Chapter 4
When she returned to the ranch the following day, Frankie sat in her SUV for several moments, trying to brace herself. Should she go inside? Why was it so important to her for Kade to meet Edward? She hadn’t pushed Janus or Lincoln, Kade’s half-brothers, to meet with Edward. They’d both said no and she’d respected their decisions.
It wasn’t the ten thousand dollar bonus either, although that would be lovely. She could use an extra ten thousand dollars. Ever since Edward had mentioned it, Frankie had fantasized about spending that money in various ways, including just investing the money. Or taking a much needed vacation. Or replacing the old, outdated appliances in her condo.
But it wasn’t just the bonus money that brought her coming back for a second day. Nor was it the mystery woman that Kade wanted her to find. Although, again, that was an interesting aspect to this whole “finding the sons” issue. Frankie had to admit that she was intensely interested in discovering why a pretty woman was looking for Kade – and why she’d left in such a hurry.
Sighing, she accepted that there was something about this case that tugged at her harder than any other case she’d investigated.
Maybe it was just the ridiculously fresh air here in Montana. Stepping out of the SUV, she breathed in deeply, admiring the way the morning sunshine glowed through the trees. Seattle was a cloudy, wet place to live. She rarely saw sunrises like this in Seattle. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a sunrise like that, Frankie thought in surprise.
Barking startled her and she looked around eagerly. A dog? A real dog? Having lived in a small condo for…forever…she’d never had a dog. She and her mother hadn’t wanted the extra expense of a dog. But Frankie had loved volunteering to take care of the neighborhood dogs, liked walking and playing with them. Some of the people who had entrusted her with the care of their dogs during her teen years had half-jokingly said that the dogs got more exercise and attention while Frankie watched their dogs than when they were home.
And that was just sad, she thought as a yellow lab mix raced across the grassy yard towards her, his tail wagging happily, even though he stopped several feet away and barked. Obviously, this fella was a guard dog of some sort. Sure enough, a moment later, a massive horse came around the corner…with an equally massive Kade on his back.
Seeing Kade riding that horse was…breathtaking! He controlled the horse so easily! She wouldn’t have been comfortable getting anywhere near the horse. Even now, she leaned back against the SUV, trying to put a bit more space between them, despite the fact that the horse was still more than ten feet away.
“You’re back,” he said, his deep voice drifting over the barking dog. Kade snapped his fingers once, silencing the dog who sat down on his haunches and looked curiously at Frankie, tail still wagging frantically.
“How did you do that?” she asked, amazed and fascinated.
“Do what?” He swung his leg over the back of the horse and dropped easily onto the ground.
“How did you train the dog to stop barking like that?”
Kade patted his thigh and the dog came over, tail wagging and Kade bent lower to scratch the canine behind his ears. The dog closed his eyes, grinning happily as he leaned into Kade’s touch.
“This is Denver. He stops barking when I tell him to,” Kade explained as if it were obvious.
“Yes, but…the dogs I know don’t stop simply because someone snapped their fingers.”
He stood up and moved closer, Denver right at his heels with his pink tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. “Denver was trained to obey.” He looked down at her. “You’re not as easily trained.”
She hissed, glaring at him. But as she opened her mouth to give him an appropriate set-down, she caught the amusement in his gaze. Immediately, her mouth shut and she sighed. “You’re teasing me.”
He laughed, then put a hand on her arm. “Sort of.” He led her towards the house. “I made some calls last night. Have you found anything new?” He patted the horse’s flank and told it to, “Go get some oats.” The horse immediately turned, and headed for the stable.
“About your stalker friend?” she clarified, awed by the horse as it happily cantered around the corner. “No. Not last night.”
He chuckled. “Ms. Libby talked your ear off, didn’t she?”
Frankie groaned. “I’ve never heard a woman say so many words and not actually say anything!”
He nodded. “Yeah, but she has a good heart. And she makes the best strawberry and rhubarb pie. She’s won the contest at the annual county fair for about the last ten years straight.” He shook his head as he led her into the house. “I have no idea what that woman puts into her pie, but it’s positively decadent.”
