Page 32 of The Cowboy's Forbidden Bride

He was fulfilled, was the thing. He liked his work. He loved the ranch. Even more than that, he had an abiding reverence for the land and he treasured his connection to it.

But when he kissed Cat Lisle—every time he kissed her, no matter if it was the first kiss of the night or the thousandth—it was like he was seeing that big Montana sky for the very first time.

Tonight he kissed her over and over, not sure why he’d made all these rules in the first place. It was getting harder to understand why he hadn’t seen her fully naked yet, or why he hadn’t buried himself in her the way he dreamed about, too often to count.

Last night being a case in point.

“Hi,” Cat said against his mouth, he could feel the way her lips curved. “I missed you.”

He wanted to protect her, even from his own self. He wanted to lecture her—again—about the perils of being so wide open, so vulnerable. Especially with a man like him.

Because she looked at him like he was a good man. A man of honor. A man worthy of her, but he knew better.

And the truth was, he’d missed her too. It was getting so he always missed her. He just wouldn’t say it.

So he kissed her instead, holding her high against his chest and making them both a little giddy, until he finally put her down once more.

And he felt like something inside of him was breaking open. Or breaking free, maybe—but it hurt. It felt gigantic. Impossible.

“Cat,” he said, low and urgent. “We need to talk—”

“The only thing you need to do,” came a harsh, furious voice from the trees, “is get your filthy Carey hands off my sister.”

Tennessee.

“Or announce your intentions to marry her on the spot,” came a second voice, sounding much too much like the first. Dallas. “Because it sure looks a whole lot like you’ve already taken a few liberties and there’s only one way to make that right. Is that what it looks like to you, Tennessee?”

“What it looks like to me,” Tennessee replied, hard and sure, “is a death wish.”

Chapter Eight

Cat didn’t think.Wilder had already set her down, but she turned immediately, as if she intended to block him with her body when she was the smallest one in this clearing.

Still, she knew her brothers. Or more to the point, she knew all the big talking they’d done over the years about the very idea of a boy looking at her twice on the school bus all the way down into Marietta. All that mayhem they intended to unleash and so on, and that was a bus filled with other kids.

Not a clearing in the woods and a grown man with his hands on her.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded before they could say anything else. “Because this looks a lot like you’re following me, and I know that can’t be true, can it? Since that would be creepy and weird.”

“If you thought itwasn’tcreepy and weird to be out here with him, it wouldn’t be a secret, would it Cat?” Tennessee returned while Dallas stood there stone-faced, looking every inch the Army Ranger he’d been in the service.

Cat huffed out a laugh. “Are we going to start talking about secrets? Really? In this family?”

“It’s not a secret,” Wilder said then, sounding so unbothered that even Cat looked at him, astonished that he wasn’t getting the gravity of this situation. “It’s just not public. That’s not the same thing.”

“This is just like a Carey,” Tennessee said, glaring at him. “Lying with a straight face like you all have from the start.”

And bythe start, of course, he meant the 1800s.

Cat could not believe that this was happening. That her brothers had trekked out into the woods, found her with Wilder, and instead of anyone taking any ofthaton board, Tennessee was settling in to argue about a disputed poker game no one here had been alive to witness.

No one here’sgrandparentshad been around to see it either.

“Yes,” she seethed at her brother. “The feud between Ebenezer Lisle and Matthew Carey is definitely at the top of the list of things I think we should be talking about right now. In the woods. After midnight.”

Tennessee scowled at her. But Wilder laughed, and it was a dangerous sound.

“It’s not the Careys who do the lying and cheating,” he said, in that exaggerated drawl that she knew he used when he wasn’t nearly as laid back as he was pretending he was. “It wasn’t Matthew and it sure isn’t me. You’re doing it in real time, Tennessee. Your sister is standing right in front of you and you’re not even talking to her about her life. You’re too busy making trying to get at me.” He smirked. “Feels familiar. Must be that genetic memory, rearing its head again.”

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