Trainer's Treat (Culpepper Cowboys Book 7) Read online

  Karlan laughed. “With that many related women, it does kind of feel that way, doesn’t it?”

  “And all of you men as well.”

  Marcus nodded at him. “I felt the same way after marrying Grace. I didn’t make a speech either.”

  “Good, then we’re all in agreement that I don’t need to make a speech.” Ryan started for the door, holding Patience’s hand. He’d almost reached it when his legs were attacked by a tiny little ballerina butterfly.

  “I promise to be good! Thank you for my new mommy!”

  Ryan smiled, setting the suitcase on the floor, and dropping to his knees. He held the little girl tightly. “I know you’ll be good, and I like your new mommy too.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, Daddy. Be good.”

  “I promise I will. You be good too.”

  Father and daughter smiled at one another, in full agreement. He got back to his feet and took the suitcase, opened the door, and grabbed his wife’s hand, pulling her along behind him.

  “Does Corinne always tell you to be good when you leave her?”

  “Always. I’m not sure why, but she always has. I just go along with it.”

  “It’s cute,” Patience said with a smile.

  “I think so.” He threw her suitcase into the back seat of his truck and closed her door.

  It was already dark, and Patience rested the back of her head on the seat. “I can’t believe how tired I am. Getting engaged, planning a wedding, and getting married all in the same day is exhausting.”

  He chuckled. “Well, I’m glad we did it so fast. Imagine how much more exhausting it would have been if we’d dragged it out over a year or more. I didn’t even have time for cold feet.”

  “Would you have gotten cold feet? Do you think?”

  He shrugged. “I really don’t think so, but maybe. I didn’t with my first wedding, but the circumstances were different.”

  She frowned, hating the reminder that he’d loved his first wife when he married her, and there were no feelings between them. “I think Corinne is happy.”

  He laughed. “Corinne could not be happier. It’s been a long time since she’s been giggling and laughing the way she has been this week. You’re good for her.”

  “I don’t know about all that. She’s a sweet girl, though, and if I can do anything to make her happy, I sure will.”

  “Just don’t rotten her.”

  “Rotten her?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “Don’t think that her life has been so hard that she needs to be handed everything on a silver platter and make her rotten. She needs to have boundaries.”

  Patience smiled. “I’ll make sure she has boundaries. I believe very strongly in making sure a child knows the rules they need to follow. There’s no problem there.”

  “You don’t work on Mondays, do you?” he asked. He thought she’d said something about working Tuesday through Saturday.

  “If we need to prepare a big wedding cake or have special orders, we might have to go in on a Monday, but for the most part, we’ll be taking Mondays off.”

  “So you’re not working tomorrow, right?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not.”

  “So would you mind still picking Corinne up and taking her to her ballet camp?”

  “Of course not! I’d planned that all along.”

  “I don’t think you have any idea how much I appreciate you doing that for us. It’s a really big deal to her to not have to miss camp. Have you seen her dance yet?”

  “Just down the aisle at our wedding,” Patience said with a laugh.

  “She’s really good. I know that sounds strange, and like something I’m saying just because I’m her father, but it’s true. She has a knack for it that even has Miss Katie excited.”

  “Maybe I’ll stay and watch some of the dancing sometime soon.”

  “That would make Corinne very happy!”

  Patience frowned. “I should probably wait until next week, though. I was planning on spending tomorrow afternoon working on the house.”

  He sighed. “I know it’s a mess, and I’m sorry. I work six days a week, and—no excuses. I’m sorry it’s such a mess.” Brandi would have been disgusted if she could see it, and now looking around through Patience’s eyes, he was mortified.

  She shook her head. “Don’t be. I know it’s been hard for you. Do you mind if I make some changes?”

  He frowned. “What kind of changes?”

  “If I think glasses should go in a different place, can I move them? If I think furniture would look better rearranged, will it bother you if I just do it?”

  “Oh, I guess not. I’d rather you didn’t get rid of anything without talking to me first.”

  She shook her head. “I wouldn’t. You have memories there. And I want Brandi’s memory to stay alive for Corinne. I know she loved her mother, and there’s no reason for her not to have little things to remind her of what a good mother she had.”

  “You really don’t mind?”

  “Of course not! Without her, there would be no Corinne. It sounds to me like she was a good woman. I just hope I can be half as good a wife and mother as she was.” She wasn’t jealous of the other woman at all, but she was a bit intimidated by her memory. She hoped she could live up to their expectations.

  Ryan smiled at her. Her attitude would make marriage so much easier. He pulled up in front of his house and parked the truck. “I’ll carry your bag up, and then leave you alone for a minute or two to get ready for bed.”

  She nodded, suddenly feeling nervous. She wanted to have the wedding night right away, but the nerves hit her suddenly like a fist in the gut. “I’m really nervous about tonight.” It probably wasn’t something she should admit to, but it was the truth.

  He sighed. “We can put it off if you need more time. I know this is really sudden.”

  She thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. “No, I’m not going to do that. I’m nervous, but I don’t see a need to wait.”

  “Good. ‘Cuz I don’t want to wait.”

