by Linda Conrad
But she did want him. No getting around it.
However, wanting—even desperate wanting—didn’t necessarily mean she would have to act on the urges. Lots of people lived with unrequited desire. But her throat went dry at the idea of never having a chance to taste those lips, of never having those muscular arms hold her during the heat of passion.
Sighing, she wondered why her life had turned out this way. If life was fair, then why couldn’t she have him? And also have everything he represented: honor, trust, protection, love?
Wow. Flights of fancy? Not her usual style, and they weren’t going to get her anywhere. She must remember he was far above and beyond her reach. All she could have where Travis was concerned were daydreams.
No choice but to find some way of moving past her raging hormones. The idea of the two of them together seemed ludicrous when she considered it. He was the well-respected owner of a gigantic working ranch. She was the penniless widow of a mob boss’s son. The disinherited daughter of snobby parents who refused to acknowledge her existence. Almost laughable.
Travis performed selfless works of charity. The townspeople cared about him, and he had a loving family. She was nothing but a selfish liar without one single soul who gave a damn whether she lived or died.
No, when she thought of it that way, the two of them didn’t seem like a particularly suitable pairing. In fact, they were completely unsuitable.
Still, as he opened the door for her and his back muscles rippled under his shirt with the effort, she felt her chest constrict. Breathing became difficult.
He reached for her hand and helped her climb out of the SUV. The simple touch of his hand to hers caused an electric tingle she’d never felt in her entire life. It moved all the way up to her shoulder.
Puzzled by the sudden, intense physical reaction, she quickly withdrew her hand and looked away. Ever since the tragedy and her hospitalization, and after finding out the truth about her husband’s family, her sex drive had nose-dived to near zero on the heat meter.
And now was when her body chose to rebound? With a man who could control the success or failure of her life’s goal?
She chanced a quick glance into his eyes. Travis met her gaze, and a flash of awareness told her he’d felt the sizzle, too.
Folding her arms over her chest, she broke the connection, turned her back and headed toward the house.
“Whoa. What did I do?” He came up behind her and put his arm on her shoulder.
“Nothing.” The spot where he’d laid his hand tingled and heated, but she didn’t turn.
“Haven’t you forgiven me for the Stockard deal yet?”
That spun her around and away from his touch. “There’s nothing to forgive. You did what you thought best. Besides, you’re my boss—my forgiveness isn’t important.”
Travis looked confused. “Of course it is. Everything about you is important.”
“Don’t say that.” She wanted to walk away but couldn’t seem to force her feet to move. “I have to go. There’s work to do.”
“Wait.” He reached out a hand as if to stop her, but she hadn’t moved a muscle. “I thought we could… That is… I planned on you taking the day off. You worked all weekend and, since Rosie has returned now, today should be your weekend.”
“There’s nothing for me to do. I’d rather work.”
He drew his hand back to his side but left the silly grin plastered on his face. “I have something for you to consider doing on your day off. I’ve been wanting to get to know you better. Just the two of us. Come with me and I’ll show you around the ranch. It’s a big operation with many different things going on. I need to check on some projects, and I’d hoped you come along.”
Tempted, she studied him for a moment. His green eyes glimmered in the warm sunlight. His big, megawatt smile silently begged her to see it his way and accompany him. But she knew he was really just controlling things again.
“All right. Let me just check with Rosie.” Damn. This was a very bad idea.
“I’ll tag along,” he said in a voice filled with good humor. “I asked her to make up a couple of picnic lunches for the trail. We can pick them up on the way to the barn.”
“The trail?” Uh-oh. All of a sudden her mind filled with dread, along with a ton of reasons for why she couldn’t go. She’d been right. Bad idea.
“Sure.” He looped her arm around his in a move that screamed he would not let her change her mind at this point. “The first part of our tour needs to be made on horseback. Then, this afternoon, we’ll switch over to the helicopter. It’ll be a great day. You’re going to love it.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later Travis was still praying he was right and had not just been giving voice to his fervent wishes. Summer would love seeing the ranch. She would.
She was different. Different from any woman he’d ever known. And certainly much different from Callie.
Callie would’ve hated riding around on horseback, touring the ranch and seeing some of his big accomplishments. He’d never even bothered to invite his ex-wife, knowing how she preferred shopping and visiting with friends over riding and ranch business. They’d had little in common throughout their marriage, and they’d never really done anything as a solid couple—except produce the most beautiful baby girl in the world.
And even that Callie had walked away from in the end.
With some surprise, Travis noted how the sting of his ex-wife’s rejection no longer bothered him the way it once had. Searching his conscious mind, he couldn’t find any remnants of the pain he’d felt when Callie left without so much as a backward glance.
He’d finally come around to accepting the end of his marriage. About time. But more than that, he’d realized that the end could’ve been predicted from the very beginning. And avoided. But only if he’d stopped acting like a general on a campaign long enough to listen to the woman he’d thought he loved.
