Falling for the Rancher

by Tanya Michaels

  It was enough to know that she’d accomplished this and could enjoy riding with Jarrett from time to time. You have no time. You’ll be gone soon, remember?

  All the more reason to make the most of the moments they did share.

  As they returned to the corral, she gloried in a giddy sense of freedom, knowing she was no longer constrained by old fears and wounds. She felt wonderful, although there was a slight tenderness along her inner thighs. The ride hadn’t been long enough for her to get sore, but she was definitely more aware of parts of her body she didn’t always notice. That awareness only heightened when Jarrett helped her down from the horse.

  His hands settled on her hips, his gaze dropping to her face, and the twinges she’d felt between her legs escalated to a far more substantial ache. She met his eyes, not even trying to hide how much she wanted him.

  He sucked in a breath. “Have I mentioned how grateful I am that you don’t have a poker face?”

  Leaving the horses temporarily secured in the paddock, he tugged Sierra into the stable. They’d barely made it through the wide entryway before he spun her against the wall and claimed her mouth in a ravenous kiss. His tongue dueled with hers, and he sucked hard at her bottom lip. Need shot through her. She gripped his shirt in both hands, never wanting to let him go.

  She tilted her head back against the wooden beam as he kissed his way to the hollow of her throat. He caught the hem of her satiny shirt between his fingers. “Soft.” Then his hand skimmed beneath the material over her skin. “Softer.”

  There was a fleeting ticklish sensation as his fingers grazed her ribs, but then he palmed a breast through her bra, and the would-be giggle she’d suppressed turned into a moan. When she tried to reach up on her toes to kiss him again, she almost lost her balance. No surprise, since she’d been unsteady since the second she’d slid down from the saddle and into his waiting arms.

  “Blasted height difference,” she muttered. “I’m too short.”

  “What you are is perfect.” He scooped her up and carried her to the back of the stable, setting her on her feet long enough to pull a folded picnic blanket from a cabinet. He opened it with a flourish, dropping it on the ground and then pulling her down with him. He kissed with intent, every stroke of his tongue against hers making her a little bit crazier with desire.

  Both his hands were beneath her shirt, and she was about to sit up and remove it completely when the horse in the nearest stall neighed, jolting her from her sensual reverie.

  “Wait.” She pressed a palm against Jarrett’s chest, trying to focus on regaining her composure and not on the hard, unyielding muscles beneath her hand. “No, I—”

  “No?” He scrambled back, looking crestfallen.

  “Well, yes.” Definitely yes. “But not now.” She needed to get back to the house before Vicki’s friends left, needed to make lunch and be ready for their meeting with Kate. No way would she flake out on her friend two days in a row. “And not here.” Good Lord—was there hay in her hair? She really was living the cliché.

  He nodded in immediate agreement, but he was clenching his jaw, betraying the effort it took to move away from her. “Later, then?”

  Her heart beat triple time. “Later.” The word had never sounded so sexy.

  * * *

  THE TIMING WORKED out perfectly—Sierra and Vicki had finished lunch and a set of PT exercises when the doorbell rang.

  “Come on in,” Sierra said, ushering her friend inside. “Sorry I didn’t have the chance to tell you goodbye properly last night.”

  Kate waved off the apology. “It would have taken us fifteen minutes to find each other in the crowd to exchange a two-minute farewell. Texting was quicker. I’m just glad I had my phone out to show Anita pictures of the flower-girl dresses I found for the twins, or it would have taken me longer to notice.” She laughed, patting the large binder in her hand. “Right now, I feel like my life revolves around two binders—wedding stuff and festival plans. Thank goodness the Harvest Day event is, as the name indicates, a single day. The Watermelon Festival back in July was four.”

  Sierra blinked. “How many festivals do you people have?”

  “It’s a small town,” she said fondly. “We have to make our own entertainment.”

