I Cross My Heart

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “No need to dirty another dish.” He took the box she gave him. “I’m happy to eat right out of this.”

  “Good. Me, too. Do you take anything in your coffee?”

  “Just black.”

  She laughed. “I suppose that’s the cowboy way.”

  “It used to be, but if you look in the bunkhouse refrigerator you’ll find all kinds of flavored creamers. Cowboys have gone soft these days.”

  “Except for you.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Nothing about me is soft.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

  “Listen to you! Weren’t you the one who wanted to have a strictly platonic discussion? And now you’re bringing up the subject of your hard body, which naturally leads to thoughts of your hard—”

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” But he wasn’t, not really. He had fun teasing her. “You’re right. I’ll go into the dining room with the brownies and promise not to say anything suggestive for the next...oh, let’s say twenty minutes.”

  “We can complete our discussion in twenty minutes?”

  “I’d like to.” He exited to the dining room through the open pocket door. “Because then we can move on to other more exciting activities.”

  “Nash.”

  “What?” He set the box on the table and turned back toward the kitchen. “I meant things like checking over the property and discussing repairs. That kind of exciting.”

  “Sure you did.” She came in carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. “I’m having flashbacks to high school when I used to hear you and your buddies in the halls bragging about your...attributes.”

  “They bragged.” He fought to keep from laughing. “I didn’t have to.”

  “Oh, my God. You must need a wheelbarrow to carry around that ego.”

  “Let’s just say that my athletic cup had to be custom-made.” That was a complete lie, but he managed to tell it with a straight face.

  “It did not.” She set down the mugs at their respective places and peered at him. “Did it?”

  He started to laugh. “No, it didn’t. I told you earlier that I’m standard-issue.”

  “I would disagree with that claim.”

  “You would?” He was male enough to enjoy hearing that.

  “Now you’re fishing.”

  “Can’t blame me for that. You’re my first in many moons. It’s nice to hear that I’ve still got what it takes.”

  She gazed at him thoughtfully. “How many moons?”

  “Well, I’d have to count, but I haven’t had sex with anyone since Lindsay.”

  Her eyes widened. “How long have you been divorced?”

  “Technically, about twenty-four hours. But I left Sacramento last August. The legal process dragged on for months, but the relationship ended last summer.”

  “And you haven’t dated anyone since you came back?”

  He shook his head. “I wanted to give myself some time.”

  “I wish I’d known.” She blew out a breath. “I mean, you’re Nash Bledsoe. Naturally I assumed that you’d come back here and pick up where you left off.”

  “First of all, those women are all married now, and second of all, why do you wish you’d known?”

  “I would have thought twice about having sex with you, in case you might attach too much importance to it.”

  That stung, even though he understood why she’d said it. She was a psychologist, after all. “I’m not an emotional cripple who needs coddling, Bethany. When I went into that bedroom with you, I knew the score. You’ll be gone next week. In some ways, that makes you the perfect rebound woman. You can help me get my groove back without any complications.” He sounded extremely convincing, if he did say so himself.

  She seemed taken aback. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, but that makes perfect sense.” She sounded almost disappointed, though.

  Interesting. “I told you I’d considered the ramifications.”

  “So you did. And you have a plan to propose.”

  “I do.” He moved to her chair. “Have a seat. Let’s find out if my persuasive abilities extend beyond the bedroom.” He helped her into her chair and walked around to his.

  “This feels like a business meeting.”

  “That’s because it is.” He sat down and picked up his mug of coffee.

  “I’ve never done business with a man who’s seen me naked.”

  He smiled at her over the rim of his mug. “That only serves to make the deal more interesting.”

  “You’re a man of many roles—cowboy, handyman, deal maker.”

  “Don’t forget superlative lover.”

  “As if I could. I don’t know if I can talk business with someone who gets my panties wet.”

  He almost choked on his coffee. He swallowed the hot liquid and stared at her. “Now?”

  “Of course. I’m like one of Pavlov’s dogs. You give me that special glance and, whoosh, my panties are wet.”

  “I probably shouldn’t be happy about that, but I am. I might have had that effect on other women, but they’ve never told me.”

  “Trust me, Nash, you’ve had that effect on other women. I can guarantee it. For whatever reason, they were too proud or too shy to let you know. I’m not too proud or too shy, although normally I can be both. It must be the multiple orgasms that have loosened my tongue, along with every other muscle in my body. You’re better than a deep tissue massage, my friend.”

  He allowed himself to bask in the admiration shining in her gray eyes. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. And although I can’t imagine doing business with someone who’s recently had his head between my thighs and his mouth on my hoo-ha, I’m dying of curiosity about this deal of yours.”

  He grinned at her. How could he do anything else when she was so completely adorable? He hoped she’d go for the concept, but if not, he’d had an unforgettable experience being here tonight.

  He took another sip of his coffee and considered how best to broach the subject. In the end he decided on simplicity. “I want to buy the Triple G.”