Callie, even at her tender age, had probably known the truth from the very start. But they’d been friends and she’d liked him, liked him a lot, and hadn’t known how to make him see the truth without hurting them both. So, she’d gone along—swept away on the tide of his arrogance. She’d been too young then to understand how much worse things would be for everyone if she waited to leave until they’d had a child and made a home together. And unfortunately, that’s exactly what she’d done in the end.
Not entirely Callie’s fault, he reminded himself.
Glancing at Summer as she gathered up their picnic lunch, he vowed not to make the same mistakes with her. He could be pushy and overbearing sometimes. Well, most of the time, he supposed. That’s exactly why he knew he could never marry again. He would not subject another woman to his arrogance or to living the kind of isolated ranch life that he thrived on.
He’d been luckier with Jenna. His little girl loved the ranch. Loved the life they had. Though she hadn’t been given any choice in the matter. But he’d made a promise to himself that, when the time came, he would send her off to a fancy school. Someplace that could teach her all the things that mattered to a woman. All the things she didn’t have access to on the Bar-C.
It would kill him if Jenna never came back to the ranch after that. But he would have to accept it as the way things were meant to be. Over the years, he’d become good at accepting the ways the world worked.
Glancing over at Summer, his brain told him that here was a woman who would leave him, too, in the end. He should walk away. Steel his heart. But every time he looked at her, his heart stuttered and his gut churned. He had never wanted anyone so much. Maybe he was in for a big hurt in the end, but he was bound to take this as far as he could. He was no coward.
“All set to go, boss?” Summer looked up at him with a mixture of trepidation and readiness shining in her eyes.
Stopping in midstride, he fought his own natural tendencies to push and tried to be fair. “Are you sure you want to go through with this? Maybe a day at the movies or
reading a book would be more to your liking for your day off.”
“No. This will be fine. I want to know all about the Bar-C. I’d like to understand what you’re saying when you and Jenna talk about ranch things.”
Her deep blue eyes were stormy, and his pulse jumped at the sight. Blood surged through his veins, torturing him with sudden images of the two of them alone. He desperately needed to see that same, intense look in her eyes, slightly glazed and dark with passion, as the two of them made love.
The idea took his breath away. Gasping for air, he shook off the images, scolding his libido for turning up the heat at the most inappropriate times. Summer would be touring the ranch with him today only because she felt obligated to do so for her job.
Deep in his gut he knew the truth, even though he tried to deny it. Summer, like his ex-wife, would be heading off for one of Texas’s big cities as soon as her car was fixed. She wasn’t really that different.
But for today, he would take her any way he could get her. Even if only because she felt obligated, if that meant he could spend the day with her alone. He just needed to remember not to take advantage of her vulnerability.
* * *
She was up to this. She had to be. Just because her knees shook at the thought of riding a horse—of potentially losing control to another being with a mind of its own—didn’t mean she shouldn’t try it anyway. Life was filled with difficult adventures. Riding a horse should be one of the least treacherous trials she had to face.
“Have you ever ridden?” Travis moved into the corral, where one of his ranch hands had left two horses, already saddled and with picnic baskets, ready to go.
“Horses? Um, a long time ago.” She stood stock-still so he wouldn’t see her shaking and tried to steady her nerves.
“How long?”
“I was ten. My mother decided a perfectly schooled woman should know how to ride in English style.”
“Western riding is a lot different. We’ll broaden your schooling.” He moved to the left side of one of the horses and fiddled with the reins.
Both of the horses sidestepped, turned their faces to sneer at whoever was bothering them, and then flipped their tails.
Scared, Summer tried to put the worst possible scenarios out of her mind. The horse wouldn’t take off while under her. She wouldn’t fall off and break her neck. She would be perfectly capable of controlling such a huge creature. Biting her lip, she waited for Travis to tell her what to do next.
When he seemed satisfied with the tack, he turned to her. His expression changed from expectant to uncertain. “You look terrified. If you’d rather not do this, we can use the ATVs. They’re loud and scare the herds, but if you’d be more comfortable…”
“No. I’ll do it. One of my psychologists said I should deliberately put myself in situations that stretch my comfort zones. It’s the only way to really make progress.”
“One of your psychologists? How many do you have?”
Oh, shoot. She hadn’t meant to say that. He would believe she was crazy for real now.
Trying to backpedal and make light of it, she said, “I think I told you that right after…uh…the tragedy, I had sort of a breakdown. It took a few months and lots of doctors to make me well again.” Not that she thought she would ever be completely well.
The only thing that might make a real difference to her mental health would be seeing the man she’d been hunting, a man nicknamed Hoss, get what he deserved. Summer hoped finding him and making him face his justice wouldn’t take too much longer.
“Uh-huh. Are you sure about riding today, sugar?” Travis’s expressive eyes filled with concern for her needs.
But that wasn’t what she wanted for him. Not at all. Travis was too good to become involved in her dismal past. Or in her iffy future, for that matter. Her problems were her problems. She wanted him to have a nice day, as he’d planned. Somehow she would have to keep him, along with her own unruly mind, firmly rooted in the right now.
