Even though it’d been a while since she’d seen that particular part of Jake’s anatomy, she knew it was worthy of a gawk or two. What Lily Rose couldn’t understand, though, was why he was here to give her even the possibility of such a gawking.
The straight-laced Jake wasn’t the sort to stand around in a barn wearing just a towel. Especially these days. He was the boss and owned the place. This looked more like a stunt he would have pulled when he was a teenager and worked on her cousins’ ranch just up the road.
“Did you see anyone when you drove up?” he asked.
Surprised that would be the first thing he’d say to her, she shook her head. It was barely 6 a.m., a little early for the ranch hands to start arriving, but they’d be there soon. “Is this your version of a casual workday outfit?”
That didn’t cause his scowl to ease up any. Of course, she hadn’t expected it would. Jake had obviously had either a bad night or an equally bad start to the morning and wouldn’t appreciate the humor. Or the wink she added to it.
“I need to get in the tack room,” he snarled. Since he was standing right next to the door, that wasn’t much of a shocker destination. “There are some clothes in there, but it’s locked.”
And she had the key. A brand-spanking-new one since this was her first week of working for Jake. A position she hadn’t exactly counted on having—and wouldn’t have for long. She was supervising the training of some champion cutting horses and was midway through that process. Since Jake had bought those particular horses from her former boss, Ian Keller, Lily Rose had followed the equine trail to Jake’s equally brand-spanking-new ranch, Sugar Hollow, named for the trail on the backside of his property.
Lily Rose pulled the key from her pocket, and Jake nearly knocked her down getting inside. She didn’t mean to watch, but it was hard to focus on anything else when Jake dropped that towel, and she got a look at his butt. He could win prize buckles with a butt like that if they gave out such awards.
“When I got out of the shower, I discovered I wasn’t alone in the house,” he grumbled as he yanked on a pair of jeans. They were dirty, muck on the bottom and probably weren’t even his, but they fit him the way jeans should fit a championship butt. “There was a naked woman in my bed.”
The little pang of jealousy bitch-slapped her before Lily Rose could stop it. It was no grand revelation that Jake had sex, and for that to happen, it required at least some level of nudity. Still, it wasn’t something that Lily Rose liked to think about.
In her mind, Jake was, well, still hers.
The proof that he wasn’t hers, though, was right in front of her. He had been mostly naked when she walked into the barn and he’d left a naked woman in his house, which was only about twenty yards away.
“Please tell me this isn’t some kind of sexual scavenger hunt,” Lily Rose said, trying to sound nonchalant.
“No.” He stretched that out a few angry syllables. “The woman is Marcie Jean Garza, and I didn’t invite her into my house or my bed. She was there when I got out of the shower.”
All right, that helped a little with the jealousy, which apparently had decided to set up residence in several of her body parts. “So, why didn’t you just ask her to leave?”
He huffed as if the answer were obvious. “Gee, why didn’t I think of that? Oh, yeah. Because it doesn’t work with Marcie. Or half the women in town who’ve decided that I’m the catch they’ve been waiting for their whole lives.”
“Well, in a way you are. The catch, I mean. To them,” she added just so he wouldn’t think she was in on that particular fishing expedition. “It isn’t every day a single guy inherits a lot of money and it brings out the barracudas.”
But that was exactly what’d happened. In the week since Lily Rose had returned to Wrangler’s Creek, she’d heard plenty of gossip about Jake and the women after him. If the gossip was right, he’d let a couple of those women “catch” him, too. So, Marcie probably wasn’t the first naked woman he’d recently had in his bed.
“Funny, though, that I wasn’t such a catch when I didn’t have the money my grandparents left me,” he grumbled on.
Oh. That. “Yeah, as a Granger I know a little about gold diggers. And, no, you didn’t try to gold-dig with me so don’t get offended. That was just sex between us.”
He didn’t disagree with that, though her family certainly had at the time. A Granger dating a ranch hand. One who’d been six years older than her at that and with a reputation for having a quick zipper on his jeans.
Now that she was twenty-seven, the age difference wasn’t such a big deal, but it had been mighty big to her brothers and male cousins when she was eighteen and Jake had been twenty-four.
“Marcie hid my clothes,” he went on. “And when I tried to get to the dresser and closet to grab something else, she would pop me with this stupid BDSM riding crop. I would have called to have her arrested, but I didn’t want it all over Wrangler’s Creek that I was running from a naked woman.”
She made a sound of agreement. In a cowboy town, that wouldn’t have been good PR for a rancher, and it would have cost him some major ribbing the next time he walked into the Longhorn Bar.
“Thank God none of the hands saw me.” Jake pulled on a white T-shirt as if the fabric were at fault for his predicament. He did the same to a mucky pair of boots. “Not a good impression for a boss to make.”
“True.” And because Lily Rose thought he could use some levity, she added, “but it gave me a nice start to the day.” She chuckled.
Jake didn’t.
He looked at her, meeting her eyes with those scorching baby blues, and it caused other parts of her to scorch as well. Jake could do that to her with just a simple look. Or touch. Actually, he could manage it just by breathing.
“This can’t happen,” he said.
