He smiled. If she’d been born in Texas, he’d have to worry about her greeting him with a shotgun. His smile faded. He didn’t know where Tinsley had grown up. He hadn’t even known she’d gone to college until she’d mentioned it when she’d been telling him off.
The door to the apartment was unlocked, and Anders frowned. He wanted the tasting room alarmed and the apartment to have a separate alarm. Not that Last Stand boasted many criminals, but Catalina’s father and two brothers were no model citizens, and he and August had worried that her brothers might break in and help themselves to a few cases of wine—although it wouldn’t provide the easy cash they craved.
Anders set his duffel down and peeked into the bedroom. Tinsley was sprawled on her tummy, arms and legs starfished as if daring anyone to try to climb into bed her with. He smiled. Technically, she was the only woman he’d ever slept with. During their mutually agreed upon short fling, they’d, taken a couple of trips together during some tour breaks. Reluctantly, he ducked back out of her room, finished off the water in his water bottle, and then peeled off his T-shirt and jeans. Each movement made him grit his teeth to keep from cursing. Finally, he eased his large frame onto the larger of the two couches.
He winced, pondered if sitting up would prove less painful, but ultimately laid down on his right side and snagged one of the Pendleton throw blankets on the back of the couch. He recognized them both from when he and Tinsley visited Portland, Oregon. She’d fallen in love with the vibrant colors and patterns on the famous wool blankets and hadn’t hesitated to drop what he considered serious money on both of them.
“Worth every dollar,” he murmured draping one of the blankets over his battered body. The wool was soft and warm and smelled like Tinsley.
He’d definitely been injured far worse over the years, but this injury—probably because he’d been so dumb, and he’d lost an almost sure win—hurt worse than many of the others.
He drifted in and out of consciousness but jerked awake when a light blazed on.
“What are you doing here?”
“What?” He sat up, and wished he hadn’t. He cursed and immediately apologized. Tinsley didn’t need to see and experience the worst of him, and he needed to get rid of his habit of cursing before the baby came.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, coming forward. “What happened?”
Anders blinked. She wore a thin white ribbed cropped tank and black capri leggings. Her coppery hair fell in messy waves. She’d never looked more beautiful to him. Her beauty seemed natural. She didn’t look like she’d gained any weight yet, but she just looked a bit softer—ripe in a way she hadn’t before. Her breasts—stunning handfuls that had been firm and high and creamy satin smooth in his hands, with dark pink nipples—were definitely fuller.
The spit dried in his mouth.
“You’re hurt.”
“Not bad.”
“Your left side is mottled dark purple. How is that not bad?” She stepped closer to him, frowning. “Really, Anders it looks terrible. Is anything broken?”
“No.”
“Did you get an X-ray?”
“No.”
She rolled her eyes. “So, you psychically know that nothing is fractured?”
“My pride. It was a dumb fall. A distraction.”
Her eyes rounded and she took a step back. “You’re always focused,” she whispered.
“Not tonight—or last night.” He looked at his watch. “You should get back to bed, Tinsley. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Lack of focus can be fatal,” she said and sat down on the double-wide chair opposite him.
He’d told her that once. Fantastic. Now he’d worried her.
“Don’t worry. I already contacted my lawyer about the baby, and I bought life insurance.”
“That’s your answer?” She stood up, paced around the living room, holding her own hands. “I’ve told you over and over, I don’t want your money. I don’t care about your money.”
“Do you care about me?” He’d meant to use a different tone, to sound teasing, but to him it sounded and tasted like desperation.
She stood still, worried her bottom lip and looked at him helplessly.
“It’s late, Anders.” Then she pressed her lips together. “Why are you here? Sorry. Never mind. Do you need anything for ah…you know, that?”
He paused, sure she meant his bruising, but since his dick was at full attention despite the throbbing on one half of his body, he could always hope she meant a different that.
“Usually I take an ice bath or ice an injury when I fall, but August wanted to fly out at first light to Portland to his corporate offices, so I flew back tonight instead of tomorrow.”
“Oh.” Her voice was flat.
Anders immediately realized his mistake. Him and his mouth.
“I wanted to fly back early tomorrow morning so that I wouldn’t interrupt your sleep.” He sat up on the edge of the couch despite the pain and reached out and touched a thick, copper-colored tress that framed her face.
“Why didn’t you go home?”
“I wanted to see you.”
Her cheeks pinked, even as she clearly tried to keep her expression neutral.
“And now you’ve seen me.” She sighed. “I have an ice machine downstairs in the commercial kitchen. I can bring up some ice. There’s a bathtub in the master bathroom.”
“You don’t need to be carrying ice up and down the stairs.” He stood, holding the blanket in front of his body. “I’ll just take a cold shower.”
“Does the ice help bruises or not?”
“Cuts my healing in half, but really, Tinz.”
She frowned and then walked out of the apartment.
Anders was up, blanket wrapped around him, and at the top stairs when Tinsley ran up, light on her feet with four bags of ice.
“Still gotta be the tough cowboy,” she said softly, stopping right in front of him. He blocked her path, and while he liked her nearness, he didn’t want to verbally spar with her on stairs. He did something he rarely did: he backed away.