Frankie’s eyes glowed! “Pie? She actually makes pie?”
Kade handed her a cup of coffee, then poured one for himself. “Sure. It’s pretty much a state pastime around here. Pie making is big competition.”
“Do you know how to make a pie?” she asked, fascinated. She took a sip of her coffee and nearly choked. “What is this? Tar?”
“Coffee. I like it strong.”
She set the coffee cup down on the counter, shaking her head. “Thank you, but I think I’ll pass on the coffee. Being from Seattle, if there’s one thing we’re known for, it’s excellent coffee.”
Kade shook his head, and reached into the fridge for the milk. He poured a generous amount of milk into the mug, then returned it to her. “Come on. I’m going to show you around the ranch today.”
She hesitated, looking doubtfully down at her coffee. She didn’t like milk in her coffee, but for some reason, she didn’t want to offend him. It felt…mean hearted. He was trying to make her coffee better, but she doubted that anything could make that sludge better.
So instead, she took her coffee with her, intending to pour it out inconspicuously during the tour of the ranch.
“What is there to see? Don’t you have a bunch of cows…I mean, cattle?”
“Sure. But that’s not all we have,” he said, leading her out the back door. “We have cattle, but they are out in the pastures at this time of the year. We’ll start bringing them closer into the main pastures in a couple of months. But right now, they are all out eating off of the high grass.”
“Don’t tell me, you’re fattening them up for slaughter.”
He didn’t laugh, which meant that she was right. Ick!
“We call it ‘taking them to the market’, but whatever feels right to you is fine with me.”
“Okay, so why are you taking me on this tour?’ she asked, skipping to keep up with him. She should have worn running shoes today, she thought.
He glanced back at her and slowed his pace. “Sorry about that. You come across being so tough, I forget how small you are.”
“I am tough. And I’m not small,” she bristled.
Kade chuckled, then led her over to one of the fences. “Right. Not small. So, that’s Henry,” he said, pointing his coffee cup towards a beautiful black horse who was prancing around in a circle. His tail was up and he was sniffing the air attentively.
“What’s he doing?”
Kade smiled slightly. “He’s smelling the female horse. But you don’t want to watch that. My foreman, Owen, will take care of it. But just look at his coat. Pretty huh?”
“He’s gorgeous,” Frankie breathed, watching the horse move about the corral. “How long does it take to…” she waved her free hand vaguely. “You know. Do that?”
He chuckled earthily. “Well, not as long as you’d probably think. The foreplay is happening now.”
Frankie’s cheeks turned a painful shade of pink and she looked away. “And the…process doesn’t hurt the female horse?”
“Female horses are called mares, Frankie. And no. It doesn’t hurt her. Sometimes the stallion bites her, but she gets her own back. Especially the lady that will be mating with this guy today. She won’t put up with any nonsense from him.”
Frankie nodded. “Well, that’s…good. It’s good.” She turned away. “Okay, I’ve seen enough. I should….” She jumped when a wet tongue touched her hand. Looking down, Frankie noticed that Denver was staring adoringly up at her, his tail wagging so hard, his whole back end was moving along with the effort.
Frankie knelt down, all the better for the deliriously happy Denver to lick her face in greeting. “Well, hello there, big boy. How are you? I’m sorry that I didn’t properly greet you before. But you’re a very good guard dog. Yes you are!”
Kade watched as Frankie snuggled with Denver, who clearly loved the attention. Of course, Denver loved everyone’s attention. As soon as Kade told the dog that a person was safe, he was all about greeting them and getting attention.
“He likes you,” Kade commented. Of course, Denver loved just about everyone. But he did seem to be taking an extra liking to Frankie.
“I like dogs,” she admitted, rubbing his ears.
“But you don’t have a dog of your own?”
