I can’t help the sob that escapes as I reach the cabin—relief and pain and exhaustion mixed together in a confusing jumble of emotion. The handle of the door is a crude metal latch—I fumble with it until it opens, and then I tumble into the cabin. The wind batters at the door, flinging it open and ripping it out of my hands, spraying rain and clattering hail inside. Will is there, putting his shoulder to the door, and throwing a thick wooden bar down into a hook, so the door cannot be opened from the outside.
I’m standing a few feet from the door, sobbing, dripping wet, aching, wishing I’d never come here to this stupid ranch, wishing desperately that I’d chosen the tropical all-inclusive idea instead of this idiotic, ill-advised historic ranch town thing. Which is sure to fail, even if there was some way to convince this arrogant mustang of a man to listen to me for five damned minutes.
I can barely see past the sudden flood of tears, and my gut burns hot with hatred for this weakness—I despise crying, and pride myself on not indulging in tears no matter the heartbreak or pain. The last time I wept like this was when my grandma Tilley passed away when I was sixteen. Since then, no matter the breakup, no matter the betrayal, no matter the failure or letdown or disappointment or setback, I do not cry.
I do not cry.
Yet here I am, in front of a man who clearly couldn’t care less about me, sobbing like a little girl. And I’m unable to stop myself. It’s all just been too much. I fought my fear of the unfamiliar, trusted a stranger’s word and intent, and got on a horse—only to have it run away with me on its back. If I had fallen off, I’d have broken bones at best. Then, I was rescued—and humiliated, and dismissed—by the very man I was trying to find. And then I found myself on another horse, riding farther yet into the unknown. Charged by a stallion. Thrown from my horse. Nearly stomped on by the stallion. Rescued yet again. Then, as if all of that wasn’t enough, I was hauled bodily onto a horse by my reluctant rescuer and rescued a third time, taken on another wild pell-mell gallop through a torrential storm…
Dismissed yet again.
And now, to add insult to injury, I’m at that same stubborn, arrogant, dismissive man’s mercy, in his home, forced to accept his reluctant hospitality…
And I’m sobbing.
Ugly crying.
Can’t see through my tears, snot dripping from my nose, shoulders shaking, hair sticking to my cheeks and nose and chin—that kind of ugly crying.
“Brooklyn, breathe.” His voice is close, that same low, soothing murmur he uses on horses.
And it works.
I suck in a breath. Another.
“There you go. It’s okay. Just breathe.”
It’s not okay.
I bite my lip and try to breathe, but all I can smell is Will, and him being wet only brings his natural scent out all the more. His body heat radiates against me, and I’m so cold, so wet. Shivering, shaking uncontrollably. I feel myself leaning forward. His body is hard, a wall of muscle.
His heart beats steadily against my cheek, and I feel his hands resting awkwardly and reluctantly on my shoulders. “Breathe, Brooklyn. You’re safe. It’s okay.”
I breathe him in, hear his voice—and my sobbing lessens.
I have never felt so small or so weak in all my life—yet, here, in this cabin, with his arms around me, I’ve also never felt so safe. Yet I can’t seem to stop the tears. They lessen, so I’m no longer ugly crying, just helplessly sobbing, but I can’t entirely calm down, either. I hurt all over. I ache. I’m soaked and chilled to the bone, and I haven’t eaten since this morning, and I’m just utterly overwhelmed by everything.
I shake my head when he continues to murmur soothing words. My fingers claw into the wet cotton of his shirt, until I feel the hard muscle beneath. His hands splay across my shoulders, and another shiver wracks my body.
“You need to dry off and warm up,” he says. “Come on.”
He leads me across the room—which I have been sobbing too hard to even see, as yet—and settles me down to the floor. I’m sitting on something soft and thick, a pelt of some sort. He drapes a heavy, thick, warm blanket over my shoulders. “Just sit tight for a minute.”
I close my eyes and focus on gathering some sort of composure. Breathe in, breathe out. I draw on my yoga training—sit cross-legged, head bowed, body slack and at rest, focusing on my breathing. Calm from top down, settling my nerves from scalp to toes, inch by inch, and I push away all thoughts again and again until my breathing is normal, slow and steady.
