by Wendi Darlin
“Not that I’ve given much thought to all that,” she added with a smile that didn’t do anything to tame his inner caveman.
“Obviously.” He loved her mouth. Her lips were as soft as he’d imagined they would be before he kissed her, but he shouldn’t be thinking about that. Or what it would be like to unleash his caveman on her, but he was thinking about it alright. He had to adjust himself to relieve some of the pressure in his jeans.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever have children,” she said, bringing him back, “but it’s the way I always pictured things when I was little. So I still hold onto the dream, I guess.”
“So you do think you might marry again?” Maybe he’d had her wrong. Maybe she was ready to move on, just scared, not sure how to go about it. Who wouldn’t be?
“I don’t give remarrying a lot of thought. I guess I’m afraid of what it takes to get from where I am now to a place where I could even consider taking that step again.” She set her fork down and leaned forward, giving him a much better view than he deserved. In a lower voice she said, “There was this one guy. A cowboy. Kind of. Anyway, he was the first man since my husband who kissed me. You should have seen what I did to him.”
“What’d you do to the poor jerk?” Gavin played along, glad she didn’t hate him for what he’d done.
“I cried all over him, made him feel so bad he brought me a can of peas.”
“Sounds like you worked him over pretty good,” he said, struck again by how absolutely beautiful she was. How much he wanted to feel her body around his.
“I did. I think he would have left me alone completely, if I hadn’t hired him to spend time with me.”
“I doubt it.” He raked his teeth over his bottom lip, wondering how much of the truth he should let her know, and how much he should just keep to himself. He’d better keep his mouth shut. He couldn’t give her what she deserved, and he wouldn’t take anything from her he couldn’t give back. “I bet he would have hung around for free.”
“You think?”
“I’m pretty sure about that.” He laid his napkin beside his plate. She hadn’t started eating again, and this conversation could easily go to a place where it would be easier to lie than to tell her the truth. “You ready to learn how to rope a calf?”
“A real one?” she asked, obviously not sure she’d want to, but putting her napkin on the table anyway.
“No.” He could have kissed her for going along with the routine, or for a thousand other reasons, but that was another mistake he wouldn’t repeat.
“If I learn how to rope livestock, does that make me a cowgirl?”
“Come on.” He slid his chair away from the table and offered her his hand. “You can be whatever you want. I’ll be the one in the loin cloth.” He laughed at the confusion on her face. “Never mind. We’d better just forget I said it.”
* * * *
Gavin sat on the fence while Rebecca twirled the rope over her head, moving her wrist like he’d shown her. The calf dummy stood at the end of the corral about six feet from her, and the rope hadn’t landed anywhere near it.
“You can do this,” he called to her. “I have faith in you.” She looked good trying, but she was the worst rope handler he’d ever laid eyes on. And she was getting madder about it by the minute.
The rope twirled over her head, she released, and the loop landed around her shoulders. “Ugghh!” She stomped her boot in the dirt, sending up a cloud of dust.
He couldn’t help but laugh as she fanned the area around her face and coughed.
“Don’t laugh at me!” Her cheeks were red and streaked with dirt, her hair was damp against her skin, and she hadn’t held back any of her frustration throughout the entire lesson. “Why can’t I do this?” she yelled.
He liked this side of her as much as the rest, this unabashed display of frustration and determination. The last thing he needed was to find something else about her that turned him on. “You’re a little competitive aren’t you?”
“No!” she yelled. “I just like to be good at…everything.” She jerked the rope off her and got it going again.
“We can stop anytime you want to.” He’d told her that already, more than once, and he had a feeling her answer would be the same one she’d given him before.
“I don’t quit!” she repeated.
He pushed back his impulse to haul her off to the nearest bed, or cave, or half-private place he could find and take every drop of tension out of her. “Want me to show you again?”
“No! I’m doing what you showed me, and it doesn’t work.” He could almost see the smoke coming out her ears.
“Nobody’s ever complained about my teaching before,” he said, knowing it would rile her even more.
“Well, I’m complaining. And if I’d paid extra for this lesson I’d want my money back.”
A woman yelling at him had never been something that turned him on before, but today was another story altogether.
“Try again,” he encouraged her, doing his best to keep the laughter out of his voice and his butt glued to the fence. “This is the one.”
“You actually think I’m going to make it this time?” One hand was on her hip, the other strangled the rope she had stopped spinning.
“No. But it’s a hell of a lot of fun watching you try. Please don’t stop now.”
Her mouth set in a firm line, her eyes glared at him and she lifted her arm again. He cleared his throat in another effort to stop laughing. She spun around and sent the rope sailing through the air. Her mouth dropped open at the same time the rope settled over his shoulders and fell into place around his arms.
Gavin was too stunned to react before she jerked it, pulling it tight around him, pinning his arms to his sides. He jumped to the ground before he lost his balance and landed on his face.
“You been laughing at me cowboy?” She marched toward him, moving hand over hand along the rope.
“No, ma’am.”
