The Marriage Pact

Chapter Twelve


HADLEIGH AWAKENED FROM a sated sleep, in the darkest hour of the night, aware that Tripp had left her bed. He was a shadow, groping for the clothes he’d discarded earlier, doing his best to be quiet.

She felt a brief and poignant pang that might have been sorrow or joy, she couldn’t tell which; Hadleigh felt no need to identify and catalog it. “Leaving?” she asked, very softly.

Tripp turned, looked down at her, still shirtless, zipping his jeans. “I have horses to feed,” he said.

Hadleigh was amused—at herself. What had she expected him to say? It’s been real—see you around. Don’t call me—I’ll call you? “Need any help?” she asked.

Tripp, standing near the bedside table, leaned over slightly and switched on a lamp. In the glow, she saw a grin spread across his all-too-sensual mouth. He’d worked wonders with that mouth earlier in the evening, in the frenzy of their lovemaking. “I wouldn’t mind some company,” he said mildly.

Hadleigh, naked and tender in certain places, tossed back the covers, had second thoughts and covered herself again, blushing. “Give me fifteen minutes to shower and dress.”

He smiled again. “I’ll make coffee,” he said. With that, he left the bedroom.

Hadleigh was grateful—she’d been anything but shy during the night, that was for sure, and while she didn’t regret a single thing she and Tripp had done together, which was plenty, she needed a little solitude, time to put herself back together.

The moment Tripp was gone, she bolted from the bed, grabbed underwear and socks from the appropriate bureau drawers, chose a comfortable pair of jeans and a faded T-shirt from the shelves in her closet, then made a dash for the master bath. Like her bedroom, this space was her own creation, boasting a garden tub, two-sink marble countertop and an oversize shower equipped with a number of strategically placed sprayers.

Juxtaposed with the other rooms in that modest house, she supposed the spiffy bed-and-bath suite would seem a little incongruent to the casual observer. She’d needed a change after her grandmother—her last remaining blood relation—had died, and, when the will was read, Hadleigh had been stunned to learn just how much she’d inherited.

Okay, Gram had been the frugal type, a dedicated saver, but Hadleigh hadn’t expected to have much left over after the final expenses were paid. She’d known that the quilt shop and the house were both mortgage-free—had been for years—but as it turned out, Gram had been tucking money away for decades. She’d not only banked most of the settlement she’d received when her son and his wife, Hadleigh and Will’s parents, were killed in the car accident, she’d invested both her grandchildren’s monthly social security checks in mutual funds. When Will was killed in action, his military life insurance policy had bolstered the family coffers even more; Hadleigh had assumed the bulk of that had gone toward her own college tuition, plus books, her dorm room and food.


She hadn’t had a clue what was really going on.

For all those years, without a word of complaint, Gram had supported both Will and Hadleigh out of the often-skimpy profits the shop brought in, diligently selling fabric and notions, pattern books and a good many of her own creations, plus teaching quilting classes whenever possible. Just as Gram had taught her.

Remembering always choked Hadleigh up, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, and that bright, cold morning after was no exception. While she’d never know precisely how many sacrifices Gram had made to see her grandchildren through to adulthood, she could make a pretty good guess.

When Alice Stevens’s friends, mostly middle-aged women like herself, widows or divorcées, had gone on trips together, pooling their funds to charter buses and heading out to destinations like Branson, Missouri, or Reno, or the Grand Canyon, or even Disneyland, she’d always stayed behind. The others would plead and cajole, but Gram refused every time, albeit with a pleasant smile. She had no business gallivanting around the country, she’d tell anybody who asked, because she had a store and two mischief-prone kids to look after, in case they’d forgotten.

There were plenty of other economies, too, both large and small. Gram, a fine seamstress, had sewn all her own clothes and many of Hadleigh’s. She’d diligently clipped coupons out of the newspaper and kept a hawk’s eye out for sales, worn the same two or three pairs of shoes, the “sensible” kind, of course, for years, raised a bumper crop of backyard vegetables every summer, canning plenty for winter, and never, as far as Hadleigh could recall, splurging on so much as an extra tube of lipstick or the red-hot bestseller everybody in her garden club was raving about.

