Stone jolted and pivoted around fast. “Johanna? You’ve been there the whole time?”
He’d assumed she’d left with his grandmother.
“I started to tell you, but you seemed...lost in thought. I was searching for the right moment to clear my throat or something, and that moment just never came.”
She’d stood there the whole time, watching him struggle to hold in his grief over his grandmother’s announcement? The roomy office suddenly felt smaller now that he was alone with Johanna. The airplane would be damn near claustrophobic as they jetted across the country with his grandmother’s pack of dogs.
“What did you need?” His voice came out chilly even to his own ears, but he had a tight rein on his emotions right now.
Johanna pulled her hand off his shoulder awkwardly. “Are you okay?”
There was a time when they hadn’t hesitated to put their hands all over each other. That time had passed. A wall stood between them now, and he had no one to blame but himself. “What do you mean?”
Her sun-kissed face flooded with compassion. “Your grandmother just told you she has terminal cancer. That has to be upsetting.”
“Of course it is. To you, too, I imagine.” The wall between him and Johanna kept him from reaching out to comfort her.
“I’m so sorry.” She twisted her fingers in front of her, the chain from the diamond horseshoe necklace dangling. “You have to know that regardless of what happened between us, I do still care about your family...and you.”
She cared about him?
What a wishy-washy word. Cared. What he felt for her was fiery, intense and, yes, even at times filled with frustrated anger that they couldn’t be together, and he couldn’t forget about her when they were apart. “You care about my family, and that’s why you agreed to my grandmother’s crazy plan.” It wasn’t that she wanted to be alone with him.
“It influenced my decision, yes.” She shuffled from dusty boot to dusty boot, drawing his attention to her long legs. “I also care about her dogs and I respect that she wants to look after their welfare. She’s an amazing woman.”
“Yes, she is.” An enormity of emotion about his grandmother’s health problems welled inside him, pain and anger combatting for dominance, both due to the grinding agony that he couldn’t fix this. Feeling powerless went against everything in his nature.
It made him rage inside all over again, and only exacerbated the frustration over months of rejection from Johanna.
Over months of missing her.
Something grouchy within him made him do the very thing guaranteed to push Johanna away. Although arguing with her felt better than being ignored.
He stepped closer, near enough to catch a whiff of hay and bluebonnets, and closed his hands over her fingers, which were gripping the necklace his grandmother had given her. Johanna’s eyes went wide, but she didn’t move away, so he pressed ahead.
Dipping his head, Stone whispered against the curve of her neck, “Do you feel sorry enough for me to do anything about it?”
She flattened a hand on his chest, finally stopping him short. But her breathing was far from steady and she still hadn’t pushed him away.
“Not anything.” Her eyes narrowed, and he knew he’d pushed her far enough for now.
He backed away and hitched a hip on the heavy oak desk he’d climbed over as a kid. His initials were still carved underneath. “You’ve come back to offer comfort. Mission complete. Thanks.”
“You’re not fooling me.” Her emerald-green eyes went from angry to sad in a revealing instant. “I know you better than anyone.”
He reached for her fist, which was still holding the necklace from his grandmother, and drew Johanna toward him until her hand rested against his heart. “Then tell me what I’m feeling right now.”
“You’re trying to get me to run by making a move on me, because I’m touching a nerve with questions about your grandmother,” she said with unerring accuracy. He never had been able to get anything past her. “You’re in pain and you don’t want me to see that.”
“I’m in pain, all right—” his eyes slid down the fine length of her curvy, toned body “—and I’m more than happy to let you see everything.”
She tugged away from him, shaking her head. “For a practiced, world-class charmer, you’re overplaying your hand.”
“But you’re not unaffected.” He slipped the necklace from her fist deftly.
Standing, he put the chain around her neck as if that had been his reason for coming closer. He brushed aside the tail of her thick braid. Her chest rose and fell faster. As he worked the clasp, he savored the satiny skin of her neck, then skimmed his fingers forward along the silvery links, settling the diamond horseshoe between her breasts. Her heartbeat fluttered against his knuckles.
