He frowned. “You okay?”
Erin suddenly realized she’d been gaping at him. Horrified, she snapped her mouth shut, trying to regain some semblance of self-respect. “Yes, fine. Thanks. It’s so incredible to see—”
“You need some help with your engine?” he interrupted, cutting off her sentence before she could finish commenting how good it was to see him.
It was her turn to frown now. Did he not recognize her? After all these years of fantasizing about him whenever she’d needed to escape from the reality of her life and marriage, he didn’t even remember her?
Desolation flooded her, the kind of utter loss that happens only when a dream is shattered, a dream that had all its power because it was pure fantasy, and therefore could never be destroyed. And yet, in one instant, he’d shattered it, because he was reality now, standing in front of her. Steen had been the only one who’d ever looked at her, instead of through her, but it apparently hadn’t meant anything to him, at least not enough for him to remember her.
She lifted her chin resolutely. It didn’t matter. She knew that her imagination had elevated him into the perfect man, and just because the real life man didn’t even remember her, it didn’t change the fact that he’d been her salvation, her escape over all the years. She knew he was a good guy, and it wasn’t his fault that she’d been such an insignificant blip in his life that he didn’t remember her.
He tipped his cowboy hat back, giving her a clear view of his eyes for the first time. They were haunted. Deeply haunted. She was shocked by the change in them from the jaunty, arrogant boy she’d known in high school. There was no humor in his gaze. No life, even. Just emptiness. She’d never have believed anything could take him down, but something had, something that had broken the spirit of the man she believed in for so long, the one who had lived in her heart for over a decade. Her heart tightened, and instinctively, she reached out, touching his arm. “What happened to you, Steen?”
Steen froze, and his muscles went rigid under her touch, making her realize that she’d overstepped her boundaries in a major way. She quickly jerked her hand back. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“You recognize me?” he asked.
She blinked. “What? Of course I do. How could I not?” Did that mean he recognized her? She wanted to ask, but she didn’t dare. His gaze was too intense, and his silence was too unyielding.
After a few moments, she began to shift uncomfortably. She cleared her throat, and tried to change the subject to one that wasn’t quite so incredibly awkward. “So, um, you know engines? Is that right?”
“Yeah.” He still didn’t take his gaze off her face, which she found both completely intimidating and wildly intoxicating. She used to catch him watching her when they were in school, but his face had always been inscrutable and distant. Now, however, there was so much intensity burning in his eyes that her heart started to race. No longer were his eyes empty and apathetic. They were simmering with heat, and all of it was directed at her.
So much for the fantasies not living up to reality. Even in her dreams, he’d never made her feel the way he was making her feel in this moment, like she was the only thing in his world that had ever mattered. Flustered, she pulled her gaze off him. “Well, um, here.” She grabbed Josie’s notebook from the engine. “I have this diagram of what I’m supposed to do if Faith dies, but I can’t figure it out.”
“Faith?” He still didn’t take his eyes off her, not even to look at the notebook that she was waving at him.
“My car. Josie’s car. Do you remember Josie? She was my only friend…I mean, she was my best friend in high school. Anyway, she’s a vet out here, but she had to go to Chicago to help her mom through surgery, so I’m out here for a few weeks taking over her clinic while she’s gone. So it’s her car, and I don’t know how to use it and—” She stopped when the corner of his mouth tipped up in a slight smile. “Sorry. I’m babbling.”
“You used to be so quiet,” he said. “I think you spoke more words just now than you uttered during your entire high school career.”
“I used to be so quiet?” She stared at him as the meaning of his words sunk in. He remembered her from high school? The liar! He remembered her! Elation flooded her, and she couldn’t stop the silly grin. “I’m still quiet,” she said. “That was just a momentary babble because I’m nervous. So, don’t get used to it. I’m not suddenly going to become a talker.”
