Page 68 of The Cowboy and the Baby

And when to say it?

“Cade?”

Noelle straightened, but didn’t go far. I removed my hand from her hair, set it on her leg, the other wrapping around her back. She ran her thumb over my lips in a swipe that was agony. I ached to kiss her again.

“Hmm?”

“What does this mean?”

Her plaintive whisper, almost a plea, struck me. She was scared. More than scared, she sought meaning. Stability. Steadiness. We’d sent each other on a wild course tonight, and it wasn’t lost on me that she sought firm ground.

But there was reality to consider. She had an infant who wasn’t firmly hers yet. I had a failing ranch house, two ranch hands, and hundreds of animals. There was debt, renovations. Rushing into anything wouldn’t benefit either one of us, no matter how massive and powerful the chemistry.

“What do you want it to mean?” I asked. Her palm sprawled against my back, and her touch burned like fire.

She swallowed, and the sound cracked the night like cannon fire. “I want it to mean what you said at the dance hall, and stay there for a little bit. There’s . . . there’s so much already happening . . . we don’t really know each other . . . but . . .”

For a moment, she looked dizzy. I knew exactly what she meant by her fluttering lashes, and a tiny head shake back-and-forth. Our worlds churned with change, but we had found a little pocket of something firm in each other.

I tucked a stray hair out of her eyes, letting my touch linger behind the shell of her ear. Goosebumps swept down her neck near the sensitive skin. If Noelle could put to words what I couldn’t, this would work out just fine.

“You’re saying that we’re together, and that’s all for now. We leave it at that and stay steady?”

Her fingers curled, breath was a whisper.

“Yes.”

I pressed a kiss to her palm. “So it is, Noelle. And we’ll stay there for as long as you need.”

“We’re not just friends?”

I barked a short laugh. “I’ve never kissed a friend like that.”

“And while we’re living together and getting to know each other, I don’t think we should take it beyond this.” She pressed our foreheads to each other, then kissed me softly on the lips. Not the hungry, pressured kisses from the relief valve finally toppling, but a quiet promise. A tenderness. A softness that existed nowhere else in my sharp-angled world.

That was Noelle.

Softness.

A place to land that wasn’t a barn, a saddle, a debt, or a responsibility. Everything about Noelle meant escape.

Understanding what she meant, I wrapped her closer and said against her lips, “No more than this,” in a whispered agreement, “unless I have a ring on your finger.”

I might kiss her at the dance hall, but Cade Code demanded a ring on a finger and a wedding certificate before I’d ask for more than that. The woman had an infant and a world on fire. She didn’t need more to process and think about.

She wrapped her arms more firmly around my neck, deepened the kiss, and sent me into another head-whirling experience that knew no earthly bounds. I could stay here forever, in the empowering place between you’re mine and her lips.

When she reluctantly pulled back, I trapped her and wrapped her from behind. Noelle’s sigh seemed to trail into forever as she fell asleep in my arms.

And I stared at the wall.

Wide awake.

Buzzing with Noelle.

24

NOELLE