The Blacksmith (Foxworth Stud Ranch Book 2)

by Mia Madison

  He drives off at a clip and feeling completely hollow, I make sure the bolts are in place before heading back to my bed alone.

  Chapter SIX

  Quint

  I'm here at the forge before sun-up this time. It's still pitch black night when I stoke the fire and build it to the roaring heat I require. The temperature feels barely any different on my skin than the blood tearing around my veins. Every fucking capillary feels singed with excess heat pouring through me.

  What the fuck was I doing pulling Edie into my embrace like that? Like she's mine. Like I possess her and have the right to crush her body into me and squeeze her until her skin merges to mine. As though it could have melted straight onto me like plastic onto rock.

  The second I did it I knew it was wrong. It happened before I even realized and once she was there, her sweet and soft body pressing against my ridges, I almost shoved her back like a hot coal. But I didn't because the surge of intense desire that whipped through me was the sweetest thing I'd ever known. All I wanted was to squeeze her tighter and keep her close to me so I could inhale her powdery aroma and briefly imagine all the things I'd like to do to her.

  It was so wrong. She's way too young for me and I was out of line taking advantage of her friendship like that. But I would have given everything I own to hold her there a minute more.

  I bend forward, getting up close with the flames, feeling the dangerous heat licking at my cheeks as I tap out the metal bar into the shape I want.

  “It was just a friendly hug,” I say to the hammer. “Yeah, like fuck it was. You can tell yourself and the inanimate hunk of metal that wont answer back, but you know the truth. You want her.”

  “Quint, who are you talking to?”

  Startled, I look up and see Chloe standing there in her skintight jeans and high heeled boots.

  “No one,” I grunt. I don't like women in the forge. And especially not the boss man's daughter, wrinkling up her nose at the heat and dirt.

  “I get it, you talk to the fire for inspiration.”

  “Yeah, sometimes.”

  “I know about you creative types.

  “' Can I do for you?”

  “I need you to make me some iron bands,” she says, ever the demanding little princess. “I'm gifting Shea and Dallyce a wooden outdoor bath tub for their wedding. Don't you think that's romantic?”

  “I guess,” I grunt. What would I know about romance?

  “So I need you to make the iron circles to strapping the slats in place.”

  “Fine.”

  I could get into all sorts of discussion about the dimensions, how she's planning on waterproofing the thing, how they'll fill the tub being as this isn't 1860 and I can't imagine little Dallyce hauling hot water to fill the tub for her man. I don't however because I need to finish this task.

  I told myself I wasn't stepping foot in McDools ever again but I've already broken that promise. All I can think of is finishing the bars for Edie's windows and getting them to her. It's only been six hours since I left her and I've thought of nothing else. I'm already burning up with need to see her again.

  Chloe slaps a drawing on the worktable and turns on her heel to storm off, leaving me alone to get back to the design I'm working on. I haven't done ornate work like this since I left New York. I hope she likes it.

  Once the metal has conceded to my will and is exactly how I want, I plunge the red hot spikes into the cold water bath. I lean in to relish the hot steam rising from the water with an angry hiss. Then before they're even completely cooled, I toss the bars into the back of my truck and head into town without a word to anyone about where I'm going.

  I park outside the bar and notice the slick Caddy beside my dusty truck. Don't see cars like that around here much. Must be some big ranch owner is here, although what he might be doing in this no-horse town is beyond me.

  I heft the heavy bars out of the flatbed and toe the door to McDools open. My heart is doing belly rolls with the prospect of seeing Edie at her place behind the bar, wiping a pristine white cloth around the rim of a glass.

  She's there just like I imagined and her head is thrown back, laughing.

  Laughing at the dude sitting across the bar from her. In my seat.

  Blood surges up against my skin lining, rage pushing my edges. What the fuck am I getting beat up about? That isn't my stool. I don't own it. I don't own anything. And least of all Edie. Just because I occupy the same seat, second from end, right by the glass washer machine so she stands there in front of me to take them out, bending forward like she is now giving the guy a peek at her luscious cleavage, that doesn't mean I own her.

