Everyone knew Lloyd was a mean soul, but a little milk on his jeans didn’t warrant this kind of reaction. Still, with Lloyd and his group of buddies there was no telling for sure. He might have just thought it would be fun to terrorize Sammy and Nicolette.
Lloyd worked for Raymond Humes on the ranch next to Cass’s. Throughout the years there had been plenty of bad blood both between Raymond and Cass and the cowboys who worked for each of them.
Lucas’s feelings toward Nicolette and Sammy were definitely confusing, but the ladder against the house felt ominous, and as he reached the bunkhouse, he smelled more than a hint of danger in the air.
* * *
Dillon and his men finally left. By the time they did Nicolette had laid Sammy on the sofa and she was pacing the floor, trying to wrap her mind around that unexpected and frightening face in the window.
Cassie and Adam were in the kitchen seated at the table and talking about rotating men outside the house each night for the next couple of nights or until Dillon came up with a guilty party and a reason for the ladder.
Nicolette heard only the murmur of their voices as she was mentally focused on the vision of that ski mask and those eyes that had appeared to hold such glittering malevolence.
Who could it have been and what had he wanted? Was it just an accident that he’d been about to enter the room where her vulnerable son was soundly sleeping? Dillon had told her the window was still closed, but that didn’t mean if Nicolette had been three minutes longer climbing up the stairs the man wouldn’t have been through the window and into the bedroom.
And then what? She couldn’t imagine, for everything she thought of was too terrifying to contemplate.
She stopped pacing as Lucas came in the front door, carrying an oversize duffle bag and a sense of security she welcomed. The only thing better than the sight of him would have been if he’d cradled her in his arms to steal away the cold wind that had blown through her since the instant she had seen the man at the window.
As if reading her mind, he dropped his duffle bag to the floor and stepped forward, his arms open to welcome her. She didn’t hesitate. She ran into his embrace, a sob escaping her the instant he enfolded her tight.
His body was hard against hers, yet seemed to meld around her. He stroked her hair with one hand while his other slowly rose up and down her back in an obvious effort to comfort her.
“I was so scared,” she whispered.
“There’s no reason to be scared anymore,” he replied.
She buried her face in his chest, breathing in the scent of night and the faint fragrance of a spicy cologne. She told herself it wouldn’t matter whose arms she was in, as long as they were big and strong, but she knew that wasn’t true. She needed his arms, Lucas’s arms around her.
She’d known him for only three short days, but it didn’t matter. Already he’d become safety and security for her and her son.
She didn’t know how long they stood together, locked in an embrace, before she realized the cold that had been inside her was gone and she wasn’t just warmed, but a new fire had begun to burn in the pit of her stomach. It was a fire that had nothing to do with comfort or a feeling of security, and when she recognized it for what it was, she finally stepped away from him.
“Sorry about that,” she said, her gaze not meeting his. “Just chalk it up to a moment of weakness.”
He stepped toward her and took her chin in his fingers, forcing her gaze to meet his. “It’s going to be all right,” he said. “Dillon is a good man. He’ll figure it out, and in the meantime I’m here to make sure nobody gets inside this house.” He dropped his hand back to his side, and at that moment Adam and Cassie came into the room.
“Sawyer is going to keep an eye on the house through the rest of the night,” Adam said.
“That really isn’t necessary since I’m going to be in the house,” Lucas replied.
“We’ll have him on duty tonight and then tomorrow figure things out.” Adam raked a hand through his hair, his gaze lingering on Cassie. “I don’t want you to worry. We aren’t going to let anyone harm you. I’ll talk to you in the morning.” He looked at his watch. “It’s already after midnight. Why don’t we plan to meet here around ten.”
“That’s fine with me,” Cassie replied. “And now that the excitement is over, I’m going to bed.” She looked at Nicolette. “Are you coming up?”
Nicolette shook her head. “I’m too wired to sleep. I’ll be up a little bit later.”
Adam left, Cassie disappeared up the stairs and Lucas looked at Nicolette. “Do you want me to carry Sammy upstairs?”
“Only if you’re going up now.”
“I’m a little wired myself,” he replied. “Why don’t we go into the living room, where we won’t bother Sammy,” he suggested.
She nodded and followed him from the great room into the smaller, more formal living room. She sat on one side of the sofa and he sat on the other.
“You should have told me what happened in the café when we were in town this afternoon,” he said.
“I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it in front of Sammy. He was so upset when it happened and the only thing that made his world okay again was a cookie and ice cream from Daisy and the cowboy boots from you.”
“Still, I could have settled it with Lloyd right then and there.” His jaw clenched tightly, making him even more handsome and slightly dangerous looking.
She smiled. “Then I probably would have had to figure out how to get the money to pay bail for you.”
His jaw softened and he returned her smile. “You got that right. Lloyd and his fellow cowboys are nothing but a bunch of bullies and thieves. Cass couldn’t abide Raymond Humes or any of the men who worked on his ranch. The bad blood goes both ways, which is unfortunate since his ranch is next to this one.”
“Why the bad blood?” she asked curiously.
