Wind River Wrangler

by Lindsay McKenna

  As much as Roan wanted to tell himself that holding Shiloh was the humane thing to do, it went a lot deeper than that for him. He was protective toward her from the beginning and now he understood, in part, why. His operator’s senses had told him she was under genuine threat. And it had been proven to him. Whether he wanted to or not, Roan was emotionally invested in Shiloh because she’d turned into his embrace and wanted his arms around her. It made him feel good as a man to do that for her as a woman. And his heart felt like it was going to burst out of his chest. Rubbing the area, Roan scowled and mounted his horse. Shiloh followed suit. Each time she was a little less gawky and unsure of herself, gaining confidence in herself and her horse.

  “See that cabin?” she said, pointing in that direction. “Who lives there?”

  Roan pulled his black gelding up alongside her paint. “I do.” He saw her eyes widen enormously as she looked at him, then at the cabin, and then back at him.

  “But,” she stammered, “you live at the employee house.”

  Smiling a little, he saw the confusion in her eyes. “It’s a shell of a cabin,” he explained. “Taken me a year of working on my days off to get it this far. Would you like to ride over and see it?”

  “I’d love to,” Shiloh admitted. “It looks like it’s glowing gold in the morning sunlight. So pretty,” she sighed, giving him a warm look. “You’re a man of many surprises,” she added in a teasing tone as their horses walked beside each other through the grass.

  “What? That I’m building a cabin?”

  “Yes. This looks a lot more like you. Raw, natural. Beautiful.”

  He snorted. “Men are not beautiful.”

  She grinned broadly. “Sure, they can be beautiful.” He was to her. What he’d done for her earlier was an incredible act of kindness. Love. Love? Well, maybe she was going overboard. Roan certainly felt sorry for her and probably felt like he had to do something to help her. She saw him grimace and then shake his head. “Men are beautiful in their own way,” she proclaimed archly, enjoying his sudden chagrin.

  “You’re a writer. Can’t you come up with a better adjective than that for us?” he griped, giving her a teasing look in return. Shiloh had settled the baseball cap on her hair and it gleamed in the sunlight. Roan found himself wishing she’d wear it down all the time, understanding that long hair got in the way at times for a woman. Still, he itched to take off his gloves and tunnel his fingers through that thick, soft mass of red strands.

  Chuckling, Shiloh shrugged. “In my books, I sometimes refer to the hero as beautiful. Seen through the eyes of the heroine, who loves him, of course.”

  “Call me anything, even late for dinner, but do not ever call me beautiful.”

  Her lilting laughter surrounded him and God help him, Roan felt his heart blossom with such fierce feelings for Shiloh, it left him stunned.

  Chapter Eight

  Shiloh noticed how the large, two-story cedar cabin logs had mortar between them and she saw thick posts standing around half of it. There was a gravel driveway leading up to the cabin and a hitching post nearby. Tall cottonwoods, their leaves a spring green color and still growing out for the coming summer, surrounded the cabin on three sides. The only side that wasn’t hidden was the eastern side, the main entrance. She saw a large wooden door with a brass door knocker on it, gleaming in the sun’s rays. Everything about the cabin had a warmly old-fashioned, nineteenth-century kind of feeling except for the steeply sloped dark green tin roof. There was a two-car garage off to one side that had already been built on a concrete slab, both dark green aluminum bay doors closed. Keeping in mind that Roan had said he was building this by hand, she couldn’t help but be impressed with his workmanship.

  Halting at the hitching post, they dismounted. Roan showed her the type of knot to put through the iron ring so that she could easily pull the reins out of a knot. He didn’t think she’d want to know much about his house building. Most women couldn’t care less about something like this. And yet, Roan saw interest in her eyes as she walked at his side toward the front of the cabin.

  “Why is the roof so steep?” she asked him, gesturing upward.