  My blood is fucking boiling up and I almost turn to leave, then Edie's gaze flicks to the door and her smile falters.

  “Oh, hi Quint,” she says casually. “What are you doing here?”

  What am I doing here? What the fuck is he doing here I'd like to know. It's all I can do to refrain from asking the fucker direct. And advising him to stop gazing at her gorgeous chest like that if he doesn't care to feel my fist in his mouth.

  He's no cowboy but he's not a wimp either. He's a big dude and well packed under the tight plaid shirt. Which I notice has store creases still lining the back, right out of the packaging. And the jeans are neatly pressed, the boots are without a scuff or single speck of grit. I bet I'd see the fucking price sticker on the sole if I turned this bastard up side down which I'm close to doing. This asshat ain't any cowboy rancher and I'm sure he ain't even from around here. His entire aura reads up north city boy and that gets my hackles up further.

  “I brought you some window railings,” I grunt, not looking at her.

  I'm still pissed at how she was laughing at something the stranger had just said before I walked in.

  “Protect you from getting broke into again.”

  “Wow, those are the most beautiful window bars I've ever seen,” she purrs. “Like artwork. Did you make those for a client?”

  “I made them for you,” I grunt and the stranger's interest picks up.

  “I was only burgled night before last,” she says. “You must have been up all night working on them.”

  “Yeah,” I husk at her.

  My eyes are fixed on the dude and the smug satisfied grin he's tossing out to nowhere in particular. For some reason I want to smash it right off his stupid smooth mouth.

  Then I notice a sticking plaster on his hand.

  “Bad wound?” I ask nodding my head at his hand on the bar.

  “Just from shaving. I dropped the razor and it slashed me.”

  The guy has an accent I don't care for. One that brings back bad memories. We do a little eyeball war then the dude gets nervous and reaches for his whiskey. With his right hand. Which means he shaves with his right too and couldn't have dropped the razor as well as had it fall on his hand and cut him. Does Edie know she's all flirty with the guy that broke into her home?

  For the first time in my life I know what it is to feel murderous.

  Chapter SEVEN

  Edie

  “Thank you so much for the rails. They're absolutely amazing, too lovely to be wasted on barring my windows.”

  Quint throws me a grunt without looking my way.

  “I ought to hang them on my walls except then my apartment would look even more miserable by comparison.”

  I'm rambling I know. Both men are looking at me with such intense stares all my insides are getting in a jumble. So my mouth keeps running on before my head catches up.

  “I'll feel much safer in my bed tonight.”

  Uh unh, bad word choice. Now new shirt guy is grinning at me with that look. That one that signifies he's considering what my security needs look like and how he's ready to fill them.

  “You need a man in your bed at night to feel safe,” he says and although he's been hitting on me, I'm absolutely certain he's saying it to get Quint riled up and it's working. “A beautiful girl like you shouldn't have to manage all this alone.”
<
br />   Quint's jaw sets rigid and his broad fingers turn white from loss of circulation as he clenches the bars he's holding, like he's about to lift them over his head and slam them down on the stranger's head.

  “She isn't alone,” he says, his voice loaded with so much feral threat his fangs should be bared. “She has me.”

  This is insane because Quint has never acted like this toward with me. This sudden bizarre possessiveness like he's marked out territory around me is crazy. Just when it seems like I might finally break out of a dry spell that's lasted longer than prohibition. I know he's concerned for my safety but the way he's acting with the new dude is completely out of character for him.

  My solid blacksmith is usually just that, insular and reserved, looking like a beast but with a heart the size of Kansas. He must have been up all night making the security railings for my windows and they aren't just straight prison cell bars like you usually see covering windows. These are a work of art, with intricate patterns and shapes that draw you in.