  She laughed. “I had a feeling that would be the case.”

  He grinned and got out of the truck, hurrying around and grabbing her suitcase. He led her up the stairs and to a room she hadn’t seen earlier. There were clothes tossed everywhere.

  She smiled. “Can you give me thirty minutes? I hope you don’t mind, but I do want to clean your room quickly.” She didn’t obsess over cleanliness like her mother always had, but she could make the room look one hundred times better in just twenty minutes, so why not?

  He sighed. “I wish you didn’t feel like you needed to, but yeah, I can wait. I need to check on one of the horses anyway.” One of the mares he was training had been limping a bit earlier. He may have to call in Doc O’Donnell, the local vet.

  “I want to meet your horses sometime soon.”

  He smiled, liking that idea. “Do you ride?”

  She shook her head. “No, my father didn’t allow us to ride. He didn’t think girls should ride astride.”

  Ryan frowned at that. “I really don’t want to meet your father.” He couldn’t imagine looking at Corinne and refusing to let her do so many things.

  Patience laughed. “You wouldn’t like him at all.” She closed the door in his face, turning around and putting her hands on her hips. How could she get it clean enough in just thirty minutes? It was unfortunate that he couldn’t give her a bit longer, but she hadn’t dared to ask for more.

  She walked over and touched the sheets to determine their level of cleanliness, and immediately stripped them off the bed before going in search of clean ones. She’d had a friend in college who had once whispered to her before class that she needed to go shopping after school, because she was out of clean panties, and she refused to wash them.

  Patience had never heard of such a thing, but after seeing the state of Ryan’s house, she realized he might be just the same. It would be easier to buy new clothes than it would be
to wash them.

  She wanted to set a mellow sort of mood, so she put on her favorite playlist on her phone, consisting of some soft country music. She was sure he’d like it, because it was the same type of music he’d had her dancing to the night before.

  She put fresh sheets onto the bed and changed the cases on the pillows. Once everything was to her satisfaction, she hurried around picking up clothes from the floor and tossing them into the hamper.

  Once she’d finished, she sighed, realizing she wouldn’t have time to do anything more to make the room perfect for him, so she hurried into the bathroom and pulled on a gown made of silk and lace, the silk feeling so soft against her skin, while the lace was raspy. The difference in the textures made her feel all tingly as she thought about what she was about to do with the man she loved.

  She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and pulled the curtain closed before sitting on the edge of the bed to wait for him. It had already been thirty-two minutes, and she was surprised he’d given her even an extra second. He hadn’t seemed to think thirty minutes was necessary at all.

  The door opened a short while later and interrupted her thoughts. She’d been making a mental to-do list of everything that had to be accomplished the next day. There was so much she wanted to do before going back to work, she was already feeling slightly overwhelmed.

  Ryan stepped into the room and simply stared. Not only was his room cleaner than it had been in over a year, she was sitting on the edge of his bed, a vision in a pale pink, silk nightgown. “You look amazing,” he whispered softly.

  Her eyes met his, and she blushed a little. “I think you may be a slight bit overdressed.”

  He chuckled softly, walking toward her. “Do you want to help me with that?” He was still wearing his suit and tie from the wedding, and she was wearing almost nothing. He understood why she was embarrassed, but he hoped she’d get past that soon. It was their only night to be truly alone together for a while. He was sure they could impose on her sister or cousins on occasion, but he didn’t want it to happen too often. He didn’t want someone else raising Corinne for him.

  Patience stood up in front of him, noting how very much shorter she felt. He was still wearing his boots, and she was barefoot. “I never should have married a man who was so much bigger than me,” she mumbled grumpily.

  He laughed, catching her waist and pulling her toward him. “Of course you should have. I can protect you.”

  “From what? Rabid squirrels? There aren’t exactly predators frightening me on a daily basis.”

  “You never know…”

  Her hands went to work immediately on the knot of his tie. “I’ll take your word for that.”

  He watched her concentrate on what she was doing, the look on her face telling him she’d never done this before. “Do you need some help with that?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Nope. I think I almost have it.”

  Once she’d gotten the knot undone, she set the tie on the dresser, refusing to throw it on the floor now that it was clean. No, they were going to start better habits going forward.

  He shrugged out of his jacket and laid it next to the tie, and once it was out of the way, she slowly unbuttoned each of the buttons of his shirt, starting at the top and working her way down, another small expanse of skin uncovered with each. She had never seen an adult male with no shirt on in person, and she’d had to sneak to see men shirtless on television.

  She was surprised by how much she liked his bare chest, wanting to smooth her hands over it and touch him. She held back though, wanting to get his shirt off first.

  Finally, she was done, and she pushed the shirt off his shoulders, and put it with the tie and jacket. Now he was wearing only his slacks and his dress boots. “Do you wear boots for everything?” she asked softly

  He nodded. “If you can’t wear boots somewhere, then it’s not a place I want to be.”

  She laughed, shaking her head. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and toed his boots off, setting them at the foot of the bed. “You did a good job cleaning the room.”

  “I picked up the room. I’ll do some real cleaning, but I don’t know how much I can get done tomorrow.”