She noticed. Then she looked at the blanket and her mouth kicked up in a half smile.
“When did you get so modest?” she asked, kicking the door shut behind her. “Or do you just really like my taste in blankets?”
He fingered the wool. “I wanted to buy these for you,” he recalled. “You spit on my money. Wanted to split everything fifty-fifty.”
“That’s how I roll.”
It had bothered him before. It still did. When he took a woman out, he paid. And he definitely would take care of his wife and child.
Then he remembered Axel and August’s earlier words that he should get to know her. Kane had echoed the same sentiment when he’d gone to him to ask how he’d convinced his wife, Sky, to marry him after he learned that she’d had his baby without telling him. He’d learned he was a father when his daughter was already three years old.
Kane had shaken his head, uncharacteristically quiet. “Didn’t handle it at all well. I pushed and pushed to get my way and nearly lost her again. It wasn’t until I backed off and tried to see things from her perspective that we began to communicate.” Then in typical bro-man style, he’d clapped Anders’ shoulder, laughed and added, as if to take the sting out of such a personal admission, “Then I blew her mind with my skills in bed. Never underestimate the power of fantastic sex.”
Anders felt like that had been all he’d been good at with Tinsley. He didn’t know how to do the other stuff, but he had to learn.
“Why?”
“Why what?” she asked stalking past him to the bathroom where she ripped open each bag and dumped it in the tub. He had to fight to not help her. “Is that enough ice? Do you want to add water?”
He didn’t want any of it. He hated ice baths. And he didn’t want to be naked in front of her while his boys crawled back inside his body. But she had gone to a lot of trouble.
“Thank you.” He turned on the col
d tap and watched it start to fill.
“I’ll get four more bags and leave you to it.”
She turned to go, but he caught her arm and then immediately stroked down her warm, taut flesh and tangled his fingers with hers. “Why don’t you want me to pay for anything?”
“I like to be independent.”
“What does that mean to you?”
“What?”
It was the first time he’d seen her look uncertain. Her long lashes veiled her eyes, and when she looked back up at him, she was wary.
“I want…” He paused. What did he want, really? “I want to raise our child with you. I want us to be partners. I want to know you. To understand you, and I want you to know me. Understand me.”
He saw her swallow and heard her fractured breathing.
Was she afraid of him? Tinsley Underhill. Whiskey. A woman he’d seen break up a brawl with four loudmouth cowboys. A woman who drove a Ducati like a speed demon on an errand from hell. A woman who’d tripled his brother’s whiskey sales in her first month. A woman who lived out of a backpack not much bigger than his for weeks or months at a time. A woman whose wit shut down arguments and had the aggressors apologizing. A woman who charmed men, women, children and dogs. A woman so beautiful she made his eyes melt.
“I want to know you, and I want to help with expenses.”
“I don’t need help.”
“I know. But I want to be the man you can rely on. I want to be the father our child trusts and knows loves him or her. I want us to be partners in raising our child, but also partners who build a life together. I want us to be a family.”
The cold water rushed into the tub, competing with the roaring rush of his racing heart.
“I want it all.” He met her whiskey-colored gaze, opening himself up for the first time. He felt a little sick to his stomach and it was hard to breathe, but maybe that was from his spectacularly stupid dirt plant. “I can’t do any of that without you, Tinz.”
She turned off the water with a slap of her hand.
“That should be enough. I’ll bring you more ice. Do you want something to eat?”
“I want to talk. I want to figure out what is going on in that gorgeous, complicated head of yours.” He felt like he was gutting himself here.
Tinsley pressed her lips together. He saw the sheen of tears in her eyes, and her hands shook as she clutched them hard to her chest.
Her tears centered him. “I don’t care how long it takes me to prove this to you, but I am in for the long haul. I am not going away or giving up no matter how hard you push.”
She stared at the ice bobbing in the water.
“Why won’t you talk to me?” he asked softly, wanting so badly to touch her he ached.
She sucked in a deep breath, and his heart sang with hope.
“Take your bath, Anders,” she said, quietly turning away and reaching for something in the medicine cabinet. “This might help.” She pulled out a dark brown bottle. “It’s arnica. It’s for bruising.”
And then she walked out and left him with the very lonely and unappealing ice bath.
He’d barely settled in when Tinsley brought him more ice, but she was careful as she poured it into the bath. She wouldn’t meet his searching gaze, but she did wince in sympathy when he hissed as the ice piled in.
“Do you want something to eat?”
“No thank you.” He felt too unsettled to eat, but she wasn’t kicking him out so he’d take that as a win.
He soaked as long as he could stand it, then stood, toweled off, pulled his boxers back on, and rubbed on the arnica as well as lotion for sore muscles that Kane had recommended when he’d first joined the tour. He would have liked to ask Tinsley to rub the lotion in, but he’d already made their relationship only about sex.
Time to set a new path.
“Good luck with that, cowboy,” he muttered. He was going to need more than luck. He was going to need a miracle sprinkled with magic and peed on by a unicorn.
He hung up the towel, brushed his teeth, turned off the light and headed back out to the couch.