She snorted and stood up. “With my job? No way. I travel too much. It wouldn’t be fair to a dog to leave him so often. Sometimes, I’m traveling two or three weeks out of the month. And even on the days when I’m home, I might be working twelve or fourteen hours a day.”
“That’s a long day,” Kade commented, thinking that she needed to slow down and take a bit of time for herself.
“Right,” she snorted. “Like you don’t work long hours here at the ranch?”
“That’s different,” he argued.
“How so?”
“I’m outside. It’s different when a person gets to work outside. The sun and the fresh air are food for the soul.”
Frankie looked up at the sunshine and nodded. “Yeah. I can see that.” She was outside a lot as well, but for some reason, she didn’t think that it was the same. Not in the city.
“You just turned sad,” he observed. “Why?”
Frankie glanced up at Kade, startled that he was so perceptive. “What? What did I do?”
He shook his head slightly, then reached out and took her hand. “You didn’t do anything. But I could feel it.”
That was spooky, Frankie thought. And yet, it was also comforting. “No one has ever paid that kind of attention to me before,” she told him, then smiled crookedly. “It’s a little weird.”
He laughed. “Don’t give me too much credit,” he cautioned. “I do it with horses all the time.”
He said it with such a deadpan expression and tone, she couldn’t help but laugh. Yeah, he was teasing her by comparing her to a horse. But she liked it. Most men were intimidated by her. Kade wasn’t.
“I’d better get back to those boxes,” she decided, taking a step back.
“How about I come get you in a couple of hours so that you can take a break and go for a ride with me?”
Frankie blinked at him. “A ride?”
Kade’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “On a horse,” he clarified, then stepped closer. “What did you think I meant?”
Frankie glanced over at the beautiful horse that was still prancing around the corral, then up at Kade. Yeah, she’d definitely thought he meant “riding” him! Her eyes swept down over his hard, muscled body, then back to the horse. There wasn’t a good answer here. She didn’t know how to ride a horse and…well, she didn’t think “riding” Kade was such a great idea, although, she wasn’t sure which was more dangerous.
Squaring her shoulders, she lifted her chin, then nodded towards the main house. “I’m going to go do my job now,” she told him, pretending that her bones hadn’t gone all mushy.
He laughed softly. “You do that,” he said. “I’ll come get you for a break in a while.”
“No need,” she warned, holding up her hand. “I’m fine. No need for…” again, her gaze moved up and down his body, then back to his eyes. Her cheeks turned that painful shade of red when their eyes met. He knew what she’d been thinking! Darn it! Frankie turned on her heel, and stomped back to the house. She was supposed to be tough and strong! She was supposed to be invincible!
So why was she turning all mushy and soft at the thought of being with Kade? Again, she had to remind herself that she didn’t do casual affairs. She didn’t do one night stands! Of course, she hadn’t been doing formal affairs either! Good grief, it had been too long since she’d enjoyed being in a man’s arms.
Of course, Frankie hadn’t worried about the absence of a man in her life until…until six months ago. Darn it! Kade Wilson was doing something strange to her brain and Frankie didn’t like it!
She poured the untouched coffee down the sink, and headed straight for Kade’s office or library or…whatever. Since Frankie had a tiny condo with a bedroom, kitchen, and living area, all of these extra rooms and what they were named seemed pointless.
Sitting down in the big, leather chair, Frankie ignored the image of Kade sitting in this chair. And her sitting on his lap in this chair. Or doing other things on his lap in this chair.
“Good grief!” she muttered and pulled the second box forward more forcefully than necessary. “This has to stop!”
“What has to stop?” Kade asked, stepping into the office. He set a fresh cup of coffee down on the desk for her and she eyed it warily.
“I made a fresh pot for you,” he explained, then turned to leave. “I’ll come get you in a few hours!”
Frankie stared at the steaming mug, trying to ignore the rush of mushy sensation in the area of her heart. He’d made her a fresh pot of coffee. That was…kinda… sweet.
No riding. “Not on a horse and not on…well, no riding,” she finished, leaving the “no riding Kade” unspoken.