  New Shirt isn't backing down. It's like he's poking Quint with a stick, itching for him to lose control. If I didn't know better, I'd say these two men knew each other somehow. Although that's impossible. Shirt's sitting on the stool Quint usually takes, while Quint is across the room by the door, holding the massive sets of bars like they weigh no more than a couple of cartons of milk. They're separated but they may as well be circling each other like wrestlers, arms flexed out from their sides, warily sizing up the other getting ready to pounce.

  “That's some fine craftsmanship there.” Even the stranger notices. “You could be making a whole lot of money banging out bars like that up in Manhattan.”

  Quint becomes even more enraged by that statement. You'd have thought the stranger was making a threat rather than a compliment from the way Quint stiffens and turns red with the pressure building in his limbs. He looks like he's about to go rogue all over the guy.

  “Yeah? I don't think I'd like the characters I'd have to do business with up there in the big city,” he snarls through gritted teeth.

  “I know some people might be real interested in work like that,” New Shirt continues.

  “That so? Send them right to me,” Quint says without a break. “I can deal with them.”

  Their whole conversation seems loaded with meaning.

  “I just might do that,” New Shirt says as he gets up and throws a twenty down for his drink.

  He walks across the wood floor, his new boots clacking like they're three sizes too large. He's headed directly toward Quint and I'm certain he's going to smash right into him with a body check. I can't see New Shirt's face but Quint is looking at him with a hard man stare-down. He's not moving one inch out of his way. At the last second New Shirt shifts, skirts around him and instead, kicks the door open with his toe.

  “What the fuck was that?” I almost yell at Quint when the dude's left.

  “Nothing,” he bites out.

  “Could you get any more territorial? I can almost smell the stink of piss where you two were competing.”

  “I said it was nothing, Edie. Leave it alone.”

  I know well enough to drop it but something about this smells stronger than the pissing contest. Quint is silent as he takes down my haphazard re-boarding of the broken window and installs the stunning rails he's made especially for me. His rage goes into the metal as he hammers in the huge bolts. I stand behind him on the porch, holding the huge crafted nails in my palm, watching mesmerized as his back muscle flexes and bulges out with every slam.

  He takes off right after, declining a beer to cool the sweat he's built up that's glistening all over his soot streaked biceps.

  “Gotta bathtub to build,” he says as an excuse to leave.

  But he doesn't come back later. I stand at my place in back of the bar and my eyes bat to the door every time it swings open with a screech on the hinges. It's never Quint. He doesn't show all night so I'm left wondering what the hell is up.

  When I'm back in my lonely bed that started the trouble, I again stare up at the ceiling with frustration pressing at my insides. Joking around earlier with the new guy, I could kind of imagine a hook up. Just for fun, no strings, seeing as he's only passing through. He told me that much but we were interrupted by my fearsome savior before I could get anymore information, like his name or what he's doing in this out of the way town.

  He'd be the perfect opportunity to relieve this throbbing ache that's settled between my thighs recently and refuses to leave. Well not the perfect one, but I can't have that. Just when I think I'm about to finally lose the repression I've built into my body because of Chad's action, now I'm even more uptight than before.

  I close my eyes and imagine the man in my bed, with all the implied promise his gaze threw at me across the bar with his cheeky remarks. But when I imagine a hand running up the side of my ribs to cup my naked breast, it isn't his. A shiver ripples down my legs and it's Quint's hard black soot smeared hand I imagine palming my flesh and squeezing hard.

  I've noticed his fingers curled around the sweaty beer glass and was stunned at the breadth of them, the hard force bristling around the glass, even while relaxed. My breath quickens as I picture those fingers stroking across my swollen slit, now pushing out hungrily from between my lips. I want Quint's thick digit corkscrewing inside me as I dig my fingernails into his solid shelf of shoulder muscle.

  It's way too easy to visualize Quint's huge chest above me, pinning me down on the bed, caging me in with his strength so I feel small and helpless. I shouldn't want him like this. We're friends. We talk at the bar and that's as far as it goes. He's never once given me the slightest inkling that he's interested in me in that way and that's fine with me. Because we're friends.

