voice and decided she needed to see his face. “Roll over,” she said, giving him a gentle shove.
He did, and took her with him.
Soft moonlight lit his features. Much better. Sighing happily, she stacked her hands on his chest, rested her chin on them and stared into his darkened eyes. “Am I too heavy?”
“Not even a tiny bit.”
“Good answer.” She shivered when he cupped her backside with his large callused hands. He looked serious. “What are you thinking about?”
A faint smile curved his mouth. “I knew from the get-go that you, Nikki Flores, were gonna be a heap of trouble.”
13
“WHAT DID YOU DREAM about, Nikki?” Trace asked out of the blue. He shifted his gaze from the glowing moon and stars shining against the dark sky to her face. “When you were a kid, what did you want to be or do?”
She lay beside him on the blanket, both of them looking up at the stars, completely naked. Her left palm was pressed to his right palm, their fingers intertwined. “When I was really little, like second or third grade, I wanted to be an astronaut.”
“A what?”
“Hey. It could’ve happened.”
“I’m sure you could be anything you set your mind to. It just wasn’t what I expected, is all.”
“Remember I lived in Houston. NASA wasn’t far and was always in the news. Turns out I didn’t really want to be an astronaut,” she admitted. “I thought if I had a big important job, then my father would love me.”
Trace touched her cheek. “He didn’t even deserve you.”
She smiled, shrugging. “I guess every kid with divorced parents or who was abandoned has an ‘if only’ version floating around in their heads. It’s no big deal.”
“I reckon you’re right. Even after my dad died I kept thinking if only I hadn’t argued with him over that stupid dance...”
“You don’t still go there, do you?”
“No, not for a long time. We had a great relationship and I focus on that.”
She squeezed his hand. “Look at my poor brother. After all he went through he never completely let go of wanting to please Wallace. In February Matt found a stack of articles going back to the beginning of his rodeo career. They were hidden in Wallace’s desk, but did he have the decency to say a word to Matt?”
Nikki breathed in the fresh Montana air, unwilling to let the old man ruin her night. He was gone and couldn’t hurt them anymore. Unless she allowed it.
Trace shifted so that he could put an arm around her, providing a nice comfy spot for her head to lay on his shoulder.
“You know what, though...? I scored because I ended up with having Matt for a brother. I’d trade a father for him any day.”
“Matt’s a good guy. I’m glad for both you and my sister.” He kissed her hair, then smiled at her. “I’m not doing too badly, either.”
He did look happy.
But for how long?
The unwelcome thought sneaked in before she could block it. Tonight was about tonight, and that was it. One brief moment in the whole scheme of things. They’d had sex, so what? She’d only hurt herself if she started confusing hormones and unjustified feelings for Trace with a future that would magically fall into place.
“So,” he said, “once you nixed the rocketing into space thing, what then? What did little Nikki have a hankering for?”
She sighed. “Little naive Nikki woke up and figured out dreaming was for fools or people who had time and money to spend.”
“Come on now, you don’t mean that.”
“I do,” she said with a laugh, mainly to tone down her pessimistic words. “What about you? What haunted your dreams?”
“Haunted, huh?” He rested a cupped hand on her breast. Somehow instead of being suggestive, it was a casual, comfortable touch. Still, it made her pulse race. “In eighth grade,” he said, “I decided I wanted to go to college and study modern ranching techniques.”
“Did you?” she asked, and he shook his head. “Why not? Rachel and Jesse went.”
“Lack of money and bad timing.”
She pulled back to look at him, then found a position lying on her side that made it easier to watch his face. The Sundance was the second largest ranch in the county. The Lone Wolf beat them by only a hundred acres. She’d figured the new dude ranch operation was helping to bring in cash, but mostly to avoid layoffs while times were tough. At least that had been her assumption. It was hard to imagine the