by Em Petrova
Both of them stared at him.
“I don’t care. I want him off this ranch.” Brielle’s voice sounded as a whisper.
Kaoz arched a brow at Beau.
A long moment passed. Finally Beau said, “He can’t go, Brielle. He’s our new hired hand.”
An incredulous look overtook her pretty face. “You’ve got to be kidding. Working for what money? There’s no extra. Besides the little we have in the bank to make improvements and buy feed and hay, we’re broke.”
“Workin’ for room and board,” Kaoz spoke up.
She issued another scream-growl.
“We can use the help, Brielle. What we did here this afternoon would have taken you and me half a day of work. Time better spent on other things.”
“He’s staying here, on the ranch?” She turned to Kaoz. “Why? You have your own place. If you insist on helping my brother, then come in the mornings and leave at night.”
“Beau and I already struck the deal.” He shrugged.
Another scream burst from Brielle. She swung into the saddle and galloped across the field. Too late to stop her, Kaoz realized what she set out to do—jump the fence with a horse that couldn’t handle basic commands.
She got a running start.
“Oh shit,” Beau said.
“Hell. Brielle!” Kaoz took off running toward her just as she sailed over the fence. The horse cleared it—to his shock—and then hit the ground and kept running.
Damn…she’s amazing.
* * * * *
She couldn’t believe her brother had struck a deal behind her back—and with her ex, no less. Damn them both, but damn Kaoz more, for looking at her that way and wringing out all the emotions she didn’t want to feel for him.
She slowed the horse to a walk and stroked her mane, letting the coarse hairs run through her fingers as a way to calm herself. But she had a feeling things wouldn’t calm down anytime soon.
Kaoz staying on the ranch. Too close for her comfort. Where exactly did the cowboy plan to sleep?
While she turned the horse out to pasture again, she tried to keep the annoyance out of her movements. Then she stalked straight to the house and threw open the door. Everything looked the same. She didn’t see Kaoz’s plaid shirt tossed over the arm of the couch, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t infiltrated her life more than he already had.
Rushing to her room, her heart drummed. The door stood partway open. She nudged it, sending it swinging all the way—and saw his bag on her bed.
“Oh hell no.” She ran to the bed and unzipped the bag. A whiff of his masculine scent flooded out, wrapping her in its warm, spicy cocoon.
She whipped up a shirt from the top of the bag and yanked on both sleeves, trying to rip it in half. The cloth didn’t even stretch an inch. Knowing that her need to tear things to shreds the way he’d shredded her heart wouldn’t work, she grabbed the whole bag and strode to the window.
She threw it open and tossed out his shirt. It landed outside in the overgrown bushes. A bird flapped out, flying for its life.
Next Brielle yanked out a T-shirt. “New Mexico? You can keep your New Mexico tourist T-shirt!” She rifled it like a football, but it only passed over the bush and landed in the yard. Item by item, she hurled them, balling up his socks and whipping them as far as she could throw them. Next came his shaving cream and razor—dumped straight into the bush. Good luck finding those, Bellamy.
When the bag was empty, she chucked it out and then slammed the window shut. To her delight, the wind caught on his boxer shorts and carried them off through the yard.
The heavy thump of a footstep on the floor made her whirl. Kaoz filled the entire doorway, his lips set in a grim line.
“Your things aren’t here.” She spread her hands to indicate the space that only contained her belongings.
He shot a look to the window and then slid it back to her. No, pinned it on her more like. Her heart flipped over.
He stepped inside the room. She moved backward until the window ledge hit her thighs.
“We need to talk, Brielle.”
“There’s nothing to say. You left. You know I didn’t want you to. I thought I could wait it out, and I was wrong. I can’t go back and change your mind, Kaoz.” Her words rolled out in a rush.
He took another step toward her. And another. When he stood in front of her, she was forced to tip her head up to look at him, even though she stood tall as well.
“Get out of my room, Kaoz.”
When he whipped out an arm and lashed it around her spine, surprise ripped a gasp from her. He yanked her in, and she grunted as she struck his solid as oak body. His warm breath washed over her lips, and all she saw were bright blue eyes a split second before his mouth crushed down over hers.
Man. Steel. God, she missed this. Missed him.
She melted for a moment before her sanity took hold again, and she shoved him away.
“No, Kaoz! I told you we’re through.”
He stepped away, his gaze lingering. He ran his tongue over his lower lip in a slow glide that had her thighs clenching.
“I’m staying right here, sweet thing, until I convince you how I feel about you.”
She’d spent months getting over him, and she couldn’t deal with this. But ohhh, he kissed so good.
“No. My brother might have lost his damn mind, but mine is totally intact! You sleep on the couch.” Planting a firm hand on his chest, she propelled him out the door and slammed it in his face.
Panting breaths ripped from her lungs, and she leaned into the slab of wood, listening hard for his footsteps moving away. After a long minute, they did.
Relief made her sag. She rested her forehead to the wood and thought about the uproar about to take hold in her life. She could walk away from it all—the ranch, Beau and Kaoz. Let the two of them have their man agreements—she didn’t want any part of it.
