by Stacy Gail
Cleo—”
“Oh, and was that not a made-for-TV moment when he set you down sooooo carefully, like he was afraid your feet were made of glass and he didn’t want you to break? Oh, my God.” Cleo fanned herself and smiled dreamily. “I heard Maybeline sigh out loud, it was so romantic.”
For crying out loud. “As I recall, he yelled at me. And while we were up here, he made me promise, out loud, to never take my bra off in public again.”
Her friend snorted. “Des Brody, a prude. I love it.”
“Obviously he thinks I’m a dim bulb and can’t take care of myself, so he has to make me promise ridiculous things, like to not break my ankles or publicly strip.”
Cleo burst out laughing. “Holy cow, that’s hilarious.”
“No, it’s not. And it’s not romantic to be thought of as a dim bulb.”
“I just think he’s insanely protective of you, Winnie. Clearly, he wants to make sure you stay in one piece, dim bulb or not. And just as clearly, he wants to make sure your clothes stay on until he thinks it’s time for you to take them off.”
Winnie’s breath caught. “Now I know he didn’t say anything about that.”
“He didn’t have to, not if the way he was looking at you was any indication.”
“How was he looking at me?” she asked, all the while not sure she wanted to know.
Cleo held up her bowl of ice cream and slowly took the last bite. “He looked at you the way I look at ice cream—like he wanted to devour every last bit of you.”
Her heart did several acrobatic moves, before the text chime on her phone suddenly sounded.
“Oh, no. Is it ten already?” She blasted off the futon like a rocket and grabbed up the phone where it sat charging on the kitchenette’s counter. “Oh crap, it’s ten. Cleo, I love you, but you need to go now. Here, I’ll take that.”
“But—” Cleo blinked as Winnie snatched her empty bowl out of her hands and pushed her toward the door. “Wait, what…?”
“I’ve got to answer this, and I have to be alone when I do. Don’t ask,” she added when her friend opened her mouth to no doubt do just that. “I don’t know why, but I just… I just need to keep this private.”
“It’s Des, isn’t it?” Cleo’s face lit with a brilliant smile, and she headed out with a chuckle. “Oh, wow, it’s totally Des. Let me know what’s going on later, okay?”
“Yeah, see you.” As soon as the door shut, Winnie leaned against it as if expecting Cleo to come bursting back through. When that didn’t happen, she rushed back over to the phone on the counter to again read the text.
Winsome. Baby girl. Answer.
Okay, so the man wasn’t big on flowery talk. That was fine. She’d rather have plain, honest truth than flowery talk any day.
Quickly her thumbs flew across the phone’s screen. “You talk like a he-man. I think that’s what I should call you. He-Man.”
His response was almost immediate. Don’t you fucking dare.
She laughed loud enough for it to ring around the room. “I refuse to make any commitment.”
And I refuse to let you distract me. I want to know if you’re okay.
She blinked, and her humor drained away as she stared at the words. Now she knew for certain that she hadn’t done a great job of hiding her stress. But maybe, if she tried deflecting at bit… “I’m fine. It’s cooled down a lot in here now that the sun’s down.”
I’m not talking about the heat. You know that, yeah?
She closed her eyes. So much for deflection. “Like I said, I’m good.”
Good enough to sleep? Without bad dreams?
Her gasp was loud in the stillness of the room, and automatically she glanced around to make sure no one had heard it. How did he know about her dreams? “I’ve never told you about that. I’ve never told ANYONE about that. How did you know I suffer from bad dreams?”
It took a while for his response to show up.
You’re not the only one, Winsome.
She stared at those words until warm wetness flooded her eyes and she couldn’t see them anymore.
You’re not the only one.
In that moment, the truth hit her like a ton of bricks.
He knew she’d been abused.
He knew, because he’d suffered as a child as well.
And he had nightmares, too.
You’re not the only one.
Blinking the moisture from her eyes, she let her thumbs work the keypad. “I wish I could hug you right now.”