Opening the box, she sifted through the top pages. More notes. Maps of other cities. Newspaper articles. Lots of newspaper articles, but these weren’t all about Kade. There were articles about businesses, stocks, political issues, other government agencies, and…none of this made sense. But Frankie enjoyed mysteries, so she continued to read, knowing that eventually, everything would come clear. She just needed to find the connections between the articles and connect the dots to the maps.
Kade kept away from the house for three hours. But Frankie would not leave his thoughts. What was it about her? Ever since that innocent conversation back in Dallas, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. When she’d showed up yesterday, he’d felt…alive!
She was so damn tough and…no, she wasn’t tough. He grabbed another bale of hay from the conveyor belt and stacked it in the hayloft. The conveyor transported the bales of hay from the ground up to the loft. It wasn’t even hard work since these rectangular bales of hay weighed only about forty pounds apiece. Of course, there were about a hundred of these suckers coming up the conveyor belt, but compared with some of the work that had to be done on a ranch, this was mindless, easy stuff. Which left a lot of mental capacity to think about Frankie. He wondered what she was doing. If she needed a break. Glancing at his watch, he knew that she’d been doing whatever she’d been doing for well over three hours now. The sun was high and the air was warm, a perfect time to go for a ride across the fields. He could take a look at that fence Owen had mentioned and make sure it was holding. And Frankie might enjoy seeing the new calves. He really should head out there and check on them.
When the last bale of hay came off of the conveyor belt, Kade stacked it into the small bit of space left. When it was needed, the hay would simply be tossed down to the ground and spread out for the horses in their stalls or taken out to the corral for them to eat.
Climbing down from the loft, he nodded to Owen. Then Kade stuffed his work gloves into the back pocket of his jeans and headed for the main house, determined to get Frankie on a horse, even if it took a forklift.
When he stepped into the library, he froze. Frankie had laid out all of the articles and pieces of whatever from the boxes on the floor. But it wasn’t the papers all over the floor that caught his attention. It was Frankie. She was on
her knees with her cute butt up on the air, her copper curls tucked behind her ear and…and her boots were off. The tough-girl image was obliterated without those boots, he thought. Damn, she was cute! And sexy and enticing!
He must have moved or made some sort of sound. Because she turned her head and their eyes clashed.
Snapping himself out of the lust-induced haze, Kade stepped into the library and forced his mind to focus on something other than her luscious ass. “What have you discovered?” he asked.
Frankie turned away, more so that he wouldn’t notice how pink her cheeks were. She picked up a news article and handed it to him. “There are several cut out articles from big papers around the country, but these stories, from the smaller papers, are printouts and not the actual newsprint. Except for this one.”
Standing up, she kept her gaze trained on the floor as she extended her hand to him. But when his fingers touched hers, a bolt of fire raced up her arm, spreading out into hot tingles that seemed to fill her up inside. Her eyes pulled away from the stacks of papers on the floor to meet his, her heart pounding.
His hand held hers, not the article she’d been handing him.
“Frankie,” he whispered. And a moment later, she felt the tug of his hand. She stood up, feeling shorter without her boots on. Kade didn’t seem to mind, pulling her closer. With every step, she told herself that this was a bad idea. He was going to kiss her and she should avoid it! She’d kissed him in Dallas and it had taken every ounce of her strength to walk away that time. What would happen if he kissed her now? Would she be able to walk away?
She’d have to! Kade was not the kind who wanted anything long term. Plus, she lived in Seattle. He lived in Montana. There was absolutely no way that a relationship could work between them.
Then his lips touched hers and there were no more thoughts. There was nothing other than the heat spinning her thoughts out of control. Over and over again, his lips brushed against hers until her hand lifted, resting against his chest. Then he really kissed her! Tongues clashing and Frankie wanted to climb him like a monkey in a tree! Pressing her body against his, she lifted up onto her toes, needing to get closer, needing to touch him everywhere.
After Hours Desire (Forsaken Sons Book 3) Page 6
