Wild West Fortune

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “Tempting though that may be, I’m not taking that particular bait,” she said drily.

  She pocketed the phone, and while he finished tying down the windows, she got in the cab, deftly pulling one of the T-shirts over her head and down her chest. Watching him through the side-view mirror to be certain he was otherwise distracted, she pulled the straps of the camisole off her shoulders and worked it off through the neck of her T-shirt, then hastily shoved her arms through the sleeves just in time before he got into the truck.

  He took in the bright pink, orange and green T-shirt and the camisole bunched in her fist. “You’re a quick-change artist in addition to everything else?”

  “It’s a skill that comes in handy sometimes.” She shoved the camisole in the hardware-store bag and tossed it onto the backseat next to the notepad she’d borrowed from him before they left the ranch. She often recorded interviews but was equally comfortable going old school with pad and pencil. As evidenced by the notebook she’d lost from her car. Which was still something she didn’t like thinking about. “I’ve changed into cocktail dresses in my car before when I’ve had to run from one club to another for my blog.”

  He gave her a sidelong look that had her nerves fizzing and thoughts about anything besides him flying out the window.

  “Are we stopping anywhere else?” The plan was to meet Nathan—who was bringing the front loader from the ranch—at the Ybarras’ after Jayden had picked up the windowpanes.

  “I doubt you’ll find a pair of shorts to go with that T-shirt anywhere in town, if that’s what you’re hoping.” A smile flirted around his eyes. “Pretty sure those shirts were left over from a fund-raiser the school had when I went there.”

  She plucked at the hem of the cheap tie-dyed cotton. If she were honest, it wasn’t all that far a cry from her usual style, which admittedly leaned toward the Bohemian. “I don’t care how old it is. At least it’s not borrowed.” That made her wonder about the Ybarras again. Their entire house had gone the Wizard of Oz way. Would they be dependent upon the donations of other people’s clothing while they put their life back together? “I hope the Ybarras have good hazard insurance.”

  “I guess you can ask them when we get there.”

  “I imagine that I will.” She chewed the inside of her cheek as she thought about the questions she planned, absently noting the half-dozen vehicles pulled up at the gas station. “Looks like there’s a run on gasoline today.”

  He followed her glance. “Sunday-after-church grocery shopping, more like.” This time, he wasn’t hauling a trailer on the back of the truck, and as soon as he left behind the town, he picked up speed.

  In the side-view mirror, she could see the wind blowing at the crates holding the window glass. “Who will do the window work for you?”

  “You mean replacing the panes? We do it ourselves.”

  She watched him thoughtfully. “Did you and your brothers come out of the womb just naturally self-reliant?”

  He chuckled. “It’s kind of do-it-yourself 101, sweetheart.”

  “Maybe for some. My maintenance and repair skills reach as far as replacing the bag on my vacuum cleaner.”

  “If you’re interested, I’ll give you a lesson on glass repairs for the next time you’re stuck after a tornado.”

  “At least I’d be of more use to the people saddled with me.”

  “You’ve said that before. And if you’ll remember,” he said, his voice deepening as he gave her a steady look, “I said it was my pleasure.”

  She was vaguely shocked to feel her skin tightening the way it was. To feel her nipples peaking under the cheap cotton shirt that was all that covered them. She wasn’t a prude by any means, but she’d never met anyone besides Jayden who elicited such a visceral reaction from her.

  And without so much as a single touch.

  She swallowed and struggled not to moisten her lips.

  His gaze dropped to them anyway. Then, for an infinitesimal moment, it dropped to her breasts before he focused again on the road ahead of them.

  Feeling hot, she rolled her window down a few more inches and stared out at the passing landscape. It was all she could do not to cross her arms over her chest and squirm in her seat, and she had never been so grateful to get somewhere as she was when they arrived at the Ybarra place.

  It meant she could throw her focus entirely on someone other than Jayden. At least for a little while.

