He wondered if she had plans tomorrow. He didn’t know a lot about beauticians and salons, but he was reasonably sure that they wouldn’t be open on Sunday, especially in a small town like Shoshone. Olivia might have things to do on her day off, though.
Still, she might be willing to spend time with him, and Jack wouldn’t be home until late afternoon. As he thought about what they might do together, he admitted to himself that mostly he wanted to get her alone somewhere. Would that be too obvious?
And if he succeeded in working out a way they could be alone, then he needed his stuff from the Bunk and Grub. Specifically, he needed one certain item, something he carried with him, although God knows why he did. He hadn’t had a girlfriend in over a year.
Actually, he did know why he kept condoms on hand, and had done it for years. Funny that he hadn’t figured that out before. His mother hadn’t bothered to have any heart-to-heart talks with him except once, and the subject had been birth control.
She’d handed him a box of condoms, which had embarrassed the hell out of him, but she’d insisted that he listen to what she had to say. A lecture about unplanned pregnancies had followed. She’d emphasized how such a disaster could change someone’s life forever.
Now he knew where that lecture had come from. She’d married Jonathan Chance because she’d been pregnant with his child. These days people didn’t always believe that a marriage had to follow a pregnancy, but his mother had believed it back then.
Even after only a few hours spent at the ranch, Wyatt could understand why she’d thought marrying Jonathan was her only option. She’d conceived the heir to the Chance legacy. And when she’d finally made up her mind to leave, she couldn’t take that heir with her. Jack belonged here.
She should never have had more children, but he couldn’t very well wish she hadn’t or he wouldn’t exist. But she had not been a good mother, certainly not to Jack, and not to him and Rafe, either. One lecture about birth control didn’t balance out years of indifference. But it had prevented him from making the same mistake she had.
As he lay staring into the darkness, Rodney whined. At Olivia’s insistence when they’d started upstairs, Wyatt had taken the flashlight while she took the votive candle. She’d argued that he had the dog and might need it.
Apparently he did. When he turned it on, Rodney looked for all the world like he had to go outside. Well, crap. Climbing out of bed, he walked to the window. Rain no longer ran in rivulets down the pane, so maybe it had stopped. Maybe Rodney knew that.
“All right, Rod.” Wyatt put on his briefs and the jeans and shirt he’d borrowed. No sense in bothering to put on Jack’s boots when he was planning to wear the rubber rain boots outside. He left his shirt unsnapped, too. This would be a quick trip.
“At least it better be quick,” he told the dog as they left the bedroom, lighting the way with the flashlight. He let Rodney walk to the top of the stairs, but he carried him down because a long flight of steep stairs wasn’t really Rodney’s thing. Once on the ground floor, he put the dog down, and Rodney padded right over to the front door.
“I’ll be damned. Okay, let me get some boots on.” He abandoned the slicker option and opened the front door. Cool air greeted him, soothing his heated skin. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.
Without coaxing, the Bassett hound trotted across the porch and made his way down the steps while Wyatt gave him a lit path with the flashlight. Crossing the gravel drive took no time at all. But at the muddy area on the far side of the driveway, Rodney paused.
“I’m not sure how you’re going to be a tracking dog if you can’t stand mud, my friend.” But Wyatt picked him up and transported him over to the tree, where Rodney hiked his leg and did what everybody had been trying for hours to get him to do.
“Feel better, now?”
Rodney yipped his answer.
Wyatt stood under the tree for a moment reliving his encounter with Olivia. His groin stirred. Either they’d find some time alone tomorrow, or he was going to be one frustrated guy. But suggesting a picnic seemed lame, especially when the ground would be wet and muddy after all this rain.
At some point he’d help her get her Jeep out of the ditch, but he couldn’t imagine parlaying that into anything cozy. Then inspiration struck. The night breeze must have blown the cobwebs from his brain because he had the perfect solution.
In describing the ranch, his mother had mentioned a sacred Shoshone site a short drive from the house. The marker was a large, flat rock about the size and length of a pickup truck, and it was laced with white quartz, a stone that was thought to conduct special energy and sparkled in the sun.