  Roan stood close to her, his hands on his hips. He could smell her feminine scent and it went straight down to his lower body. Damn. “It had to be steep to force snow buildup to slide off the roof, preventing the weight of it from caving into the cabin itself. We get two or three, sometimes five feet of snow in a blizzard piling up on a roof. If it’s steep like this, the snow will slide harmlessly off, maintaining the integrity of the cabin.” Roan glanced over at her. “I don’t suppose New Yorkers get that kind of snow dumped on them?” he teased, and he couldn’t help but grin. Shiloh’s cheeks colored and her eyes sparkled as she met and held his gaze.

  “We get snow, but not like Wyoming.” She felt her heart open as he smiled. Roan didn’t do that often and it sent her heart spinning wildly with yearning. Her lips tingled just thinking about kissing this cowboy. Tearing her mind from her lower body’s wants and needs, she pointed to the large posts in concrete on the front and sides of the cabin. “What are these huge posts for?”

  “You really want to know?” Roan was having a tough time taking her seriously about the construction phase.

  She snorted. “Why wouldn’t I?” Giving him a challenging look, Shiloh added, “What? Women don’t build houses? So we shouldn’t be interested in them? Is that it, Roan?” Shiloh was half teasing and half not. She saw his cheeks grow ruddy and damn if he wasn’t blushing! Her lips twitched as she tried not to smile. “That’s it, isn’t it? I’m a woman. And because I live in New York City, I betcha think I don’t even know one end of a hammer from the other. Right?”

  Taking off his hat, Roan ran his fingers through his short hair. He wasn’t going to lie to her. “That about sums it up. Yes.” He settled the hat back on his head, enjoying the vitality in her expression. Getting Shiloh out on a horse, in the great outdoors, was working a minor miracle from Roan’s perspective.

  “At least you’re honest,” she muttered, turning away from his apologetic-looking gaze. She walked forward and placed her hand on one of the twelve-foot tall posts. Turning, she said, “This is known as a four-by-four. These types of posts are used to anchor in something pretty heavy or something you want to stand the test of time. You’d put them at the corners of walls, or in areas where you need extra load-bearing strength.” She patted the post. “And I will guess that all these posts are in prep for a wraparound porch you’re going to eventually build. Am I right?” she asked, and gave him a narrow-eyed look.

  “I’ll be damned,” Roan murmured, a slow smile hooking one corner of his mouth. “What do you know? I’ll bet you watch the DIY channel on TV. Or maybe you’ve taken some courses over at your local Home Depot store?” He saw the blaze of challenge in her green eyes, liking this feisty side to Shiloh. Who knew? With an internal groan, he forced himself to put a steel clamp on his desires for this red-headed hellion. Every time Roan discovered another facet of Shiloh, he wanted her even more. It was driving him crazy.

  Shiloh made an unhappy growling sound in her throat. She leaned against the sturdy post, her arms crossing her breasts. “Like a woman can’t know something about construction? Give me a break, Roan. You really ARE a Neanderthal throwback. I’ve handled my fair share of building things. And yes, I know which end of the hammer to use. Further, I know how to test a hammer to see if it’s made correctly. Do you?”

  Chuckling, Roan walked over to her. “I do. You stand it on its head and if the handle remains upright, it’s balanced and built properly. Well, now that I know you’re a regular contractor type, do you want to see more?”

  She smiled up at his shadowed face. “You bet I do. Building is exciting to me. It’s like writing a book: You’re building from the foundation upward and by the end of the book, your house or novel is built. Or”—she shrugged, pushing off from the post—“the story is told, lock, stock, and barrel for my readers.”

/>   Roan slid his glove beneath her elbow, guiding her around to the south side of the house. “Nice analogy,” he congratulated her. He didn’t want to drop his hand, but he forced himself to do so. “I’ve got the blueprints for the cabin inside, but you’re right, I’m going to build a wraparound porch on the north, south, and east sides of the cabin.”

  “Are you using cedar planking?” she wondered.

  He gave her a praiseworthy look. “Normally, I would. But because we get eight months of winter and the weather is very hard on wood, I’m going with Trex. It’s a composite material made of plastic and wood fibers from reclaimed and recycled resources. It helps the environment, it weathers much better than wood, and it’s cost-efficient.”