What does that mean?
She had to smile at the defensiveness in the text. “It means I’m sorry you have nightmares, too, Des. I hate that. I don’t want you to have bad dreams. Ever.”
So give me something good to think about. Take a selfie and send it to me. Your face is the last thing I want to see before I close my eyes tonight.
“Oh, my gosh, this man,” she murmured, her hand plastered to her chest before she hit the appropriate button, then made sure she didn’t have anything stuck between her teeth and that her wild hair wasn’t completely hideous. A few seconds later the image was on its way, along with another message.
“Send me one of you, Des.”
It seemed like forever before her text chime sounded. A selfie of Des appeared, shirtless and sitting on the side of a bed with what looked to be a panoramic night-darkened window behind him. She was so busy drinking in the sleepy-eyed vision of him, with his cheeks darkened by a five o’clock shadow and a half-smile tilting his beautiful mouth, she almost forgot to read the accompanying text.
We’re going to do this every night. Until we’re sleeping in the same bed, we send each other selfies. That should be enough to keep our dreams good and spicy. ‘Night, baby girl. Sweet dreams.
“Oh, my gosh,” she said again, while her lungs shriveled to the size of lima beans. The same bed. He actually said they would one day be sleeping in the same bed. Like it was a given. Like that was their ultimate destiny. Like… like…
Like he wanted her to be in his bed?
Of course.
Obviously that was what he meant.
But…
What was it that she wanted?
Again her thumbs moved while equal parts tension and exhilaration raced through her, with no clear winner in sight.
“If I dream of you, my dreams will be sweet. Good night, Des. See you whenever.”
Tomorrow, Winsome. Tomorrow.
She let him have the last word on that, while that one word resonated through her.
Tomorrow.
Chapter Eight
“Winnie, wake up. Seriously, you’ve got to get down here. Winnie, come on.”
Frantic banging on her apartment door brought Winnie out of the bathroom, and she abandoned the struggle to zip up her sleeveless pink gingham dress to run, barefoot, across the apartment. Her hair, still damp from her shower, was a chaos of tight curls she’d planned on taming after she got dressed, but clearly hair-taming would have to wait. It was only half past eight in the morning, yet here was her best friend banging on her door like the place was on fire.
Good grief, maybe it was, Winnie thought, alarmed. The threat of fire was on everyone’s mind now that the drought had gone on for two-thirds of the year. It was now so dry tumbleweeds had to be swept daily from the streets, and there was a strict no-smoking ban covering the entire county. The world could go up in flames with just one stray spark, and here was the notoriously morning-hating Cleo banging on her door…
“Cleo?” Winnie flung the door open, ready to grab the nearest pair of shoes and run for the fire escape. “What is it? What’s wrong? I don’t smell smoke.”
“Smoke?” Cleo rocketed through the door and didn’t stop until she was in the middle of the room, looking sleep-rumpled and clearly only half-dressed in jeans and sneakers, matched with the ancient Taylor Swift concert T-shirt Winnie knew all too well had been relegated to Cleo’s go-to sleepwear. “Why would you smell smoke? Is something on fire?”
“The
way you were banging on my door, that’s what I assumed.” Snatching up the strappy pink flats she paired with the dress, she sat on the edge of her unmade futon to put them on. “What’s going on? You practically gave me a heart attack, pounding on my door like that.”
“Sorry, but it is kind of urgent, and it has everything to do with you.”
“What has everything to do with me? Oh,” she gasped suddenly, springing to her feet. “Is it your mom? Is she mad at me? Is she firing me? It’s because I said penis, isn’t it?”
“No, no, she’s forgotten all about that,” Cleo waved this away with a distracted hand. “She got a call about half an hour ago from some A/C company, saying that they needed access to the building. Did you order a new commercial-grade air-conditioning unit complete with reconstruction of the building’s ductwork?”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Of course I didn’t order that! Not only could I never afford to pay for anything that huge, I would never be so bold as to… Bold.” Of course. No human on the planet would be so bold as to make changes to a building they didn’t even freaking own.