When I open my eyes, Will is squatting in front of the fireplace, stacking wood and kindling. His shoulders are impossibly broad. His shirt is sticking to his skin, showing the rippling muscles across his shoulders and around his spine, shifting as he moves. He strikes a match, sets a piece of kindling alight, touches that flame here and there until the fire is licking at the rest of the kindling. He blows gently, and the flames build, rise, engulf the wood, and then within seconds there’s a blaze roaring.
I huddle under the blanket and soak up the heat from the flames as they begin to reach me. Finally, I examine my surroundings.
It’s a small, one-room cabin. Tightly built, not a droplet of water showing anywhere, warm and dry. At first glance, it looks as rustic as you’d imagine a place like this, way out here. Literally one room: walk in and the kitchen occupies the back right corner—a refrigerator, a length of counter with a sink and cabinets below and above, a stove and range, some drawers, a floor-to-ceiling pantry. The back wall, just left of the kitchen, contains a shower stall, the showerhead suspended from the ceiling, knobs on the wall, a glass door. It’s tiny, and I have a hard time picturing a man Will’s size using it.
God, no, no, no—do NOT picture Will Auden in the shower. Do not.
Too late.
A blink of my eyes and my imagination runs wild—he would fill the tiny stall, shoulders brushing each wall, hot water droplets sluicing down his hard, rippling muscles…down his bare back to his taut, round, bare buttocks. He would be facing away from me, and I’d watch the water drip down his butt, and his head would be tilted back, his hands scraping over his scalp. He’d turn, then, and those fierce, vivid blue eyes would fix on me, and his hands would drop to his sides…and water would run over his shoulders and down, between the slabs muscle that is his chest, over the ridged six-pack abs…following the V-cut angling in to his manhood…
I blink again, shaking my head to rid myself of the idiotic images running rampant in my brain before it feeds me anything truly X-rated.
Nope, nope, nope.
What else is there in this little cabin?
A toilet next to the shower, just right out there in the open. The back left corner of the cabin contains a free-standing armoire type thing, clearly a handmade piece, carved with skill and love for the craft. Along the left wall is the fireplace, wide, deep, built with huge boulders running upward, a wooden mantle crossing at shoulder height. The bed is along the wall just beside the door, under the window—there is a window on either side of the door, and over the sink, letting in plenty of natural light—of which there isn’t any, at the moment, considering the late hour and the sky-blacking storm.
There’s a small wooden table, again handmade, with two chairs in the open space near the kitchen, a wood rack next to the fireplace containing firewood and a crate containing kindling and old newspaper; on the other side of the fireplace there’s a fireplace poker set—blackened tips of varnished, antique metal. The roof overhead is angled, with exposed wooden beams like at the Big House, but on a much smaller scale. And, oddly, there are electric lights hanging from the beams, antique-looking with Edison bulbs—unlit. There is no sound of electricity, no ticking clocks, no humming of the refrigerator—just the crackle of the flames.
Will is still crouched in front of the flames, watching the fire burn. I’m sitting on a bear-skin rug, the head is intact, teeth huge and white, eyes dark, jaw wide and furious. The fur is thick, coarse but still somehow soft. There is no couch, no
easy chair, just a wooden bench with a high back facing the fireplace, cushioned by pillows made from old flannel shirts.
I look around again, at the workmanship of everything, and I have a feeling Will hand-built everything I’m seeing. It is unsurprising, and fits him, but the skill and quality of this cabin is a testament to his overall capability.
“You built this place?”
He nods, still facing the fire. “Well, sort of. There was a cabin here already, but it was old as the hills when my family first settled this piece of land. An old trapper’s cabin, probably, built by a mountain man from the earliest days of white exploration west of the Mississippi. We left it as is and used for hunting and as a base when looking for strays in these hills, but in time it got too run-down to be safe.” A pause. “So, I rebuilt it. Most of the logs in the walls are original from the first cabin, just sanded down and refinished.”
I glance at the walls. “So the logs in the walls, they’re from, what, two hundred years ago?”
