by Em Petrova
A small splash met her ears and a second later she felt another wet cloth dribbling water over her throat.
“My uncle passed—an accident—and all his land and stock were sold off. My father took it as a chance to drill into me that life should be devoted to ranchin’ and hard work, so I sort of lost sight of the things I loved and the dreams I had. Until recently.”
She eased the cloth down from her eyes to peek at him. “What do you mean?”
“Dickson pays me for use of Blackwater. And for…” He broke off.
“For?”
“For helping you learn the ropes.”
“Oh. I figured.” She had, in the back of her mind somewhere. But it still smarted to hear that King got paid to spend time with her.
“Don’t do that. Don’t ruffle up like a bird trying to fight something away from her nest. It’s true that I took you on for the money, Bellarose. But that ain’t why I’d keep you.”
Shock hit her. She yanked the cloth off her face all the way, staring at him. Her heart tripped faster and faster.
He looked away and swallowed hard enough that she saw the lump bob up and down his throat. “I shouldn’t say things like that.”
Yes, he should say more things like that. All the things like that. Because she needed to hear them, and all of a sudden she realized why.
She wasn’t falling for King—she had fallen. The reason she felt so at peace wasn’t only his comfortable cabin but knowing he was in the next room and at any moment could come back and kiss her. That she woke up early without complaint these past days because she was so eager to see him. Couldn’t wait to set eyes on his handsome face and hard body, to walk up and slip her hands into his jeans pockets and press her cheek to his cotton shirt.
She nibbled her lips, wondering how to voice all this, especially when she didn’t know what to do about any of it. Their lives were so different. But were they too different to make a relationship work?
“Anyway, it looks like I’ll have some cash for a thoroughbred if that’s what I want.”
Rolling with the change of topic, she met his gaze. “Have you changed your mind?”
“Nah, but it’s a dream. Not reality.” His stare intensified on her, and she got a feeling he wasn’t only talking about horses.
* * * * *
What had he been thinking to slip up and let his feelings show? King wasn’t one to voice emotions, never had been. He’d been a gruff little boy who’d turned into a gruffer man.
But he’d meant every word.
He would keep her. Hell, he wanted to have the right to touch her, kiss her, look at her beautiful face every day of his life.
To wipe his brain clean of the sentiment, he took the washcloth and splashed her.
Water hit square between her eyes, and her jaw dropped. “You! Why, you!” She pushed to a sitting position and must have forgotten her painful burn as she cupped water and tossed it up and over the side of the tub, hitting him in the chest.
“Ahh, I could use the refreshment.”
She splashed him again and then he wrung out the cloth over the top of her head. Her red hair darkened with wetness to a rich auburn.
“I once had a horse the same color as your hair when it’s wet.”
“Now you’re calling me a horse? I’ve never seen this side of you, King!” She went in for more water, but he caught her wrist and pinned it in his grip. Then slowly, he brought it to his lips. Kissing away the water droplets that did taste of vinegar but her flesh was soft and pliant heaven beneath his lips.
She let out a sigh as he worked upward to the crease of her elbow. He slid off the commode to his knees, landing in a puddle that wet his jeans. Ignoring it, he ducked his head to capture one rose-colored nipple in his mouth.
As he pulled on it softly, she relaxed again and shivered at his touch. He tweaked her other nipple and grazed his teeth over the one in his mouth. It strained on his tongue and she moaned.
“King.” His name came out as a breathy shiver. “Take me to bed again. If you can’t stand to look at me, throw a pillow over my face.”
Drawing back, he pierced her in his gaze. “Darlin’, only thing I couldn’t stand is to look away from you.”
There he went again, talking like somebody in one of her movies. But he couldn’t help it.
Her eyes were soft with longing, and he helped her out of the tub. She dried off, just patting at the sorest parts, and then he carried her to bed.
Where she belonged, dammit. For all their days, not just until Redemption Falls was finished filming.
Chapter Ten
“Uncle King!” Sierra came running the minute she spotted him. With brown curls flying, she skidded to a stop at his feet. He laughed and picked her up, holding her at eye level so her legs dangled.
“Look how tall you’ve gotten. What has your momma been feeding ya?” he asked.
She giggled. “I’m not that tall!”
“Oh. This tall?” He lowered her in midair an inch.
“No!”
“How ’bout this tall?” He dropped her a few inches, and she squealed.
“Yes, I’m that tall now!”
Laughing, he set her on the ground and sure enough, she actually was taller since he’d seen her a week ago. He ruffled her hair. “Where’s your momma?”
“Feedin’ chickens. Want me to get her?”
“Nah, I’ll find her. See if I can sneak up and surprise her.”
Sierra nodded vigorously, her grin missing a tooth or two. “Do it.”
“I’m waiting on Daddy to come outside so we can work with my pony.”
“Make sure and heed him now, you hear? I’ll be back in a minute.”
She nodded again, and King took off toward the chicken coop around the barn closer to the house. The setup Rachel and Johnny had wasn’t a big working ranch but more of a family homestead with animals they tended and used for their needs while each had a job outside the home. Sometimes King wondered if it would be better to not eat, sleep and breathe ranchin’ the way he did. Then maybe he’d have more.
