by Melody Anne
There were a couple of people working in the barn, and Darla waived to them.
“It didn’t take you long to get people here,” Darla said.
“My cousin Mark was on it. I think my uncle had this planned for days; as soon as I reluctantly agreed, it was all good to go. He gave me phone numbers to call and the vet and hoof person are on their way now.”
“Hoof person?” Darla said.
“You know, that guy who trims their feet.”
Darla threw back her head and laughed. “I might have to stop calling you cowboy,” she told him. “You mean the farrier.”
“I told you I know nothing about horses,” he said as he threw his hands in the air. “And I’m not even close to being a cowboy.”
“Oh, Crew, there’s a bit of cowboy in all men,” she said as she shocked the hell out of him and slapped his ass — hard, before she turned and began walking toward his house.
He stood watching the sway of her hips as she moved forward, unaware she’d left him stunned in place. He didn’t know what in the hell to think about this spitfire of a woman who had his insides twisted in a million directions. He wanted to chase after her and give her his own smack on her tight ass. Just the thought of that had him painfully hard beneath his jeans. He shifted as he tried to get more comfortable.
“Are you coming, cowboy?” she called.
“I thought I wasn’t a cowboy,” he fired back as he began walking after her.
“And I told you all men have a bit of cowboy in them. Want to show me your lasso?” she threw back at him with a wink before facing forward again.
Hell yes! He almost shouted that right at her. The thought of her in his bedroom, wearing nothing but a cowboy hat while he slapped his hand with a rope flashed inside his head. His arousal throbbed with need, and he felt his heart thunder in his chest.
What in the hell was wrong with him? He was a damn psychologist for goodness sake. He didn’t have fantasies of tying up women, and he didn’t need kink in the bedroom to have a good time. What this woman did to his head should be illegal.
She turned and looked at him as he practically limped to her, his erection so painful it was difficult to walk. A gleam shone in her eyes as her gaze burned him from head to toe, and then back up again. When their gazes met this time, there was some definite fire in her eyes.
“Hmmm, I can practically read your thoughts,” she said with a husky laugh. “Are you fantasizing about ropes and spurs?” she purred.
He took a step closer to her. “That mouth of yours is going to get you into some seriously hot water one of these days,” he warned. Crew would’ve never considered himself a rough and tumble alpha type male, but this woman seemed to be bringing it out in him. He had the strong desire to pull her against him and show her what teasing a man would accomplish.
“Promises, promises. Don’t make an offer you aren’t willing to back up, cowboy,” Darla said in a taunting voice. She reached out and ran her finger across his lips, down his chin and over his chest. Then she laughed again before turning and once again walking away.
Crew stood rooted to the spot for several long seconds. Then he grinned. “I’m your huckleberry,” he called.
Darla turned, stunned. And then she threw back her head and laughed, pure joy escaping her.
“Damn, you’re fun, Crew Anderson. It’s too bad I’m smart enough to know you’re a love em’ and leave em’ quick kind of man. Otherwise, we’d rock the hell out of your bed.”
And then she was gone. She stepped inside his house. They had a lot to do that day. But Crew suddenly didn’t want to do anything other than haul her into his bedroom. Should he do just that?
Maybe . . .
Chapter Two
Darla took some deep breaths in and out while she walked into Crew Anderson’s home. She’d always been a confident woman, knowing who she was and where she wanted to go in life. She’d been knocked down a few times, but she’d never allowed that to keep her on the ground.
She’d get right back up, put a smile on her lips, and try again. That didn’t mean she didn’t have moments she wanted to give up, or moments of self-pity, it just meant she was human and had real emotions. She’d wallow for a few hours, eat a pint of ice-cream, and then tell herself in twenty-four hours she’d be in a better place — and she always was.
Because Darla was who she was, she’d been very unlucky in love. She’d dated quite a bit, more than the average person. But none of her relationships survived for long. She couldn’t seem to find a man strong enough to handle her as a woman.