She hadn’t hesitated for a second, before flipping the situation around on him. She was fighting mad one minute and ready to play the next. And for some reason that did even more for him than the yelling. More indeed. As if he needed her to do anything else.
She kicked up a cloud of dust. “You lying to me cowboy?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I don’t like liars.” Her voice was firm, but her eyes were full of mischief.
“I’ll never lie to you again,” he said, glad she had him in a position that kept him in check, even if his zipper was about to pop.
“Now that I’ve figured out this damned rope, you’d better not lie to me.”
“You planning to let me go?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” She lowered her eyes and brought them up him again. “You seem to like it.” A smile played on her lips. “Are you finished laughing?”
“Are you finished ropin’?”
She jerked the rope again. The bristles bit through his cotton shirt.
“Okay.” He held his hands up as far as they would go. “I’m done laughing.”
She threw her head back and yelled. “Ugghhh! Sorry, I just needed to get the rest of it out.”
The need to get his hands on her overrode every rational thought he could have had. “You want to untie me now?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” The smile was still there, but so was the attitude.
“Anything I can do to persuade you one way or the other? Anything at all?”
She raised her brows and looked him head to toe and back up again. “I do kind of have the advantage here don’t I?”
Wherever she was going with this, he was going to like it.
“Don’t I?” She lifted the rope, her hand wound around it, ready to yank it again.
“I am completely at your mercy.” His focus fell between her breasts. The top button of her blouse had come loose and revealed a deeper valley of silky skin than the one that had already fried his brain. “Anything you say, but if you don�
�t fix your shirt I won’t be able to concentrate on a damn thing.”
“Say uncle,” she said, reaching for the button below the one that was already undone.
“Uncle.” Uncle. Uncle. Uncle.
“Say ‘you’re the best darned rope slinger out of South Carolina.’”
He laughed.
“Say it!” She slid the button halfway through the hole and held her thumb behind it.
“You’re the best darned rope slinger out of South Carolina.” He cocked his brow at her. “And if you take that shirt off again I will wrestle you to the ground and show you just how dirty a cowboy can get.”
Rebecca turned her back to him and glanced over her shoulder. “I’ll let you go this time.”
Instead of loosening the rope, she dropped it and sauntered away. With his first few strides, the rope grew slack enough for him to throw it over his head. He ran the next couple of steps, grabbed her from behind, spun her around. Before she had time to react, he slung her over his shoulder. With every stride her hands bumped the pocket of his jeans.
“Watch what you’re playing with back there,” he said, his voice not gruff enough to be convincing. Next he knew, she had two-handed grip on one of his butt cheeks. He bent over and planted her feet on the ground. She gave him a half-hearted shove and a whole-hearted grin, her blouse open to the bottom of her ribs.
“You’re kind of fun,” she said, every trace of anger gone except for the color in her cheeks.
“So are you and sexy as hell, but I don’t think I ever want to make you mad.”
“Let’s go back to my place, get some water and sit in the shade for a while,” she said, taking him by the arm.
He stopped her, holding her wrist in one hand and tracing a line down her chest with the other. Her heart beat hard beneath his fingers, as he dipped into the valley between her breasts. Color rose beneath her silky skin and the faint scent of perfume rose from the heat of her. He longed to cover her with his mouth, feel her burn beneath his tongue. Her breasts rose on her staggered breath and his groin tightened. “I can’t keep my hands off you, if you’re going to play with me like this,” he said, dipping his lips to her collarbone. “You know that.”
“Yesterday I had a weak moment. A couple of weak moments.” She licked her lips and stepped closer. “I think yelling at you today made me feel a little stronger, and I like it much better when your hands are on me.”
The caveman in him was already swinging his club, but the man his mother raised couldn’t help but believe this was her real moment of weakness. One that would bring more tears than the last.
“As much as I want to believe you, I think you’re overheated,” he said softly, pulling her blouse together and slipping the buttons into place. He brushed her lips with his but backed away when she responded.
“Come to my cabin?” she asked.
“Tell you what, I’ll meet you there in a little while.” He hoped the finger he ran beneath her chin would soften the blow, but the way her spine stiffened told him it hadn’t.
“Women actually pay to be treated this way?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And you think they like it?” She marched away. “This sucks donkey dong,” she threw over her shoulder.
Gavin would have laughed if he didn’t so wholeheartedly feel her frustration.
* * * *
“What do you make of that?” Marge moved far enough away from her window that Clayton could see outside. Rebecca stormed toward her cabin, her blouse open to the waist. Gavin stood at the corral, hands on his hips.
He laughed. “There’s some unadulterated frustration. They both look ready to blow.”
“You think he’ll have sex with her?”
Clayton shook his head. “No way. He may as well deed this place to the county. Now, you and I have some secrets to spill.”
“You’re not serious about this are you?”
“I’m beyond serious. Truth or Truth. I’ll go first.”
“Isn’t it Truth or Dare?”
“Dares are for people too chicken to tell the truth. You and I are brave souls, and nothing we share will leave this room. He held out his little finger. Come on, pinky swear.”