His right eyebrow quirked. “You’re nervous? Why?” As he spoke, he plucked the forgotten notebook out of her hand and walked around her toward the engine.
“Because you make me nervous.”
He glanced over at her as he leaned over the engine. “Me? Why?” There was an edge to his voice that was like steel.
“You always have.” She leaned against the side of the truck and folded her arms over her chest, watching him as he looked back and forth between the notebook and the engine.
He tossed the notebook over his shoulder and braced his hands on the truck, his gaze methodically scanning every inch of the engine. “Why?” He repeated the question, not even bothering with polite preamble. He wasn’t even looking at her, but she felt his intense awareness of her.
“Because you’re you.”
“That’s not an answer.” He bent over and fiddled with something in the shadowy recesses of the engine.
Her heart began to pound as silence built between them. She knew he was waiting for her answer, and a part of her wanted to give him the absolute truth. She’d never see him again after she left in three weeks, right? After so many years of suppressing every emotion and trying to be the woman that everyone in her life wanted her to be, now was her chance to speak up, to admit who she was, to let it all out. To take a chance. That’s why she’d come out to Wyoming, right? Because she’d been dying inside, and she’d been desperate to find some kind of kick in the pants that would get her heart beating once again.
He twisted something and moved a wire, still waiting for her answer.
After a moment, he looked up. “She’s all set,” he said, his voice rumbling through her. His gaze was boring into her. “You’re good to go.” He waited a heartbeat, and she knew this was her last chance to speak up. In a split second, he was going to lower the hood, and she was going to drive away, and he would walk out of her life…again.
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Sneak Peek: A Real Cowboy Rides a Motorcycle
A Wyoming Rebels Novel
He was tired.
He was cranky.
He was wet.
Zane Stockton idled his motorcycle outside his brother’s ranch house, narrowing his eyes at the darkened windows. Gone was the time when he’d let himself in and crash. There was a woman in there now, and that changed all the rules, especially when it was two in the morning.
He probably shouldn’t have come tonight, but he was here, and he was done being on the road for now. Rain had been thundering down on him for hours, and he was drenched all the way to his bones. He just wanted to sleep and forget about all the crap that had gone down today.
Trying not to rev the engine too much, he eased his bike down the driveway past the barn and turned right into the lean-to beside the bunkhouse. He settled his bike and whipped out a couple towels to clean it off, making sure it was mud-free before calling it a night.
He grabbed his bag from the back of the bike, scowling when he realized it had gotten wet, then sloshed across the puddles toward the front door of the bunkhouse. He retrieved the key from the doorframe, and pried the thing open.
It was pitch dark inside, but he knew his way around and didn’t bother with a light. He dropped the bag, kicked off his boots and his drenched clothes, then headed for the only bed that was still set up in the place, ever since Steen and Erin had rearranged it for their own use during their temporary stay there. At least they’d upgraded their lodging so the bunkhouse was now available again for use by the family vagrant.
; Zane jerked back the covers and collapsed onto the bed. The minute he landed, he felt the soft, very real feel of a body beneath him, including the swell of a woman’s breast beneath his forearm. Shit! “What the hell?” He leapt to his feet just as a woman shrieked and slammed a pillow into the side of his head.
“Hey, I’m not going to hurt you! I’m Chase’s brother!” He grabbed the pillow as it clocked him in the side of the head again. “Stop!”
There was a moment of silence, and all he could hear was heavy breathing. Then she spoke. “You’re Chase’s brother?” Her voice was breathless, and throaty, as if he’d awakened her out of a deep sleep, which he probably had. It sounded sexy as hell, and he was shocked to feel a rush of desire catapult through him.
Shit. He hadn’t responded physically to a woman in a long time, and now he’d run into a woman who could turn him on simply by speaking to him? Who the hell was she? “Yeah,” he said, sounding crankier than he intended. “Who are you?”