He’d been a little surprised that she’d talk about the site because usually she downplayed the fact that she was half Shoshone. That made him a quarter Shoshone, even though he didn’t look the least bit Native American. And he wanted to see this site.
Apparently the tribe didn’t visit the spot anymore, even though the Chance family had given them permission to do so whenever they wanted. Times had changed. But many years ago, the rock had been the location for tribal ceremonies. Inviting Olivia to drive out there with him was the perfect excuse to get her alone, and — if he was a very lucky guy — naked.
Chapter Eight
Olivia had heard Wyatt go outside with Rodney because, big surprise, she’d been unable to sleep. Most of the clouds had drifted away, leaving the moon and stars to pay hide-and-seek behind the ones that were left. Kneeling by her bedroom window and resting her arms on the sill, she watched him move across the gravel. The flashlight bobbed rhythmically as he walked in that loose-hipped way that told her a man knew how to use those hips in bed.
His shirt billowed out, which meant he hadn’t bothered to fasten the snaps. She intended to stay here until he walked back. An opportunity to catch a glimpse of his bare chest was worth the wait.
She liked that he hadn’t left his shirt open for a calculated macho display of muscles. He thought he was alone with the dog, and he just hadn’t bothered to snap a shirt he’d take off in a few minutes. He couldn’t know that she was at the window, her attention glued to his every move.
At the far edge of the drive, he switched off the flashlight, leaned down and scooped Rodney into his arms just as the moon came out from behind a cloud. She had a great view of his buns in the borrowed jeans that were delightfully snug. Ordinarily she’d feel shallow for obsessing about a guy’s body like this, except that she also admired the person inside, so ogling didn’t seem quite so awful. She admired his cheerful attitude and his courage in coming here and trying to become friends with Jack.
He was risking rejection, and she hoped to hell that wasn’t going to happen. She didn’t know Jack very well. Everybody knew his wife Josie because she owned the Spirits and Spurs and still worked there regularly. But Jack spent most of his time on the ranch, so Olivia had limited knowledge, mostly gained during Emily and Clay’s wedding two months ago.
Jack had cut loose a little at the wedding, and people had told her that he’d been quite the party animal in his younger days. But after his dad died, he’d retreated into a workaholic shell. Josie and little Archie had brought him out of that shell, apparently, but the whole issue with his mother still affected him. His initial response to Wyatt proved that.
But Wyatt had come back, wearing his heart on his sleeve. She wished she could protect that vulnerable heart somehow, because she wasn’t convinced that Jack would be any more cordial than he had been before. Maybe she’d find a reason to hang around tomorrow, if nobody objected, so that she could be there when Jack arrived.
After spending quality time with Rodney in the shadow of the spruce tree, Wyatt emerged carrying the dog again. Damn. That dog was obscuring her view of Wyatt’s most excellent pecs and abs. But then he reached the gravel, set Rodney on all fours, and straightened.
The moon and clouds were still involved in a dance, but they separated in time to illuminate Wyatt in what Olivia cou
ld only describe as divine intervention. Her breath caught at the beauty of him. Men weren’t supposed to be beautiful, but Wyatt was.
Moonlight painted him in shades of gray, as if he were the subject of an artistic black and white photo. Dominique would be able to capture this on film, but Olivia would have to rely on her memory. No problem. She wouldn’t soon forget how the light sculpted his contours and added soft smudges of chest hair that formed a blurry line that disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans.
Her fingers itched to touch him, but he was out of reach tonight. He would soon be back in his room and right down the hall, but he might as well be on another continent as far as Olivia was concerned. The thought of causing Sarah any embarrassment gave her heartburn. No matter how much she wanted Wyatt, and that was a whole lot, she wouldn’t breach the invisible barrier Sarah had erected between the two wings of the upper story.