Oh, no—not Gram. She owned one lipstick, purchased at the discount store, and used it up completely. All the books she read came from the public library, stacks of them. She’d declared that it wouldn’t kill her to wait her turn for the potboiler du jour. She’d probably gone to a grand total of three movies since the day Will and Hadleigh moved in with her, and if anyone asked, she’d surely have said it was foolish to pay good money when there was popcorn in the pantry and plenty of programs on TV.

Except that Gram had loved movies.

With a sigh, Hadleigh stepped into her fancy shower. All of that’s over and done with, her grandmother would have said. There’s no changing anything now.

Besides, even if she and Will had understood how much Gram was denying herself back then and lodged a protest, that stubborn old woman would’ve gone right ahead and done things her way anyhow.

The insight made Hadleigh smile, and her thoughts shifted to Tripp and the night just past. Even over the running water, she could hear him in the kitchen, talking to the dogs, opening and shutting the back door, taking crockery from the cupboard.

She’d been living alone for quite a while now, and it was just plain nice to have somebody else around. All the better if that somebody was Tripp Galloway.

Damn, but the man’s good in bed.

Good out of bed, too.

That reflection brought on a kind of visceral instant replay, and delicious tingles raced under Hadleigh’s flesh from one nerve ending to the next.

Whoa! Back, girl, she silently told her wanton self, enjoying another rush of tiny thrills. You heard the man. There are horses to feed.

She finished her shower, wrapped herself in a towel, stepped over to the sink and brushed her teeth. She hadn’t shampooed her hair because then she would’ve had to blow-dry it, too, and that would have taken more time than she wanted to spend. So she just combed out the tangles, twisted it into a knot on top of her head and secured it with a clip.

After dressing quickly, Hadleigh applied a light coat of mascara and some pink lip gloss—heavy makeup, for her—and walked to the kitchen at what she hoped was a sedate and dignified pace.

Knowing Tripp would be there, love-rumpled and sexy, she could hardly keep herself from breaking into a sprint. Mustn’t seem too eager, though!

Except she was eager—way, way beyond eager, in fact.

She froze in the doorway, stricken by the sight of him, even though she should have been prepared. He seemed to fill the room with his presence.

She noticed that his beard was growing in, a golden stubble, impossibly sexy.

Honestly, if he’d made a move toward her—any move at all—Hadleigh would have gone hurtling into his arms. It was a memorable moment, the kind that freezes time, stops the universe in its tracks, starts it going again with a wild lurch. And yet, conversely, everything seemed so...well, normal.

On the counter, the coffeemaker chugged away and two mugs waited to be filled. The dogs, back inside, coats dewy from their backyard foray, stood side by side, chowing down on separate bowls of kibble. Looking at them, a person would think they’d been together from puppyhood on.

Tripp grinned that crooked little grin that always made Hadleigh’s stomach flutter as though it had just sprouted wings and might take flight a heartbeat later. “You’re beautiful,” he told her, husky-voiced.

Hadleigh was ridiculously flattered—she knew she was attractive enough, but beautiful? Not quite.

Melody was beautiful.

So was Bex.

She, however, fell somewhere between presentable and pretty.

“Is that a line?” Hadleigh asked, with a mischievous rise of one eyebrow and a crooked grin of her own, before making a production of gesturing down at her well-worn jeans, grubby sneakers and old T-shirt.

Tripp laughed. “No,” he replied. “I don’t use lines. They’re too cheesy—the sort of thing you’d expect from a paunchy guy wearing a slew of gold chains and a two-tone hairpiece.”

“Well,” Hadleigh mused, after pretending to consider the situation from every angle, “you’re definitely not paunchy, and I can’t image you in any kind of jewelry, let alone a toupee.”

“That’s good,” Tripp said. “Because if you could imagine those things, I wouldn’t give two hoots in hell for our chances.”

She was still hovering in the doorway, like a damn fool, pretty much unable to move in either direction and damned if she’d let Tripp Galloway know it.

“What happens now?” she asked.

“We head out to the ranch, feed the horses and then I make you some breakfast?” Tripp suggested, with a twinkle.

“That isn’t what I meant.” Why couldn’t she move?

“What did you mean, then?” Tripp responded. He was enjoying this, the wretch.

Suddenly, Hadleigh felt thirteen again, gawky and awkward, with knobby knees, pointed elbows and a mouth full of braces. She felt heat surge into her face and locked her back molars together, refusing—refusing—to answer.