  “I’ve seen Trex,” Shiloh said, nodding. She saw the confusion in his expression. Thinking a city slicker wouldn’t know a thing about building a house. “Okay, I’m going to stop making you suffer, Roan.” She held up her hand. “I’m a yearly volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. I’ve helped build five houses over the years, working with other volunteers. That’s where I learned about construction.” She saw his gray eyes flare with an unknown emotion. His mouth softened a little.

  “You just keep surprising me, Shiloh. And here I thought as a writer you just sat eight hours a day creating.”

  She chuckled. “I do that, too, but my life isn’t one-dimensional, Roan. Never was until of late,” she said, and she grew sad. “The last six months . . . well, with this stalker, I haven’t felt safe leaving my apartment or driving out to where the next house needs to be built.” Giving him a painful shrug, Shiloh quietly admitted, “With my vivid imagination, Roan, I think this guy is going to jump out of the shadows, capture and kill me. It’s really stopped me from doing a lot of things I love to do.” She gave a flourish of her hand toward his cabin. “Like this. It’s so inspiring. I love working with raw wood. I love the smell of cedar. I love to see things come together and look beautiful after a lot of hard work.”

  Rubbing his jaw, he eyed her. Shiloh’s sadness dissolved the moment she started talking about building a house. “Well, out here, you don’t have to worry about your stalker. Not while I’m around. And maybe”—he pointed with his chin toward the cabin—“you might want to come out on my days off and help me a little. Get a hammer back in your hand?” He saw her expression blossom with joy. The woman moved and touched him in ways no woman ever had. And Roan couldn’t explain why. His body sure as hell lusted after her. But more, he liked the quality of her heart. She was a good person in a dangerous situation with that stalker.

  “I’d LOVE to do that!” she whispered, clapping her hands. “I’m REALLY good, Roan. My specialty is drywall. I love spackling and I’m VERY good at it. I know how to work with plumbing and stringing electrical wire, too. Another specialty is painting. I just love to paint. It’s so creative.”

  Scratching his jaw, Roan shook his head. “Maybe I should sit down with you here and ask you what else you do besides write best-selling books?”

  Giving him a coy look, Shiloh shook her finger at him. “Shame on you for trying to pigeonhole me as a one-note person, Roan Taggart. Everyone has many sides to them and everyone is multifaceted.” Her grin increased and she tapped his massive chest with her index finger. “Even you,” she said, and she turned around and walked up to the door and waited for him to open it for her.

  Little hellcat. But he meant it affectionately. As Roan strolled up to her and opened the door, pushing it open for her, he asked, “Are you hiding any more fiery parts to yourself that I should know about so I don’t step into it with you?”

  Laughing a little, Shiloh stepped up into the cabin. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”

  Roan followed her in. He’d gotten in all the windows and light poured into the wide-open area. Watching Shiloh, he saw her walk over to the wall, run her hand down the length of electric cable between two joists. She was testing to see how taut it was—or not. Smiling to himself, he enjoyed watching her as she saw the cabin through experienced construction eyes. Shiloh was clearly a toucher. She caressed the wood, the electric cord, the lip of the windowsill, ran knowing fingers down the caulking around the window and then knelt down, looking at the floor he’d recently installed.

  “Wow, this is gorgeous cedar,” she murmured, running her palm across the highly polished gold and reddish floor. “Beautiful job.” Roan had not laid a common floor. It was a diagonal-herringbone parquet floor. There was a diamond pattern in darker wood and cedar around the edges of it. And the wood had to be cut to just the right length and then carefully fitted. As her gaze slid across the floor, she saw it had been perfectly laid, a testament to Roan’s patience, care, and eye for detail. A perfectionist. “This parquet design is awesome,” she murmured, her voice filled with pleasure.

  Roan felt his skin tingle. He felt good being praised by Shiloh; she understood the hundreds of hours it had taken him to create the intricate diagonal herringbone design with the cedar. “Thanks.”

  She looked up, her hand flat on the warm wood floor. “Why did you pick something so intricate and demanding? You could have just laid them straight across and been done with it.”

  Roan pointed to one of the two large windows facing east. “I wanted the sunlight to come in here every morning and show the design and different grains and colors of the cedar. Artistry, I suppose,” he said, and shrugged, giving her an amused look.