As Wyatt crossed the gravel drive, he glanced up toward her window. She doubted he could see her there, but she liked knowing he’d thought of her during his late-night ramble. But she was dead serious about how she’d handle their relationship beyond the initial sexual involvement. If she and Wyatt turned out to be more than friends with benefits, she wanted to make damned sure that it was her idea and not his to take it to the next level.
Wyatt and Rodney reached the porch and disappeared under the porch roof. The front door creaked open, and the sharp sound of Rodney’s toenails on the hardwood floor and the softer thud of Wyatt shucking his boots told her they’d soon be trudging up the stairs. She had to talk long and hard to herself to keep from walking out and meeting them at the top of those stairs.
That would accomplish nothing except to frustrate both her and Wyatt even more. Climbing back into bed, she listened for Wyatt’s footsteps on the stairs and knew from his heavy tread that he was carrying the Bassett hound. It made an endearing mental picture.
Then they reached the second floor, and the dog’s nails clicked along the floor while Wyatt’s progress was virtually silent in his bare feet. How she yearned for him. But she would have to wait. Morning seemed an eternity away.
Rodney turned out to be a damned fine alarm clock. Before the sun was up, he’d begun pacing the floor and whining as if he had to go out again. Mumbling in protest, Wyatt left his warm bed and started pulling on his borrowed clothes. He hadn’t expected to sleep at all, but eventually he’d drifted off.
His dreams had been excellent, filled with a very naked and willing Olivia, and pulling the jeans over his morning wood was not a fun exercise. “You’re worse than a new baby, Rod, old chum. I’ve never had a new baby, but I understand they interrupt your sleep a lot.”
Rodney came over and started licking his bare toes.
“And you can knock that off, too, Rod. The only person I want licking my toes is sleeping down the hall. At least I hope she is. I hope everyone on this frickin’ ranch is asleep, because it’s barely light out. This is beyond early, and I know early.”
Opening his bedroom door, he staggered out into the hall. Josie appeared coming from the other direction, Archie clutched in her arms. “Gotta deal with the baby,” she said in a sleep-roughened voice.
“Gotta deal with the dog.” Wyatt let her go down the stairs ahead of him.
“You’ll make a good dad, Wyatt,” she said over her shoulder.
“I already feel like one, except this guy needs to lose some of his baby fat.” With a sigh, he picked up Rodney and carried him down the winding staircase. Then he clipped the leash to his collar and opened the front door.
Although he wasn’t overjoyed to be roused out of bed this early after so little sleep, the minute he stepped out on the front porch, his weariness vanished. The front of the house faced a spectacular view of the Grand Tetons, still snow-covered as spring moved into summer.
The view had been obscured by rain yesterday, but this morning the pale pink of an impending sunrise bathed the jagged peaks and took Wyatt’s breath away. Knowing his mother had walked away from such beauty underscored how self-absorbed she truly was.
San Francisco certainly had spectacular views, as well, but his mother had never mentioned that as her reason for living there. She’d wanted an urban life and a rich husband. Not that anyone would have called Jonathan Chance a pauper. Any fool could see that the Last Chance was worth a lot of money, but the family would have to sell in order to tap those millions. His mother obviously preferred ready cash.
Accompanying Rodney across the gravel drive to the dog’s chosen spruce tree, Wyatt shivered in the morning chill and wished for a jacket. But other than the temperature, it was glorious out here. He savored the scents of pine and wet earth and glanced up as a hawk wheeled overhead.
Just as Rodney finished anointing the tree trunk, Wyatt heard activity down at the barn and several Paint horses appeared in the pasture, manes and tails flying as they celebrated their freedom. The barn dogs Olivia had mentioned bounded out of the barn and ran up to greet Rodney.
Thanks to leather collars hand-tooled with their names, Wyatt was able to identify them by name. Butch was a medium-sized dog, obviously a mixed breed with short hair that was mostly tan except a patch of white on his snub nose. Sundance was slightly smaller with a curly black coat and floppy ears.
All three dogs participated in a round-robin of nose-to-tail greetings, but Butch and Sundance also trotted over to Wyatt seeking attention. Crouching down, he ruffled their coats and scratched behind their ears. “Guess Rod must have vouched for me, huh?”