“You’re Steen?” He heard her fumbling for something, and he wondered if she was searching for a baseball bat, pepper spray, or something that indicated she hadn’t been nearly as turned on by his voice as he’d been by hers.
“No, a different brother,” he replied, his head spinning as he tried to figure what was going on, and why he was reacting to her so intensely. “I’m Zane. Harmless. Good guy. No need to decapitate me.”
There was a pause in her movements. “I wasn’t going to decapitate you. I was looking for my shirt.”
“Your shirt?” he echoed blankly. “You’re not wearing a shirt?” He hadn’t noticed much bare skin for that brief moment he’d been on top of her. How had he missed it?
“I’m wearing a camisole, but it’s not exactly decent. Give me a sec.” A small laugh drifted through the darkness. “You’re such a guy. Of course you’d fixate on the possibility of me being naked. Do all men think only of sex?”
He grinned, relaxing. He’d startled her, but she’d regrouped quickly, and he liked that. She wasn’t a wimp who was running to the door screaming. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Taylor Shaw. I’m Mira’s best friend from home. I surprised her for a visit, but it turns out, there’s no space in the house.”
“Nope. Not anymore. I’m displaced too.” He suddenly wanted to see her. “You decent yet?”
“Yes, but barely—”
He reached over and flicked on the small light by the bed. The soft yellow glow was less harsh than the overhead light, but it still took his eyes a moment to adjust to the brightness. When they did, he saw Taylor sitting on the bed, curly blond hair tumbling around her shoulders in a disheveled mess that made her look completely adorable. Her eyes were green, fixed on him as she squinted against the sudden light. He could see the curve of her shoulders beneath the light pink, long-sleeved shirt she was wearing. The faint outline of a white camisole was evident beneath her shirt, not quite obscuring the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her gray yoga pants were frayed at the knee and cuff, but they fit her hips with perfection. She looked like she’d just tumbled right out of a bed, and she was sexy as hell.
But it was her face that caught his attention. Her gaze was wary, but there was a vulnerability in it that made him want to protect her. He had zero protective instincts when it came to women…until now, until he’d met this woman who’d tried to defend herself with a pillow.
Then her gaze slid down his body, and his entire body went into heated overdrive. It wasn’t until her eyes widened in horror when her gaze was at hip level that he remembered something very important.
He was naked.
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Sneak Peek: No Knight Needed
An Ever After Novel
Ducking her head against the raging storm, Clare hugged herself while she watched the huge black pickup truck turn its headlights onto the steep hillside. She was freezing, and her muscles wouldn’t stop shaking. She was so worried about Katie, she could barely think, and she had no idea what this stranger was going to do. Something. Anything. Please.
The truck lurched toward the hill, and she realized suddenly that he was going to drive straight up the embankment in an attempt to go above the roots and around the fallen tree that was blocking the road. But that was crazy! The mountain was way too steep. He was going to flip his truck!
Memories assaulted her, visions of when her husband had died, and she screamed, racing toward him and waving her arms. “No, don’t! Stop!”
But the truck plowed up the side of the hill, its wheels spewing mud as it fought for traction in the rain-soaked earth. She stopped, horror recoiling through her as the truck turned and skidded parallel across the hill, the left side of his truck reaching far too high up the slippery slope. Her stomach retched as she saw the truck tip further and further.
The truck was at such an extreme angle, she could see the roof now. A feathered angel was painted beneath the flood lights. An angel? What was a man like him doing with an angel on his truck?
The truck was almost vertical now. There was no way it could stay upright. It was going to flip. Crash into the tree. Careen across the road. Catapult off the cliff. He would die right in front of her. Oh, God, he would die.
But somehow, by a miracle that she couldn’t comprehend, the truck kept struggling forward, all four wheels still gripping the earth.
The truck was above the roots now. Was he going to make it? Please let him make it—
The wheels slipped, and the truck dropped several yards down toward the roots. “No!” She took a useless, powerless step as the tires caught on the roots. The tires spun out in the mud, and the roots ripped across the side of the vehicle with a furious scream.