“Stone, our attraction to each other was never in question,” she said bluntly, her hands clenched at her sides and her chin tipping defiantly. “Because of that attraction, we need to have ground rules for this trip.”
“Ground rules?”
She met his gaze full-on. “No more of these seduction games. If you want me to play nice, then you be nice.”
“Define nice.” He couldn’t resist teasing.
“Being truthful, polite—” Her eyes glinted like emeralds. “And above all, no games.”
“I thought your only agenda here was making sure the dogs end up in good homes.” He toyed with the diamond horseshoe, barely touching her. A little taste of Johanna went a long way.
“I can place the dogs without you,” she said confidently. “I’m agreeing to your grandmother’s plan to give her peace of mind on a broader spectrum. She wants us to make this trip together, and the only way I can manage that is if you stop with the practiced seduction moves. Be real. Be honest.”
“Fine then.” He slid the horseshoe back and forth along the chain, just over her skin, like a phantom touch. “In all honesty, I can assure you that I ache to peel off your clothes with my teeth. I burn to kiss every inch of your bared skin. And my body burns to make love to you again and again, because, hell, yes, I want to forget about what my grandmother just told me.”
He dropped the charm and waited.
She exhaled long and hard, her eyes wide. “Okay, then. I hear you, and I believe you.”
Shoving away from the desk and around her, he strutted right to the door and stopped short, waiting until she turned to look at him.
“Oh, Johanna, one last thing.” He met her gaze dead-on, her eyes as appealing as her curves. “I wanted you every bit as much before my grandmother’s announcement. This has nothing to do with me needing consolation. See you in the morning, sunshine.”
* * *
Johanna had until morning to pack her bags and get her hormones under control.
Moonlight cast a dappled path through the pine trees as she walked the gravel lane from the barn to her cabin. Her heart ached as much as her muscles after this long day. Too long.
She opened her mailbox and tugged out a handful of flyers and a pizza coupon. Laughter from vacationers rode the wind as they enjoyed a party on the back deck of the main lodge, the splash of the hot tub mingling with the trickling echo of the creek that ran behind her little hideaway house.
Since graduation from vet tech school four years ago, she’d lived in a two-bedroom cabin on the Hidden Gem Ranch, the same cabin model used by vacationers. She liked to think of it as home, but truth be told she hadn’t had a home since her parents’ trailer had burned down when she was eighteen. She’d lived in an apartment during her two years of vet tech training, thanks to a scholarship from Mariah McNair. Then Johanna had accepted a job at Hidden Gem after graduation, her girlhood crush on Stone flourishing into full-out love.
Day by day, she’d earned a living, marking time, doing a job she adored
but never putting down roots of her own, waiting on Prince Charming to pop the question. Once he did, she discovered her prince was a frog. A hot, sexy frog. But a frog nonetheless. She couldn’t blame Stone for how things shook down between them. She was the one who’d worn blinders, refusing to accept the truth until it was too late.
But with the silver chain around her neck, the diamond horseshoe cool against her skin, she could only feel the weight of impending loss, the finality of closing the book on this chapter of her life. Once Mariah died, there would be nothing left holding Johanna here. Nothing other than her tenacious attraction to Stone, but that only kept her from moving on with another man, finding a future for herself with the family she craved.
She pushed open the gate on her split rail fence. The night air carried the refrain of square-dancing music from the sound system that fed the pool area. Maybe she needed this trip away from the ranch for more reasons than she’d thought. Perhaps this wasn’t just about finding peace for Mariah, but snipping the last bonds that held her to Stone so she could move on without regrets.
She climbed the three wooden steps up to her dark log cabin, katydids buzzing a full-out Texas symphony. A creak just ahead stopped her in her tracks. She searched the railed porch, wishing she’d remembered to leave on a front light, but she hadn’t expected to come home so late. She blinked her eyes fast to better adjust to the dark and found a surprise waiting for her in one of the two rocking chairs.