Unless their last name was Brody.
“Winnie?”
“It’s Des,” she stated flatly, as certain of that as she was of the sun setting in the west. “It was stifling hot up here in the apartment when we came up to talk yesterday, and he thought I was going to die. It’s Des,” she finished with an exasperated gesture. “If I’d had any inkling he was going to pull something like this, I promise you I would have done my best to talk him out of it.” Not that it would have done a lick of good. He still would have done whatever the hell he wanted. That was the Brody way.
Cleo’s eyes grew rounder with every word she said. “So, wait. You’re saying he just… did this? Because he was worried about you?”
“I don’t know if worried is the right word. He just seemed to be convinced that I was going to die, so he…” She flailed her hand again, grasping for the right words. “He just did this, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Cleo echoed while a dazed sort of grin began to grow. “Holy crap, Winnie. I think that Brody man is smitten.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Cleo. He doesn’t know me well enough to be smitten. He’s just arrogant and pushy.” And he assumed she was going to be in his bed one day, which filled her with such equal amounts of anxiety and delight she’d barely gotten a wink of sleep. “If he sees a problem in his world, he’s used to just fixing it. I’ll bet that’s what happened here. I need to explain that to your mother before she really does decide to fire me.”
“You’re missing my point.” Cleo followed her out the door and down the back stairs to the work room in the back of the shop. “Yes, Des Brody saw a problem. I get that. The problem was that you weren’t comfortable. In his eyes, you were in potential danger. You had to be taken care of so he could have peace of mind. That’s what I meant when I said he’s smitten. He can’t rest until he knows he’s done everything possible to take care of you, and I think that’s the sweetest thing ever.”
It was incredibly sweet, more than she was willing to admit. “If he truly cared about my comfort,” she muttered, stalking her way toward the front of the store, “that man would be here in person to explain his overbearing behavior to… your mother…” Slowly she came to a halt and stared, dumbfounded, at the sight of Des and Cleone chatting like lifelong friends in the open doorway of the shop. Cleo came up behind her and did some wide-eyed staring as well before putting a hand on her shoulder.
“You were saying?”
“I can’t wrap my mind around this,” Winnie said faintly. “He’s a Brody, and I’m a Smiley. He can’t be smitten, and I can’t feel like…”
“What?”
“Like I’m the luckiest woman in the world whenever he looks at me, which is insane,” she added, putting a hand to her brow to make her head stop spinning. It didn’t work. “I never thought things would turn out with us clicking the way we do. This isn’t how we’re supposed to be.”
“Screw that, Winnie. Whatever history there is between the Brodys and the Smileys doesn’t mean a damn thing when it comes to who you two are. You and Des live in the here and now, and in the here and now, you two make perfect sense.”
Winnie couldn’t take her eyes off Des. “You think?”
“Yeah, I do. Forget about history and focus on what’s important—how he makes you feel when he decides to move heaven and earth to protect you like you’re something precious to him.”
The thought of a protective Des made something vital clench deep inside her, but before she could figure out what it was, Des looked up and locked gazes with her.
Like magic, the air dried up in her lungs.
“There she is. Surprise, sweetheart, you’re getting new air installed, courtesy of Green Rock Ranch. Isn’t that amazing?” Cleone, looking as dazzled as Winnie felt, came over and dragged her back to where Des stood in the doorway. “I’m sure you want to thank Des for the upgrade. He noticed we were in need of it yesterday when he was here, and as a concerned member of our commercial community, he wanted to make sure this property is fully updated with the proper ventilation and powered by green energy. He’s even installing solar panels so the energy bill will be cut in half, can you believe it?”
No, she couldn’t. “Wait. You’re doing what?”
“No building should be the hothouse this one is up on the top floor, Winsome,” Des told her, and she wondered if anyone else had noticed that the intensity of his gaze hadn’t wavered from her from the moment he’d spotted her. “From both an energy and economical standpoint, it doesn’t make any damn sense to run an inefficient system. You work and live here, and you have a real shot at making a name for yourself with your brilliance, but it’s a fucking sweatshop.”
