by Merry Farmer
His hand moved to her side and up just enough so that if she wasn’t wearing her thick pea coat, he would have easily been able to cup her breast and stroke her nipple with his thumb. Her brain instantly supplied her with images of being naked and laid out for his perusal. She imagined his mouth doing to her breast what it was doing to her lips just then. The tight ache between her legs betrayed just how powerful of an imagination she had. In fact, if he had told her that he wanted to take her right there and then, up against the stable wall, she would have screamed yes.
That shocking realization brought her to her senses. She tensed and moved her arms between them, pushing against him. Scott instantly took the hint and let go of her, taking a large step back.
“Sorry,” he panted, his face a delicious, dark pink. “I got more carried away than I intended to.”
“I—” Casey stopped herself from saying she had too just in time. Her body was on fire, the blaze centering in places that it absolutely shouldn’t have, given who Scott was. “It’s okay,” she managed to squeeze out at last. “Just don’t—”
“Can I treat you to dinner?” he asked before she could warn him not to do it again.
The liquid flames of possibility lapped at her all over again. Dinner. As in dinner. A date. Scott Martin was asking her on a date. Again. Dates could be serious. Dates could end in all sorts of interesting ways. Of course, he could just want to grab a burger at the local—
“There’s a great restaurant in the hotel where I’m living right now,” he went on.
Casey’s mouth dropped open. Dinner at a restaurant under the same roof as Scott’s hotel room. A room that would be so easy to sneak up to if things went well. And considering the fact that she was dripping with needs that she hadn’t felt in years while standing in a cold stable, sneaking was all too likely to happen.
“I can’t do it until next week,” she blurted. Finally, her mind was displaying a hint of sense. She could handle eating a meal with him if she had several days to cool off and get her head in the right place for it.
Scott seemed to be working hard on cooling off too. His smile was more pleased than pleased. “Works for me. How about Wednesday?”
“Yeah, that would work.”
He blinked and raised a hand to his head. “Wait. I forgot. I’m giving a presentation to the city council about my house plans on Wednesday.”
Finally, Casey’s world flipped back to normal. The house. The bane of her existence. “Well, if you’re too busy with that, we should just cancel,” she said, a little curter than she should have.
“It’s not a big deal,” he rushed to say, holding up both his hands. “We could go for an early dinner, then you can come with me to the presentation.”
Casey opened her mouth to say no, but thought better of it. In fact, doing things that way might kill several birds with one stone. She could have her dinner with him without the fear that they’d end up horizontal for dessert. He’d probably spend the whole meal annoying her by talking about his house plans in preparation for the presentation, and if she still had any warm fuzzies for him, the presentation would probably kill them. She could get this whole thing out of her system, and if she played her cards right, she could speak up at the city council meeting and get other people to join her cause.
“Okay,” she smiled and stepped away from him. “That sounds like a perfect plan.”
“Great.” He let out a relieved breath and adjusted his glasses. “I’ll pick you up at five-thirty, then? Unless that’s too early.”
“No, that’s fine.” Casey’s smile grew as she felt more confident with her control of the situation. “It’s a date,” she said.
And it was, even if it wasn’t the kind of date Scott was expecting.
Chapter Seven
It would have been nice to have five days to relive that kiss. Scott couldn’t remember the last time a simple kiss had excited him so much, or when he had gotten so carried away. He was almost embarrassed at how enthusiastic he’d been when Casey put her arms around him, but she’d seemed as eager to ignite the flames as he had been. Thank God she pulled away when she did or he probably would have crossed the line…and lived to regret it.
Yep, it would have been nice if he could have daydreamed about the kiss and spent his every waking moment looking forward to his date with Casey. But there was the little matter of his presentation to the city council to think about.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve got all my bases covered,” he told Casey as they sat across a beautifully laid out table in a cozy corner of the Cattleman Hotel’s restaurant. An exotic orchid and a flickering candle rested on the white tablecloth between them, lending an air of possibility. And he had to go and counteract it all by saying, “I’ve got a PowerPoint presentation ready to go on my laptop, I just need to make sure the connection in whatever room the council meets in will work with my Mac.”
“I’m pretty sure the council auditorium has all the hook-ups you’ll need.” Casey responded to his nervous blabbering with a smile. A triumphant smile. It set Scott’s nerves even more on edge.
“I also put together some handouts for people who are interested,” he went on, nudging his messenger bag with his foot under the table, just to be sure it was all there. “It may not seem like it, but I’m really looking forward to giving this presentation.”
Casey’s curious smile widened. “I can see that. And I fully support your efforts.”
“Really?” Scott couldn’t believe his ears.
“To give the presentation,” Casey rushed to clarify, looking as if she’s said something terribly wrong. “I support your presentation.”
He should have known. Rather than being upset that he still hadn’t won her over to his side where the house was concerned, he relaxed into a grin. That was the Casey he was coming to know—the fighter, the tiger. Her fire was just the boost he needed.