Amie McNair sat with a gray tabby cat in her lap, a Siamese at her feet, both hers, soon to have feline siblings when Mariah’s pride joined them.
“Well, hey, there,” Amie drawled. “I didn’t think you would ever get home.”
What was Amie’s reason for waiting around? Was she here to talk about Mariah’s announcement? The impending loss had to be hard on the whole family. She and Amie weren’t enemies but they weren’t BFFs, either. They were more like childhood acquaintances who had almost been related. And because of that connection, she felt the need to hug this woman on what had to be one of the most difficult days of her life.
Johanna unlocked the front door and reached inside to turn on the porch light. “I worked late preparing to leave tomorrow, but I’m here now.” She let the screen door close again. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Ah, so you’re actually going through with my grandmother’s plan.” Amie swept her hand over the tabby, sending a hint of kitty dander wafting into the night air as her bracelets jingled.
Even covered in cat hair and a light sheen of perspiration, Amie was a stunner, totally gorgeous no matter what she wore. She’d been the first runner-up in the Miss Texas pageant ten years ago, reportedly the first beauty competition she’d lost since her mother had teased up her hair and sent Amie tap-dancing out on the stage at four years old. She’d tap-danced her way through puberty into bikinis and spray tans. Johanna remembered well how Amie’s mama had lived for her daughter’s wins.
Johanna settled into the cedar rocker beside Amie and the cats, reluctant to go into her cabin. Inside, she had nothing to do but pace around, unable to sleep because of this crazy, upside down day. “I don’t have a choice but to go with Stone and the dogs.”
“Sure you do.” Amie kicked off her sandals and stroked her toes over the kitty at her feet. “Tell my grandmother no, that it’s not fair to play with your life this way. You know as well as I do that you can find homes for those dogs all on your own.”
“True enough, and of course I’ve thought of that. Except any...unease...I feel doesn’t matter, not in light of what’s important to Mariah. She’s dying, Amie.” The reality of those words still stole her breath for a long, humid moment. “How can I deny her anything, even if the request is bizarre?”
Amie blinked back tears and looked away, her sleek black ponytail trailing over one shoulder. “I refuse to accept she’s going to die. The doctors will buy her enough time so she can pass away at a ripe old age.” Her throat moved with a long swallow before she looked at Johanna again, her eyes cleared of grief. “Mariah can be reasoned with...unless you don’t really want to say no.”
An ugly suspicion bloomed in Johanna’s mind. “Or is it you who wants me to walk away so your cousin loses?”
Amie’s perfectly plucked eyebrows arched upward. “That wouldn’t be very loyal of me.”
“Yet you’re not denying anything. What’s really going on?” She hated to think Amie could be so coldly calculating, but then she’d always had the sense the woman wanted more power in the family business.
The former beauty queen spread her hands. Long fingers that had once played the piano to accompany her singing now crafted high-end jewelry. “I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I want my family to take me seriously.” Her hair swished over her shoulder, the porch light catching on the gems in the Aztec design of her hair clamp. “I’m just weighing in with my thoughts on this whole ‘test’ game. This is not the way to decide the future of our family legacy.”
“What’s your test?”
“Gran hasn’t told me yet. Or Alex, either, for that matter.” Amie scrunched her nose. In frustration? Or at the smoky scent of a bonfire launching an acrid tint to the night breeze? “But after what she set up for Stone, I’m not hopeful mine will make sense. I’m just trying to protect us all.”
Johanna thumbed a knotty circle on the armrest. “How is talking to me going to accomplish that?”
“You’re the only one who has ever come close to getting through the walls Stone puts around himself. I just hope you’ll make sure he’s okay.”
Johanna sat up straighter. “Excuse me?”
“Be sure he doesn’t crack up over this.”