“Anders.”
He stopped.
“There’s not a bed in the second bedroom.”
He was very aware of that. That was going to be the baby’s room. Just like he had already started on a nursery in his wing of the house.
“It’s um…dumb for you to sleep on the couch, especially injured. It’s not like we haven’t…you know.”
He was torn. He wanted nothing more than to sink into the comfortable bed with her. He had helped to pick out the mattress and it had been, he realized, the first thing she’d allowed him to pay for. But he knew himself. If he lay with her, he’d want more.
“Tinz,” he began. Somehow in the dark as he stood in the doorway between her bedroom and the main part of the apartment, it seemed easier to communicate.
“Don’t call me that.” Her voice was sharp.
“Why?”
“I don’t like it.”
“Tinz or nicknames?”
Whiskey was one helluva nickname.
It had lassoed his attention and pulled the rope tight. And she’d lived up to the word—fiery, mercurial, sexy, indulgent, impossible to resist, savory, hot burn. He could extend the analogy all night.
“It’s cute. I like the Z. And I like the T and Z together.”
“It sounds like tin.”
“It does. With a Z.”
“You coming to bed or not?” She sounded resigned.
And that was the dilemma. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. He’d be uncomfortable with wanting her if he slid in beside her, and miserable and uncomfortable without her. And it might feel like rejection. Maybe for all Tinsley’s independence, she needed him to take those first steps back to her.
He lifted the covers and lay down beside her. He was silent for several minutes. He could feel her warmth. Her sexy, slightly spicy scent enveloped him, making him ache to hold her, to feel her skin against his.
He thought of what he could say to break the ice and discarded each comment. In the end, he just let himself drift, listening to her breathe.
“In school kids called me Tin because they said I was like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz,” she said after he thought she’d fallen asleep. “Hollow. No heart. Empty.”
She said it as if stating a fact, but he could hear the suppressed hurt in her voice. He sighed and rolled toward her and, thankful that it was his left side that was bruised and not his right, he pulled her rigid body into his arms.
He nuzzled her neck. “You are the warmest, most vibrant woman I’ve ever met,” he whispered against her throat. “But I confess, I was crazy about the nickname Whiskey.” He nuzzled her neck and kissed his way up to her ear. “Whiskey sounds like a party, delicious, fun, hot as hell, but now that you are oh-so-proper in a wine tasting room maybe we’ll have to think of something else like…heck, I don’t even know what my brother grows. Catalina used to make Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc. I know because I caught up with her when I rode in Portland my first season, and she made me drink the damn stuff. How about Pinot or Riesling. Is that a wine? I could call you Ries.”
She laughed, and he felt his pain and cares slip away. It felt like heaven to hold her in the dark and laugh with her.
“Do you have to shorten everything? Oh, that’s right. You’re a bull rider, and I’ve heard bull riders are always fast. Eight-second men.” He heard the laughter in her voice.
He wrapped himself even more firmly around her and nuzzled her sensitive nape with his nose and then his lips. “I am going to remind you how wrong you are someday soon. Very, very soon.”
Tinsley let her eyes drift close. “Maybe I’ll let you.”
He kissed her delicate shoulder and then traced the small tattoo of the unusual animal she had there—a firebird, she’d once told him. He liked that she had a little splash of ink. It was sexy and unexpected—just like the woman.
“Get some
sleep, Tinsley.”
“You too,” she said softly.
But Anders lay on his back, eyes closed, trying to calm his mind and body enough to try to fall asleep.
Chapter Fifteen
Tinsley curled up, her back to Anders’ side but without touching. She wanted to. She wanted to roll over and wrap herself around him and beg him to take her out of her mind—push away the memories at least for tonight.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the burning tears. She’d learned long ago that crying only brought on a puffy face, headache and scorn. She sucked in a shaky breath. She had to sleep, but her emotions raced all over the place—longing to believe Anders, give in to him so she wouldn’t feel so alone, but then the fear kicked in. She was scared she’d start to love him and lose all the independence she’d gained.
Anders sat up, his movements so fluid she barely noticed he’d moved.
“What’s wrong? What do you need?” She rolled over and also sat up, her hands reached for him, checking for bleeding or…she didn’t know. Probably she just wanted to touch him. She’d always loved touching him. She’d missed him when they’d walked away as agreed.
“Tinsley, you are so tense, baby.” He cupped her cheek. “You need your rest. I’m interfering with that. I’ll head home. I shouldn’t have come.”
“No. I’m—” She stopped. She wasn’t fine, and she needed to stop lying to him and to herself. “I’m confused, but I don’t want to argue anymore.”
“I didn’t come to argue. I came to get to know you better. To spend time with you that wasn’t…you know…” He paused and even though the room was mostly dark, she sensed his embarrassment. “Just physical.”
“Sex,” she said. Her body was already aroused. Just seeing him affected her. Being close to him jarred awake every nerve in her body. “Would sex be so bad?”
Yup. She just went there.
“Sex with you is amazing.” He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers, “Better than that, but that’s not all I want from you, Tinsley. Not even close.”
“What if that’s all we have?”
A Baby for the Texas Cowboy Page 15