  “Don’t kill yourself trying to do everything all at once.” He frowned for a moment. “Do you think you’ll still have Corinne go to daycare on Monday mornings? Or will you keep her with you?”

  “I haven’t really thought about it. At least for the first couple of weeks I’ll still have her go so I can get the house cleaned, but after that I might keep her. We’ll see which she’d rather do.”

  “I know she’s enjoying the mornings at daycare, but I think she’d enjoy being with you even more.”

  “I really enjoy being with her too. We’ll see what happens.” She sat down beside him on the bed, unsure exactly what to do. She felt out of her league.

  He slipped one arm around her, and used his other hand to turn her chin up for his kiss. As soon as his lips touched hers, she let out a sigh of contentment. She really did like kissing him. He made her stomach tingle every time he touched her.

  “Are you still nervous?” he asked, not wanting to scare her, but not wanting to go at a snail’s pace if she didn’t need that either.

  She nodded. “Of course, I am. I had never been kissed before yesterday, and now I’m sitting here half-naked with a man I’ve known for less than a week. Why wouldn’t I be nervous?”

  He chuckled softly. “Well, when you put it that way, I guess it makes a lot of sense that you’re nervous.” He moved his hands up and down her arms, trying to get her used to his touch. “We really can postpone this for a week or so if you need to?”

  “As much as my brain is screaming at me to agree to that, I know myself. If we wait too long, it’ll be built up into this big scary thing in my head, and I’ll just keep putting it off forever.”

  “Uh, no you won’t. Putting it off forever is not going to work for me at all.”

  “I had a feeling it wouldn’t. Trust me, it’s better for me just to get it over with.” She shook her head, knowing she was saying all the wrong things, but hoping he’d understand anyway.

  “Get it over with? You make me feel so…disgusting.” Ryan frowned at her, wishing he knew how to stop her nervousness.

  “You know I don’t mean it that way. It’s like a Band-Aid, I guess. I just need to rip it right off.”

  “Nice. Next thing I know you’ll be comparing me to nasty-tasting medicine you need to drink down quickly.”

  Patience frowned. “I wasn’t going to go there!” Especially now that he’d suggested she might go there. She probably would have otherwise. Blast it all!

  “I promise I’m not going to do anything scary. You like kissing me, right?”

  She nodded. “Kissing feels like I’m floating on a cloud. I really like it. I understand why my dad always said to wait ‘til you’re married for your first kiss. It makes you want to do—other things.”

  “Yes, well we are married, and those ‘other things’ are perfectly acceptable now. How ‘bout we start out by kissing, and then we see where the kissing takes us?”

  “As if we don’t know! You know exactly where that kissing will take us!”

  Ryan frowned. “Of course I do, and you do too, but if we start out with just kissing, it’ll be less scary, right?”

  Patience nodded. “I guess that works. Just kissing.”

  “Just kissing.”

  Chapter Seven

  Ryan slowly lowered his head toward Patience’s, blocking out the brightness from the overhead light. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, just as his mouth came down on hers, removing all thoughts from her mind.

  In that moment, there were no other people in the whole world, it was just the two of them. It was as simple as that. His kisses blocked everything else about the night out. She couldn’t tell him that, of course, but she could relish the feeling of being alone with him.<
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  Her lips parted for his, and her hands moved to his shoulders, touching the strong muscles there. She loved how he felt under her fingertips and couldn’t help but wonder if he minded if she touched him, but she decided she didn’t care.

  He lifted his head for a moment, grinning down at her. “I love it when you touch me.”

  She shrugged. “I may do it again someday then.” With a wink that belied her words, she pulled him back down to her. She had no reason to deny how she felt. She was doing nothing wrong. Nothing at all. Now if she could only convince herself of that.

  He kissed a trail from her mouth, down across her shoulder, to the thin strap of her nightgown. He carefully pushed it out of the way, before continuing down her arm.

  Patience let out a shudder. Staying perfectly calm wasn’t working for her, because he was getting her too—squirrelly was the only word she could think of for how he was making her feel. She wanted to come out of her skin at the same time that she wanted to stay in her skin forever. She loved everything he was doing to her, but at the same time, she couldn’t figure out what to do with her hands. They felt like useless appendages.

  Should she be stroking him back? Or just lying back and letting him do whatever he wanted with her?

  He lifted his head, looking down into her eyes. “Anything you want to do is all right. You can touch me or not.”

  “How did you know I was wondering that?” He couldn’t read her mind. She was sure of that!

  He chuckled softly. “I didn’t know you were wondering before you asked me.”

  “I didn’t!” Her hand covered her mouth. She’d had no idea she’d spoken her thoughts aloud.

  “Oh, you did!” He leaned down and captured her mouth again, kissing her more passionately this time. “You know this thing is getting in the way.” He rubbed his hands down along her sides so she would know he was talking about her nightgown.

  “Maybe you should take it off then,” she said, blushing. It was his right to take it off, but it seemed so risqué. She pulled it off over her own head then, just to prove that she could, but the glimmer of bravery disappeared as soon as she sat naked before him.