Tripp crossed to her, took hold of her shoulder with one hand, raised her chin with the other. “This is important, Hadleigh,” he said, sounding grave now, his eyes tender and a little wary. “I don’t want to screw it up by moving too fast.”

She stiffened. Maybe she wasn’t experienced at these things, a hot-to-trot hoochie-coochie mama, like the women Tripp was probably used to dating—hell, sleeping with—but she knew a brush-off when she heard one.

At her expression, Tripp narrowed his eyes. “What?” he asked, sounding beleaguered.

What, indeed? she thought. She and Tripp were consenting adults; they’d spent half the night having seriously incendiary sex. And while that might have meant happily-ever-after in Hadleigh-world, or some fairy tale, this was reality.


Tripp looked pained, instead of angry, as Hadleigh had half expected him to be, and he was still holding her chin. “I said I didn’t want to screw things up between us,” he reminded her reasonably. “But I’m guessing you heard something else entirely.”

“You think we’re moving too fast?” Hadleigh practically choked on those words, words she’d had no intention whatsoever of saying at any point in time.

Tripp sighed heavily, shook his head. “No,” he answered. “It’s been a long and winding road to get here, though—to get to right now, this moment, I mean—and if I have any say in it, we’re not going back to square one.”

“Okay,” Hadleigh said, confused and unable to hide the fact. “So is there a plan?”

He grinned again, and it was like seeing the sun suddenly come out on an otherwise cloudy day. “Does there always have to be a plan?”

“I just like to know what to expect, that’s all,” Hadleigh told him.

Tripp inclined his head, and his mouth was very close to hers, so close that the faintest pulse rose to her lips. “Fair enough,” he said. “You can expect a lot of kissing. Like this.” He kissed her softly, but in a way that sent a charge of anticipatory energy surging through her like diffused lightning, and drew back long before she was ready. “And you can expect me to make love to you every chance I get,” Tripp went on, his voice barely above a murmur, his eyes dancing. “Shall I tell you more? Maybe run down the list of all the places I plan on having you?”

Hadleigh went hot all over, so hot she thought she might actually faint from the rush. “Umm, no,” she managed, cheeks blazing. “I’d rather be surprised.”

At that, he threw back his head and gave a shout of delighted laughter. When he’d recovered, he kissed her again, lightly and briefly, like before. “We need to get going,” he told her.

“Because the horses are hungry?” she asked, slipping her arms around Tripp’s neck.

Tripp groaned as their bodies pressed together. “That and one other thing.”

“What?” Hadleigh teased in a sultry whisper.

“We’re out of condoms,” Tripp replied with another groan.

This time, it was Hadleigh who laughed.

* * *

TRIPP LIKED HAVING Hadleigh with him, watching her gamely schlepping flakes of hay to various feeders in the barn, speaking gently to each and every horse, scratching behind their ears when they acquiesced to lower their big heads over the door of their stalls so she could reach them.

The construction crews hadn’t arrived yet—it was still early—but the place would be swarming with them soon enough. He tried not to think about the plumbers and the roofers and the electricians and the painters. For now, it was just him and Hadleigh, the two dogs and the horses, and he liked it that way.

He could imagine Hadleigh living here, sitting across the table from him at meals, sharing his bed at night.

No need to imagine that, he reflected silently, wryly amused. After last night, he’d never have to wonder about that particular experience again, because he knew how it would be, making love to Hadleigh. It would be like nothing he’d ever felt before; it would turn him inside out, send him soaring, drive him right out of his mind—and make him want her all over again, practically the instant she’d called out his name, dug her fingernails into the muscles of his back and thrust her hips upward, the better to take him in. She sighed when she reached that last climax—Hadleigh was a multiple-orgasm kind of woman—and her whole body quivered. A moment later, she’d make a long, sweet crooning sound, and her body would tremble again as she descended, ever so slowly, from the heights.

And that little cry, and the way she tightened around him, would be his undoing. He’d drive deep, unable to hold back the primal response of his body or the hoarse shout she’d wrung from him, before he finally collapsed beside her, satisfied and exhausted.

Oh, yeah. He’d been satisfied, all right, down to the very core of his being—except for his awareness of the condom. It wasn’t that the thing lessened his pleasure; these days, prophylactics were thinner than skin and engineered to do the job. No, it was the efficiency of space-age protection that bothered Tripp.