She did love this place, though. Walking away from the effort she’d already sank into it left her with a bad taste in her mouth. She loved having the mare respond to her so well, after weeks of work. She wanted to see that barn go up and more horses speckling the field.
Staying, though, meant seeing Kaoz on a daily basis, it seemed. Could she handle that?
Determination drove her to straighten from her slumped position. “Yes, I can,” she whispered to herself. She would show him just how much she didn’t need him. She would stick it out here on the ranch and Kaoz be damned.
When she heard him walk out of the house, she managed to slip out to the kitchen and grab something to eat. Then before she heard him return, she soaked in the tub and then went to bed early.
Lying there in the dark, knowing the hunky cowboy slept in the other room, ready and willing to start things up again, didn’t leave her feeling at ease. In fact, more than anything, she wanted to slip her fingers inside her panties and finger herself to thoughts of his rough, black beard stubble raking up and down her thighs.
She shivered and flipped onto her side. No. More. Kaoz.
* * * * *
Brielle lifted her head off the pillow to the scents of eggs and bacon. In her room. Near her face, in fact.
She whipped upright and looked around to see a tray set at the foot of her bed. Then she shot a look at the door. It was closed, and there was no sign of Kaoz at all, yet she knew before scooting to the end of the bed that her brother hadn’t woke up this early to fix her a hearty breakfast.
Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she picked up the handwritten note on the tray. In Kaoz’s scrawled hand were the words: Good morning, sweet thing.
A shiver gripped her. How many mornings had he rumbled that into her ear before things got hot and heavy and he took her? Squeezing her thighs together didn’t lessen the ache at all. To distract herself, she plucked a slice of perfectly fried bacon and bit into it.
Jerk. Does he think he can woo me?
Yes, he did. All Bellamys were sweet-talkin’ charmers. The whole lot of them coul
d woo angels from the sky if they tried hard enough.
Well, she was no angel, and even the crispiest of bacon wouldn’t fix things between them. She didn’t even want to look at the eggs, though. Didn’t he remember her aversion to eggs after she got sick on them once as a kid? Clearly not—either that or he wanted to torture her some more.
After pulling the tray across her lap, she dug in. The toast was still warm, which meant she hadn’t slept much longer after he crept into her room and placed the tray for her to find. Should she be unnerved that he might have stood there staring at her sleeping?
Let him see what he missed.
Her gaze wandered back to the note. Did he have to use that pet name—sweet thing—on her, though? From the first moment she heard it, the drawled words could strip off her panties faster than a shooting star could cross the sky.
She devoured all the bacon strips—her favorite.
She was left to think of him standing at the stove barefoot and bare-chested in only low-slung jeans, his hair ruffled from sleep and that lazy crooked smile crossing his face…
She snapped out of it and shoved the tray aside. Time to start her day and forget about Kaoz. She had work to do, and with any luck, would manage to avoid crossing paths with the man.
As soon as she went outside, she saw that the horse had been turned out to pasture. Quickly, she rushed into the outbuilding where the horse boarded and found the stall cleaned out and straw freshly sprinkled there.
She spun and looked at the shelf. Sure enough, all the items that she’d organized the day before were out of order once more.
“Kaoz,” she ground out through clenched teeth.
With jerky movements, she put the shelf to order again. Then she hurried out across the yard to where she heard voices.
“Look out,” her brother twanged. “Here comes H-E-double L.”
Kaoz glanced over his shoulder, saw her and turned with a smile she didn’t know if she wanted to bat off his face or kiss off.
Huffing, she pointed a finger at him. “You’re doing my chores now?”
“Only tryin’ to lighten your load, sweet thing.”
“Don’t call me that! Also—” She stopped, suddenly registering the load of lumber there on the ground. So much lumber. “Where did this come from?”
“Beau and I measured while you were in bed last night. Ran some numbers and figured out what we needed to build the barn. We had it delivered first thing this mornin’.” Kaoz’s dark hair looked particularly boyish today, fanning across his forehead under his hat brim.
She shook her head, casting off thoughts of running her fingers through the dark strands. Being cut out of the loop sucked, but this was what she got for hiding in her room last night. Dammit.
“Is there anything I can do around here anymore?” She cocked her head, glaring at the pair.
“Get some coffee on?” Beau eyed her.
“Oh.” She stomped her boot into the hard-packed earth. “My.” She stomped again. “God.” One more time. “You’ve seriously made me into ranch cook now? What happened to ‘equal partners, equal work’ from before?” She stared at Beau until a dark flush climbed his throat. Kaoz started laughing.
She whirled, jabbing him in the chest. “And you! This is all your fault. Go back to where you came from!”
Instead of stepping away from her pointy finger, he moved into it, forcing her knuckle to bend and then her hand to flatten against his solid chest. He dipped his head in that sensual, sexy-as-sin manner, caught her gaze and held it. “Sure you want that, Brielle?”
“Agh!” She whirled away, tucking her fingers into her hand to stop the throb of heat from touching his chest. “I’ll go muck out the pigpen—unless you already did that for me!”