Too bad she knew what he meant. Probably because he’d already spelled it out for her the day she’d arrived with the horses. He had a rule about getting involved with people who worked for him. Since his other employees were four male ranch hands and Jake was straight, the rule was meant solely for her.
Sometimes, rules sucked.
Hormones didn’t give a rat’s toot about rules. At least her hormones didn’t. They only wanted hot naked cowboys, especially if that particular cowboy was Jake. It didn’t help that she had made some pretty incredible memories with him. Nope. Because she had rules about that sort of thing, too. In her case, it was a rule she’d learned the hard way. No sleeping around with the boss.
She gave a dismissive wave of her hand to respond to his this can’t happen and tried to appear focused on work. She needed to get in the tack room so she could drop off her supply bag. Normally, that would have been a start to getting her mind on work and leaving to check on the horses, but she went through the doorway at the exact moment Jake was coming out.
His chest brushed against hers.
The zing of heat was so fast and intense that it could have qualified as foreplay. Jake must have noticed it as well because when their eyes met again, she saw all the things he didn’t want her to see.
Mainly lust.
But there was some profanity mixed in with it.
This would have been a good time to mention that she’d had a bad experience sleeping with the boss. A good time to mention, too, that she was coming off a relationship and didn’t do rebounds well. Not with men anyway. Chocolate and binge-watching TV were the cure for that.
At least that was what she kept telling herself.
It was getting harder and harder to make herself believe it when Jake lingered there, almost touching her. His mouth almost close enough to kiss. Those almosts felt like foreplay, too.
There were plenty of reasons for her to move away from him. For one thing, she really did need to get to work, and for another, there was also the
sound of some vehicles in front of Jake’s house. Probably the ranch hands. No way did Lily Rose want the hands seeing her and their boss in a semi-intimate position.
“Woohoo!” someone called out. “Jake?”
Crud, it was Marcie. Jake’s profanity, however, was much worse than hers, and he cursed out loud.
Lily Rose went to move away from him so she could give him time to tell Marcie to get lost, but he took hold of her arm, anchoring Lily Rose in place. Again, more foreplay because the front of his zipper brushed in the general region of hers. It didn’t help that he hadn’t fully zipped up when he’d put on the spare jeans.
“Jake?” Marcie was much closer now, and it only took a few seconds for her to come into the barn. “There you are...” But her words sort of died on her lips when her attention landed on the two of them standing so close together.
It took Lily Rose a moment to figure out the exact reason for the word-dying, but then she noticed what was going on. Jake still had hold of her wrist, but his hand was now in the vicinity of her lower stomach. He was also leaning in, his mouth hovering just a couple of inches from hers. It looked as if they were about to kiss.
“Play along,” Jake whispered.
Ah, this was so Marcie wouldn’t come after him for more riding crop games. Since Marcie was indeed aggressive along with being generous with her womanly parts, Lily Rose could indeed play along.
She kissed Jake.
In hindsight, that probably wasn’t what he’d been expecting her to do. He had probably just planned on faking the kiss. He went stiff, all of him, even his hand, and since it was still in her panty region, she almost got an accidental orgasm.
“Oh,” Marcie said, sounding not at all happy about what she was seeing.
But Marcie’s disapproval was an itty bitty drop in a big ol’ bucket compared to the voice Lily Rose heard next.
Lawson, Lily Rose’s brother.
The mean, mule-headed one.
And he wasn’t alone. Her cousin, Garrett, was on one side of Lawson. Her ex-boss, Ian, on the other side.
Lawson cursed, and his profanity was even worse than Jake’s had been. It cast doubts on Jake’s IQ and his paternity, and Lawson, Garrett and Ian followed that with similar questions they all asked at the same exact time.
“What the hell are you doing with my sister?” Lawson asked.
“What the hell are you doing with my cousin?” That from Garrett.
But Ian’s was the loudest voice of them all. “What the hell are you doing with my girlfriend?”
CHAPTER TWO
BY TRYING TO avoid one pitfall—Marcie—Jake had ended up stepping in something he shouldn’t have had his boots anywhere near.
Lily Rose.
Great day in the morning. Lily Rose and he always created a swath of trouble whenever they were together, and that swath had apparently led these four right to the barn.
Jake checked his watch—yeah, it was only six-thirty—and because of the hour, he decided to go on the defensive. “It’s a little early for a visit,” he said.
But he kept his tone as friendly as he could manage since he had to do business with Garrett and Lawson. Plus, on most days he liked them.
Not this day, though.
Garrett’s brother, Roman, owned the ranch, but Garrett, their sister, Sophie, and Lawson were the ones who ran it. They were also Jake’s former bosses and people he needed so he could keep a steady supply of livestock. No way did he want to piss them off.
Ian was a different story.
Jake would like very much to start some pissing off with him.
“Why are you here?” Jake snapped. “And since when are you Lily Rose’s boyfriend?”
That was the real question, and even though Jake had heard rumblings that Ian and Lily Rose had been involved months ago, that was a far cry from slapping the girlfriend label on her.
None of his visitors got a chance to answer. That’s because Lily Rose stepped forward, folded her arms over her chest and managed to look even more riled than all of them put together.
