by Wendi Darlin
“Yeah.” He didn’t look at her when he responded. “It shouldn’t, but it does.”
Was his ego so massive he couldn’t handle the thought of another man anywhere near the fantasy he was meant to create, or was there something more to his aversion of her thinking about her husband? “Why does it bother you?”
He sipped his wine and made eye contact again. “Because I’d like to be the only man on your mind. This week.”
“And then you’ll forget all about me and move on to your next guest. That’s not exactly fair to me.” The anger she expected didn’t come. Instead, her heart was consumed with the hollowness of loss, and her body was doused with a cold splash of reality. “So, do you think I’m going to get any better at this? I mean when I get back home, do you think I’m going to cry every time a man kisses me?”
He rounded the table and coaxed her to her feet. Standing so close to him unnerved her, made her want to be closer. Even with tears of regret still fresh in her eyes, she wanted to feel his lips, taste his tongue, lose herself in his arms again.
“I think,” he said, “when you’re with the right man, you won’t think about Todd or anyone else at all.” He moved toward the door, and already Rebecca knew if any man could do that for her it was the one walking away. The one who wasn’t supposed to be real.
“What if that man is you?” The words slipped out of her, barely audible, and she prayed he hadn’t heard them.
“I’m not that man.” He pulled his hat off the wall and opened the door. “I’ll have the kitchen send your dinner out here.”
“Don’t you want to have dinner with me?” The way she had understood the game she was supposed to be calling the shots, deciding when to spend time with him.
“Can I be honest with you now?” He thumped his hat against his thigh and looked toward the big house. “I told you I’d be whatever you needed me to be.” He brought his eyes back to her. “But I won’t be Todd, and nobody else is going to either.”
“I know you’re not Todd.” She unleashed an unsteady breath and squared her shoulders. The rules had changed too quickly for her liking, and the sting of his words fired her defenses. “But I paid you to make me fall in love, not to dismiss me.”
“You’re not going to fall in love with me.” His tone was hard, certain. The muscles in his neck tensed. “Don’t worry, I know my job. I’ll come by in the morning like you’re paying me to do. If I don’t, you can have your money back.”
He closed the door and left her more alone than she’d ever felt before.
* * * *
Gavin tied his shoes and left through the garage to avoid being seen by any of the guests. He ran along the fence line that bordered the highway and poured over the last conversation with Rebecca. He didn’t have any right to get so pissed off at her. His brain didn’t seem to be connected to his blood pressure, though. This week, his brain seemed to have disconnected itself from the rest of his body altogether.
His chest was heavy. He knew where he was going, and he didn’t want to go there. His mind didn’t care what he wanted. It took him back anyway, back to the day Taryn left. The day she told him she was in love with someone else. Relating that day to what had happened with Rebecca was ridiculous. Of course she loved her husband. Why would he care if she thought about the guy when he had her in his arms? He shouldn’t give a damn. He shouldn’t have her in his arms.
His feet pounded the trail he’d run into the grass over the years. The fenceposts zipped by faster than usual, his lungs pulled in more air than he needed, weighing him down, making it hard to let go and let the run take him away from everything he wanted to escape from. An all too familiar conversation replayed itself, a conversation he didn’t need to hear again.
“Don’t you even want to try and make this work?” he had asked her.
“I can’t.” Taryn laid her wedding band on the kitchen table and crossed her arms. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“How do you know we can’t get past this?” They had been arguing over stupid stuff more than usual, but he hadn’t been prepared for the reasons she was so unhappy. Her admission blindsided him.
“When I’m in bed with you, or kissing you, every time you touch me, I wish it was him. I pretend it’s him,” she said. “I’m in love.”
“Who is this guy?” His head spun. He hadn’t even suspected she was having an affair. “How well can you possibly even know him?”
“I’m really sorry,” she said and wiped a tear from her eye. A fucking crocodile tear. A heart could change direction alright. It could spin the fuck around in one beat.
“Why won’t you tell me who he is? How you met him? What it is about him that’s worth our marriage?” His hands had trembled, and he remembered looking at them as if they belonged to someone else. His wedding band was still on his left hand because he hadn’t accepted what she had told him. Hadn’t even had time to process it. Her bags had already been hauled away when he came home from work, but she had stayed to tell him she was leaving. How noble of her. A truck pulled into the driveway in front of their house and Ron, his oldest friend and business partner, got out.
“He needs me to sign off on a contract we worked up today. I’ll tell him to leave,” Gavin said. She reached for his arm, stopping him before he’d taken a step.
“He wanted to be here. To tell you with me.” Her hand tightened around his arm. “Don’t lose your temper.”
“Why would I?” He looked through the glass door at the man walking toward the house and then back at his wife, reading the expression on both their faces. He had never felt so stupid in his life. So betrayed. “You’re fucking Ron?” His teeth clamped down so hard he could taste the blood from the inside of his cheek. He jerked out of her grasp and started for the door.
“Gavin don’t!”
Gavin stopped running and bent over at the waist. His chest heaved. His heart pounded. Sweat poured from his face into the sand of the trail. He reached for a fencepost for support and pulled himself over to the railing until he could catch his breath. Fuck. They had really screwed him up. And Rebecca didn’t have anything to do with why he couldn’t pretend to be another man for her. Or why he could never give her what she needed.