  They’d discovered last night that they had each lived in Houston. After her husband’s death a couple of years ago, Kate had deliberately sought out the slower pace of small-town life. While she admitted that Cupid’s Bow could be a little quirky, she embraced its eccentricities. Sierra was undecided. She missed the convenience of take-out Thai food, but she was growing accustomed to sleeping with only the sounds of nature outside her window and not city noise. And there was no question that she’d rather hang out with Kate and the Trent brothers and Anita Drake than the surgeons and attorneys she’d met at her parents’ country club.

  Cupid’s Bow had its charms. Her gaze went to the huge bay window and the barn in the distance. She couldn’t see Jarrett from here, but knowing he was out there somewhere made her smile.

  Kate cleared her throat delicately. “Penny for your thoughts?” She glanced outside as if trying to find what Sierra was grinning at.

  “I’m just having a good day.”

  They convened in the kitchen, where Kate spread out a bunch of papers on the table. The yellow sheets of paper had specifically scheduled events like games, performances and competitions. Typed on white pages were the names of different vendor sponsors who were helping pay for the festival and would each get a booth in return.

  “We definitely have room for all of this,” Vicki said, studying the list she’d compiled while Kate talked. “The biggest challenge will be parking. Can I make a suggestion?”

  “Please.” Kate nodded emphatically. “This is my first major volunteer project for the town. If I screw it up, my husband might not get reelected as sheriff.”

  Vicki laughed. “Sierra said that you originally volunteered your grandmother’s farm, which is close by. It’s not big enough for the festival, but do you think we can use it for the majority of guest parking? We can set up a rotation of volunteers to bring people from the farm down to our ranch via hayride.”

  “Sounds great,” Kate said. “I’ll run it by Gram, but I can’t imagine her saying no.”

  “Good.” Vicki propped her chin on her fist. “As long as we have places for people to park and a place for the portable potty trailers to set up, I think everything else will run smoothly.”

  They discussed the different areas of the ranch and how best to divide them. Sierra was impressed with Vicki’s ideas, but the longer they talked, the more she worried that Vicki wasn’t being very realistic about how much she could actually oversee on the day of the festival. The uneven outdoor terrain was not ideal for her wheelchair. She wouldn’t be dashing from one tent to another.

  When she tried to gently remind Vicki of that, the girl scowled. “I’m getting better at the standing exercises, and I took steps on Friday morning.” With Sierra’s assistance, she’d been practicing to show Aaron when he arrived. He’d left before a demonstration could take place. “The festival’s not until next weekend. Maybe if I work hard, I can use a walker to—”

  “Vicki, I applaud the ambition, but there’s a huge difference between half a dozen steps in a controlled environment and being on your feet all day.” The ground that was imperfect for the wheelchair would be downright dangerous with a walker. It might be months before Vicki was ready for hills, rocks and gopher holes. “I’m not saying you have to stay confined in the house—we’ll get you set up at a volunteer table or the booth of your choosing—but you’ll need to delegate some of the plans you’ve brainstormed.”

  “I have lots of willing bodies on the committee,” Kate said quickly. “But we need you to point us in the right direction.”

  Vicki wavered, and Sier
ra could see her weigh the heady responsibility of being in charge against the frustration of her limited mobility. She smiled tightly. “Well, I suppose the festival is a team effort.”

  They worked for another half hour or so, with Kate and Vicki splitting up a number of phone calls that needed to be made this week.

  “Give me the tough requests,” Vicki said, “the ones people are most likely to refuse.” She tilted her head, making her eyes huge and pitiful. “Who’s going to say no to the kid in a wheelchair?”

  Kate laughed. “Nice dealing with a kindred devious spirit.” She packed all the loose sheets of paper back into her binder. “Now I’d better get home and figure out how I’m going to trick the twins into eating lima beans for dinner. Oh, speaking of food! Sierra, can you walk me out? Gram sent some of her famous jalapeño peach preserves, but I forgot to bring in the jars.”

  “Sure thing.”

