Nelson's Brand

by Diana Palmer

  Kaylee stopped unbuckling Amber’s shoulder harness to stare at him. “You rented only one room?”

  “Yep.”

  Her heart hammered against her rib cage. “There weren’t any more available?”

  “I don’t know how many they had available,” he answered, sounding so darned unconcerned she wanted to throttle him. “I didn’t ask.”

  When he moved to get out of the truck, she took hold of his arm to stop him. “You want to give me a reason for not getting the second room?” she asked, doing her best to keep her voice level.

  The feel of Colt’s rock-hard muscles beneath his red shirt sent a tingle arrowing up her arm. She immediately let go of his bicep to rub her palm on her jeans-clad thigh.

  For the first time since getting back into the truck, Colt looked uncertain. “I don’t like having to admit this, but I’m probably going to need your help tonight and in the morning.”

  “With your sling?” Kaylee asked, surprised that he’d admit needing assistance with anything. Because of her training she knew he probably did have trouble trying to put the restraint on with one hand, but she could help him without them spending the night in the same room.

  He nodded. “I have a hard time getting it adjusted.” He looked thoroughly disgusted. “Trying to get it comfortable is a pain in the—”

  Kaylee loudly cleared her throat and nodded toward Amber. “She picks up certain words faster than others.”

  His charming grin sent a shiver straight up her spine. “I was going to say, it’s a pain in the butt.”

  “I just assumed—”

  “The worst,” he finished for her as he opened the truck door. When he walked around to open the passenger door, he smiled. “Since Morgan’s and Brant’s kids came along, we’ve all learned to watch what we say.”

  “How are your brothers?” she asked, turning to lift Amber from her car seat.

  Colt grinned. “Ornery as ever.”

  Kaylee smiled. She’d always liked Colt’s older brothers. “How many children do they have now?”

  “Morgan and his wife, Samantha, have two boys,” he said, placing his palm to her back to steer her toward their room. “Brant and Annie have one son and, if the sonogram is correct, another one on the way.”

  “H-heaven help us. Another generation of Wakefield boys,” Kaylee said, feeling as if she’d been branded by his warm touch. She quickly put distance between them.

  “Yes, but now there’s a Wakefield girl,” he said, gazing down at Amber as he fit the key card into the lock.

  Kaylee swallowed hard at the look of genuine affection on his handsome face. No matter what he felt for her, she knew for certain that he’d fallen head over heels in love with their daughter.

  Feeling guilty for keeping Amber from him, she quickly stepped into the motel room and looked around to distract herself. She was relieved to see there were two beds.

  “Which bag did you want me to bring in?” Colt asked from behind her.

  She set Amber down. “I’ll get it.”

  “No, you won’t.” He’d already turned to go back outside to the truck.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Colt,” she said, following him. “With your arm in a sling you’ll have to make two trips. I’m perfectly capable of carrying one small overnight bag. It just makes more sense—”

  When he spun around to face her, her breath caught at his deep scowl. “I may need help getting this da—dumb sling adjusted, but I’m not helpless. I’ll carry the luggage. Now, which one do you want?”

  She blew out a frustrated breath. “The red one.”

  “Wed one,” Amber repeated from behind Kaylee’s leg.

  Colt’s expression softened instantly. “Was she actually talking to me?”

  “Maybe.” He looked so hopeful, Kaylee didn’t have the heart to tell him that, like most two-year-old children, Amber parroted a lot of what she heard.

  Bending, he asked, “Do you want Daddy to get the red one, Amber?”

  Amber smiled up at him a moment before she clutched Kaylee’s leg and hid her face.

  “Did you see that?” he asked incredulously. He straightened to his full six-foot height. “She actually looked at me for a second or two before she dived for cover.”

  Kaylee could tell from his expression that the small gesture meant the world to him. “I’d say you’re making progress.”

  “It’s a start,” he agreed, opening the door to go out to the truck for their overnight bags.

  When he closed the door behind him, Kaylee scooped Amber up into her arms. “Colt may be new to this father business, but I think he’s going to be a good daddy, don’t you, sweetie?”

  To Kaylee’s astonishment, Amber stared at her for a moment then, pointing to the door, nodded as if in complete agreement.

  Sweat beaded Colt’s forehead and upper lip as he braced himself on the motel-room desk with his right hand, bent slightly forward and let his left arm dangle in front of him. Taking a deep breath, he gritted his teeth and started another set of range-of-motion exercises. He was supposed to stop after the third set, but he figured if three were good, five had to be better.

  “Colt, how many sets of those have you already completed?” Kaylee asked, walking out of the bathroom with Amber.

  “Four,” he answered without looking up.

  He’d wanted to be done with the exercises before she finished giving Amber a bath. Apparently he’d miscalculated the time it would take for the extra sets.

  Kaylee’s eyes narrowed. “You weren’t supposed to do more than three sets, were you?”

  “Nope. But three sets, twice a day just isn’t enough,” he said through gritted teeth. He took a deep breath. He hadn’t anticipated the extra exercises taking this much out of him.

  “Stop right now!”

  At the sharp rise of her voice, he stopped to look up at her. “What?”