  So why can't I get his face out of my head?

  Why, when at long last I have a chance for some fun with a man, is Quint the only one I want. My body crawls and stretches towards him, needing him, craving his rough stubble buried into the crease of my neck. The heady masculine aroma of Quint fills my nostrils as my hands creep into my crease.

  Chapter EIGHT

  Quint

  I thought I recognized him, first instant I saw him, as one of the bastards out of New York. But turned out he wasn't one of them, although he damn well gave off the exact same vibe. My first concern is for Edie but backing right onto that is the certainty that he's here for me and she's just an amusing interlude for his time on the road.

  “Nice shirt,” I said when he made some more smarmy remarks about my work. “Looks new.”

  He knows me from New York, I don't know how I know, but there's no doubt in my mind he's been sent out to look for me and that's why he's here. Which means they're still after me, Nothing's gone away and all I've done is bring danger right into the arms of the most amazing woman I've ever met.

  I come back from installing Edie's security and rebuild the fire. There's not only the bath struts for Chloe to do but Abel ordered up a shoe for Power, his beloved black horse. All the mounts at the ranch have hand-forged shoes, like New York banker bastards wearing hand-tooled leather. Nothing but the best for Foxworth Ranch steeds. I can't complain seeing as that's what got me hired here.

  As I start to hammer out the red hot steel, the first thought is I ought to get out. If they've found me, they've come for only one thing and that's to make it permanent. But this ranch is the most deserted place in the country. If they found me here, they'll find me anywhere I go. I don't care much about my own safety but one thing prevents me tossing my tools in the back of the truck and hitting the road.

  Edie.

  I never would have imagined a woman could infiltrate her way beneath my skin, like Edie's managed without even trying and without me noticing.

  When I leave the forge, the guys are sitting around the fire pit like always, just shooting the breeze late into the night. It's always seemed natural that the cowboys hung out together, or in my case resorted to my solitary space, at a distance fr
om the world. Now I'm not sure that we aren't a bunch of guys hiding out from reality and ourselves.

  “You look like the devil in-fucking-carnate,” Abel hollers at me when I cross the yard at the end of an exceptionally long day. The other cowboys, Rafe, Jessop, the usual suspects hanging out, let out jovial responses.

  I flip him a finger in jest, but when I get to my house I can see what he means. My face is blackened from soot so my eyes blaze out like a demon, almost yellow gold like a beast howling at the moon.

  I plunge through the house straight to the shower, tearing my clothes off as I go and dropping them to the ground. My muscles swell hard against my skin, like they'd like to tear right through. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me, I'm burning up with a kind of fever but it's nothing an ice cold shower can't cure.

  I'm wrong about that. Standing under the stream of cold water, I'm rigid with rage imagining Edie in bed with that a-hat stranger. It's gonna be another rough night.

  Once I emerge from the shower, my skin tingling from being rubbed raw I hear a roar of macho laughter from the guys outside at the firepit. Then moments later, a fierce rap hits my front door. It's soon followed by another hammering, so insistent I don't have time to go to my room and throw on some sweats. I answer the door bare-chested and with nothing but a small white towel strapped around my hips.

  “What the fuck, Rafe?” I bark, and am instantly silenced by the sight of the most beautiful face I know on the other side of my door.

  “Edie, my god, it's a bit late for house calls,” I bite out.

  My cock is leaping up at the sight of her luscious curves in the tight jeans and plaid shirt buttoned across her full breasts. While I desperately try to focus on thoughts of old grannies in smelly housecoats so that the towel barely strapped around me doesn't rise up between us in a huge tent, I also can't help my eyes from trailing down the length of her. What a length. I generally only get a look at the part above waist height while the rest of her is hidden behind the bar. Normally her lower curves are hidden from view for which I'm kinda glad. I don't want every fucker in there gaping at her as he downs his brew.