Why? Because for the first time in his life, he wanted to make a baby—with Hadleigh.

Fat chance of that, Cowboy, he told himself, as he brushed down the mare he’d bought at the auction, along with the two geldings, the chestnut and his favorite, the paint called Apache.

“What’s her name?” Hadleigh’s question startled him. Turned out she was standing just on the other side of the door to the buckskin’s stall, smiling as she admired the mare.

Tripp, oddly distracted, mused for a moment or two. “I guess I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “Nobody mentioned a name, and there was nothing on the bill of sale, either.”

Come to think of it, the same was true of the chestnut. He’d had a formal introduction to Apache, but the mare and the other gelding could have been called just about anything.

Hadleigh made a face, a cross between a wince and a grin. “Men,” she said. “Animals need names, Tripp—just like people do. It gives them...well, an identity, so they can feel as though they belong.”

Tripp ventured a grin, thinking he’d love this woman three week beyond forever. Why had it taken him so damn long to realize it?

“If that’s so,” he drawled, setting the grooming brush aside, “then I guess you’d better decide what we’re going to call this little buckskin.” He frowned thoughtfully. “And the chestnut could use a handle, too, if you’re feeling creative.”

Hadleigh smiled. “Of course I feel creative,” she said. “I’m an artist. I design quilts for a living.”

Tripp stood just on the other side of the stall door from Hadleigh, so close he could have kissed her. “Okay.” He capitulated affably, although his voice came out sounding scratchy, because he was thinking about the way she’d moaned and called his name when she’d first started to climax. He’d have liked to carry her straight into the house to his bed—or, better yet, have her right there in the breezeway, standing up. Or on the pile of fresh, wood-scented shavings he’d had delivered a few days before. He had to pause, clear his throat—and his head, which proved to be a little more difficult. “Have at it.”

Hadleigh looked past Tripp to the buckskin mare, evidently pondering the possibilities. After a moment or so, her face lit up. “Sugarplum,” she said, clearly pleased with the choice.

Tripp sighed, even as he grinned at Hadleigh’s expression. “Can’t do it,” he said with cheerful regret.

“Why not?”

“Because no self-respecting Wyoming cowboy is going to walk out into the pasture on a summer morning and yell, ‘Hey, Sugarplum,’ that’s why.”

Hadleigh looked benignly exasperated. “That’s silly.”

“Maybe so,” Tripp replied with a shrug, “but that’s the way of it. I call a horse by that sissy-assed name, and I’ll be laughed out of the county.”

“Fine,” Hadleigh said, hands on her hips. “You name her, then. Something suitably macho, like ‘Killer’ or ‘Spike’—and never mind that she’s a girl.”


Tripp chuckled. “She’s your horse,” he said. “You can call her whatever you want.”

“Except Sugarplum,” Hadleigh retorted.

“Except Sugarplum,” Tripp confirmed.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.”

“The chores are done,” Tripp said. “Let’s go inside and have some breakfast. That’ll give you time to think up a name we can both live with.”

The realization struck Hadleigh visibly, if belatedly. “Did you say she’s my horse?”

Tripp nodded. “That’s what I said.”

“You bought this horse for me?”

“Let’s just say I could picture you riding her, right from the beginning. Giving her to you was...an impulse.”

“Fairy Dust,” Hadleigh almost crowed. It took Tripp a second or two to register the awful truth—impossible as it seemed, Hadleigh had just come up with an even worse name for the critter than Sugarplum.

“Ah, no,” he said.

“Tinkerbell?” She was ribbing him now; he knew that by the twinkle in those amber-gold eyes.

“Oh, come on,” Tripp protested, opening the stall door and stepping out to join Hadleigh in the breezeway.

Half an hour later, in the messed-up ranch house kitchen, over bacon and scrambled eggs, they finally settled on a name for the mare. Sunset.

“Because she’s golden,” Hadleigh had said, beaming. “Like the first evening light on a summer day.”

“Sunset it is,” Tripp had agreed. I love you, Hadleigh Stevens. I want to wake up beside you every morning of my life, and go to sleep next to you every night. I want to make a baby with you. Hell, I want to make a dozen babies with you.

Of course he couldn’t say any of those things—not yet, anyway.

“How long since you’ve been in the saddle?” he asked instead, when they’d cleared the table and rinsed their plates and utensils and coffee mugs under the kitchen faucet, a combined effort that involved some hip and elbow bumping. The new dishwasher was still in its box.