More what?
More of something to offer a wife.
Pulling his lips tight over his teeth, he glanced around the coop and saw his sister not paying attention to anything but the clucking of the hens as she sprinkled food for them. She hummed softly and the naughty boy in King rose up.
He jumped out and yelled.
She leaped two feet into the air, kicking as she landed. She dropped the feed bucket, which had the hens in a frenzy as they descended on it.
“Oh my God, King. I see you haven’t grown up in thirty-five years!”
He smiled but damn… he was thirty-five and, from the information he’d gathered off the internet recently, Bellarose was ten years his junior. A woman like her seemed ageless, and he’d been shocked to find out how young she really was.
“King?” Rachel saw into him as always.
He bent to rescue the feed bucket from the vultures at their feet. “Sorry, just zoned out a minute.”
She eyed him. “We both know you’re lying. You never leave the ranch during daylight hours unless it’s for an auction or a funeral. I know there isn’t an auction or Johnny would have mentioned it. So who died?”
He chuckled. “Nobody. Can’t I just pop in on my sister?”
“Of course. You’re always welcome. But… Oh.” She pressed her fingertips to her lips. “Is this about Bellarose? Has she left you?”
“You make me sound so enchanting, it’s a wonder she hasn’t. But no.” Not yet, anyway.
“So what’s going on? You came and found me alone for a reason, King.”
“That’s true.” He leaned against the wooden post of the fence housing the chickens. Trying to put his thoughts into words was bad enough, but he needed to find a way to voice his fears too.
“King, you’re worrying me.” She took a step closer.
“It is Bellarose.”
“Did you have a fight?” she as
ked gently.
“Nothing like that. In fact, things couldn’t be better. Except she’s been busy recovering from a bad sunburn and now filming the past couple days.”
“So you haven’t seen her.”
“I have a bit. But I looked her up.”
Rachel stared at him a minute. “On the internet?”
He nodded, glancing at his worn boots coated in mud.
“What about that has you upset? You didn’t realize her career is so big, did you?”
He shook his head. “That and I found stories about her. Stalking claims and other things she hasn’t talked about. It’s as if those things don’t matter, and in her world, they’re so everyday, that she doesn’t think twice about it. While to me…” He’d wanted to break his phone after seeing those reports, then lock her up in his house to keep safe forever.
“It can’t be easy for her even if she doesn’t discuss it. She is probably more private because of her lifestyle.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” She didn’t say a lot about what they had together, but the way she looked at him—when she worked at his side, after a hard day of training with the horses… when she was coming apart for him—had him thinking she might be feeling something.
Something along the lines of what he was.
At that moment, Sierra called out. They turned to see her on the back of Lollipop. Johnny had hold of the lead, keeping the frisky pony in check while they trained it to be ridden. King raised a hand into the air in greeting and Rachel waved both hands madly. After they watched the happy trio move past, King and Rachel turned back to each other.
His sister’s brows pinched. “What else did you find? Bellarose’s past engagement to Jett?”
“She told me about that, but I did read some.”
“All right. I know what you’re thinking, King, and you have to stop it immediately.”
He arched a brow. “What is it you think’s on my mind?”
“That you don’t deserve a woman like Bellarose. That you’re not savvy, you don’t know films or music or designer clothes. And you can’t figure out what she sees in you.”
“That much is true.”
“You think this’ll be over when filming wraps up,” she said.
“Thought of that too. But I never expected anything else. She has a life to return to.”
“You never expected another outcome, but your heart wants it.”
Dammit. She’d honed in on the root of his troubles.
“She’s only twenty-five years old,” he said.
“You didn’t know that?”
He shook his head, feeling he was wearing a ten-gallon hat full of stupid.
“What does it matter if you’re older? Women are more mature anyway,” Rachel said with all the self-importance she had growing up.
That roused a chuckle to the edge of his lips. “You always did have a way of putting a man in his place.”
“Of course. How do you think I keep Johnny on track?” She giggled and then sobered as she stared up at King. “Really, if you think about how you and Bellarose connect, does the fact that she lives in Hollywood and walks the Red Carpet and is plagued by fans and stalkers really affect how you feel about her? She’s still the same woman even when mucking out the barn with you.”
That was true. It didn’t exactly settle his mind, but he felt some of the tension leave his shoulders.
“It’s just that… I don’t know how to be with that other side of her life. This is all new to her, and she’s smitten with it. The land, the animals, the work. But that can’t last.”
She looked at him hard as if hearing what he wasn’t saying, which was that he and Bellarose couldn’t last. Tipping her head, she said, “Who’s to say that she hasn’t just been introduced to a new world—and found she loves it?”
He brought his fist to his mouth, mulling it over.
Rachel lay a hand on his arm. “King. I think you’re feeling worried because you don’t want to lose her. You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “I am.”
