Thalia once had known a lot about how horses worked. She would have thought she’d forgotten almost all that knowledge, but she was surprised by what kept bubbling up from deep in her memory. “And you keep him?” When Grandpa had retired horses, he’d sent them off to some other farm. Any animal on his farm had to earn his keep—like his granddaughter.
“We’ve been through a lot.” J.R.’s voice was low as he scratched the old horse behind the ear. “He was the first horse I bought—taught me a lot about riding on the range. I feel better knowing he’s here and taken care of.” He turned a goofy grin to her, but his eyes weren’t telling the same tale. “Sounds dumb, huh?”
“No.” She didn’t want to embarrass him—or herself—by telling him it was noble, sweet, thoughtful and touching. Instead, she rubbed Coot’s nose and changed the subject. “You have a lot of empty stalls here. Where are all the horses?”
“We only keep the seven here. The rest of the stalls are for the hired help to use in the summer months.” He slid open Coot’s door and haltered him. “I usually let them out into the arena to run off some energy after a big storm. Get the gate?”
“Sure.” She walked on the opposite side of Coot and swung the gate in for them.
J.R. led Coot into the center of the arena before he released his halter. The old horse didn’t bolt, though. He stood there, sniffing J.R.’s face while J.R. rubbed his neck.
This, in a nutshell, was what made J.R. a good man—and a better man than James Robert probably ever was. He took care of his horse. Something about that said old-school cowboy, loyal and true. Thalia’s heart swelled watching them. He could play the gruff cowboy, but this—a big smile on his face as he cooed to his favorite horse—was who he really was. And he trusted her enough to be that man in front of her.
J.R. sent Coot off at a leisurely trot, then went out a different door at the top of the arena. He reappeared carrying two bales of hay, one in each hand. Wow, Thalia thought, imagining all those muscles flexing underneath his coveralls. Strong, yet gentle. Tough, yet vulnerable.
She was forgetting all about her crush on James Robert. J.R. was so much better than her fantasy had ever been. So much.
“We’ll put the grain in their stalls in a bit,” he said by way of explanation after Thalia shut the gate behind him, even though she doubted Coot was a flight risk. The old guy had his nose buried in the first bale of hay, munching happily.
J.R. let her lead the next horse, a paint mare named Whipper. Whipper was only a few years old, and wasn’t interested in communing with a strange woman while perfectly good hay was being eaten by Coot right over there. Thalia turned her loose and then had to step back to avoid the parting high kick Whipper threw at her on her way to the hay.
J.R. grinned at her from the gate. “Like I said, they’ve got a little energy to burn.” It should have sounded like he was mocking her, but she thought she heard a compliment—which he confirmed when he added, “Nice move. A true greenhorn would have gotten kicked in the head.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten kicked.” They were walking down the aisle toward the next horses to be turned loose. “I think I was riding Cinnamon, a little pony my grandfather kept for me. That stinker decided to jump a branch about a foot off the ground. I went down hard, and her back hoof clipped my calf on the way down.”
“Aw, that don’t hardly count. I took a horseshoe to the shoulder once, trying to get a rock out of Coot’s hoof.” He pointed to his right shoulder. “Hurt like a son of a...gun.” Then he winked at her.
Next came Hoss’s horse, Rabbit—“Because he hops when he trots,” J.R. said—Mac, Gater and Yoda, a draft horse with massive ears and a wrinkled nose. “Hoss’s doing,” J.R. said by way of explanation as Thalia giggled at the name.
Then they were down to the last horse. J.R. hesitated before a stall, and as soon as she saw the horse, she knew why. The animal was a brilliant palomino, the warm color making his mane shimmer like spun silk. Thalia had seen him before, riding across the frozen land like he owned it. “This is...Oscar.” The way he said it made it clear he was embarrassed. “This is my horse.”
He’d named his horse Oscar. All this talk of not being an actor anymore, but he hadn’t put it as far from him as he pretended he had. Thalia could only hope this Oscar loved him back. “Quite the golden boy, aren’t you?” Oscar whinnied as he sniffed her hand, then moved his head back to J.R.