“Of course,” he said, then reached for his after-supper, pre-presentation coffee. “I’m glad that you support me in something, at least.”
“I can be very supportive about the right causes,” she said, eyebrow flickering up, as she took a last bite of the chocolate cake she’d ordered for dessert.
“I’m intrigued.” His own eyebrow twitched and his grin turned heated. Why not get a little flirting in before standing in front of what sounded like half the population of Haskell, all of them waiting to judge a newcomer and possibly direct whatever uneasiness they had about the changes going on in their town toward him.
“Don’t worry, you really will be fine,” Casey said with such genuine goodwill that Scott was sure his thoughts had cracked through the suave exterior he was trying to put on. “You’ll say your bit, and then everyone will be able to draw their own conclusions.”
Rather than reassure him, her comment gave him the uneasy sense that she had plans to speak out in public against him. His stomach tightened. Maybe he shouldn’t be drinking acidic coffee after all.
“Uh, Casey.” He reached across the table and brushed her hand with his fingertips. “You aren’t planning to say something to the city council, are you?”
Her grin grew mysterious. “We’ll see.”
“Because this house is my dream,” he went on. It was hard to tell if she was joking, and because of that it was even harder to know if it was appropriate for him to speak to her as seriously as his instinct told him to.
Her expression flickered and her grin dropped. She pinched her lips, then let out a breath. “I know it’s your dream. But that ranch is my history. I’ll promise you this, though….” Her gaze became unfocused, and she winced at her thoughts. “I won’t try to show you up or undermine your presentation tonight. It’s just informational, after all.”
A jumble of relief and trepidation swept through Scott. It was far from a show of full support, but it was something. And he did understand where she was coming from. He would probably feel just as protective if he had land that had been in the family for so many generations. B
ut boy, he laughed to himself, he sure did pick complicated women to fall in love with.
The suggestion of love, even as a fleeting thought, left him even more off-balance. “We should probably get over to the town hall and set up,” he said quickly, almost jumping out of his seat.
“Need me to carry anything?” Casey asked, far more at ease than he was.
“Nah, I think I’ve got it.”
He’d already paid their bill, so all that was left to do was to help Casey into her coat, put his own coat on, and sling his heavy messenger bag over his shoulder. Yep, a quiet, romantic date later in the evening with plenty of time to linger over wine and chocolate would have been far more his speed, but the fact that he’d been able to convince Casey to go out with him at all was a step in the right direction.
A light snow was falling as they walked the short distance from the hotel to the town hall. Scott had fallen in love with the town hall building at first sight when he’d arrived in Haskell. It was one of the remaining original buildings, and it was a doozy. Apparently, the original Howard Haskell had decided he needed an ostentatiously grand building, like the government buildings that had been popping up in Washington DC and other prominent capitals at the time, when he designed something for his own town. To Scott’s twenty-first century eyes, the town hall looked like a quaint bit of architectural history, but to the original citizens of the town, it had probably felt like the most magnificent structure they could have imagined.
Of course, as the town had grown, the building had grown with it out of necessity. The section where Scott’s presentation would take place was at the end of one of the newer wings, as Casey explained, in an addition that had been made in the 1960s, judging by the style. Scott was expecting a conference room with a long table for the city council members. He stopped dead in the doorway when he saw what looked more like a high school auditorium.
“There you are.” Ted must have gotten there earlier and now came striding to the back of the room to greet Scott and Casey. “I thought I’d come early to see if you needed any help setting up.”
“Or maybe to be a nosey brother?” Casey needled him, crossing her arms.
“More like a concerned friend,” Ted said and turned to Scott. “She didn’t hurt you or touch you in any way that made you feel uncomfortable, did she?”
Scott wasn’t sure whether to laugh until Casey smacked her brother’s arm and said, “Shut up, wiener,” with a laugh of her own.
That was enough to take away the edge of stage-fright and propel Scott forward. “Just show me where I can hook up my laptop and I should be good from there.”
“Right this way.”
Ted gestured for Scott to follow him down the room’s center aisle to a small table that looked custom-made for people with laptops who needed to give presentations. In fact, the whole room looked like this wasn’t the first time someone had come to provide entertainment for the evening. Haskellians were already arriving and taking seats as though they were there to see a play. It put Scott’s mind at ease. Casey was right—this was just an informational presentation, after all. It was no different from running a meeting. And considering how passionate he was about the project, he was pretty sure he’d ace it.
“So as you can see from this chart,” Scott explained from the front of the room, pointing up to the projection screen, “after the initial investment in equipment, green houses like the one I have planned actually end up saving money.”
Casey sat near the back of the room, watching the entire presentation with her arms crossed, one hand resting near her chin, fingers tapping her mouth. And for once, touching her lips wasn’t taking her back to that day in the stable and that fabulous kiss.
“Yes, Mr. Chance, is it?” Scott pointed to an older man in the audience who had raised his hand.