  * * *

  It was a good idea. In theory.

  But after she’d spent the afternoon talking with Paloma and Hector about their life together in Paseo—interrupted by family members and friends who presented them with pieces of personal property they’d salvaged from the tornado wreckage as they helped clean up—Ariana had to admit defeat.

  To herself, at least.

  No matter what she did, how truly interesting she found Paloma and Hector to be, she was never able to completely move Jayden out of her mind.

  The task certainly hadn’t been helped by the fact that he was within Ariana’s eyesight almost every minute of the afternoon. Even when she and Paloma and Hector left the shade of the canopy—where a camp kitchen had been set up, to Hector’s delight—into the barn to show off their makeshift living quarters—complete with a portable potty, to Paloma’s delight—Ariana had been able to see him through the wide-open barn doors. He sat there shirtless and sweating atop the tractor as he drove it back and forth. Slowly and inexorably and with the help of many hands, he cleared away the destruction until all that remained were a huge pile of bricks and a farmhouse-sized patch of bare earth.

  Everything else had been loaded onto trailers and a roll-off Dumpster that had appeared since the day before.

  If she hadn’t seen it for herself, she would have found it difficult to believe that so much work could be done in such a short amount of time. And without a lot of heavy equipment. She’d captured some video of it on her phone, knowing it would be a good online tie-in for the article when she wrote it.

  By the time the work was done, somebody had brought trays of carnitas and tortillas from Rosa’s in town. The helpers, who had worked for hours in the hot Texas sun, tucked hungrily into the food, and although they had to be exhausted, they broke into song and dance when someone produced some loud Tejano music. They hung around making merry until the only light there was came from the moon and the two strands of red and green Christmas lights Tomas and Graciela hung from one edge of the barn to the corner of the portable canopy.

  Ariana was so moved by the whole thing she had to break away from the crowd just so she could wipe her wet cheeks in private.

  “Talk about the human spirit, eh?” Jayden—shirt back in place—found her standing in the shadows of the barn.

  “Yes.” Her voice was husky. “Last I saw, you were dancing with Graciela.” If not for the fact that every time Graciela looked at Tomas it was with adoration in her expression, Ariana might have been eaten up by jealousy. Because Jayden most definitely was not in short pants anymore when it came to women.

  “Last I saw,” he returned, “you were sitting with the two Arturos eating some of Rosa’s killer flan.”

  “I was.”

  He angled his head slightly. “Everything all right? I should have offered to take you back to the ranch. It’s been a long day.”

  “Please.” Teary-eyed or not, her toe was tapping inside her too-large tennis shoe in time to the rhythmic music. “Do you think I’d have taken you away for even an hour this afternoon? I didn’t work anywhere near as hard as most of you did.” Not to mention the hours he’d put in at his own place even before she’d rolled out of bed.

  “Your interview was good?”

  “Very.” Somehow, the distance between them was shrinking and she wasn’t sure if she could lay the blame on him. “But I think it was less an
interview I conducted than keeping up with them as they just talked.” She’d gone with her instincts, knowing the second she suggested recording them that they’d have gotten self-conscious. So she satisfied herself instead with taking a few notes that she would elaborate on when she was alone. If she needed to clarify any particular facts later on, she could.

  “Do you know Paloma said she wasn’t afraid when the tornado was blowing through? That she and Hector waited it out in their storm shelter playing cards?” If Ariana hadn’t spent as many hours with the couple by now, she’d have found it difficult to believe. “When it was blowing over us while we were in your storm cellar, I was terrified.”

  He lifted his hand and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and her heartbeat stuttered. “Guess I should have tried playing cards with you.”

  Her laugh sounded breathless even to her own ears. “You were plenty distracting.”

  His lips stretched into a smile as his head lowered closer to hers. “So were you.” He slid another lock of hair behind her other ear and she felt rooted to the earth when his mouth grazed lightly over hers. “You’re still distracting,” he murmured.

