by Lila Ashe
“Oh.” He was right. “Yeah.”
Bonnie stepped back and rubbed her arms, grateful for the night air chilling her skin, cooling her.
“I’ll follow you in two minutes,” Caz said.
He wasn’t touching her anymore, but the way he stood there, the way his chest still rose and fell—she’d done that to him. And he was the reason she felt the way she did now, as if flames were licking at her undercarriage. She was a VW on the highway, burning to its magnesium core. “No,” Bonnie said, pressing her hands to her cheeks. “You go first. I’ll follow you.” She needed another minute to pull herself together and cool herself off.
Or another couple of years.
Caz gave one nod. He didn’t kiss her again. He didn’t say another word; he just turned on his heel and yanked open the heavy station door.
Bonnie sank down in the chair he’d been occupying when she came out. She reached down and picked up some of the wood shavings at her feet. They were softer than she’d expected, and lighter.
Spilling them from hand to hand, Bonnie breathed. She was sunk. Completely. She had a thing for Caz Lloyd, the stubborn cowboy, the only one of her coworkers she would have voted off the island just a month ago.
Good grief. She touched her lips with a thin shaving. Her skin was tender from the scratch of his stubble.
She had more than just a thing. She was headed down a steep hill on two wheels, speeding up too fast. There was more than a small chance she was going to wreck, head over handlebars.
At least she’d be flying when she went.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lying in the dorm in the dark, Caz counted the ways he was screwed. One by one, he ran through the reasons he had to break the date that he’d suggested like they were bills in the folder on the ranch desk.
Reason Number One: Bonnie was his coworker. He did not date coworkers. Ever.
Addendum to Reason Number One: But wasn’t there a time for everything? Shouldn’t Caz be more flexible? Right? Wasn’t that what people were always saying? Besides, it wasn’t like they worked that much with each other. No more than ten days a month. That wasn’t bad.
Caz heard the dorm door’s click. Either one of the firefighters had gotten up to use the john or it was Bonnie, coming back to bed. Caz didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he heard the soft shush-shush of her slippers coming off. He heard the rustle of her sheets being pulled back. His hearing had never been so sharp—he could practically hear her eyelashes blinking.
Reason Number Two: Bonnie was too fun. He didn’t date fun women. Fun women didn’t tell you the truth. They lied about their feelings. They lied about what they were going to do, what they wanted to do, what they would do. Caz liked blunt women who verged on rude, the ones who might hurt a guy’s feelings, sure, but the ones who told the truth. You always knew where you were with them. They wouldn’t run away and never come back.
Addendum to Reason Number Two: Fun was surprisingly, astonishingly sexy.
Caz heard another rustle. Had she just turned over in bed? Was she facing him on the other side of the partition? If the wall weren’t there, would she throw her leg over his and lie there, face to face, until he had to kiss her to stop his heart from doing that weird jumping thing it did whenever she was near him?
Reason Number Three: Was it three? He’d lost track somewhere. But he knew what it was. It was the real reason he couldn’t actually date Bonnie, the real reason he was an ass for even considering it, and a bigger ass for suggesting it to her. The real reason he couldn’t date Bonnie Maddern was that she was too good for him. She deserved more than just a guy who was trying to make it through every day the best he could. She deserved someone who was already put together, not someone who was barely keeping control of the reins. Bonnie didn’t know what it was like to wish your own father was dead. A good man didn’t wish for that, even if his father was trapped in a hell he couldn’t get out of. A good son didn’t take a job that kept him away from his own home 48 hours at a time. A good son wasn’t grateful for mandated overtime.
Addendum to Reason Number Three: Blank. Caz came up blank.
A pillow-thump. That’s what that sound was. He knew it because he’d tossed his own pillow around on the bed at least six times since he got under the sheets. Nothing was comfortable. Caz knew what would be comfortable, though. Pulling Bonnie’s length against his own body as they lay in a bed that was big enough to hold them both, a bed bigger than either of these tiny twin beds they were lying in now, alone…
Heat rushed through him again, the thought of her body making him so hard it actually hurt. He forced himself to lie still. Were her ears straining to hear him the same way his were?
