and started releasing the buttons on the front of his shirt, and the next thing he knew they were both naked and he was cradled, gratefully, between her thighs.

  Then they were touching each other, everywhere. Long, slow glides of flesh against flesh. Fast, eager grasps, hand to hand, mouth to mouth, body to body.

  Stacey had never felt such fire, such need. She’d thought she’d known what she wanted in a man. Nice. Tame. Someone who didn’t get in her way, who let her call the shots.

  But Dane was none of those things, nor did he seem to be the domineering type. For the first time in her life, she had found her equal. It was the headiest thing she’d ever known.

  He cupped her breast in his warm, callused palm, flicked the tip with his thumb. She gasped, arching into the touch, silently begging for more. And he gave it, with his tongue and teeth and lips, tugging on some invisible wire that ran from her nipple to her womb, drawing open a yawning emptiness that only he could fill.

  In the dim glow from the streetlight outside at the curb, the two bodies twisted and arched across the bed, taking and giving, his mouth at her breast, her hand reaching for his erection.

  When she touched him, took him in her hand, Dane shuddered. No tentative touch, no shyness in her grasp. Simply a bold, confident woman pleasing him, demanding that he please her. He was helpless to do anything but oblige.

  At the last minute he remembered the two condoms in his wallet and reached over the side of the bed for his jeans.

  He didn’t carry the packets because he had an active sex life. If wishes were horses…hell, they were so old, their integrity should probably be suspect. No, he carried them to show the local teenagers that every responsible person who ever hoped to have sex carried protection. Only irresponsible fools did without.

  He pulled one packet from the wallet, tore it open and put on the condom. His hands fumbled, he was so eager to sink himself into her.

  Sink, hell, he wanted to thrust, hot and fast and hard, again and again and again until he felt her world explode and
his along with it.

  And then it was happening. She helped him finish unrolling the condom and nearly did him in in the process. Then she guided him home, and he inched into her, holding back, holding back, until she cried out and surged beneath him, taking him inside her hot, slick flesh, so deep he thought—prayed—he might never find his way out again.

  He was so close to losing control that he held there, deep inside her, not moving. Concentrating on not hammering into her as hard as he could until they both begged for mercy.

  But again she moved beneath him.

  “Wait,” he managed, his chest heaving with the effort of holding back. “Don’t move or I’ll explode.”

  She pulled her knees up to hug his thighs. “I want you to explode.” Gently, slowly, she flexed her hips. “I want us both to explode.”

  With a low groan, he gave in to her body’s demand and began to move. The friction was so damn good he wanted it to go on and on and on. Again and again, he thrust into her, withdrew, thrust again.

  Stacey felt tears sting her eyes. Nothing in her life had prepared her for intimacy with this man. Nothing, not marriage, not sharing herself with another man, had ever fulfilled her the way Dane did, even though she had yet to reach that sought-for peak with him. Just having him inside her, feeling his powerful body quiver with need, knowing that for now, for this moment, they were one, made her want to both weep and shout with joy.

  He took her higher than she’d ever flown, and when she couldn’t stand the teasing torment another moment, he groaned and gave one final, earth-shattering thrust that destroyed everything she’d ever thought she’d known about pleasure.

  Dane’s breathing was the first to slow. That could have been because Stacey had a hundred and eighty pounds of man on top of her, but she certainly wasn’t complaining. Not when it was this man, who had taken her to places she’d never known before.

  “Are we alive?” she managed.