“None of your business,” Lily Rose said to Lawson, obviously answering his question of what the hell Jake was doing with his sister.
“None of your business,” she repeated to Garrett.
“And it’s really none of your business,” she snarled to Ian.
Marcie scurried away, probably so she could text every human in the tri-state area and let them know that Jake was carrying on with Lily Rose and that her brother, cousin and yet-to-be-determined boyfriend wanted to pulverize him for it.
“If you don’t mind, and even if you do,” Lily Rose added to the men, “I’m going to check on the horses.” Huffing and grumbling something under her breath that Jake didn’t catch, she headed out the back side of the barn.
All of them watched her leave. Garrett and Lawson, probably because they were considering going after her. Ian looked at her—specifically her butt—with lust. Jake had some thoughts like that about her, too, and he hoped her brother and cousin didn’t notice.
They did.
Jake drew in a long stream of air that he figured he’d need to start this explanation. “Yes, I remember the talk we had about your sister being hands off,” he said to Lawson. “And nothing happened. She’s hands off. What you saw wasn’t what you saw.”
He probably should have rehearsed what he was going to say. Probably should have made sure his jeans were zipped, too, but Jake didn’t realize they weren’t until he glanced down in that area.
“What I saw was two people who’ve always had a thing for each other,” Garrett added. “A thing that shouldn’t have happened because of this dirthead.” He hiked his thumb in Ian’s direction.
“Hey!” Ian protested. “You don’t know what happened between Lily Rose and me.”
“I know she arrived at the Granger ranch all upset,” Garrett answered just as quickly.
“Because I sold the horses she’d been training, but that was just business. Lily Rose knows that.”
It might be business to Ian, but Jake had seen her with the horses. That wasn’t her job. It was her life. He knew that because he felt the same way about the ranch he now owned.
“I’ll deal with you later.” Lawson aimed that snarled threat at Ian, but he directed his glare at Jake. “Lily Rose was grumpy at breakfast this morning, said it had nothing to do with the dirthead so Garrett and I drove over to have a little chat with you to see what was going on. We didn’t know the dirthead would be here.”
“Hey!” Ian repeated. “Hold off on the name-calling. Lily Rose and I had a falling out, but now I’m here to patch things up with her.”
They all turned to scowl at Ian. He was an easy target since no one liked him much. Well, no one but women. Ian’s rock-star looks often made women forget the fact that he was an asshole. Of course, they didn’t forget it for long.
Lily Rose was proof of that.
“I’m going to find Lily Rose and talk to her,” Ian said to no one in particular, and headed out the way she’d left.
Jake considered stopping him. Considered punching him, too. Because if what he’d heard about Ian giving Lily Rose a heart-stomping was true, then her ex-boss deserved a wallop or two. That still might happen, but first he needed to smooth things over with the Granger men.
“I’ve had some trouble with women lately,” Jake explained. “Not that kind of trouble,” he added when Lawson and Garrett glanced at his crotch. “It’s just women keep pestering me, and that’s not pestering in a good way. I can’t get any work done. They sneak into my house and my truck. I can’t go into town without one of them throwing herself at me.”
“Marcie?” Garrett asked.
Jake nodded. “And that’s why Lily Rose was kissing me, to get Marcie off my scent.�
�
Well, that was part of why Lily Rose had kissed him. The other part, the one that had caused some stirrings behind his zipper, was because of the attraction. Garrett and Lawson weren’t fools so they’d no doubt sensed it. Seen it, too, because that kiss had involved a little tongue.
Lawson and Garrett exchanged glances. “So, you’re faking a relationship with a woman who works for you?” Garrett said.
“A woman too young for you,” Lawson added, “who’s just coming out of a bad relationship with a dirthead jerk?”
“Yeah, pretty much.” But when they put it like that, Jake could see flaws the size of Texas in his off-the-cuff plan.
Lawson had a follow-up question. “Are you the reason Lily Rose was crying this morning?”
Hell. Crying? This was the first Jake was hearing about it, and he honestly didn’t know if he was the reason or not. “I told her yesterday that there couldn’t be anything between us, but she didn’t seem upset. In fact, she agreed.”
Both Garrett and Lawson huffed. “Lily Rose would agree to a root canal without painkillers if you asked her. She’s a smart woman, but her brain turns to mush whenever she’s around you. That’s why it’s up to you to make sure nothing starts up between you two again.”
Jake hadn’t known for sure about the brain-mush part. Probably because he had a similar problem when it came to Lily Rose. But there appeared to be something else happening here. Yes, Garrett and Lawson were on the protective side, but this seemed above and beyond the call of genetic responsibility.
“Is there something going on with Lily Rose?” Jake came out and asked.
Garrett and Lawson gave each other an uneasy look. Not a good thing. Because it made Jake anxious, too. “Ian didn’t knock her up, did he?” Because if he had, Jake was indeed going to beat the crap out of him.
“No,” Lawson answered, and he paused. “Ian broke off things with Lily Rose months ago. The only reason she continued working for him was because of the horses.”
“Then, why the hell does Ian still think she’s his girlfriend?”
Those Texas Nights Page 28