  “By doing more than is recommended, you could do more damage,” she said, sitting Amber in the middle of the bed. Turning back to face him, she propped her hands on her shapely hips as she glared at him. “You’re just as stubborn as you always were. Are you even supposed to be in a sling yet, or should you still be wearing a Figure 8 splint?”

  “I hated that splint.” Careful to keep his shoulder in the same position, he slowly straightened. “I wore that dam—danged thing for about two weeks before I threw it away. I couldn’t manage it by myself and I was tired of asking for Morgan and Brant’s help.”

  “So you just took it upon yourself to graduate to a sling, instead of waiting for an orthopedist to say you’re ready?” She gave him a look that clearly said she thought he was a few bricks shy of a full load. “Have you been using the sling day and night, or have you been trying to go without it, too?”

  He bent his left elbow and held his arm close to his body while he tried to unsnap his shirt with his right hand. “Unless I’m taking a shower, I wear it all the time.”

  She stepped forward to help him with the snaps on his Western-style shirt. “Have you experienced any excess pain since you stopped wearing the splint?”

  “No, and I’m not having a whole lot of discomfort now.” At least, not the painful kind, he added silently.

  “Only because I stopped you,” she said sternly.

  He felt his body spring to life as her delicate fingers worked each one of the grippers open. “Would you mind telling me what you think you’re doing, Kaylee?”

  “I’m helping you take your shirt off for your shower.” When she reached the snap just above his belt buckle, she stopped to tug the tail of the garment from the waistband of his jeans.

  Her hand brushed his stomach and it felt as if a charge of electricity ran straight through him. It took everything he had in him not to groan out loud.

  “I can do this myself,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Oh, really?” She stopped to give him a withering glare. “Wasn’t it your idea to get one room because you needed my assistance?”
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  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Then stop arguing and let me help you.”

  Unsnapping his right cuff, she reached up to slide the sleeve off his shoulder. Her soft hands on his skin sent heat streaking through his veins and he found it hard to pull air into his lungs.

  “I meant…” He had to stop to clear his suddenly dry throat. “—I’d need help with the sling.”

  She ignored his protest and started to unfasten the cuff at his left wrist. “And I suppose it’s easy to get your shirt off and on by yourself.”

  Her fingertips feathered over his pulse and he had to concentrate hard on what she’d said. “I didn’t say…it was easy.”

  “Could you please tell me something?” she asked, easing his shirt off his left shoulder and down his arm.

  The room suddenly seemed warmer with his shirt off than it had with the garment on. “What’s…that?”

  “Tell me why men can’t accept help when they need it, or ask for directions when they have no idea where they’re going,” she said, draping his shirt over the desk chair.

  “We don’t—” He stopped abruptly when she brought her hands to his waist and started to work his belt through the metal buckle. “W-what are you…doing, Kaylee?”

  “You said you’d need my help,” she said, pulling the leather strap from the belt loops of his jeans. “And that’s…just what you’re going to get.”

  She sounded angry, but the hitch in her voice suggested she was as affected by helping him out of his clothes as he was by having her take them off him.

  “Kaylee—”

  He wasn’t sure what he was about to say, but he stopped short at the sound of Amber’s giggles. Turning his attention to his daughter, Colt didn’t think he’d ever seen anything as precious as her happy expression.

  “You think seeing your mommy yell at Daddy is funny?” he asked, grinning.

  Giggling delightedly, the baby grabbed the doll he’d bought her and hid behind it.

  Distracted by Amber’s laughter, it took a moment for him to realize that Kaylee was working the metal button free at his waistband. Heat shot through his veins and made a beeline straight to his groin.

  “I think…” His voice cracked like a kid going through puberty. “…I can handle it from here.”

  She gave him another one of those looks that a woman gives a man when she thinks he’s being a stubborn fool. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, I’m a trained medical professional and I’ve assisted dozens of people with their clothes.” She reached for the tab of his zipper. “Besides, we both know you’re no more attracted to me than I am to you, so it’s not an issue.”

  From the heightened color on her cheeks and the hesitation in her voice, he knew her statement that she wasn’t attracted to him was an outright lie. But at the moment, that wasn’t an immediate concern. If he didn’t stop her—and damn quick—it wouldn’t take more than another second or two and she’d see the evidence of just how alluring he found her.

  Grabbing her hand, Colt shook his head. “I said I’d take care of it.”

  “Fine.” She pointed to the chair. “Have a seat and I’ll take off your boots.”

  “I can—”

  She arched one perfect eyebrow. “How long does it take you to get them on and off by yourself?”

  “I manage,” he said defensively. He hated to admit that he struggled more with his boots than anything else.

  “Sit down and raise your foot.”

  Amused by her authoritative tone, he did as she said and lowered himself onto the chair. But his enjoyment quickly faded and his mouth went bone-dry when she turned, straddled his leg and began tugging on his boot. As she worked to remove it, her cute little rear bobbed in front of his face and sent his blood pressure into stroke range.

  He closed his eyes and tried to think of something—anything—to get his mind off of how close Kaylee was and how much he’d like to prove her theory wrong that he didn’t find her attractive. But by the time she’d removed both of his boots, Colt felt as if he had enough adrenaline pumping through his veins to bench-press a bulldozer and he was hard-pressed to suck air into his lungs.