A ruddy blush was turning J.R. an unusual shade of red. He was embarrassed. “Hey.” She grabbed him and pulled his head down to hers. “You don’t have to be ashamed of that—of any of that. Not with me.”
She brushed her lips over his, but he didn’t kiss her back. His eyes were closed, and he looked like he was concentrating. She didn’t know if that was a good sign or not.
“Thalia.” As he said her name, he touched his forehead to hers. His arms went around her waist, pulling her in close. “About what I said earlier.”
“Yeah?” He’d already apologized for asking if Levinson had assigned her to seduce him. What now?
“You...” He cleared his throat, his eyes still jammed shut. “You being here does make it hard on me. But you make it easy on me, too. And that’s hard for a man like me to get used to.”
Oh. Oh. She exhaled, struggling to keep her knees under her. That had to be the sweetest, most heartfelt thing a man had ever said to her. And she had no doubt he meant it, too. Every single word.
She kissed him. At first, the daylight kiss—with an equine audience—was stiff and awkward, but then she felt him relax into her as his tongue brushed her lips. The heat was there, but the barn wasn’t exactly warm, and there was no way anything could be maneuvered through these layers. She broke the kiss and hugged him. The nice thing was, he hugged her back.
“Tonight?” Going to bed with him in his room, knowing he’d be there when she woke up in the morning—yeah, this could be easy. Nice and easy.
“Tonight,” he agreed, the wide smile erasing any of his embarrassment. They got the last horse into the arena and then he got out the pitchforks.
They worked in silence, but she could see him watching her. Maybe he was waiting for some sort of reaction of disgust or horror? “You know, it’s funny,” she told him as she dumped another scoop into a wheelbarrow. “I’m pretty sure I’ve dealt with less crap here than in an average day in Hollywood.”
He snorted in appreciation. “That, I don’t doubt. Get back to me in a few more days.”
“How long do you think we’ll be here?”
“We’ve got a bulldozer—Hoss’s baby. It’ll take a week or two to plow out to the main road, and then it all depends on the roads.” He paused, giving her a serious look. “We’ll get you home one way or another.”
Which was going to be a crying shame when it happened. Home, back to where Levinson would fire her, she’d be hard-pressed to find another job and she’d lose her apartment. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but she’d rather stay here, where horses played and fires—the wood kind and the personal kind—burned hot.
Thalia got lost in her thoughts as they cleaned the barn. He didn’t know everything about her. He’d made his feelings about her boss, Levinson, crystal clear. How would he react to the fact that she’d had an affair with the man he detested so openly?
Badly, that’s how. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that, though. They’d have this brief time together, and then she’d be on her way and he’d never look at her with shock or disappointment. It wasn’t lying, not exactly. Neither of them had brought up old lovers.
No, there was no room for Levinson in this...well, relationship was a strong word. This temporary weather situation. Whatever it was, Levinson had no place in J.R.’s bedroom or his barn.
As J.R. dumped the last wheelbarrowful, Thalia hung on the gate and watched the horses trot around. Yoda was playf
ul for a horse as big as he was. He’d take a running start at Whipper and Rabbit, his plate-sized hooves taking huge divots out of the arena floor. Whipper and Rabbit would rear and whinny and bolt out of Yoda’s reach, heels kicking the whole way. Then Yoda would stand there and nicker at them, clearly laughing at their melodramatic reactions.
Mac and Gater stood off to one side, scratching each other’s back through the blankets every horse wore. Oscar trotted around the edge of the arena, keeping clear of the antics of the other horses. A creature apart, Thalia thought as he gave her a wide berth. Just like his rider.
Coot ambled up to her and blew snot on her outstretched hand. “Hey, you,” she said as she scratched his head. The old boy’s eyes fluttered shut as he leaned into her hand. “You like that?”
It had been years since she’d been on a horse, but she’d loved riding as a kid. Too bad she was stuck on a ranch in the middle of a blizzard. That sort of ruled out trail rides, and she couldn’t say if she’d ever be out here again. And thinking that left her feeling morose.