Okay, “comfortable” might not be the first thing that came to mind when he thought about holding her body against his.
Hot. Wet. Gorgeous.
Comfortable was for later, for after, for when she was flushed and spent and happy, resting against his shoulder as their sweat dried under the fan that slowly rotated above his bed.
Caz rolled away from facing the wall.
From facing her.
Asking her out had been a stupid thing to do, almost as stupid as imagining her lying there on the other side of the wall. He bet she was already asleep. He bet Bonnie had barely given him another thought before drifting off into dreams.
At least, he hoped that was true. And he wished for one more thing: that her dreams were sweet.
She deserved that.
He should break the date. Take it back. There were so many reasons…
Then Caz rolled back to face the wall, knowing the very last thing in the world he’d ever do was break the date he’d made with Bonnie.
He pressed his palm flat against the partition and kept it there.
Then he slept.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
She arrived in a dress. Standing at the cottage window Caz could see past the big house and down to the driveway. Hot damn if Bonnie Maddern didn’t ride up on her bicycle wearing a short red dress.
A lot of people, when they rode bikes, looked as if they were trying to reclaim their youth. Caz suspected he looked that way on his, just a guy trying to be a kid again. But in that red dress, Bonnie looked all woman as she rode up the driveway. He could see the muscles in her legs as she stepped off the bike, and he spent a split second lost in regret that she knew how to dismount without flipping up her skirt accidentally. She’d even worn low heels, some strappy black sandal things that looked sure to get caught in the spokes of a wheel but apparently hadn’t. From her rear pannier, she took out a bottle of wine. Wine. At the house. How long had it been since he’d allowed himself a glass when he was home? Being home was so much like being at work—being repeatedly torn from sleep to care for someone who needed his help—that he rarely had even a beer after coming in from the barn.
Empty handed except for the wine bottle, Bonnie approached the front door of the big house.
No. Not there! He’d forgotten to…Caz raced out the front of the cottage, waving a hand and calling to her. “Over here! Bonnie! Here!” Yeah, he sounded like a twelve-year-old with a crush on a girl on the playground. This was exactly why he didn’t ask women he dated to the ranch. He wouldn’t want a woman to meet his father—she’d be freaked out by the vacant stare, the noisy wheezing his father made, the line of drool that often hung to his father’s shirt.
Bonnie, though.
She was different.
Caz was by no means going to let himself think about what that actually meant. Neither was he going to let her go into the big house. His cottage was all she needed to see.
“Hi,” she said, thrusting the wine at him. “I brought you this.”
“Great,” he said. Awkwardly, he leaned forward and pecked her on the cheek, much like a cousin would do to another family member. Awesome. This was starting out with a bang. Unsexy cousin cheek kiss. Next he’d punch her in the shoulder and offer to let her hold a dead fish.
Bonnie, though, apparently heedless of his tension, walked into the cottage with a quick step—even in those complicated sandals—and didn’t seem to notice the awkwardness hanging between them like a pottery wind chime. She went straight to the living room’s glass windows and stared out. “You’re kidding me,” she said.
“What?” Caz looked out and saw what was always out there: the barn, the fields, a few horses, some sheep.
“You get to look at this? Every day?” When her gaze met his, her dark rosewood eyes were shining.
“Look at that,” she said. “It’s like something from a movie. The sheep, all idyllic and cute, and the horses, like you’re about to ride one.”
“I might. You never know.”
“And the barn. A red barn! Why are so many barns red?”
“Hundreds of years ago, farmers in Europe mixed linseed with milk and ferrous oxide to treat the wood.”
Bonnie stared at him. “I didn’t think you’d have an answer for that.”
He shrugged. “I know about wood.”
Bonnie blinked. “Must be nice to be able to see home from far away.”
Danged if she wasn’t right. More times than he could count, he’d come over Pine Bluff to spot the barn with relief.
Bonnie said, “You know what I look at every day from my living room?”
“No.” Suddenly, Caz very much wanted to know.
“I look at my super-overgrown lawn. My old lawnmower cost me twenty-five bucks at a yard sale, and it takes two hundred pulls to get it started. I don’t always have the patience.”