  As the two women descended the porch steps, Sierra thanked Kate again for coming back and for including Vicki in the decision-making process.

  “Hey, today benefited me as much as her. I wasn’t expecting Becca to give me nearly so much power, but she’s preoccupied with upgrading her house so that she can rent out a couple of rooms. I don’t want to screw up the festival, and Vicki had some really great input.” She opened her car door and leaned inside, grabbing an oblong box with three jars of preserves bearing homemade labels. “The whole Ross family is great, don’t you think?”

  “Well, I haven’t met the elder Rosses, but Vicki and Jarrett—”

  “I was sorry I didn’t get a chance to say hi to him last night. Will said the two of you disappeared immediately after your slow dance.” She nudged Sierra with her shoulder. “Guess that means the two of you were anxious to be alone?”

  Too late, Sierra realized she’d been asked outside so that her friend could interrogate her about Jarrett. Ambushed by the old peach-jam-in-the-car scam. When was she going to remember that no matter how sweet Kate was, she was also sneaky?

  She rolled her eyes, carefully not meeting the other woman’s gaze. “Oh, for pity’s sake. Last night, you were trying to play matchmaker between me and Will, and now, less than twenty-four hours later, you’ve imagined some grand affair between me and Jarrett? Have you ever considered that you’re suffering from wedding brain? You and Cole are so deliriously happy, you’re hallucinating potential romances all around you.”

  “Nice try. But Will doesn’t have ‘wedding brain’ and he sees the chemistry between you and Jarrett, too. After Jarrett unexpectedly showed up last night, Will said that, with the sparks between you two, he never stood a chance. Not that he sounded upset, so don’t let that make you feel guilty.”

  Part of Sierra was dying to tell someone about the kiss he’d shocked her with last night, if not the more intimate details of their make-out session in the barn. But it was still so new. She’d barely had a chance to process it herself, much less figure out how to explain it to someone else. What if Kate asked about the future? Right now, Sierra’s future was no more than a couple of touchstones in the murky distance—her interview in Fort Worth next week, her brother’s wedding in a couple of months. She hadn’t planned for a sexy cowboy with silvery eyes and decadent kisses.

  “Uh-oh.” Kate misread the long silence. “I ticked you off with my prying, didn’t I? I don’t mean to meddle but— Well, I do, actually. It’s the Cupid’s Bow way. But I genuinely care about you.”

  Sierra impulsively hugged her. “Thank you. In a town this size, it would be easy to feel like the outsider, but you’ve made me feel like I belonged since the day I got here.”

  “So you’ll forgive me for all the intrusive questions about your love life?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive. You’re just being a friend.”

  “Exactly.” Kate ducked into the driver’s seat. “Are you sure there’s nothing between you and Jarrett?”

  “Kate!” If her friend didn’t drive away soon, Sierra would end up spilling everything.

  “All right, all right. I can take a hint.” She closed the door, giving Sierra one last cheery wave through the window.

  As she watched Kate drive away, Sierra gave in to the impulse to say the truth out loud, if only to herself. “There is definitely something between me and Jarrett.” But only time would tell how deep it ran.

  * * *

  JARRETT STAYED AWAY from the house past sundown, stalling because he was half afraid he’d pounce on Sierra the second he saw her again. He’d been hard for her all afternoon, ever since she’d met his eyes with that sultry gaze and murmured, “Later.” That promise had been taunting him for hours.

  When he finally walked into the kitchen, he was met by the enticing smell of dinner, but he barely tasted the roast beef she served. Instead he kept remembering the night she’d brought him a roast beef sandwich and accused him of avoiding her. Maybe he had been, at first. But noble intentions and distance hadn’t done him any good. She’d got under his skin all the same. Now, instead of taking sensible refuge in the stable, he was tracking her down in dance halls just to tell her she looked nice. It was almost hilarious.