  “Do you want help with anything else?” she asked, turning to face him.

  “No.”

  He wanted help all right, but it wasn’t the kind of aid she was offering. Rising to his feet, he quickly turned to get a change of clothes from his duffel bag before she saw the evidence of the assistance he needed.

  “After your shower I’ll put the sling back on,” she said as she picked up Amber. “Tell your daddy good-night, sweetie.”

  Grinning, Amber shook her head, hugged Kaylee around the neck and buried her little face in her mother’s shoulder.

  “At least, she’s smiling at me a little more,” Colt said, wishing Amber would allow him to hold her.

  “More progress,” Kaylee said, sounding a little less angry.

  Nodding, Colt turned to walk into the bathroom. Slowly but surely, he was winning over his daughter. Now if he could just regain the friendship he once shared with her mother, maybe they could work things out where everyone would be happy.

  Long after Kaylee and Amber had fallen asleep, Colt lay in bed thinking about what Kaylee had said while helping him with his clothes. She didn’t think he found her attractive.

  He turned his head on the pillow to look over at the woman and child sleeping peacefully in the bed next to his. The light they’d left on in the bathroom illuminated the room enough for him to make out their delicate features in the semidarkness.

  The idea that any man with a pulse wouldn’t be drawn to Kaylee like a bee to honey was so damn ludicrous it was almost laughable. She was intelligent, witty and so damn sexy that every time he was around her, he found himself fighting a constant state of arousal. Hell, he could even remember the exact moment four years ago when he’d realized that Mitch’s younger sister had grown from a skinny, bratty little kid into a beautiful, desirable woman.

  It had been a couple of weeks before her twentieth birthday and she’d met him and Mitch at the PBR event in St. Louis, just as she’d always done. But when she’d breezed into the hotel where they’d been staying, Colt had taken one look and it was as if he’d seen her for the first time. He’d suddenly found himself noticing how her silky auburn hair framed her heart-shaped face, how her violet eyes sparkled with life, and how she seemed to light up a room with her smile.

  He’d never allowed himself to act on his attraction to her, though. He hadn’t dared. If things hadn’t worked out between him and Kaylee, Colt might have lost the best friend he’d ever had. And that was something he hadn’t been willing to risk.

  But everything was different now. Mitch was gone—taken from this world way before his time. And, because of Colt’s one night of weakness, he and Kaylee had a child together.

  He closed his eyes against the guilt he still felt over the night Amber had been conceived. Due to the devastating blow they’d both suffered from losing Mitch, they’d turned to each other for emotional support. He’d been old enough to know better, and should have called a halt to it, but having Kaylee in his arms had been more temptation than he’d been able to resist. Like a damned fool, he’d allowed comfort to turn to passion and they’d ended up making love.

  Colt sighed heavily. She had every right to despise him for taking her virginity and leaving her alone with a baby to care for. God only knew he hated himself enough for what he’d done. But he didn’t think Kaylee felt that way. She might try to deny it, but he could tell the chemistry between them was just as strong, if not stronger, than it had ever been.

  Unfortunately he wasn’t sure that exploring it now, or in the future, would ever be an option for them. They had Amber to consider. And her welfare came first.

  His gaze straying to his child, Colt’s chest tightened. She looked like a cute little pixie curled up next to Kaylee, and although he’d only known about his daughter a few days, he loved her more than life itself.


  Looking back at Kaylee, a deep sense of loss twisted his gut. If they tried for more than friendship and failed, it would only complicate an already complex situation and make raising Amber together extremely difficult.

  He took a deep breath and tried to will himself to forget the idea completely. It just wasn’t a risk he could afford to take.

  But as he drifted off to sleep, Colt dreamed of holding Kaylee’s delectable body to his, of having her call his name as he brought her to the brink of ecstasy, and of a future with her that he knew he could never have.

  Chapter Four

  “Colt, is this another way to get to the Lonetree?” Kaylee asked, looking around. She’d been to the ranch several times with Mitch before he died, but they’d never used the road Colt was driving down now.

  Steering the truck around a tight curve, he grinned. “Honey, we’ve been on Lonetree land for the past fifteen minutes.”

  “I keep forgetting how big this place is,” she said, not at all surprised by his answer.

  Her family’s ranch had been a nice size, but the Lonetree was one of the largest privately owned ranches left in the United States. Most of the other ranches of comparable acreage had been sold off to corporations or divided up into smaller tracts as one generation inherited the land from another. But the Wakefield brothers had decided after their father passed on to keep the Lonetree Ranch intact and to work it together.

  “In case you’re wondering why we aren’t headed north to the homestead, it’s because I don’t live there anymore,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Kaylee swallowed hard. She’d been counting on Morgan and his wife to provide a buffer between her and Colt. “If you don’t live there, just where do you live?”

  “Two and a half years ago I decided to build my own place three miles northwest of the homestead,” he said, smiling.

  She narrowed her eyes as anger swept through her. “You purposely left that little detail out when you asked me to come here.”