He snorts. “Try more like four hundred, if not more. My family has been on this land since the early eighteen hundreds, and the cabin was on this ridge then. The locals and natives of the time said nobody living knew anyone who’d been around when it was built, and there were some old, old men in these parts who had great-grandfathers who’d fled out here from the Revolutionary War, and those old great-grandfathers had no idea who’d built it.”
I frown. “This cabin predates the Revolutionary War?”
“This structure itself, yes, and by quite a lot, we think. The walls and the chimney are the only original parts left, though. I reroofed it, put in a new subfloor and floor, insulation, re-caulked and sealed the walls, put in a new door and windows, ran electrical and plumbing, put in the shower and totally redid the kitchen.” He gestures at the bench, the table and chairs. “I made those, and the door, and built the stable.”
“You yourself did everything?”
He nods. “Yep. Grandpa—my mom’s dad—was a carpenter and builder, and I used to spend my summers as a kid out in Cape Cod, learning woodworking and building.”
I shiver, wrap the blanket more tightly around me, the fire and the blanket can’t seem to banish the chill in my bones. “I th-thought you were born and bred here, on this ranch?”
He nods, shifting his weight from squatting on one heel to the other. “I was. But as a kid, Mom always thought it was important I get at least a little exposure to life beyond the ranch, so they sent me to live with Grandma and Grandpa out in Cape Cod, where Mom is from.”
I shift forward on the bearskin, trying to get closer to the fire, shivering and shaking uncontrollably, teeth chattering. My brain feels foggy. “How d-did a woman from C-Cape Cod end up married to a r-r-rancher from C-Color-r-rado?”
Will pivots on his heel and glances at me, hearing the chatter. “The blanket and the fire, and you’re still chattering?”
“I j-j-just c-c-can’t g-g-get w-w-warm.”
His eyes flick over me, less salacious and more scrutinizing. “Gotta get you out of those wet clothes.” He sighs, standing up, rubbing his forehead. “Your soft city girl system ain’t used to this, I guess.”
He does seem utterly unfazed, even though he’s as wet as I am.
“Well, I’m s-s-sorry I wasn’t r-r-raised on a r-r-ranch like you. I didn’t ch-choose the life I was b-b-born into, you know.”
He grimaces. “That ridiculous outfit you’re wearing isn’t doing you any favors either.”
“S-silk dries faster than c-c-cotton, I’ll have you know.” I glare up at him, hating being beholden to him, dependent on him.
Hating his resentment of me but most of all, hating how he can look so incredibly ruggedly beautiful while being so damned cranky.
He glares back at me, his eyes hesitating on mine, searching, flicking from my eyes to my wet hair sticking to my cheeks and forehead in thick hanks pasted against clammy skin, down to my neck, as if he can see my pulse hammering in my throat—and speaking of pulse, why the hell is my pulse going so hard? Why do I feel so hot in my gut and between my legs while the rest of me is shaking with cold and wet? His eyes slide down to the opening of the blanket where I have it tugged together—to the sliver of skin and the hint of white blouse sticking, see-through, to my flesh showing the blood orange lace of my bra.
His jaw clenches, his hand knots into a fist, and he turns away, his spine ramrod stiff, shoulders back, head high, arms swinging loosely as he marches across the cabin from fireplace to shower. He growls under his breath, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. He angrily yanks open the shower door, reaches in and twists on the water. Pipes knock and clang, water spurts and stops, and then falls from the ceiling in a steady spray. Closing the door, Will moves away from the shower and that’s when I realize there’s a back door cleverly disguised to look like the rest of the door. The handle is matte black metal, hidden within a dark whorled knot in the wood, there’s no hint of hinges, and the seams and cracks line up exactly with the cracks between logs. Pressing the latch down, Will nudges the door and it swings open silently; he leans into the darkened interior—which is another room—reaches in, flips a switch of some kind, and I hear the chug and snarl of a diesel generator grumbling to life. He closes the hidden door, and the sound of the generator is almost completely muffled. This done, Will goes back to the shower and adjusts the knobs, and within a minute or so, I see steam writhing toward the ceiling. He flips another switch near the wall by the shower stall, and a vent fan hidden in the ceiling surrounding the showerhead kicks on, sucking up the steam.