Lucas shrugged. “I don’t know where it all began. Things were already bad when I first came here, and that was fifteen years ago.”
“Fifteen years—you must have been a baby.”
“I was just shy of seventeen years old and I hadn’t been anybody’s baby for a very long time.” He paused and took off his holster and set it with his gun on the coffee table before them. “What’s your story? How did you come to be here with Cassie?”
She leaned back against the sofa. “In order to tell you that I have to start at the beginning when I got married, and it’s a long story.”
“We’ve got all night,” he replied easily.
“I can sleep in tomorrow, but you have chores to do.”
“Tomorrow is my day off, so there’s no problem,” he replied.
Nicolette had a feeling his questions were less about wanting to really know about her past and more about wanting to take her mind off the horrible events of the night.
“I met Samuel when I was working as a salesperson in an upscale dress shop during the day and going to night school in the evenings. It was obvious to me that he probably didn’t have to look at price tags and it was equally obvious that he was flirting with me. But, he told me he was looking for a dress for a woman about my size and wanted shoes to match.”
She paused a moment, remembering the first time she’d seen her future husband. He’d had sandy brown hair, earnest brown eyes. He possessed boyish good looks and was exceedingly charming.
“Anyway, he bought a ridiculously expensive dress and shoes and after I rang up the purchases he told me to wear the clothes and meet him that night at a fancy French restaurant. Before I could protest, he left the store.”
“And so you went to the restaurant to meet him?”
“I did, but I wasn’t wearing the dress or shoes he’d bought. Before I left the store that day I put them back on the rack and credited his account and then I met him for dinner and told him he couldn’t buy me with a fancy dress and sparkly shoes. He was both surprised and intrigued. I guess nobody had ever turned down a gift from
him before.”
“That was the beginning of your relationship,” Lucas said.
“It was the beginning of a whirlwind romance. Samuel is a trust-fund baby who spent the first months of our dating telling me about all the wonderful things he intended to do, to be in his future. He talked about charity work and altruistic causes and I believed him, I believed in him. I thought that he had just been waiting for the right woman to be at his side, so when he proposed I accepted and we got married in Las Vegas and honeymooned there for a week in luxury.”
“Then what went wrong?” Lucas asked and leaned a bit closer to her.
“When I married him he spent most of his time throwing away his money frivolously and partying until he passed out. I kept waiting for him to grow up, to start to be a productive member of society, to do something worthwhile, and then I got pregnant with Sammy. I thought that would be the catalyst for him to change. But Samuel wasn’t interested in being a father and he wasn’t interested in being a husband. By the time Sammy was two, I knew that nothing was ever going to change. He had his monthly money from his trust fund and didn’t have to do anything constructive, so I divorced him.”
“I’m sorry he didn’t turn out to be the man you wanted him to be.”
Nicolette shrugged. “I guess I should be grateful that all Samuel ever cared about was money and partying. When it came time for the divorce Samuel only wanted to hang on to his money and he didn’t care about any custody of Sammy. So, I walked away with full custody of my son and a little bit of money that I’d had before I met Samuel.”
“And Cassie?”
“She and I had met when I was going to college classes to become a teacher. We’d become best of friends and continued that friendship even during my marriage. When she heard about the divorce she insisted that Sammy and I move in with her temporarily until I got on my feet. Then I threw my money in on the store, and to be honest, I’m still waiting to get on my feet. But I’d rather live in a cardboard box with Sammy than live in luxury and have him endure a lifetime of his father’s indifference.”
“What about your parents? Couldn’t they help you out?”
“My mother died a year after I married Samuel and my father passed away almost a year to the day after her. I think he just missed her so much he let go of life to be with her again.”
She looked at him with a touch of humor. “Have I put you to sleep yet?”
He smiled, that crazy beautiful smile that always lit up a place deep inside her. “Not at all. I wanted to get to know you better, and part of the way to understand people is to learn where they’ve been.”
“And where have you been?” she asked.
“Now, that is a story for another night,” he said. She noticed how his eyes darkened slightly. He stood and buckled his holster back around his waist. “It’s late. I think maybe it’s time we both call it a night.”
She also stood, slightly disappointed that she’d just shared so much with him about herself and he obviously wasn’t in a state of mind to share anything with her. He owes you nothing, she reminded herself.
They walked back into the great room, where Sammy still slept soundly on the sofa. “I’ll carry him upstairs,” Lucas said. He picked up Sammy, who immediately wrapped his legs around Lucas’s waist and nestled his face into the crook of Lucas’s neck.
The sight of her son wrapped like a baby monkey around the strong, handsome cowboy pierced Nicolette’s heart. How many times had she wished that Samuel would hug Sammy, give the little boy any kind of attention and love?
“I’ll carry your bag,” she replied. She picked up the duffle, turned off the lights downstairs and then followed Lucas up the stairs, trying not to notice how his worn jeans fit so nicely across his backside.
She dropped the duffle bag just inside the room that held the two twin beds and watched as Lucas placed Sammy in the bed he’d been pulled from by her scream.
Lucas tucked the sheet around the boy and then walked back to Nicolette just outside the doorway. “You can sleep peacefully knowing that he’s safe with me,” he said.