“Go,” she shouted, clenching her firsts. “Go!”
He gunned the engine, and suddenly the tires caught. The truck leapt forward, careening sideways across the hill, skidding back and forth as the mud spewed. He made it past the tree, and then the truck plowed back down toward the road, sliding and rolling as he fought for control.
Clare held her hand over her mouth, terrified that at any moment one of his tires would catch on a root and he’d flip. “Please make it, please make it, please make it,” she whispered over and over again.
The truck bounced high over a gully, and she gasped when it flew up so high she could see the undercarriage. Then somehow, someway, he wrested the truck back to four wheels, spun out into the road and stopped, its wipers pounding furiously against the rain as the floodlights poured hope into the night.
Oh, dear God. He’d made it. He hadn’t died.
Clare gripped her chest against the tightness in her lungs. Her hands were shaking, her legs were weak. She needed to sit down. To recover.
But there was no time. The driver’s door opened and out he stepped. Standing behind the range of his floodlights, he was silhouetted against the darkness, his shoulders so wide and dominating he looked like the dark earth itself had brought him to life.
Something inside her leapt with hope at the sight of him, at the sheer, raw strength of his body as he came toward her. This man, this stranger, he was enough. He could help her. Sudden tears burned in her eyes as she finally realized she didn’t have to fight this battle by herself.
He held up his hand to tell her to stay, then he slogged over to the front of his truck. He hooked something to the winch, then headed over to the tree. The trunk came almost to his chest, but he locked his grip around a wet branch for leverage, and then vaulted over with effortless grace, landing in the mud with a splash. “Come here,” he shouted over the wind.
Clare ran across the muck toward him, stumbling in the slippery footing. “You’re crazy!” she shouted, shielding her eyes against the bright floodlights from his truck. But God, she’d never been so happy to see crazy in her life.
“Probably,” he yelled back, flashing her a cheeky grin. His perfect white teeth seemed to light up his face, a cheerful confident smile that felt
so incongruous in the raging storm and daunting circumstances.
But his cockiness eased her panic, and that was such a gift. It made her able to at least think rationally. She would take all the positive vibes she could get right now.
He held up a nylon harness that was hooked to the steel cord attached to his truck. “If the tree goes over, this will keep you from going over.”
She wiped the rain out of her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“We still have to get you over the tree, and I don’t want you climbing it unprotected. Never thought I’d actually be using this stuff. I had it just out of habit.” He dropped the harness over her head and began strapping her in with efficient, confident movements. His hands brushed her breasts as he buckled her in, but he didn’t seem to notice.
She sure did.
It was the first time a man’s hands had touched her breasts in about fifteen years, and it was an unexpected jolt. Something tightened in her belly. Desire? Attraction? An awareness of the fact she was a woman? Dear God, what was wrong with her? She didn’t have time for that. Not tonight, and not in her life. But she couldn’t take her gaze off his strong jaw and dark eyes as he focused intently on the harness he was strapping around her.
“I’m taking you across to my truck,” he said, “and then we’re going to get your daughter and the others.”
“We are?” She couldn’t stop the sudden flood of tears. “You’re going to help me get them?”
He nodded as he snapped the final buckle. “Yeah. I gotta get into heaven somehow, and this might do it.”
“Thank you!” She threw herself at him and wrapped her arms around him, clinging to her savior. She had no idea who he was, but he’d just successfully navigated a sheer mud cliff for her and her daughter, and she would so take that gift right now.
For an instant, he froze, and she felt his hard body start to pull away. Then suddenly, in a shift so subtle she didn’t even see it happen, his body relaxed and his arms went around her, locking her down in an embrace so powerful she felt like the world had just stopped. She felt like the rain had ceased and the wind had quieted, buffeted aside by the strength and power of his body.
A Real Cowboy Never Says No Page 21