  She blinked. Clearly this wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. “Oh.”

  Now that it was on the table, his heart thudded with anxiety. He wanted this more than he’d realized. “I don’t have a big down payment, but if you require more than I have, I may be able to borrow some from Jack. There are programs for first-time homebuyers and I should qualify. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. I’ll figure out the money part.”

  “I’m not worried about—”

  “If you sold to me, you wouldn’t have to be so concerned about how the property appears to a prospective buyer. I know how it looks, and I don’t care. It’s a nice size for starting out, and it abuts the Last Chance, which belongs to one of my best friends. The location is awesome for me.”

  “So you’d live here?” The idea seemed to bewilder her.

  “That’s generally what a person does when they buy a place, unless it’s strictly for investment. I want to live here. I want to build it back up, get horses, maybe a goat or two, and—”

  “A goat?”

  “Sure. There’s this one goat at the Last Chance named Hornswaggled, although we all call him Horny. He’s an amazing animal. If we have a horse that’s acting up, we put Horny in the stall for a few days, and the horse settles right down. He has a special friend named Doozie, a mare that Gabe bought, but he’s a calming influence on all the horses. Yep, I’d definitely invest in at least one goat.”

  She continued to stare off into space, as if she couldn’t comprehend having him buy this place. And yet she’d been planning to sell it all along, so it couldn’t be the idea of selling that had her so distracted. No, it had to be the idea of selling it to him.

  Although he still wasn’t sorry about
having sex with her, he had a tiny regret that he hadn’t mentioned the possibility of buying the ranch before they’d walked into her bedroom. He’d been about to say something when she’d taken the bull by the horns and admitted to craving his body. Some guys might have managed to refuse that offer, but he hadn’t.

  Besides, rejecting her sexual advances would have hurt his cause, not helped it. A spurned woman wasn’t likely to sell her home with generous terms to the guy who had spurned her. No, the thing that had landed him in this mess was easy to identify.

  Toward the end of dinner, they’d both announced they had confessions to make. Being a courteous cowboy, he’d allowed her to go first. Once she’d confessed her interest in him, he couldn’t very well change the subject and offer to buy her ranch. That confession had been shoved to the back burner.

  He’d hoped it hadn’t been removed from the stove altogether, but he had to face that possibility. Before dinner, he’d been just a guy with an unspoken desire to buy her place. Now he was the guy who’d given her four orgasms in her childhood bedroom. Selling the ranch to him carried a lot more emotional baggage, and he had to accept responsibility for loading up the suitcases.

  “I realize you will have to think about this,” he said.

  She nodded and finally she met his gaze. “Yes, I will.”

  “I’d like to give you all the time in the world, but neither of us has a lot of time.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “I don’t want to pressure you, but whichever way you go will affect how I approach the repairs and whether I do any at all, so I really can’t start until you decide.”

  She considered that for a moment. Finally she nodded. “So if you’re buying the place, we’re no longer employer and employee. You won’t need to worry about repairs because you’ll do them later to suit you.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But if no one knows about our arrangement, you can continue to come over here each night whether you’re fixing the place or not.”

  He hesitated. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead, but yes, I could, if that’s what you want.”

  “After what happened in that bedroom? A girl would have to be crazy in the head not to want more of that kind of action.”

  He should be flattered, but he had an uneasy feeling about the direction the conversation was taking. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. This is a devilishly clever scheme, Nash. You’ve set it up so that I can either accept you as a buyer and have a fantastic lover for six nights, or reject your offer and pay you handyman wages while hoping there’s time for a quick roll in the hay between carpentry jobs.”

  He stared at her and then he looked away, upset with himself for not realizing how his offer could be seen as coercion. “I swear I didn’t intend to use sex as leverage.”

  “I believe you,” she said gently. “But whether you intended to or not, it works out that way, doesn’t it?”

  He blew out a breath and tried to think how to salvage the situation. “It doesn’t have to. I’ll find you a handyman. He won’t have to know that he’s working for a bestselling author. I’ll get someone who can work during the day. Then everything can be separated out. Whether you sell to me or not is up to you. Whether we have sex is up to you. No catch-22 involved.”

  She gazed at him. “You’ll give up income if you bring in someone else.”

  “I know. Can’t be helped. I won’t put you in a position where you feel you have to sell to me.”

  “If this other handyman makes the place look amazing, he could raise the value beyond your price point.”

  “I’ll take that chance.” He hated the thought that came to him next, but he knew it had to be said. “In fact, we can’t have sex anymore, either. Although I wouldn’t mean to soften you up so you’ll sell to me, it could turn out that way. I don’t want you to think back to this sale and wonder if your judgment had been affected by all that good loving.”

  “So you’re prepared to give up income and fantastic sex on the slight chance that accepting either of those things would jeopardize your chances of buying the Triple G.”

  He nodded. Damn, this week wasn’t going to be any fun at all.