“I’m sure.” She forced a smile but wasn’t positive she was pulling it off. “How do I climb aboard this beast?”
The smile or the words made Travis’s face break out in his usual grin. “By not overthinking it,” he said through a chuckle.
Beckoning her closer, he showed her how to grip both the reins and the horn of the saddle at the same time. “Face the horse and put your left foot in the stirrup here. Then swing your right leg up and over the horse’s back. Stay fluid and try it in one smooth move. I’ll help.”
She did it the way he instructed but definitely not in a smooth move. Yet somehow, in seconds, she was on the back of the horse. She wanted to cry.
“Great! You look like you belong in a saddle.”
He gave her a few minutes of instruction on how to sit and how to “steer,” for lack of a better word. Then he mounted the other horse and demonstrated by doing the moves himself.
Some of the instructions seemed vaguely reminiscent of her earlier riding classes. But she had never before felt anything quite like sitting astride an animal this big and powerful. It was a terrifying, yet not totally unpleasant, sensation. She sensed she had far more control than she’d ever had when riding English-style as a kid.
“How are you doing? Ready to try a walk around the corral?”
“I think I’ve got the idea. Might as well get a head start on whatever you wanted me to see.”
Travis nodded, lifted his hat and set it back down lower on his forehead. He’d insisted she wear a hat too, to keep the sun off her face, so she mimicked his moves and settled into the saddle.
“We’ll take it slow and won’t ride far today. You might find you like being on horseback, and we’ll do it again another time.”
Grimacing, she hoped he took her facial expression as another smile. If she lived through this experience, it remained to be seen whether she would still be around for another time.
She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep lying to him. She needed to find her man and move on.
* * *
Travis kept a tight rein on his stallion and made sure Summer’s mare stayed docilely in line beside them. He’d deliberately put Summer on one of the gentlest mares in the household herd.
They stayed to the ancient horse trails, keeping a slower pace while he pointed out one of the cattle herds and then a smaller herd of sheep in the next pasture over. The necessary chore of opening and closing each gate as they rode through reminded him of his grandfather’s irritation at having to put up fences at all. It had been years ago when the Bar-C diversified their herds and added the sheep and goats to their many varieties of cattle. Even to this day, fences were a pain in the neck for cattle ranchers. The Bar-C spent almost as much time and money repairing and replacing fence as they did branding and marking the herds in the spring.
He kept his eye out for the fence-repair teams and was gratified to see several crews hard at work in the distance. Riding the closer-in fence lines, looking for new breaks or downed wire, was one of the chores he’d promised his foreman he would accomplish today.
“What’re all those buildings in the distance?” Summer lifted her chin in the direction of the barns and sheds but kept her fingers wrapped tightly in the reins.
“That’s our quarter-horse breeding operation. My older brother, Sam, is in charge of that division of the Bar-C. See the two-story home off to the right? That’s the house where we grew up. My brother and his wife and son live there now.”
Travis sat back in the saddle and gazed at the place, lost in a flash of memories centered on his carefree youth.
“Are we going to stop there?”
“Not today. Sam and Grace are in Houston at a horse-breeders’ convention. But you’ll like my sister-in-law when you meet her. She’s originally from Los Angeles.”
And Travis had been pleasantly surprised when Grace took so easily to the isolated life on the ranch. “It turns out she makes a great partner for Sam in the horse business. And on top of t
hat, she’s a terrific mother to their son. Sam’s a lucky man. My Jenna just adores Grace and their baby.”
Summer’s face sobered as they walked their horses past the old homestead. The words of pride had just popped out of his mouth without thinking it through. But maybe he should’ve figured she would be a little touchy hearing talk about babies.
But, hell, it was almost impossible to stop talking about kids if you came from Chance. They grew almost as many children here as they did heads of cattle.
After another fifteen minutes of riding, they arrived at the spot where he’d planned to set up their picnic lunch. “Here we go. We’ll stop at the stock pond under that stand of trees up ahead. After lunch we need to pick a bag of pecans for Rosie. She needs them for the pies she plans to make for her reception.”
“These are pecan trees?” Wide-eyed, she glanced up into the branches above their heads.
“Some of them. And a few cottonwoods and willows.”
He pulled their horses to a stop over a patch of grasses and dismounted. “Let me ground the horses first, and then off you go. I’ll need your help carrying the lunch packs.”
It took a few seconds for her to pry the reins from her fingers. Chuckling softly at how ill at ease she still seemed on the back of the horse, he figured she would settle down after lunch. It took another minute with the horses before he turned back, expecting to find her standing on the ground. Looking up through dappled sun, he was shocked to see her still sitting astride the saddle.
“Problem?”
“How…how do you get off?”
“Same way you got on. Plant your foot in the stirrup and swing the other leg over.”
“It’s a long way down.” She looked stiff with fear.
“Here, I’ll help you off this first time. Take your feet out of the stirrups.” He reached up and hooked an arm around her waist as he would’ve done for Jenna.
Pulling her toward him, he felt her whole body stiffen. “Relax. Let me do the work.”