I didn’t think I could be more impressed with the way this cabin is built, but I am quickly discovering how wrong I was.
Will faces me, jutting his chin at me. “Get in.”
I stare at him. “I…the sh-shower?”
He frowns at the stupidly obvious statement. “Um, yes. The shower.” He flicks a hand at the secret room. “The hot water tank is small, and there ain’t much fuel in the generator this time of year, so if you want a hot shower, you best get to gettin’.”
I throw off the blanket and stand up, the lure of a hot shower far too tempting to resist. I get to the shower stall, throw off my blazer, but Will’s eyes fix immediately on the intense blood orange of my bra showing clearly through the now-sheer white of my blouse.
“Are you going to stand there watching?” I snap. “I realize this is a one-room cabin so I don’t expect complete privacy, but the least you could do is turn around.”
“Wrong—the least I could do is provide shelter from the storm, a hot fire, a hot shower, and hot food—to an unwelcome guest I distinctly remember telling to go home.” His tone is hard. He does turn around however, and mumbles under his breath—this time, he’s close enough that I can make out his words. “Nothing to fuckin’ see anyway.”
For some reason, that kicks my ire into turbo. “Excuse you?” Fire crackles through my veins, replacing logic and sense with unreasoning fury. “Nothing to see?”
I have zero control over my actions. After the day I’ve had, the number of times I’ve nearly died today—which is more than the total number of times I’ve nearly died in my entire life—the fear I’ve endured and worked through, the embarrassment, the unfamiliarity of literally everything…and now this primal beast of a man has the raw unmitigated gall to say there’s nothing to see?
Oh, hell no.
At long last, I kick my heels off—truly kick them, at him, one and then the other, with unerring accuracy, each one slamming into his gut. He grunts, catching the shoes one by one, and tosses them aside, eyes locked on mine, boiling with fury and conflict and—unmistakable desire.
I lift my chin and tighten my jaw, eyes blazing. I walk toward him, my steps slinky with predatory grace. “Nothing see, Will Auden?” I reach behind me to the rear zipper of my power suit slacks, lower it slowly, intentionally. Some instinctual part of my brain is telling me what I’m doing is utterly foolish, completely stupid, and somethin
g I will absolutely, without a single, solitary doubt, regret to the nth degree, when all is said and done.
I’m definitely not listening to the sensible warning bells going off, because once this fury takes over, nothing can douse the fire of my anger until it burns itself out. And this time, it’s not just anger fueling me, but embarrassment and humiliation and fear and a manic, post-adrenaline surge of hormones, and just plain old-fashioned attraction to a man like no other I’ve ever encountered.
The zipper of my pants stops at the base, and the slacks sag, droop—and I drop them. My bare legs are shaking with both cold and nerves, and yet I do not stop. Will’s hands are fisted at his sides, his jaw is locked and pulsating madly, and his chest is rising and falling with swift, harsh, raking breaths. For a few moments, it’s obvious he’s fighting an internal battle to keep his eyes on mine.
And he succeeds…for about thirty seconds.
Admirable, really. Better than others have managed.
I step out of the pants and kick those at him, too—they slap with a wet flap against his thighs and tangle around his ankles, but he ignores them, his attention wholly focused on my legs…which I know full well are long and toned, shapely some would say. Thick, I would call them, despite my best efforts. No thigh gap here, I’m afraid to say. No cellulite, yet, but that’s a losing battle; at this precise moment in time, however, for once I do not care.
I’m clad now in just my see-through white synthetic blouse, and my bra, which as I’ve said is actually one chosen for its ability to constrain my breasts and slim them down rather than prop them up and display them. If I were to wear a push-up bra, I’d have a baggage train of helpless men with absurd, uncontrollable hard-ons a mile long everywhere I went. If I were to wear the type of lingerie designed to prop me up and leave me all but bare, I’d be knocking people out with my breasts from several feet away, causing heart attacks in old men.
Cowboy in Colorado (Fifty States of Love) Page 12