  Her respect for Roan rose a thousand percent. This cabin was a testament to him. Who he really was. The side of him unseen by others. The discovery thrilled her. Shiloh knew if a house was poorly made, it meant the person was lazy and taking shortcuts. But a cabin like this, a floor like this, told her about the depth of man who was a wrangler, but so much more. “Well, it certainly is artistry,” she murmured, sliding her hand slowly across the sunlit wood. “It’s gorgeous. I’d wake up every morning, come out here with coffee, and watch the sunlight steal silently across this floor, highlighting all the wonderful colors, the wood grain.”

  Roan almost said, I want you to wake up at my side every morning, too. Where the hell had that thought, that driving need, suddenly come from? Chagrined, Roan had no idea what to say. The woman left him tongue-tied sometimes. He continued to marvel at the awe in her expression, down on her hands and knees now, moving her fingers gently across the pattern, almost reverently following it with her fingertips.

  “You know,” Shiloh murmured, sliding her fingers to the dark diamond wood design around the edges of the herringbone pattern, “you love wood. Only a person who truly felt the wood, let it speak to them, could design a floor like this.” She shook her head and twisted a look up at him. Shiloh saw warmth and pride in his gray eyes and it made her feel good. “There’s so much more to you, Roan . . .” she whispered more to herself than to him.

  He came over and crouched down in front of her, his hands hanging loosely over his knees. “Maybe we’ve both been guilty of putting each other in a labeled box?” he teased, catching her gaze, seeing her flush.

  “Touché,” Shiloh murmured. She sat up, leaning back on her booted heels, hands resting on her long, curved thighs. “Would you mind a second pair of hands here helping you on your days off? I take direction well. If I don’t know something, I’ll ask.”

  “You’re a team player,” Roan praised, feeling suddenly happy. His whole chest felt like it was expanding with an unfamiliar joy as he drowned in her dark green gaze. Her eyes reminded Roan of being deep in an evergreen forest with tiny bits of sunlight falling through the foliage like gold and diamonds.

  “I’ve always been a team person,” Shiloh murmured. When she started to get up, Roan stood, offering his hand to her. He’d taken off his gloves and they stuck out in the rear pocket of his Levi’s. She wanted to touch this man and slipped her fingers into his large, worn hand. Warmth curled up through her as his sun-darkened fingers wound around hers, gently pulling her to her feet. She saw heat flash through his narrowing gray gaze,
saw his eyes go stormy. His fingers tightened briefly around hers. He should let her go. But he wasn’t. And she wasn’t trying to pull her fingers from his. Drowning in the desire she saw in his eyes, Shiloh realized Roan wanted to kiss her. Going hot from head to toes, her body gnawed with need, Shiloh knew all she had to do was take one step forward. Roan had held her as she cried earlier. She wanted those long, strong arms around her again. The feeling of safety within his embrace tore all the darkness away from her.

  Throat growing dry, her gaze settled on his mouth. A wide, strong mouth, well defined, and she felt beyond needy for Roan. Somehow, Shiloh knew he would be a skilled lover and he would put her first, not last. And all of this transpired in a heated second strung between them. Reluctantly, he opened his fingers, allowing her to reclaim her hand. She should have stepped forward, should have taken the unspoken invitation burning in his eyes. Inwardly, Shiloh called herself an emotional coward. Why couldn’t she kiss Roan? He wanted to kiss her. She wanted to kiss him!

  Shiloh didn’t move, her hand dropping to her side. Her heart was beating so hard in her chest, he must have heard it, he was that close to her. Roan hadn’t moved, his eyes tracking her every expression, reading her, wanting her. Trying to swallow, she helplessly opened her hands and whispered, “I’m afraid, Roan. . . .” There, it was out. The truth.

  “I can see that,” he drawled.

  There was no judgment in his tone. His voice was low, mellow, and her skin reacted, desperately wanting his touch, his callused fingers gliding and discovering her. Frowning, Shiloh forced herself to look up at him. Roan deserved her courage, not her cowardice. “You wanted to kiss me.”