“It’s been a while,” Hadleigh said. An impish grin curled the corners of her mouth and made her eyes sparkle. “Or we could drive into town and pick up a fresh supply of condoms.”

Tripp laughed, then made a show of looking at the watch he wasn’t wearing. Since the advent of smartphones, he rarely bothered to buckle on the only one he owned, a college graduation gift from Jim. “The crews will be here any minute,” he said, turning her toward the door and giving her curvaceous backside a little swat. Then, carefully, with the condom suggestion lingering in his brain, he added, “You’re using some kind of birth control, right? Taking the pill?”

“Why would I do that?” Hadleigh asked, looking back at him over her shoulder and nearly tripping over one of the dogs as Ridley and Muggles squeezed past them, zipping out onto the side porch. “I’m not sleeping with anybody.”

It was, of course, good news, though Tripp had no illusions that one night of over-the-top lovemaking indicated immediate or lifelong monogamy.

“Well,” Hadleigh clarified, stepping out onto the side porch, “not with anybody besides you, anyhow.”

Tripp took her hand, his grip a little tenuous at first, but when she didn’t pull away, he gave her fingers a light squeeze. “That’s good,” he said. Let’s keep it that way.

The dogs frolicked on either side of the couple as they walked toward the barn, eager for an outing. With that distinctive canine attitude they probably didn’t care about the destination or the process, provided they got to go along.

The sun was barely up, spilling pinkish-apricot light over the craggy peaks of the mountains, and the air, though chilly, was pure in the way only country air can be. The sky, still a dark lavender, eased toward that heartbreaking shade of pale blue Tripp would always associate with Wyoming.

“Bex is throwing a party on Saturday night,” Hadleigh announced, and then looked away, evidently overtaken by shyness. Tripp saw her exquisite throat move as she swallowed.

“Yeah,” he said, wanting to help her over this awkward moment. “I know.”

Hadleigh stopped as they reached the entrance to the barn and looked up at him. “She invited you?”

“Yep,” Tripp acknowledged. “Is that a problem?”

Hadleigh pondered the question. “No,” she said. “It’s just that Bex didn’t mention it.”

Tripp grinned, interlaced his fingers with hers. “In other words, she didn’t warn you that I might be there?” he prompted.

Hadleigh hesitated, biting her lower lip.

“Could be,” Tripp suggested gently, “that she was afraid you wouldn’t show up, if you knew you’d probably run into me.”

“I wouldn’t miss this party for any reason,” Hadleigh insisted with a touch of indignation. “Bex has accomplished something incredible, turning one little fitness club into a national franchise operation. That’s worth celebrating. What bothers me is...well, I’m feeling a bit ambushed.”

Tripp raised her hand to his mouth, ran his lips lightly over the backs of her knuckles and enjoyed the shiver of electricity that zipped through Hadleigh and then arced over to sizzle in his flesh, as well. “If you’d rather I didn’t go to Bex’s party,” he told her, “I’ll stay away.”

“No,” Hadleigh immediately protested, her eyes troubled. “Don’t skip the party, please.”

Tripp grinned again. “So it’s a date?” he asked, and though she couldn’t have known it, he held his breath while he waited for her answer. “We’ll go together?”

Hadleigh’s laugh was a bright, lovely sound. “That was slick,” she said.

Tripp simply waited, watching her face, feeling much like he had the day he’d made his first solo flight—as though he’d sprouted wings of his own, as though he owned the sky. The sensation was so intense that the backs of his eyes scalded and his throat tightened.

Good thing it was Hadleigh’s turn to speak, because Tripp wasn’t sure he could.

“Okay,” she finally conceded. “Okay, we’ll do it.” She blushed. “I mean, we’ll go to the party together.” Another pause, another hard swallow that made Tripp want to kiss the pulsing hollow in her throat. “This time, it’ll be a real date.”

Tripp only nodded.

An hour later, when they’d finished the barn chores and he’d saddled both Apache and Sunset, Tripp and Hadleigh led their horses out into the late September morning. By then, they’d agreed to name the chestnut gelding “Skit,” which was short for skitter, since the critter was so fidgety.