She hooked her pinky with his and followed him over to the loveseat. Her heart pumped heat to her skin and perspiration sprang from her armpits. The truth was something she could never tell, not in its entirety, anyway. But maybe this was just the opportunity she needed to dig up the dirt Chet wanted her to find.
“Have you ever done anything sexual with anyone here at the ranch?” Flames practically leapt from her skin, she’d never asked a man a question as personal as that. Not even Harold. She made love to Harold in near silence. His secrets were his, and she didn’t really want to know anything he did when he wasn’t with her.
Clayton’s grin spread across his face and lit his eyes. “Going for the good stuff right off the bat, are you? Okay, yes.”
“You have?” She hadn’t expected him to be that honest with her.
“What? You want details?” He threw his head back and laughed. “I don’t kiss and tell, at least not without changing names to protect the not-so-innocent.”
“How many guests have you,” she steadied her breath, “slept with?”
“Guests?” He put his hand on her arm. “Sweetheart, I’ve never touched a guest. Women aren’t exactly my type.”
Her cheeks felt as if they’d been scalded, and she clamped a hand over her mouth. “Oh.”
Clayton laughed. “My lord! You’ve never been around a gay man before have you?”
She could only shake her head. She had been shocked to learn Elton John was going to marry a man. Her mind just didn’t register the possibility. Even with men who were decidedly feminine, she didn’t make assumptions.
“I thought you had me pegged. After you told me about Harold, I didn’t even try to pretend you were here to fall in love. Oh, girlfriend. Have I shocked your panties off or what? Look at you!”
She shook her head again, remembering the way he’d looked at Garrett when she’d met the foal. “I just didn’t…I didn’t think about it.”
“Well, now that my cat’s out of the bag, you’ve got some major spilling to do. I want the dirtiest dirt you’ve got.”
* * * *
Every member of the band at the back of the barn was wearing a checkered shirt, the same getup they wore every week. Playing the same music. Teaching the same calls. Gavin focused on Rebecca instead.
Walking away from her had been the last thing he wanted to do, but it wouldn’t have done any good to combine her moment of weakness with one of his own. He didn’t want to be the man who proved to her what his species was capable of. There would be plenty lining up to do that.
The thought of a bunch of horn dogs getting their hands on her body without giving a damn about the woman inside pissed him off. But who she slept with would be her decision. She was smart enough to know what she was doing, or she would be once she got her head in the game. It wasn’t his job to protect her anyway.
“Now when you do-si-do, the caller instructed, you’ll move forward, pass your partner’s right shoulder, slide back to back, then step back to pass left shoulders. Then face to face again. Ladies, both hands on your skirt, swing it back and forth. Move your right hand forward when you pass the cowboy’s right shoulder, then left for left. Everybody ready to give it a try?”
The fiddler slid his bow across the strings and the band started up.
“This is kind of hokey,” Rebecca said, leaning toward his ear. “No offense.”
“It’s meant to be hokey.” He answered. “I told you everything here is fabricated, and generally tailored for an older crowd. See what I’ve been saving you from?”
She looped her arm through his. “Can you save me now?”
“Come on.” He led her out of the barn and into the fading late afternoon light. “What would you like to do?”
“I don’t know.” She wrinkled her nose. “But I�
��d rather ride a mechanical bull than square dance.”
“We have one of those.” Not one that was available to the guests, but she’d asked for it. Almost. And he didn’t give a damn. He’d rather hear Garrett bitch for a month than stand in on another square dance lesson.
“You do not!” The glimmer in her eye made her even more beautiful, and he loved the way it caught him off guard every time, surprising him with how she could go from gorgeous to off the charts with that one little spark.
“It’s in the employee rec room,” he said. “We have to keep them busy so they don’t slip off the ranch every night and show up late for work the next morning.”
“Can we ride it?” Her voice rose in excitement, her Southern accent more apparent and just as sexy as ever.
“You know I’m not supposed to take you there.” Garrett was going to have a cow. They kept guests as far away from the bunkhouses as possible. If they didn’t, the fantasy would be shot to hell and back. Then again, Rebecca had never gone for the fantasy crap anyway. He was trying to rationalize the irrational and he knew it.
“When’s a little rule ever stopped you before?” she asked.
“You’re a wagonload of trouble, but you make a good point,” he said. Besides, it was probably better to take her there than anywhere else he could think of.
The rec room was decorated like a country-western saloon, a very nice one thanks to Garrett’s eye for detail and authenticity. A full bar lined the back wall, and the rest of the place housed a jukebox, pool tables, dartboards, worn leather club chairs, and right in the middle of the floor, a mechanical bull with a deep pool of straw spread around its base.
“Yee Haa!” Rebecca squealed, running over to climb on it. “I’ve never done this before, and I hate to admit it, but I’m dying to try.” Her excitement was infectious.
“The idea is to get a good grip,” Gavin explained. “Keep your right hand in front of your face. When the bull goes forward you go back. Find your rhythm and stay centered on the animal. Once you start to slide to either side, you’re in trouble.”