“Crack up? Stone? He’s rock-solid—no pun intended.”
Amie clamped Johanna’s arm in a surprisingly strong grip. “I’m worried about him, okay? He doesn’t have a support system like I do. My brother and I can tell each other everything. Stone is our family, but he’s never let himself get close to us. And I’m worried about him right now.”
There was no denying the sincerity in her voice.
“That’s really sweet of you.” Johanna felt bad for assuming the worst. “I do care about Stone, even though we can’t be together. He’s a strong man. He will grieve for Mariah—we all will—but he will haul himself through. He always does.”
Even as she said it, she couldn’t ignore a niggling voice in the back of her mind reminding her that Stone’s childhood had been very different from her own or that of his twin cousins. His grandmother had been his only bedrock of support.
Amie’s hand slid away. “Just keep what I said in mind. That’s all I ask.” Cradling her cat in her arms, she stood. “Good night and good luck with your trip.”
“Thank you...” She had a feeling she would need luck and more to get through the coming week. She needed a plan and stronger boundaries to protect her heart.
“Anytime,” Amie called over her shoulder as strolled down the steps as though she were taking a runway scene by storm, leaving her shoes behind, her other cat following her into the night.
Scooping up her junk mail, Johanna shoved to her feet. She needed to start packing now if she wanted any chance of getting to bed at a reasonable time. Not that she expected to sleep much with her brain whirling a million miles an hour.
She’d tried to make this place her own, with everything from sunflowers in the front yard to a quilted wreath on the door. Hokey? Maybe. But she’d dreamed of hokey and normal as a kid listening to the rain rattling along the tin roof of their trailer.
She pushed her way inside. The scent of freshly waxed floors and flowers greeted her, but not even a cat or dog of her own. So many times she’d wondered why she never chose a pet for herself, just took care of other people’s....
Wait.
Her nose twitched.
W
axed floors and...flowers? She didn’t have any inside, not even a floral air freshener.
Patting along the wall, she found the switch and flipped on the light. A wagon wheel chandelier splashed illumination around the room full of fat stuffed furniture in paisley patterns, a girly escape for a tomboy in a dusty, mucky profession. She spun to scan the room, her eyes landing on her shabby chic sofa.
Where a man was sprawled out asleep.
Her gaze skated from the boots on the armrest, up muscular legs in jeans, past a Diamonds in the Rough belt buckle, to broad shoulders in a blue flannel shirt. For a second, she thought Stone had followed her here. A straw cowboy hat covered the man’s face as he snored softly.
Although once she looked closer, she realized it wasn’t Stone at all. It was his near twin. His cousin Alex was asleep on her sofa, with a fistful of wild daisies on his chest.
As she saw him waiting there for her, she couldn’t help but think, Amie and Alex didn’t tell each other everything.
Three
Johanna swept the cowboy hat from Alex’s face. “What are you doing in my house?”
He peeked out of one eye lazily, scrubbed a hand over his face and yawned. Stretching, he sat up, keeping his hold on the daisies, apparently in no hurry to answer her question.
Alex rarely rushed. Yet he always seemed to get crazy amounts done. He was a fascinating individual, like all the McNairs. And while he’d been in her cabin often, she hadn’t expected to see him here tonight.
“Well?” She hitched her hands on her hips. “Do you have anything to say for yourself? I locked the door, so you’re breaking and entering.”
“As your landlord,” he drawled, his voice like Southern Comfort on the rocks, smooth with a bite. Stone spoke in more clipped, bass tones—like boulders rumbling. “I used my master key. I own the place.”
She’d known Alex as long as she’d known Stone. She’d met all of the McNairs when her father took a stable hand job here during Johanna’s third-grade year. Where Stone was the outgoing, bad-boy charmer, Alex had been the brooding, silent type, a tenacious rodeo champ even as a kid, breaking more bones by eighteen than any pro football star.
One Good Cowboy Page 3