Hadleigh gamely stuck one foot into the stirrup, gripped the saddle horn and hauled herself up onto Sunset’s back, and while the effort was awkward, and there were a couple of brief hitches along the way, Tripp knew he’d been right to stand back and let her do this on her own.

All he did was hold the reins—Hadleigh was an independent woman, after all, and she had her pride. He loved her for those qualities, among many others, although he had no doubt they’d lead the two of them into some head-butting matches in the years ahead.

“I guess I’m a little rusty,” she confessed once she was settled squarely in the saddle, looking down at Tripp.

“You’re doing just fine,” he told her, separating the reins, passing the first one beneath Sunset’s neck for Hadleigh to take, then handing up the second.


She immediately looped both of them around her left hand.

Tripp, about to turn away and swing up onto Apache, paused to tug the reins free of Hadleigh’s white-knuckled and slightly sweaty grasp. “One in each palm,” he said easily and, he hoped, diplomatically. Respecting Hadleigh’s dignity was important, but so was her safety. “Hold them firmly but loosely—and never wrap them around your hands. If you got thrown for any reason, and you were all tangled up in the reins, you’d be dragged.”

Hadleigh nodded and held the leather straps correctly. “Like this?”

“Like that,” Tripp replied. “You want a firm grip, for sure, but an easy one, too. Horses are mighty perceptive, and they pick up on even the subtlest signals from anybody riding or handling them. If you’re spooked, they’ll be spooked. If you’re in control, they’ll know it right away, and most of them will respect that.”

“Most of them?” Hadleigh echoed, a bit nervously, once Tripp was in the saddle. Apache, a born Pegasus, was sidestepping a little in his eagerness to fly.

Tripp grinned over at Hadleigh, leaned to pat Apache’s neck in a way that conveyed his message. Not today, boy.

“Sunset there is real gentle,” he reassured Hadleigh. “I wouldn’t have let you get within a city block of her if I thought otherwise.”

For a fraction of a moment, she looked puzzled by this last statement, and Tripp wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was: that, as a woman, she’d been on her own from the get-go. As a little girl, she’d had her parents, of course, and then, after the accident, her grandmother and Will had definitely been there for her. It went without saying that Melody Nolan and Bex Stuart were true friends with Hadleigh’s best interests at heart.

But for Hadleigh, it wasn’t enough.

Tripp had an old-fashioned streak, and he would have been the first to admit it, but he wasn’t so behind the times that he thought a woman needed a man to be whole and happy—or vice versa, for that matter. What he did believe was that, for some people, life wasn’t quite complete without a partner, someone to laugh with, to console and be consoled by, someone who didn’t necessarily agree and wasn’t afraid to argue a point, but still treated the other person’s ideas with respect.

Without respect, love wouldn’t last, and trust was the other vital component.

Tripp was fairly certain Hadleigh respected him, even loved him. But did she trust him?

A little, he supposed; otherwise, she wouldn’t have let him make love to her, wouldn’t have responded so fully and so freely.

Wouldn’t have made love to him, as she most certainly had.

Tripp had had sex with plenty of women, but he knew now that he’d never made love with any of them—until Hadleigh.

The thing was, “a little” trust wouldn’t, to use one of Jim’s favorite phrases, cut the mustard—not this time. The stakes were too high.

And the insights didn’t stop there. In previous sexual encounters, even during his brief and tempestuous marriage, Tripp realized, he’d thought mostly in terms of tonight or even just for the moment.

With Hadleigh, though, he was thinking in terms of forever.

All these things reverberated between Tripp’s brain and his heart for the next couple of hours, while he and Hadleigh rode, following the creek for a ways, splashing across at a shallow place, cutting through tall but rapidly dying grass to check out the new hayshed.

Recently finished, the structure was sturdy, filled to the rafters with prickly, fresh-smelling bales. Hadleigh was beside him on Sunset, easy in the saddle now that she’d had a chance to reacquaint herself with the nuances of riding. Tripp adjusted his hat, admiring the workmanship, knowing the shed was built to hold up against fierce rainstorms, heavy snows, muddy springs and tinder-dry summers, standing the test of time.

He wanted the life he meant to share with Hadleigh to be that strong, or even stronger, and he wouldn’t settle for less.

Slow and easy, Cowboy, Tripp reminded himself, watching his woman out of the corner of his eye and thinking heaven itself couldn’t have been any more beautiful than she was. You’ve got to get this right.