“He likes you,” J.R. said as he walked down the aisle pulling a bin of grain behind him.
“I was thinking how long it’s been since I’ve ridden.” She stood on her tiptoes to give Coot a behind-the-ear scratch.
“Yeah? How long?” He was farther down the aisle, dumping grain into buckets.
“Grandpa died during my ninth-grade year. Mom tried to hold on to the family farm, but...” It had been the hardest thing she’d ever seen her mother do. That farm had been in her family since the days of the Sooners. The day of the auction, when Thalia was a junior in high school, Mom had cried herself to sleep. “After we lost it, I felt like...I didn’t have anything holding me to the state. Like I’d lost a piece of my family.”
Coot sighed. Yeah, she thought as she smiled at the old guy. That.
“Your mom is still down there?” J.R. had come out of the stalls, his bin mostly empty.
“She is. Dad died a long time ago, but she’s made a good life for herself. She was so mad at me when I dropped out of college to go to Hollywood because I was supposed to be the first one in the family to get a college degree. So she went back and got one instead. She works at the library, has a group of ladies she lunches with and seems happy.” She still worried about her daughter and the subtle hints for grandchildren were less subtle every day. All in all, at the age of fifty-five, Thalia thought her mom had made peace with the hand Fate had dealt her.
“She loves you.” Thalia could hear the wonder in J.R.’s voice.
“She does.” Did that bother him, to know that other mothers loved their children and his mother hadn’t—at least, not in the traditional way?
“The thing that’s always been difficult for me to figure out is if my mother was more normal and Minnie is the crazy one, or if Minnie’s normal and my mother...well, she was crazy.” He shrugged, but didn’t seem to be as anxious about such a blanket statement this time.
“I’d go with Minnie being the more normal of the two.” She wanted to say her mother would be thrilled to meet him, but she knew that would imply that this whatever they had going right now would outlast the snow on the ground, and that would be a mistake. No matter how easy it was to spend the day petting horses and the night in his bed, she couldn’t lose sight of the fact that everything about this was temporary, and sooner or later, the snow would melt.
So instead, she patted Coot on the neck and got the lead rope and started putting the horses back in the stalls, where they snarfed their grain down with great relish. She and J.R. put their goggles and snowshoes back on, and then he hefted her up the snowbank. She did better walking back to the house than she had before. See? She thought to herself as she slid back into the garage. I’m not totally hopeless. She hoped J.R. felt the same way.
When they got their snowshoes off, J.R. paused. “Listen,” he said, a grin peeking out from his mask.
Thalia cocked her head to one side. At first, she didn’t hear anything—but then she realized it wasn’t silent. She could hear the faint sound of an engine running.
“Hoss got the generator fixed?”
“Yup.” He took her hand and led her into the mudroom. The sound of a radio filled the kitchen, and Minnie was singing along.
“Oh, thank heavens.” She certainly wasn’t frozen stiff, but a hot shower was high on her to-do list. Especially if she was going to be spending the night with J.R. She grinned up at J.R., who gave her a squeeze. It was a small move, but—given that Minnie was only feet away—it felt like this huge, almost-public declaration of togetherness.
Sheesh, she felt like she was in junior high again. What would happen if they got caught kissing?
Twelve
They got the snowmobiles up and running, and talking was impossible once they were streaking across an almost unrecognizable range. The snow had drifted over their heads in some spots. The going was cold and treacherous, and it required J.R.’s full attention. They couldn’t even make it to the far north pasture. Might be a few more days before they could get hay out to the animals.
When they made it back to the barn, Hoss didn’t say anything that wasn’t directly related to cows, horses or food. Even then, he was uncharacteristically restrained. He was making J.R. nervous, plain and simple.
“She really help muck the barn?” was Hoss’s big question.
“Yup.” Which had been as much of a shock to J.R. as it was now to Hoss. He’d entertained the thought that her offer to shovel manure was one of those things some women did to convince a man they loved everything he did, but, when faced with actual crap, she’d try to talk her way out of it. Or at least pale and complain about the smell. But no, she’d shoveled like it was second nature. And, somehow, looked good doing it, snowsuit and all.