“Don’t really like pigs,” Kaoz said.
She groaned loudly for their benefit and stormed away. Each step only threatened to turn her around, because she felt Kaoz’s stare on her ass.
After taking her frustration out on the pigpen and then feeding the fat, squalling dears, she headed to the house for a drink and to wash up. When she walked outside again, she heard Kaoz’s voice, low and serious.
Stopping in her tracks, she listened harder.
“Maybe you can call up old McCoy. Remember he used to do some foundation digging? He had that old backhoe.” Kaoz rubbed at his jaw.
She rounded the outbuilding to see Beau remove his hat and swipe a hand over his face. Tension hung between the men, and she edged in to listen to what they were saying.
“It’s no good. Already called him,” Beau told him.
“What’s the trouble?” she butted in to business that belonged to her in the first place and ignored the slow appraisal Kaoz gave her.
“We need a footer dug for the barn. Can’t do that work by hand—it’d take weeks,” Kaoz told her.
“Call Hendrickson.” She beamed at her own knowledge of the townspeople and their trades.
Beau shook his head. “That’s the problem. He’s booked full up with some housing project going in next town over. He can’t help us out for six weeks.”
“And what is wrong with McCoy again?” she asked.
“His backhoe’s got a bad bearing, his knees got arthritis, his dog’s scratchin’ with fleas and needs a trip to the vet. They don’t have the type of flea wash at the tradin’ post. You name it,” Beau said.
“In other words, he’s not in the footer diggin’ business,” Kaoz completed.
“I get that.” She gave them her sassiest tone.
The man smiled. Actually smiled, with a full view of all his white, even teeth that drove every woman in town—and out of it too—crazy with lust. Including her, or at least that used to be the case before she grew indifferent to him.
She stared toward the site where the barn would be raised, her mind spinning over the situation. Hendrickson and McCoy were ticked off the list, but surely there was another person capable of running a backhoe.
She blinked at Kaoz. “Why can’t you do it? I’ve seen you run heavy equipment on your uncle’s ranch.”
“Uncle Cort doesn’t have a backhoe.”
“No, but we can rent one,” she supplied.
Beau bobbed his head. “You know what we could do is rent a backhoe and you dig the footer for us.”
Kaoz considered it. “Ya know, that might work. I think I could get a handle on it after a scoop or two of dirt.”
What. The. Hell. Were they seriously pretending she hadn’t just spoken those same exact words and made the same exact suggestion?
She rolled her eyes. “That’s what I said. Thanks for listening, guys. Good meeting.” With that, she twirled and headed toward the house again.
“Brielle!”
Oh God, not again.
She walked faster.
He dodged into her path. “Brielle, wait.”
“Why? So you can take over my next chore the same way you’ve taken over everything else for me today? Even my idea?”
“That was Beau, not me.”
“Same thing. You didn’t give me credit for having the idea.” She pounded her feet into the dirt all the way up to the porch.
Kaoz jumped in front of her, barring her from mounting the two steps to the house. Dipping his head, he gave her that look—the smoldering look that always undid her and made her totally forget her next thought.
“Get outta my way,” she ground out.
He stuck out his bottom lip in a pretend pout. God, that full, plump lip could do things to a woman that—
She sliced that thought off at the ankles. “Stop that. For God’s sake, you’re a grown man.”
“Who’s really a softy when it comes to having hurt feelin’s,” he intoned in stupid baby talk he reserved for cute baby animals that always made her laugh.
She bit her lip to stifle the smile she refused to let happen. He really was everything she ever wanted. If only he hadn’t tried too little too late.
Seeing that she wasn’t giving
in, he sobered and stepped aside to let her pass. She thumped up the wooden steps and took hold of the door handle, when he spoke.
“Brielle.”
She paused.
“Hope you liked your breakfast.”
Without a word, she pushed open the door.
A few minutes later, she had a mug of steaming hot coffee, fresh from the pot. Her happiness lasted only seconds, though, because as soon as she carried it outside for some peace and quiet, she found the men still talking over plans for the barn.
Beau looked up and nodded toward the mug in her hand. “Where’s mine?”
“In the house, where you can go fetch it for yourself.” She took a nice healthy sip and moaned at the taste of the brew for the benefit of her onlookers.
Kaoz didn’t have much to say, but he didn’t stop throwing her looks now and then as he scribbled numbers on a sheet of notebook paper. She’d ask what he worked on, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of her curiosity.
Leaning against the fence, she continued to sip her coffee and enjoy her day. The sky had dawned a perfect blue, and the sun hadn’t grown too hot yet. She had her chores finished but for training the mare, digging more holes for fence posts on the perimeter of the land and figuring out how to drain the pasture of those soggy bits in the corner.
“What’s the matter?” Kaoz’s eyes burned into her.
“Why would you ask that?”
“You sighed.”
“I don’t recall sighing. Maybe you left your brain in New Mexico.” She waited for him to rise to anger and leave her alone at last. Instead, the man tossed his head back and laughed.