Until that moment, he hadn’t allowed himself to consider it was the reason he was so excited to start each day, knowing he’d see her working or to work with her himself. That he couldn’t wait to sneak some alone time.
For once, his entire life wasn’t the ranch.
It was Bellarose.
Sierra went by again, this time at a slow trot. “Hi, Mom! Hi, Uncle King!”
They shared a look that told him Rachel wasn’t finished with their topic of conversation. Pushing away from the fencepost, he went to the gate and let his sister out first, latching it behind him.
When they caught up to Sierra and her father, the pony had stopped completely to crop grass, using its lips to pull it up from the roots while Sierra giggled nonstop at its naughty behavior.
“Gotta stop that now,” King said, taking up a hold beneath its jaw. “C’mon, girl. Get on.” The pony moved forward, and King instructed his niece on how to handle her if she tried it again.
“Can I do it by myself, Uncle King?”
Somehow, giving her riding instructions felt a lot like what he did with Bellarose.
He released the horse and waved a hand. “Take her up to that fence and back. Don’t let her get stroppy and run now. If she does, put on the brakes like your daddy showed you.”
“It sounds like Lollipop is a car!”
“Sorta is. Let’s see what you can do now.” He stood back and watched her go. Her parents drifted up to his side too.
“Lookin’ good. You’ve done a lot of work with her,” he said to his brother-in-law.
Johnny gave him a smile. “Praise coming from someone like you?”
“Hell, I’m just any other rancher. I just happen to know a lot about horses. You will by the time you get that girl raised,” King said, watching her go slowly across the field.
Johnny slid his arm around Rachel and pulled her against his side. “That’s good because we’ll have more experience once the new little one comes along.”
King stared at each of them. “You mean…”
Rachel nodded, a grin on her face and a hand over her belly. “Due by Christmas.”
“That’s great news. I’m so happy for you both. Guess you’d best start saving for another pony now.”
“Seems like. Boy or girl, I’m sure they’ll want a horse.” Johnny beamed.
Looking at them, King couldn’t help but wonder if he was letting his life pass by. Without a wife and children to share it with, did it still have meaning? After all, his uncle had passed alone, suddenly, and his ranch and everything he had went to auction. King was treading the same path.
But now he was faced with loving a woman who he probably could never have and she’d certainly never tie herself to him. And once she finished filming and left Washington, he’d be left with pain and torment and bittersweet memories of what they’d once shared.
A lump rose in his throat, and it wasn’t from watching Sierra return on Lollipop, handling it expertly, at least for a six-year-old.
When the girl drew the pony to a halt before them all, a grin plastered across her face, King gave her a smile. “Great work, punkin. I’d best be off.”
“Stay for lunch. We can talk more,” Rachel said.
“Got work to do, but thanks. I’ll see y’all soon. Congratulations on the little one.”
“What little one?” Sierra asked.
As he left, he heard some discussion taking place and realized they probably hadn’t told the child yet she was about to have a new sibling. He tugged his hat over his eyes and got into his truck, heading back to his ranch, thinking of nothing but the woman he hoped to spend a bit more time with.
* * * * *
When Bellarose quietly closed the door of King’s cabin, she looked around. He wasn’t in the living space, but she had never seen him lounging on the sofa or leafing through one of the western magazines there. Those were all staged by the crew,
and the things he read were in a messy stack in his bathroom—supply magazines and auction pamphlets.
“King?” she called out.
He emerged from the kitchen, a towel in his hands and surprise on his rugged features. “Bellarose.”
As she stared at the man, her heart gave a pitter-patter that she’d only ever read as script details or in novels. She’d never felt that particular organ do a dance just from seeing a man.
Now here he was, and she couldn’t find the words to tell him that he’d become much more to her than instructor or even friend.
He twitched his head toward the kitchen. “Making barbecue pork and vegetables. Want some?”
She laughed. “I know it’s a microwave meal, but even so, no thank you.”
“Come have a drink then.”
The house was silent, and she was glad to step out of the beating sun for a bit and away from the noise of the film crew.
She followed King to the kitchen and took up a stool while he pulled the meal in a plastic tray from the microwave. It smelled like cafeteria food, but she didn’t say anything.
“Can I get you some tea?” he asked.
“Water is fine.”
He set a bottle on the counter before her and stood across from her with his meal and a fork in the barbecue, but he didn’t raise it to his lips. “Seems like you’ve got something on your mind.” His dark brows were touching, angled downward over his eyes.
Whatever he thought she was about to say, his worry was clear.
“King.” She climbed off the stool and circled the countertop to him. Then without a care as to who could come inside and catch them hugging, she slipped her arms around his neck.
He brought a palm to her spine and then relaxed in her hold, catching her up in both arms and lowering his face to her hair. “Haven’t seen much of you these past days.”
“No, and I’m sorry. We had some catching up to do after my sunburn faded.”
He drew back to study her face, and the look alone plucked at chords of desire in her. She needed to be in his bed tonight.
“Your face does look a lot better,” he said.
She chuckled. “My assistant said what saved me from peeling was the vinegar. So thank you for that.”