“Huh.” Hoss scratched his nose, and J.R. braced himself for something inappropriate. “Wouldn’t have figured she was the type.”
“Nope,” J.R. agreed, even thought it wasn’t wholly clear which type Hoss was referring to—the type that mucked barns, or the type that J.R. fell into bed with.
Maybe both, as it had been a long time since he’d fallen into bed with anyone. In the past, he’d spend a lot of time trying to gauge how much his lady friend knew and how she’d react when she found out about James Robert Bradley. Dating had felt like a negotiation, as intense and demanding as any contract negotiation he’d ever been a part of. Every step had to be calculated for risk and damage control—an exhaustive process that left little for the actual courting of a beautiful woman.
For the last decade, dating had been hard. But Thalia knew all about James Robert, and she honestly didn’t seem to care. Well, maybe she did care. But that wasn’t the only thing she cared about. That’s what made her different. He didn’t have to hide that part of his life from her, and she wasn’t going to hold it against him. She made it easy on him. He didn’t have to do any of that negotiation stuff this time, which freed up his brain to think of a whole bunch of other fun stuff. Stuff that involved a crackling fire, a warm bed and a very naked Thalia.
Claiming he was cold, he pushed Hoss out of the barn. Low clouds scuttled across the gray sky, which meant they might have another couple of inches of snow on top of this fine mess in the morning. Normally, J.R. would be cursing the weather gods right about now.
He wasn’t. All he knew was another few inches of snow meant another few days with Thalia. He couldn’t remember looking forward to something so much in a long, long time.
When he and Hoss got into the house, Thalia had changed. She looked like she’d taken advantage of the hot water, and her hair was loose and long. Had she showered in his room? Without him? Man, it was warm in the house. Or maybe that was his personal temperature.
When she saw him, her eyes lit up so bright that he got hot just looking at her. “How was it?”
&nbs
p; “Bad,” he said, but he thought, good. Good, deep snow. The Department of Transportation didn’t plow the twenty miles from the main road to his house. Hoss could dig them out, but that took time. The last time it had snowed this much, it had taken two weeks to get the drive plowed. The fact of the matter was that Thalia was his, all his. Odds were good she wouldn’t be able to leave before Valentine’s Day, which was a few weeks away.
He made his way over to her. Hoss and Minnie were doing their best to watch him without actually looking at him as he pulled Thalia into his chest and kissed her...forehead. Damn, he thought, feeling his face flush. Couldn’t pull the trigger and seal the deal. But kissing Thalia in front of Minnie was too much like making out in front of a mom. It felt awkward.
“Have a good afternoon?” he said, more to cover his embarrassment than anything else.
Thalia’s cheeks were pinking up, which made her glow. “Minnie managed to get the satellite up.” The way she said it made it pretty clear she was used to 4G-broadband-whatever, and not the satellite connection they had to depend on way out here in the country. “And I was able to email my mom.”
“Good.” He was almost afraid to look at Minnie, but he’d be hard-pressed to say why. It wasn’t like she would send him to his room without supper—or, like his mother would have done, threaten to kill herself if he ever left her. “And work?” What had she told Levinson?
Her grin turned sly. “I told them I was stranded in Billings.”
He wanted to hug her, which might have led to something embarrassing, like him blushing, but like she’d done many times, Minnie saved him from himself. “You boys need to get cleaned up before you sit on my furniture. Go on, shoo.”
Thalia barely hid her giggle behind her hand before she pushed him toward the stairs. “She’s right, you know,” she called out behind them.
“That seemed to go well,” Hoss said as they took the stairs.
J.R. knew he should not engage, should not run the risk of provoking Hoss’s smart mouth, but he couldn’t help himself. The man was more than his best friend, he was his brother. “You think?”
Harlequin Desire February 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: The King Next DoorMarriage With BenefitsA Real Cowboy (Kings of California) Page 46