* * * *
Rebecca washed the remnants of a long nap from her face. Her stomach growled. She probably shouldn’t have refused the dinner Gavin had sent over, but all she’d wanted to do was sleep. She ignored the familiar knock that came later. She probably shouldn’t have done that either, but she was going to play this game on her terms. Or not at all.
She ran a brush through her hair, and pulled Gavin’s sweatshirt over her head before she went outside and crossed the damp grass to the big house. The office light was on. It wasn’t ten thirty yet, so even if Garrett was still in there working, she could ask for Gavin without causing a stir.
At the window her heart stilled, then resumed with a pounding that vibrated her chest wall. Gavin was bent over his desk. His hair fell around his face. His features were drawn in concentration. He was so damned good looking her lungs burned and the last drop of irritation with him drained out of her. Not good. Really not good.
She raised her fist to the window. Just before her knuckles tapped the glass, he glanced up, saw her and smiled. Obviously the time apart had been good for him, too.
Breathe. She wiggled her fingers in a wave that brought him around the desk. He slid the window up and sat on his heels. She didn’t let her eyes linger on the denim stretched across his thighs, but every other part of him was just as appealing. Her body responded with a need that heated her through the bone.
“I have an idea,” she said, speaking before he could, determined to put things right again.
“And what would that be?” His voice was soft, his eyes softer.
“Maybe tomorrow you could treat me like every other guest. Do whatever you’d normally do, and I won’t cry or cling to you, or act psycho in any way. I promise.”
“I don’t kn
ow. I was sorta getting used to your kind of crazy.” His hand covered hers on the windowsill, reminding her how big her promises were. “I missed it so much, I came by your cabin. Guess you didn’t want to see me. Not that I blame you. I—”
“No more apologies, the peas have you covered for today.” Her heart hammered away, while her brain screamed how stupid she was for letting her body go on like that. Her peripheral caught Garrett before he stopped next to Gavin at the edge of the desk.
“Goodnight, Garrett,” she said both relieved and disappointed at the interruption. “I was just leaving.” Then to Gavin, “Want to meet me for breakfast?”
“Eight thirty?” He released her. The cool air swallowed the heat from where his hand had been.
“Okay,” she said. “Well, ‘til then, sweet dreams.”
She walked back to the cabin with her hands in the pocket of his sweatshirt, and her heart in her throat. She was lucky to have met him at the ranch. In the real world, she would have been screwed, and not in a good way.
* * * *
Gavin had time to close the window but hadn’t completely made it to his feet before Garrett confronted him.
“You gave her the peas?”
“I fucked up. I had to do something.” The kiss had been the least of his mistakes, but he wouldn’t make another one.
“Must’ve been a pretty big fuck up.” Garrett’s voice had a bite to it. “I hope it happened before the camera in her cabin was fixed.”
“Look,” Gavin said, running his hand through his hair. “Let’s just get this out in the open.” It was time to try being honest with Garrett and himself. He could never give himself to a woman like Rebecca, not one he could lose himself in so completely. He wasn’t a man who made the same mistake twice.
Garrett tapped his fingers on the corner of the desk and waited.
“I didn’t do anything more than what you saw, the one time. I know enough to keep my pants on. Even if I didn’t, she’s not ready for me or anybody else. So I apologized, and we’re good. Tomorrow’s a new day. Business as usual.”
“That easy, huh?” Deep lines carved Garrett’s brow.
“Doesn’t matter. That’s the way it is.” At least he had met her at the ranch. In the real world he would have been screwed. Royally.
“What are you going to do tomorrow to put everything back on track?” Garrett asked.
“Exactly what she asked me to do, and…”
“And what?”
“And nothing. That’s all I have to do. Pretend she’s someone I have next to nothing in common with, who doesn’t make me hard every time I look at her, and treat her like every other woman that comes through here.” The absurdity of what he said was laughable, not that he could laugh about it. He was in way over his head and despite everything he tried to convince himself of, he’d dive in even deeper if she gave him half a chance. Dumb ass. He had to get his act together. And fast.
“You’ve got it bad little brother,” Garrett said, taking a seat at his desk.
Through the window he could still see her, making her way back to the cabin. “She’ll be gone in four days and everything will be back to normal,” he said.
“And that’s the way you want things?”
“That’s exactly the way I want things.” He didn’t take his eyes from her until she disappeared inside her cabin.
“I haven’t seen you look at a woman this way since Taryn. Maybe there’s something to be said about that,” Garrett said as Gavin turned away from the window.
“Yeah, like I should be glad to wave her off at the end of the week and thank my thick head I was smarter this time.” He had a hard time believing Rebecca would be a mistake, but he would have said the same thing about his wife. He wouldn’t be that wrong again. Ever. All he needed from women he could get any time he wanted to. Marriage, love and family was a bigger fantasy than what they offered at the ranch.
“Every woman you meet shouldn’t have to pay for what Taryn did,” Garrett said.