Panting, the dogs grinned at him. A whistle from the barn sent them racing back down, probably for their breakfast. Wyatt realized he was smiling. He could easily lose his heart to this ranch and the surrounding countryside. And that wasn’t even taking into account the woman he’d kissed last night under this very tree.
Rodney started back toward the house, obviously interested in his next meal, too. Wyatt was attached to Rodney by the nylon leash, but the dog was far more eager to go in than Wyatt was. The rockers lining the porch were still wet, but he could imagine coming out here with a cup of coffee and just… appreciating. No doubt that’s why the rockers were there.
The minute he walked through the front door, he caught the scent of coffee and wondered how someone was accomplishing that if the power was still off. But if there was coffee in the making, he’d sure like to find a towel and wipe off one of those rockers.
He wasn’t sure where his boundaries lay, though. Sarah had insisted that he stay here, but that didn’t mean he could act as if he owned the place. He had to be very careful about that, in fact.
Rodney, on the other hand, had no such hang-ups. Once Wyatt unhooked the leash from his collar, he trotted down the hall toward the kitchen as if the Last Chance had been built expressly for his comfort. Wyatt followed him, figuring the dog gave him an excuse to investigate what was happening in the kitchen.
In the early morning light, Wyatt could see the pictures on the wall, but he wouldn’t know most of the people in the pictures, anyway. He needed that guided tour of the photo gallery that Mary Lou had promised him. He also needed coffee.
He found more people in the kitchen than he would have imagined this early. Josie had Archie in his carrier on the table and was rocking him gently while she sipped from a steaming mug. Mary Lou, wearing a fluffy white bathrobe, also sat at the table cradling a mug, and the third person was a fully dressed middle-aged cowboy with a handlebar mustache. He had coffee, too.
“Hi, there, Wyatt!” Mary Lou smiled at him. “Want coffee?”
“Yes, but what kind of magic did you use to make it?”
“Cowboy magic.” She glanced at the man sitting next to her at the table. “Watkins, I’d like you to meet Wyatt Locke, Jack’s half-brother.”
Watkins shoved back his chair, stood, and extended his hand across the table. “Pleased to meet you, Wyatt.”
“Same here, Mr. Watkins.” Wyatt shook the cowboy’s hand and kept his expression carefully ne
utral. So this was the old fool Mary Lou had no intention of marrying, the same guy who’d knocked on her door in the rain and caught her wearing, probably not by accident, a red negligee.
“Just Watkins, son. That’s all I go by. Coffee’s in that big thermos over there. Take as much as you want. I’m about to head down to the bunkhouse and reload it.”
“Thanks.” Wyatt walked over to the counter where a large carafe stood.
“Mugs are in the cupboard above,” Mary Lou said. “Need cream? I hope not, because we’re limiting how often we open the refrigerator.”
“I don’t use cream, thanks.” Wyatt took down a plain white mug, stuck it under the spigot, and pushed on the top of the carafe. A stream of dark, fragrant coffee poured out. Heaven.
When he was finished, Watkins came over and lifted the carafe. “Yep, nearly empty. I’ll be back.”
“Thanks, Watkins,” Josie said. “You’re a lifesaver.”
“It’s the hands who get the credit. They weren’t about to go without their coffee this morning.”
“So what did they do?” Wyatt asked.
“Hauled out the old campfire coffee pot and turned on the propane barbeque grill,” Watkins said. “They’ll be cooking bacon and eggs soon. I’ll bring some of those up when they’re ready.”
Wyatt grinned. “Exactly what I would have done. In fact, I didn’t even think about the little camp stove I have in the back of my truck. Should I get that out?”
Watkins smoothed his mustache. “Thanks, but I think we’ve got it covered. They’re having fun, as a matter of fact. It’ll be their pleasure to feed the ladies. Well, and you, of course. Be right back.” Carrying the carafe, he left the kitchen by the back door.
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