“You have no idea how much I appreciate what you’re doing for us.”
He took another step closer to her, so close she could feel his body heat, and her head once again filled with his heady scent. Her mouth was unaccountably dry as she saw a flash of desire light the depths of his eyes.
She knew he intended to kiss her. She also knew she should step back from him, but her feet refused to move her to safety. Cassie’s advice about not getting close to anyone here was forgotten as she fell into the midnight blue yearning in Lucas’s eyes.
She didn’t see him move but found herself once again in his embrace, her breasts tight against his hard chest as his soft, warm lips claimed hers.
The kiss was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Initially his lips were soft as butterfly wings against hers, and then the pressure increased and she couldn’t help but open her mouth to him, allowing him to deepen the kiss.
Shivers raced up her spine along with his slow caresses up and down her back. His tongue swirled with hers, dizzying her senses, and she leaned closer into him.
He kissed her with mastery, stealing away her will for anything else but to acquiesce to whatever he desired from her.
She felt as if she were on fire when his mouth left hers and trailed a blaze of nips and kisses down her jaw and in the hollow of her throat.
More. She wanted more, and the idea snapped her back into reality. And the reality was that she had no business kissing Lucas Taylor. She had no business allowing him to kiss her until her knees were weak and she wanted more from him, of him.
She stumbled backward and raised a hand to her lips. She stared at him with both a sense of wonder and a bit of fear...the fear of her own desire for him.
“Sorry,” he said as he took a step back from her. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“We shouldn’t have done that,” she replied, dropping her hand to her side. His eyes still held a fire that tempted her closer, and it took every ounce of her willpower to stand her ground.
“But I have to be honest. If given the chance again, I’d take it.” He turned and went into the room where Sammy was asleep, leaving Nicolette standing stunned in the hall.
Chapter 5
Nicolette awakened to the delicious scents of fried bacon and fresh coffee. She rolled over in the bed and sat straight up when she realized by looking at the alarm clock that it was after nine.
Sammy was usually an early riser and it had been his habit to wake her when he got up. Her heart beat fast for a moment and then she remembered that it was Lucas’s day off and he was in the house.
That would explain Sammy’s lack of interest in waking her. With Cowboy Lucas at his side, his mom was now just spare change.
She slumped back against the pillow and tried not to think about the kiss she and Lucas had shared the night before, but that seemed to be all she could think about. Never, even in all her years of marriage, had she been kissed so thoroughly. Never had her response to a kiss been so immediate and visceral.
Still, even the memory of his amazing kiss couldn’t completely erase from her mind the fact that somebody had put a ladder against the side of the house with the obvious intent of getting inside.
Who? And why?
These thoughts pulled her out of bed. She grabbed clean clothes for the day and then scurried down the hall to the bathroom.
As she stood beneath a warm spray of water, she hoped that Chief Bowie stopped by later today to let her know if Lloyd had been behind the potential break-in or not. She almost hoped it was Lloyd. Otherwise it had been some unknown person, and she had no clue as to what the motive might be.
Maybe Chief Bowie was right. Maybe it had just been some creep who had known the house was occupied by two city ladies and a small child and saw the perfect opportunity for a robbery.
If that was the case, she still didn’t understand why the intended
point of entry had been an upstairs bedroom instead of the front or back door or even a window at ground level.
Or maybe it had been bored kids out for a night of fun, planning a party in a house they assumed was empty. But even as she thought of this, she didn’t believe it. Kids wouldn’t plan a party with twelve protective, armed cowboys on the property.
She dismissed all thoughts from her head as she finished her shower and then dressed for the day. No matter how much she ruminated on it, she wouldn’t find an answer by herself.
As far as Lucas was concerned, her best course of action was to attempt to gain some distance from him. She knew Cassie’s plan to sell the ranch, although she’d promised Cassie she wouldn’t tell any of the cowboys.
It was already bad enough that Sammy had instantly bonded to “Cowboy Lucas.” If she wasn’t careful, Sammy’s heart wasn’t the only one that would be broken when they left Oklahoma.
The bottom rung of the stairs creaked loudly as she stepped on it, and Sammy appeared as if by magic at the foot of the stairs. “Finally,” he exclaimed with a dramatic roll of his eyes. “We’ve been waiting forever and ever for you to get out of bed. Cowboy Lucas and I are fixing you breakfast this morning.”
He grabbed her by the hand and when he dragged her into the kitchen, she felt an uncomfortable shyness upon seeing Lucas seated at the table with a cup of coffee before him.
“Good morning,” he said, and there was a simmering whisper of a secret in his eyes that made her believe he was thinking about the kiss they had shared the night before.
“Good morning,” she replied, meeting his gaze for only a moment and then walking over to the counter that held the coffeepot.
Sammy stopped her before she could grab her cup. “You just sit, Mom. I’m going to take care of you this morning.”
“Far be it for me to argue,” she replied with a laugh. She sat across from Lucas and watched Sammy carefully pour the coffee into a mug and then carry it to her without spilling a drop.
“Thank you, sir,” she replied.
A Real Cowboy Page 6