  There were only two things that kept him from appreciating the humor in the situation. First, she was moving away. Driving into town to find her was one thing; routinely driving to Fort Worth was out of the question—especially when he’d need to be here to make sure his father didn’t try to take back too much of the workload. Second, as much as he wanted Sierra, as impatiently as he was awaiting bedtime tonight, he couldn’t entirely escape the guilt over betraying his promise to Vicki.

  Falling into bed with Sierra was exactly what his sister had predicted when he’d hired the beautiful redhead, exactly what he’d sworn wouldn’t happen.

  You haven’t done it yet, his conscience pointed out. There’s still time to change your—

  Like hell. He was losing Sierra soon—he couldn’t change that—but knowing that their desire was mutual, that he’d somehow won over this fiery woman, there was no way he would sacrifice this chance to be with her. He’d sworn to Vicki that attraction to Sierra had nothing to do with offering her the job, and that was still true. Making love to Sierra didn’t retroactively taint his decision to hire her. She’d absolutely been the right person for the job, which she’d proved time and again.

  “Jarrett?” Across the table, Sierra looked concerned, and he realized how withdrawn he’d been. Trying to keep his simmering lust under control had prevented him from interacting much with her. He hadn’t said much to Vicki either, but she was quiet, too, probably missing her friends.

  “Anything wrong with your food?” Sierra asked.

  “Sorry. Guess my mind’s...elsewhere.” Specifically, upstairs. In a bed with her. But he took a couple of bites of dinner, not wanting her cooking to go to waste.

  A few minutes later, Vicki gave up on her own meal and announced that she was going to bed early. After she left the room, Sierra stood.

  “The good news is, we have plenty left over for lunch tomorrow.” She carried her plate and Vicki’s to the sink.

  “I’ll clean up the dishes,” he volunteered.

  “You sure? That would be great. I was thinking about taking a bubble bath. I could use the relaxation. I’ve been...strangely tense all day.”

  “Go take your bath,” he said softly. “If that doesn’t relieve your tension, we’ll see if we can come up with something more effective.”

  She grinned, her eyes shimmering with banked heat. “Good to know I have options.”

  She went upstairs and he cleaned the kitchen, then watched some football. But it was all kind of a watercolor blur, pale and muted compared to the moments he spent with Sierra. Wanting to give her plenty of time, he considered calling his parents; he’d been giving them updates on the ranch and Vicki’s progress every few days. But he opted aga
inst it, afraid his mom might take his distraction as a sign that something was wrong.

  He headed up the stairs, struck by the novelty of how rare it was to be with a woman under his own roof. There’d been a few furtive encounters at the ranch over the years, but a lot of his love life had taken place in motel rooms and the bench seats of trucks. When was the last time he’d woken up next to a woman he’d fallen asleep beside and started the day with her? He’d seen quite a few lovers naked, but he was woefully inexperienced when it came to actual intimacy. He liked that he knew exactly how Sierra fixed her morning coffee and how adorably disheveled she looked in her polka-dot pajamas.

  He went into the bathroom for a quick shower, and the perfume of honeysuckle-scented bubble bath lingered in the air. He found the fragrance deeply arousing because now he knew what her skin would smell like when he slid into her. After his shower, he pulled on a pair of drawstring pajama pants but didn’t bother with a shirt or boxer briefs. He wanted as little between him and Sierra as possible.

  He brushed his teeth, getting ready for bed just like he did every night. But this wasn’t any other night, and his fingers trembled as he replaced the cap on the toothpaste. The walk down the hallway was unnaturally long. He raised his fist to rap against the door with his knuckles, but it wasn’t closed all the way and swung open as soon as he made contact.

  She was sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing a button-down emerald sleepshirt with a satin collar and cuffs, a feminine play on a man’s dress shirt.

  “What, no polka dots?” he teased as he closed the door behind him.

  Her smile was uncharacteristically shy. “This was the best I could do. I didn’t exactly pack sexy negligees with me for this trip.”