“Two hundred?” Was her penchant for exaggeration alarming or cute? He couldn’t decide.
She nodded firmly. “At least. Also from my window, I get to look at Mr. Cavanaugh’s old tighty-whities as he goes outside to get the paper. The good news is they’re not tight anymore. The bad news is they’re not white, either.”
“Your neighbor goes outside in his underwear?”
She nodded again, and then he watched the way the western sun lit the top of her blond hair till it shone gold. “I have this working theory that he’s a nudist, but he’s also very shy. I think when he’s inside his house he never wears any clothes at all. His underpants are just the bare minimum to stay legal outside.”
“What does he wear when he goes to the grocery store?”
“He gets Amazon deliveries. For everything. He might be eating cheap dog food for all I know. I’ve only ever seen him leave the house to get the paper off the lawn.”
Caz wanted to listen to her talk all night. About anything. Just as long as she kept smiling at him like that. “What about taking out the trash?”
“Done in the dead of night. I’ve never seen him roll a can in or out. They almost seem to move by themselves.” She dropped a cheeky wink at him, and Caz realized that he’d do just about anything for another one of those.
He cleared his throat. “So, I made steak.”
“You did? Already?”
“I haven’t cooked it yet.” Caz felt awkward again.
“Ah.”
“But I’m going to,” he clarified.
“I’d like that. While I’ll eat a steak pretty rare, it has to at least kiss the fire once.”
Kiss the fire. Instantly, he was distracted again. Yep, her lips were still the same, still full and sweet-looking, exactly the kind of lips any man would want to taste. And Caz would lay good money that if he kissed them again, he’d be the one on fire.
Why had he asked her here? Just so he could kiss her again?
“So.” Caz felt stupid and slow. Something about Bonnie made his blood feel thick. This date was doomed.
“So,” Bonnie said, turning so that she faced him. “When do I get to meet your dad?”
An alert shot through him like an electric buzzer wired to his spine. “How about never?”
“What? No way. That’s why I’m here.”
Caz thought she was here because when they kissed, the whole world went up in flames that neither of them could seem to put out. “You’re here for my good cooking.”
“I can get that at my mom’s house. I want to meet your dad.”
“Your own dad isn’t a cranky enough bastard for you?”
Bonnie’s smile was like sunshine breaking through clouds. “My dad? He’s the eternal optimist. Never has a bad thing to say about anyone. Ever. If you want cranky, you need to see my mother before her first three cups of coffee.”
“So that’s where you get that from.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You can’t even see straight before you have your coffee.”
“Moi?” Bonnie stuck her thumb into her chest. “You must be joking. I’m Mary Sunshine when I wake up.”
“If Mary Sunshine is stuck in a thunderstorm.”
“I’m sweetness and light.”
“You’re bitter and dark, just the way you like your coffee.”
Bonnie looked surprised. “You know how I take my coffee?”
“Yeah,” he said. Whoops.
“I don’t know how you drink yours.”
“That’s because you’re a jerk,” he said lightly.
Bonnie laughed. “Wait. You don’t drink it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I know how everyone takes theirs. Guy takes three million spoons of sugar and little to no coffee. Hank is milk, no sugar. Tox is a splash of cream. You don’t drink coffee at all.”
Caz looked out the window. A low beam of late sunlight was warming the barn’s roof. “Never needed it.”
“You just wake up elated with life? With that cheerful disposition we all know and love?”
The last word fell from her lips into the room as if she’d dropped a book flat to the floor. Love. Her cheeks went pink. Caz felt all logic leave his head. There was one thing, and one thing only, that he wanted to do at that moment, and it involved a lot of his skin on hers, and very little to do with cooking steak on the back grill.
“Your dad,” she said, finally breaking the sudden electric tension between them.
“Yeah. Okay.” Caz shook his head. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Caz’s dad Tony was pretty bad off. Bonnie wasn’t shocked—by the way Caz had prepped her, she’d only have been shocked if they’d gone in the room and found a dead man—but she was taken aback by the blankness of Tony’s stare.