“I can’t believe you’re telling me to make a move on a guest. You read another romance didn’t you?”
“No.” Garrett flung a pen at him. “But maybe you should read one. And I’m not telling you to do anything while she’s here. You shouldn’t even step foot in her room the way things are right now. I’m just saying she won’t be a guest forever.”
“I’m not picking that up.” Gavin motioned toward the pen on the floor. He hadn’t made it back to his side of the desk before Garrett rolled his chair across the floor and picked up the pen.
“You could see if it would be okay to contact her after she leaves.”
“No.” Gavin said automatically. “Make that hell no.”
Garrett picked up a file. “Fine. Just don’t let Taryn keep screwing everything up for you. She’s already done more of that than anyone should be allowed.”
Gavin sat down, picked up his pencil and tried to concentrate. Like that was going to happen. He held his head in his hands and closed his eyes. Less than a week ago everything had seemed so simple. He had a job to do. He told women what they wanted to hear, padded his bank account and didn’t think beyond the next seven days. Then Rebecca showed up wanting him to do what he did all the time, and he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t distance himself enough to let her have her husband back, to let another man take the credit for the way he made her feel. He’d done enough of that when he was married.
He had done it again, compared her to Taryn. She was nothing like Taryn, but she scared the hell out of him anyway. At least she was smart enough to figure out what he needed to do, just get through the next four days. He could go through the motions, keep himself locked down like always. She wouldn’t have to know anything more than that.
“I’m turning in,” he said.
“Sweet dreams,” Garrett called after him in a high-pitched southern drawl.
Gavin raised his middle finger before disappearing completely through the door.
Chapter 5
Rebecca laid her knife across her plate. The neckline of her blouse dipped low, exposing inches of lush cleavage. The silky skin of her breasts probably tasted even better than it looked. He’d love to find out, but it sure as hell wouldn’t get him out of the mess he was in.
“Are you staring at my boobs?” Her words brought his eyes back to where they were supposed to be and jerked him out of the testosterone haze he’d gotten lost in.
“Yes, ma’am.” He set his coffee mug on the table, less embarrassed than he should have been. “I forgot for a second that you’re just a guest.”
She hooked her fingers in the front of her blouse and tugged it higher, completely covering the tempting valley between her breasts. “Does this help?”
“Immensely.” He smiled. “But in all honesty I liked it better the other way.”
The dining room chimed with clinking silverware, soft laughter and hushed conversation. All the cowboys were in attendance for breakfast with their ladies, and for the first time all week everyone was where they were supposed to be.
“What are we doing after this?” she asked. At least one of them had sense enough to change the subject.
“Since you haven’t officially signed up for any of the activities, I thought I’d give you a roping lesson this morning, and join everyone for the afternoon group dance class. Then after dinner, if being a regular guest hasn’t put you to sleep, we’ll join everybody around the campfire for some cowboy poetry.”
“Sounds like a rigid schedule.”
“Of course, you’re welcome to spend as much time alone as you’d like.” He smiled at her over the rim of his cup, hoping she wouldn’t take him up on that offer even if it would make his promise to stick to the game a hell of a lot easier. He had woken up almost giddy this morning, probably from the orgasms she’d given him in his sleep. He liked being around her, looked forward to it. He could admit that much. He could admit more if he was pushed, but nobody was pushing.
“I didn’t
come all the way to Wyoming to be alone,” she said.
“Good, because I kind of like your company.” Her blouse shifted back into its previous position and derailed his thoughts again. Her smile was sweet, less flirtatious than before. She was working to make this easy and all he could do was mentally undress her. Was he really that much of an ass hound? Apparently.
“What would you do if you didn’t like my company?” she asked.
“I’d try to fake it.” He cut into his omelet. Lying to her would make more sense, paint a prettier picture of who he was, but he didn’t care to. Maybe it was better if she saw how much more importance he placed on the job than on anything real. Maybe that’s how he could do his part to make this easy between them. “Now tell me something about you that isn’t on your background check or in your reference file,” he said.
Rebecca held a speared slice of strawberry in the air. “I never fake it.” She slipped her fork into her mouth and raised one brow.
Damn. She wasn’t going to make this as easy as he’d thought. “Tell me something else.”
“I’m a total nerd with a post-graduate degree in molecular biology to prove it.”
He put his fork down and lifted his elbows to the table. He gauged her, searching for the truth.
“I’m not making that up, but don’t tell anybody else.” Her smile lit her eyes. “I’ve got an image to uphold.”
“And what about your future plans, personal goals I mean. Do you want to have a family?” Where in the hell had that come from? She was curvy and smart, so suddenly he was ready to mate. What was he, a fricken’ caveman?
She didn’t miss a beat. “Three kids, two dogs and a place in the country big enough for at least a couple of horses. But I’m not going to drive a mini-van, not even to soccer games.”
He raised his brows. He had pegged her for a career woman, never thought she’d have family in mind. Not that it was a bad thing. Family was the most important thing in the world. The only thing that mattered in the end. Maybe he could club her in the head and have one. Somebody needed to club him. Club him hard. That happily ever after bullshit was an illusion for everyone except his parents. The success of the ranch was proved that theory.