  She could hear her blood rushing through her head. But she still managed to pull back. “Jayden, this isn’t a good idea.”

  “Afraid someone will see?” He wrapped his hand behind her back and started moving faintly to the music.

  Before she could even think, she was moving along with him. She only realized he was dancing her farther away from the twinkling red and green lights when they circled around the side of the barn and out of sight entirely. “No one can see us now.” His voice was low. Deep.

  And she was dissolving on the inside.

  “It’s still not a good idea,” she managed and slid out from between him and the wall of the barn behind her.

  But he still held her hand and he followed, pressing close against her back. He pushed her hair away from her neck and kissed the side of her throat. His fingers were linked with hers and he pressed them flat against her belly, still swaying slightly with the music. “Sure?”

  The only thing she was sure of at that moment was that she could feel every inch of him pressed against her, burning from her shoulder blades to her rear. She turned her head toward him and his lips grazed her ear.

  The music carried easily in the night, but she could still hear the faint sound of his breath. And heaven knew, she could feel the warmth of it. She turned her head a little more and his lips brushed over her cheek. When she tilted her head back against his chest, they found her jawline.

  She stared blindly at the stars overhead. There was a carpet of them, and they blurred together when his palm slid beneath the front of her T-shirt and pressed flat against her belly.

  He had large, calloused hands. His splayed fingers stretched from below the dip of her navel to the valley between her breasts. And oh, she longed for him to move his fingers over her. It was an acute ache inside her, centering with a ball of heat beneath his palm.

  “I haven’t wanted a woman this badly in a long time.” He pressed even closer against her and she wondered vaguely if this was what it felt like to swoon. Then his mouth slid from her jaw to cover hers. And for a mindless moment, her lips clung to his.

  When he turned her into his arms, she hauled in a fast breath. Grasping for common sense felt like trying to hold sand in a sieve. But she shook her head, pressing her hand against his chest. “We can’t.”

  His strong hands circled her hips, fingertips kneading. “Not here, I know.”

  Her head was too heavy for her neck. She let her forehead fall against his chest. He smelled of heat and sweat and smoky carnitas and the wide, wide land around them.

  And she’d never been more aroused by a scent in her life.

  “It’s not that.” It seemed to take a ridiculous amount of willpower to lift her head. To look up into his shadowy expression. “But there are reasons—”

  She broke off at the pounding of footsteps. They had only a moment to step away from each other before the two Arturos came skidding around the barn, running past them, laughing hilariously as Tomas chased them, threatening bodily harm for some transgression.

  The trio was long out of sight before either one of them moved. And then it was Ariana, who took another step away from him, tucking her thumbs in her back pockets as she stared down at the ground. Everything inside her wanted to move back into his arms. To forget her ethics and everything else but him.

  “You told me you weren’t attached,” he said.

  Genuinely surprised, she looked up at him. “I’m not! I don’t cheat. I haven’t been involved with anyone for more than a year.”

  “That’s a long dry spell,” he murmured. “Or did he break your heart?” He rubbed his thumb down her lower lip and she darn near drooled.

  But she did have ethics. Not everyone might agree or like them, but they were hers. And if she crossed the line once with him...

  So she pulled back an inch. Just enough for his hand to fall away. “I’ve never had a broken heart,” she admitted huskily. Not even after Steven and his obsession with motorcycles. But having met Jayden, she finally had some inkling of how easily it could happen.

  “Then if it’s not someone else, what’s stopping us?”

  She exhaled. She’d never ever let herself be in this position before. “I told you I was writing about the Fortunes.” She had to push the words past the constriction in her throat. Because even though that part was true, there was so much more beneath the surface that she hadn’t told him. “I shouldn’t be getting involved with you at all. Not...not like this.”

  “Try again, sweetheart. I told you the name’s pure fiction. There’s no ‘Becoming a Fortune’ for us. I thought I’d made that clear already.”