The men she ended up dating couldn’t seem to handle the fact that she didn’t need them. Yes, she wanted them, but she didn’t need them. That was the key. She wasn’t some princess in a tower who needed rescuing. She wanted a partner who’d love her, appreciate her, spar with her, and stand up next to her. She wanted her equal — not someone better or worse, but someone to walk beside her.
From the moment she’d met Crew, she’d been in lust. He was gorgeous, and not in an understated way. He seemed all calm and brooding on the outside, but she’d instantly recognized that burning desire in his eyes he didn’t think anyone else could notice. He was intense, but managed to put on a show for the world with his calm demeanor and nerdy clothes. Even on a Saturday the man wore business casual. She’d been shocked to find him in a pair of jeans today. It was the first time. The man had every color and style of suit pants known to mankind. It was just another thing that turned her on.
He had dark hair he kept perfectly cut, like seriously perfectly cut. The man had to go to the barber at least twice a month. She’d only seen his strands out of place once and that had been the night she’d come to a family barbeque at his place and monopolized his time. They’d ended their night with a scorching kiss that had led to her fingers curling up in that beautiful silky hair and messing it up quite sexily.
His blue eyes were so bright and knowledgeable she knew she could get lost in them for an eternity, and the thick muscles he hid beneath his business attire were firm and cut. She wanted to run her fingers and tongue over every single inch of them.
So instead of leaping into his arms and taking what she wanted so desperately, Darla was even more cocky than she normal, enjoying throwing him off-kilter, enjoying saying things to shock him, to make his hot body all tense and hard.
She knew she was playing with fire. She knew that when the man went off, it was going to be an eruption of raw need and power unlike anything the world had seen before. But she wasn’t sure if she could hit the right buttons to cause the explosion. Did she want to? Hell yes, she wanted to. But she also knew he might be another man in a long line of men who could put out the right vibes then sizzle and extinguish just when she needed to be ignited.
And that led Darla right back to where she always started, feeling enormous need and no satisfaction. So, she put on her armor and taunted the man until he was a mess. She knew she was safe with Crew, knew he’d never fully lose it. But damn wouldn’t she love to be the woman he did lose it with! She could always fantasize. She already had — quite often when it came to this man she’d only known a couple of months.
She’d poured herself a cup of coffee and was sitting at his kitchen island when Crew stormed into his kitchen, his eyes intense, his body strained.
“What took you so long, cowboy? I was beginning to wonder if you’d gotten lost,” Darla said before she sipped her coffee. He always had the best creamers in his house. The man knew how to please a woman . . . in the kitchen at least.
He didn’t say a word as he moved to his coffee pot and poured himself a cup. She smiled, wondering how much further she was going to push him that day. She was feeling good. She’d been late because she had been with a mother who’d turned her life around and was getting her daughter back the next day after a year of her being in foster care.
Darla dealt with so many cases where the parents didn’t even try to get their kids
back, so when she found a parent who truly wanted to correct their lives and give their child a better home, she fought tooth and nail to help them. Her first priority was always the children, but she knew a child was so much better off with parents who loved them – whether blood or not.
In her current case the mother had been severely abused, and when she’d lost her daughter, she’d finally had the strength to leave the man who’d attacked her and her child. Then she’d gotten the help she’d needed, going to counseling and back to school. She was on her way to becoming a social worker herself, and Darla knew she’d make a wonderful one.
Nobody was better at doing a job than one who’d gone through hell and back to get where she was. This woman would be a great mother, and she’d help many other children. There was no better ending to a long job, and Darla’s mood couldn’t be dampened that day. It was also making her a little spunkier than usual.
Crew faced her as he pulled over a box that held everything they’d been going over for the past week. He took out files and laid them out before the two of them. He looked exhausted, but she knew it was better for her to pull him into the moment than to allow him to sink into a pit of despair.
“Crew, it’s time we bring your family into this. I know I’ve said that before, and I know you agreed with me, but you still haven’t done it. I never keep anything from my best friend, and I hate that I can’t discuss this with Daisy. Your whole big family loves you, and I know we can all solve this together.”
“But what if this is all a lie? What if I bring them in and it ends up breaking their hearts?” he asked.