  “I’m impressed with your ethics, Nash.” She picked a brownie out of the box. “Please, help yourself.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” A brownie was a poor substitute for six nights in her bed, but it was a safer bet. He took a moist chocolate square and bit into it while avoiding watching Bethany eat hers. Inevitably he’d be turned on if he did, and that wasn’t a good idea now that he’d sworn off having sex with her ever again.

  She finished her brownie and dusted off her hands. “Has it occurred to you that by not having sex with me, you might tip the scales the other way?”

  He swallowed his last bite. “How so?”

  “You gave me a taste of your manly charms, and now you’re proposing to withdraw those charms.”

  He groaned. “Are you saying I can’t win?”

  “No. I’m saying we have a complicated little deal going on here, and we both need time to think it through. Tell you what. I’ll get a real estate agent out here tomorrow, before anyone does anything to the place beyond the flowers I put out and whatever cleaning I do inside the house.”

  “If you call Morgan Chance, don’t tell her you’re thinking of selling to me. I’d rather nobody knows that just yet.”

  “Who’s Morgan? I take it she’s connected to the family, but I don’t remember hearing her name before.”

  “She’s Gabe’s wife. She has an office in Shoshone, so she could get here quicker than someone from Jackson. And she’s good.”

  “Then I’ll call her. Come back tomorrow night and I’ll tell you what she says. Then you’ll have a figure to work with.”

  “You could text me the figure.”

  “I know.”

  “Bethany, you tempt me like no other woman ever has. And so—”

  “I do?”

  “Yes, so if I have to swear off having sex with you, I’d rather not meet face-to-face anymore. It’s easier that way.”

  She smiled. “Like no other woman? Nash, you must have had lots of women in your bed.”

  “A few.”

  “Don’t be modest. I’ve heard the rumors. I don’t understand why I would affect you this way. Maybe it’s because you were unhappy in your marriage, plus your abstinence these past months, because I’m not that special.”

  “You’re extremely special, but that doesn’t explain my reaction. You’re beautiful, but I admit I’ve been with beautiful women before. There’s something about you—the way you move, the way you smell, the sound of your voice—the total package jacks me up something fierce. So text me, okay?”

  She shook her head. “I want you to come over. Neither one of us should be kept dangling this week. I’ll let you know my decision tomorrow night, and we can take it from there.”

  He studied her while he tried to figure out what she was saying. In the end, he couldn’t. “What do you mean by take it from there?”

  “If I decide to sell you the ranch, we can have sex. If I decide not to sell you the ranch, we can have sex. In other words, once the decision is made, we can have sex.”

  “Oh.” His cock twitched. He cared which decision she made, of course. He cared a whole hell of a lot. But either way, he’d be assured of another night with her. Six more nights, in fact, unless he loused this up somehow. “I can live with that.”

  “Good. Now go home before I jump your bones.”

  “I need to load up that chair first.”

  “No, leave it. I sort of like looking at it now.”

  “Why?”

  “Ever since I set fire to that recliner, my life has become a lot more interesting.”

  “Mine
, too.” He stood and grabbed his hat from the back of a chair. “See you tomorrow night. What time?”

  “Make it eight. I don’t want to waste time on dinner.”

  He sucked in a breath as his cock responded further.

  “See you later, cowboy.”

  Not trusting himself to stay another second, he walked out of the house, down the porch steps and over to his truck. The fire retardant he’d sprayed on this morning had dried on the black mound that used to be a recliner, and it gleamed in the moonlight. Funny how something so ugly had the power to change his life so much.

  7

  MORGAN CHANCE SHOWED UP right at ten the next morning driving a dark green SUV with mud spatters on the fenders. Bethany went out to meet her because she’d discovered the doorbell didn’t work. Besides, she wanted to take Morgan on a tour of the outbuildings before bringing her into the house.

  Although Bethany had been up early cleaning, the place still didn’t meet her standards. The outbuildings were old and dilapidated, but their appearance didn’t embarrass her the way the house did. Maybe that was because her mom had been such a neat freak and while she’d been alive, she’d kept everything scrubbed even if it was worn. Her mother would have hated for a stranger to see the neglect that had set in during the past eighteen months.

  Morgan turned out to be a buxom redhead with a great smile. A couple of car seats in the back of the SUV suggested she and Gabe had kids. Bethany was used to meeting women her age with kids because so many had them by now. She was the exception—a single lady with no children.

  Maybe she never would have kids. First she’d have to find the right guy, and so far he’d been AWOL. An image of Nash flashed into her head, but that meant nothing. Images of Nash had been interrupting her thoughts every waking moment since he’d left the night before. He was one hot dude.

  Morgan climbed out, large sunglasses perched on the bridge of her freckled nose, a purse over her shoulder and an electronic gizmo in her hand. It looked like the newest tablet, maybe even the one Bethany had been considering but hadn’t bought yet. Morgan extended her free hand and introduced herself.