Aw, he could be so sweet. “But, Des, you can’t just order huge upgrades for other people’s property.”
“Yes, I can, because both Cleone and I aren’t happy about this situation. She cares about you, and do so I. I have the funds to fix it, and she has the vision to make it a reality, so it’s a done deal. Only problem now is you’re going to have to move out for a couple weeks until construction’s complete.”
“The guest room’s ready and waiting for you, Winnie, no problem.” Cleone beamed, looking as happy as a child on Christmas morning. “Unfortunately, Cleo and I are going to a trade show in Dallas in a few days, so we won’t be able to play host to you—”
“Not a problem,” Des cut in, and his smile was something Winnie wasn’t sure she trusted. “The main house at Green Rock Ranch isn’t occupied by my brothers or myself, but it is always kept ready to play host to our more influential guests, from bigwigs from the National Cattlemen’s Association, to senators and governors, to even a couple presidents. Winsome can camp out there while the ductwork and solar panels are being installed. Since we currently don’t have any guests staying there, she’ll have full run of the house.”
“You’re inviting me to stay at Green Rock?” Winnie gaped at him, hardly able to believe the hairpin turn her life was taking. “Have you forgotten who we are? You’re a Brody. I’m a Smiley.”
“I don’t give a damn what your last name is. And Brodys do whatever the hell they want.”
She gave the work trucks that had pulled up outside Cleone’s Closet a significant glance. “Yeah, I noticed.”
He folded his powerful arms in front of his chest. “You’re not complaining, are you?”
“Actually, if Cleone is all right with this situation, then I am, too. In fact, I’d like to say thank you—”
“Don’t want your gratitude,” he muttered gruffly, looking uncomfortable. “This situation just had to be rectified, so that’s all this is. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”
“Make a big deal of you upgrading a building you don’t even own? Heaven forbid,” she said, suddenly filled with the need to laugh while her heart spun in dizzy little circles. No one in her l
ife had ever gone out of their way to take care of her, and while she didn’t know what to do with that, it took all her strength to not dance around the room like a giddy fool. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go back upstairs to dry my hair, and then get packed up for the next two weeks or so. Um… thank you again.” With a brilliant smile she turned away, but she didn’t take more than a step before she heard his voice.
“Winsome, hold up.” Des caught her arm even as she turned to look up at him. His uncomfortable scowl was gone, and in its place was the beginnings of a smile that did weird things to her pulse. “You’re not all the way zipped up, baby girl.”
“What…? Oh, geez.” Mortification swamped her when she realized what he was talking about. “I was getting dressed when Cleo practically bashed my door down and scared the hell out of me. I’ll just—”
“No worries, I got it.” His gaze went to her back, and he seemed inordinately interested with watching his hand as he slowly slid the zipper up. “Damn, woman.” His voice carried no further than her ears, and suddenly it was as if they were the only two people in the world. “This dress fits you like a glove. You make it?”
It was amazing, how this one unexpected intimacy made it impossible for her to breathe. Which was crazy, of course. He was dressing her, not undressing her, for crying out loud. “Mm-hm.”
“You look like pure innocence begging to be lost. Just looking at you makes my imagination run wild on just how to go about that.” At long last the zipper hit home, and an absurd flash of disappointment moved through her. Then he kissed her temple before he turned, tucking her against his side as he went. “Cleone, remember how I said I wanted nothing from you on this deal?”
Cleone looked up from a quick conversation with her daughter. “Yes?”
“I lied. Winsome needs the day off. I’ve got an itch to take her to Green Rock Ranch—show her around and see what kind of trouble we can get into. You can make that happen, right?”
“Aww,” Cleo murmured, clasping her hands together under her chin while her mother’s artfully done brows arched in avid interest.
“Green Rock Ranch? Oh, Des, I would love to go—”