“Travis Chance, that’s right.” Travis nodded, then pointed vaguely to the screen and Scott’s chart. “It’s all well and good that you plan to partially heat that house of yours with fireplaces, but where do you intend to get that much wood? I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to take a walk around the place, but we’re in the high prairie, son. There’s not exactly a lot of firewood trees growing around here.”
Casey’s chest tightened, and she focused on Scott. Part of her was rooting for him to have a great answer, to come off looking like he knew exactly what he was doing and had planned for every contingency, but the other part wanted him to trip up and rethink the entire plan.
“You’re right,” Scott addressed Travis. “I won’t be able to rely on local firewood. In an ideal situation, a house like this would be built near a forest, where there is an abundance of naturally-occurring firewood. I’ll have to rely on a combination of outside sources and other means of heat, partially generated by wind and solar power.”
He pointed to someone else who had their hand up. “Mrs. Bertran, yes?”
“This solar power that you say you’re going to have,” Mrs. Bertran began. “Doesn’t it take a heck of a lot of those panels to give you enough power to run a hairdryer?” A few people chuckled. Casey tapped her lips harder. “How many of those things do you plan to put out there, and won’t they become an eyesore after a while?”
Casey held her breath and glanced to Scott. That was another thing she hadn’t thought of. She liked the idea of solar panels on the buildings in town, but on her ranch? The feeling of being torn in two directions was as strong as ever. Did she want him to succeed or fail?
Scott nodded. “I understand your concern. Fortunately, the way solar panels are designed these days is a far cry from the rows and rows of free-standing panels we’ve seen in the past. True, I plan to dedicate a section of the yard to those sorts of panels, but what’s more popular and efficient these days are panels that are installed on the roof.”
“On the roof?” Mrs. Bertran balked. “Like shingles?”
“Sort of,” Scott answered slowly. “It’s a little more complicated than that, but if you were to see the house from a distance, the only thing that would distinguish it from a normal roof would be that it was shiny.”
“A shiny roof,” Mrs. Bertran half muttered to herself. “You see something new every day.”
Casey couldn’t help but smile. Mrs. Bertran was all right at the end of the day, but she sure did like to complain a lot before she reached any conclusion. Most of the assembled audience was hanging on Scott’s every word, nodding along. A few were even taking notes. It would have been completely encouraging, and she would have been gung ho about the house…if it weren’t about to be built on land that should have remained with her ranch.
And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to break her promise to Scott. She couldn’t stand up and say her piece, express her concerns, and plead for him to build somewhere else. Worse still, she felt like she was letting her own family down by not saying something. Her dad and Ted were sitting right there beside her, absorbed in what Scott was saying, willing to let a piece of their heritage go in order to support the plan, and she couldn’t do a thing to speak up and stop it.
Not that she would have known what to say in the first place. Scott had a way of growing on her. Or maybe it was his kiss that had softened her.
“How much land does it take to build one of these houses anyhow?” one of the new Paradise Space Flight employees asked. Casey craned her neck to get a better look at her, to see if she had been introduced to the woman, but she hadn’t.
“Good question, Erica.” Scott smiled at her.
A twist of jealousy stung at Casey’s stomach. Scott knew the woman? He was on a first-name basis with her? Smiling at her?
Calm down, doofus, she scolded herself before those thoughts could get any bigger. Scott’s a grown man, and the two of you don’t have anything serious going on.
Of course, that thought only made another part of her ache with longing to get very serious indeed with him.
“It depends,” Scott went on to answer the question. “I’ve seen hous
es that would qualify as mansions that are off-grid and using renewable energy. They take more of an investment and a lot more planning, of course. But a lot of the tiny houses that have gotten so popular lately can be built off-grid and using all green technology too. A lot of people think those minimalist houses are the wave of the future.”
“The future my ass.”
The audience collectively held their breath, Casey along with them, and everyone glanced to Richard Bonneville, sitting in the spot of honor in the center of the table of council members. Bonneville made no secret of the fact that he was the one responsible for the crude, muttered outburst. For the first time all evening, Casey felt Howie Four’s absence. She wasn’t the only one looking around to see if he’d come in late. But Howie wasn’t there.
Scott was the last person to turn to Bonneville, searching along the table of council members as if he knew he was one step behind the others. Casey watched him look to Ronny Bonneville first before catching on that it was Richard who spoke.
“There’s been a huge swell of interest in consolidated living, especially when it comes to housing,” Scott said, as steady as the horizon. He pushed his glasses farther up his nose, giving him the look of a brilliant academic. “I might be able to answer some of your questions or concerns about the movement, if you feel like asking.”
“The only thing I feel like,” Bonneville went on, shifting in his chair so that even sitting, his intimidating height and hawk-like nose were obvious, “is squashing this nonsense before it starts.”
The audience let out a collective hiss of curiosity. Tension filled the room, and Casey leaned forward, anxious to see how Scott would deal with Bonneville.
Scott adjusted his stance and his glasses. “What part of the nonsense do you have the most questions about?”