  She moistened her lips, swallowed hard for what felt like the tenth time and lifted her chin. “What if it’s not pure fiction? What if there’s actually more to your name than what your mother told you?”

  In an instant, his expression went hard. So hard that she could suddenly see the military man in him.

  “Is that what you’re hoping? That why you’re batting those big brown eyes at me, showing off your little butterfly tat? You want to seduce a story out of me?”

  He could have slapped her and not shocked her more. Her teeth clenched so tightly, she could barely manage to speak. “Is that what you really think of me, Jayden? Really?”

  He was silent for so long that she wasn’t sure he intended to respond at all. “No.” The admission was grudging. “But my mom’s the straightest shooter I’ve ever known. If she says she made up the name, then she made up the name.” His tone was inflexible. “Far as I’m concerned, the bastard who knocked her up could be alive or dead. I don’t care either way. Pretty sure my brothers feel the same.” He shoved his fingers through his hair and took a step back. The gap was only a foot and a half, maybe, but it felt so much wider. “So the sooner you take your Fortune hunting down the road and leave us the hell alone, the better.”

  She was shaking with anger, but she still winced.

  He took a few steps away from her, back toward the corner of the barn, and she could see the silhouette of him more clearly in the faint light coming from the other side. She could see the rise and fall of his shoulders as he took a deep breath.

  Then he gestured sharply with his hand. “It’s late. Time we get going.”

  She managed to keep it together as she went to thank Hector and Paloma again for their time. They were sitting together, their fingers linked, and even though she insisted they remain where they were, they both stood and accompanied Ariana and Jayden halfway back to Jayden’s pickup.

  She realized Nathan must have left with the trailer and the front loader while she and Jayden had been—

  She closed her eyes for a moment, then quickly
walked around to the passenger side of his truck and pulled open the door before he could even try.

  They drove back to the ranch in silence.

  He stopped near the house, engine running. Taking her cue, she climbed out with the bag from the hardware store and her notepad.

  He drove off the second she pushed the truck door closed again.

  Even though she could see he was only moving the truck down toward the barn where he usually parked it, she still felt like he was driving away from her.

  Rather than be caught watching, she quickly turned. The wind chimes that Jayden had bought the day before were hanging next to the door and they clinked musically as she went inside.

  There was no sign or sound of Nathan as she walked back to her borrowed bedroom, but Sugar got up from her bed in the kitchen and padded after her.

  “At least you still like me, Sugar.”

  She turned on the lamp and sat on the edge of the bed. The dog hopped up to lean against her, swiping her tongue over Ariana’s hand.

  She rubbed the dog’s silky head and looked into her dark, sightless eyes. “He never did say how you went blind. But I don’t think he’s going to tell me now, do you?”

  Sugar’s tongue came out, catching Ariana’s chin.

  “You’re a sweet girl.” Ariana pressed her face against the dog’s head for a moment. Then she got off the bed, changed into the robe hanging on the back of Deborah’s door and went down the hall to the bathroom. She heard Jayden’s footsteps on the staircase as she was hand-washing her stretchy knit cami and panties in the bathroom sink and wasn’t sure if she felt more like screaming or crying.

  She did neither, of course. No matter what he thought about her, she was under his roof. At least for one more night since he hadn’t kicked her out.

  Yet.

  The bathroom downstairs didn’t have a tub or a shower, so she made do with the washcloth and a sink full of water. She worked the comb she’d found in the medicine cabinet through her tangled hair and wove it into a long braid. She didn’t have a band to fasten it, but the braid would hold for a little while. Then she used her new travel toothbrush, rubbed lip balm on her lips and returned to the bedroom where she hung her wet things off the closet doorknob. They would both be dry long before morning. She’d washed her jeans the night before last. She figured she could stand another day in them while she figured out just how she was going to take her Fortune hunt down the road, when she was currently stuck and dependent only on Jayden’s once-good graces.