She reached over and took his hand. “It would break their hearts more that you don’t trust them enough to share with them. This is a huge deal for you and your family. Whether you have a child out there or not, they need to be walking by your side.”
“Are you done with this? Are you needing to step back?” he asked. By his tone, she could tell he was trying to keep it casual as if her answer didn’t matter, but she could hear the vulnerability in his voice. He tried doing a lot alone, but he was like all humans. He needed other people.
“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away,” she assured him. “I just think we need to work as a team. These notes haven’t stopped, but they aren’t giving us clues. We need to find out if there’s even a child out there, and if there is, we need to find out if she’s yours.”
“I did what you asked and really looked back at who I’d . . . um . . . been with sexually over the last ten years,” he began, unable to look her in the eyes. She felt a little clench at his words. The thought of him in the arms of another woman made her want to scratch some eyes out. That was a new reaction for her. She knew most people weren’t saints, that they had itches and scratched them, so it was very odd for her to feel jealous of women Crew had been with long before he’d known her.
For that matter, they didn’t have a sexual relationship anyway. They had chemistry, that was for dang sure, but they’d only shared a single kiss. She knew he was attracted to her, just as he knew she was attracted to him, but hell, she was also half in love with Sam Elliot. That didn’t mean she was going to hunt him down and jump his bones. People could be attracted and never have sex. It happened all the time.
“What did you come up with?” Darla asked as she pushed the image of him with other women as far from her mind as possible. She was trying, for once, to be clinical about this conversation.
Crew shifted as he looked down at a piece of paper. Then he sighed. “There’s only one woman on here who’s a possibility. It was a one-night stand,” he said with a little disgust. “Contrary to what my brothers might think, I don’t normally have one-night stands. But I was at a conference in Southern California, and it was the last night, and we were all in the bar at the hotel. There was a lot of drinking.”
“Do you know who she is?” Darla asked, no judgement in her tone.
He looked up miserably. “No. And I swear I used protection. I remember her name was something like Mandy or Sandy or something like that because I gave some cheesy-ass line about her being sweet as candy.”
“Wow. Yep, that’s certainly cheesy,” Darla said. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“I don’t!” he gasped. “I don’t use lines and I don’t like casual sex. I’d rather be in a short-term mutually satisfying relationship.”
Darla sat there for a second before bursting into laughter. “Oh, be still my heart,” she said as she put a hand against her chest. “That line makes me want to jump right into bed with you.”
Crew glared at her. “You’re just a riot a minute,” he said.
“I’m thinking maybe I need to take you to a hotel bar and meet this other Crew Anderson,” she told him.
Those intense blue eyes nailed her to the seat as they burned into her. “Careful, Darla. I’m not always so controlled. A man can be pushed just so much before he takes what’s being offered.”
Her thighs clenched as heat flooded her. “I keep waiting,” she said with a wink. She’d swear she saw flames flare up in his deep blue depths. His fingers gripped the counter and she figured she’d pushed him enough. She laughed. “Slow down there, cowboy. We’re not at the bar, remember?”
“You are so unlike any woman I’ve ever known,” he blurted as he ran a hand through his hair. She was mesmerized by the suddenly messy strands. Dang, she’d pushed him enough to forget about his perfect appearance. She wondered how crazy she could make him. Did she really want to find out?
Maybe.
“Thank you. I’ll take that as a compliment. But back to Candy. Is there any way for us to track her?” she asked, her voice going professional, the tone she used with unruly parents in her office.
“The event was nearly six years ago. I don’t know,” he said.
“Okay, then we bring in the big guns,” she said as she reached over and picked up his phone, holding it out to him. “It’s time to call your brothers . . . and your uncle Joseph.”
Crew looked as if he wanted to argue, then his shoulders sagged. “I think you’re right,” he finally said.
“Do it now. I’m not moving until you’ve made the call. I want to get this mystery solved. I have horses to play with, and we can’t do that if we’re stressed over whether you’re a father or not,” she insisted.
He dialed the phone . . .