“Hey, Joyce,” said Caz to the small woman who was reading a book in the chair next to the window. “This is Bonnie.”
“Oh, goodness,” said Joyce, standing. Her hands fluttered to her short hair, patting it down. “Caz said someone was coming by, but I just assumed… Oh, it’s so nice to meet you.”
Bonnie wondered what Joyce had assumed. Did Caz often have women over? Was there a certain one Joyce was expecting? No one had ever said Caz was single—she’d just assumed that he was by the fact that he kissed like a man who was born to kiss her. Maybe she shouldn’t have put so much stock in that assumption.
“Is he going to cook for you?”
Caz nodded. “Just steak.”
“Oh, you’re in for a treat. His grilling is the best in the whole world.”
Bonnie had the feeling Joyce would have said that if he were making her twice-warmed concrete for dinner.
“But you want to visit with Tony. I’ll just go and put the washing in…it was nice meeting you, dear.” Joyce drifted tactfully out the door. Then she popped her head back around, as if she couldn’t help it. “Oh, it is so nice to meet you. So nice. Caz finally bringing a girl to the house. Oh!”
Caz made a noise that could only be called a groan. Bonnie swallowed her amusement and focused on the man in the bed.
He was tiny. Bonnie could tell he’d been a big man—his legs and arms were long under the light sheet, like Caz’s were, and the skin at the sides of his face, near his ears, was loose, as if it had once fit around a larger person. His eyes were open, staring at the
ceiling, and he hadn’t looked at them since they’d entered the room. He made a chewing motion with his mouth, and when he smacked his lips open and closed, Bonnie could see that he’d lost his teeth.
“He can’t wear his dentures anymore,” was all Caz said.
“Will you introduce me?”
Caz’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her, as if to weigh whether or not she was serious. “He’s not very with it. As you can see.”
Bonnie raised her eyebrows. She waited. Politely.
Caz moved forward and touched his father on the shoulder. “Dad, this is Bonnie Maddern. She’s here to meet you.” His voice was gruffer than the voice he normally used on patients at work, but Bonnie could see his touch was gentle. Carefully, Caz straightened the collar of his father’s pajamas. “He was always vain about his appearance. I know he’d hate this…” His voice trailed off.
Bonnie stepped forward and put her hand over Tony’s wrinkled one. His hand had been plucking at the sheet fitfully, but it stilled as she touched him. “Mr. Lloyd, it’s such a pleasure to meet you.”
Caz pulled up the sheet a little higher and then moved to take the blanket from the foot of the bed. Bonnie helped, unfolding it on her side, bringing it up so they could tuck it under his arms.
“It’s okay,” said Caz, as if she’d complained. “He doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s in the last stages and—”
Bonnie put her finger over her lips. “Shhh.” In a louder voice she said, “So this is the amazing father you told me about.”
Caz shot a look at her that seemed more made of confusion than anything else.
“And you’re right. He is handsome.” Bonnie tilted her head. “No, not more handsome than you are, Caz, I think you’re wrong there. I think you’re both equally good looking.”
Caz made a choking sound as Bonnie winked at him.
“Mr. Lloyd, I work with your son at the Darling Bay Fire Department. I can tell you this, we sure were lucky to get him. I’m friends with one of the people in HR, and she says that he was not only the most competent applicant, but he was the most eager to work with us. She told me that he had family in the area he wanted to be near, and now I see why. With a place like this, I can totally imagine why he’d want to be home. You’ve built a beautiful house on an amazing spread of land.” Bonnie scanned the bed to make sure she wasn’t going to hurt him or sit on his oxygen tube, and then she perched on the edge. “You don’t mind, do you? I rode all the way here on my bicycle, and it’s a good ten miles. Of course, you probably know exactly how far it is to town from here, don’t you? Caz told me you know every inch of this ranch like the back of your hand. My family, we don’t have anything like this. Do you know my parents? You might, if you ever shopped for knick knacks in the antique section of downtown. My mother owns Darling Bay Trinkets, and if you’ve ever been to her shop, I guarantee you’d remember her. Very few people forget her.”
