Riding Hard

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  “You can call me.” But he was less sure that everything would work out easily. Dottie had changed the game considerably in the past couple of hours.

  “Drake, if you leave, I’ll spend the night camped out next to her stall worried sick with my phone right next to me.”

  He believed her. “Then I’ll camp out beside her stall tonight. I’m sure there are some old blankets in the house I can use to make a bedroll.”

  “You don’t have to go that far. Lily has a spare room. You could sleep in there, maybe set your phone to wake you up every few hours to check on her and collect that stuff the foal will need.”

  “Colostrum.”

  “Right. Colostrum.”

  He hesitated. Sleeping in the barn was one thing. Sleeping in the house with Tracy was a whole other deal. “That’s okay. The barn’s fine.”

  “No, no, just because I said I would sleep there if you left doesn’t mean you should put yourself through that. You’re a pro. You’ll know whether it’s safe to grab a few winks, and you’d be better off in a real bed.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I’ll bet you don’t want to stay in the house because you think I don’t like you.”

  “You don’t like me.” But once your panic wears off, you’ll be attracted to me, whether you want to be or not.

  “I don’t like what you did to Regan, and I don’t blame you for not wanting to hang around someone who’s said some hurtful things, but I’m desperate. Please stay. And take the guest room.”

  He took a deep breath. “Okay.” Once the crisis was over, they’d both be like dry kindling ready to ignite. He’d have to get the hell out of there before one of them lit the fire.

  4

  ON SOME LEVEL, Tracy knew she was taking a huge chance by having Drake close by, but she simply couldn’t handle this alone. She walked out to the truck with him. “Since you’re staying, I’ll share the money Regan and Lily pay me for house-sitting.”

  “I wouldn’t consider it.” He opened the back end of the truck. “You need that money for school.”

  “I do, but if you’re doing part of my job here, then it’s only fair that...wait a minute. How did you know I’m going to school?”

  He gave her a deer-in-the-lights look followed by an expression that clearly said oh, shit. He tried to pass it off with a shrug. “That’s the way it is around here with secrets. Word gets out.”

  “Sure it does, but not to you. You don’t talk to anybody except Regan and Lily. At least not about anything significant. One of them told you, didn’t they?”

  “Regan told me and then asked me not to mention it, which I just did. Blame it on my big mouth instead of Regan blabbing. He was trying to respect your privacy, but he thought I might want to know.”

  “Why?”

  “He thought...” A dull red colored his throat and moved up to his cheeks. “Never mind. It’s not important.” He leaned into the truck and began sorting through Regan’s supplies.

  “Okay.” She was ready to let the subject drop, at least for now. Apparently her previous high anxiety had blocked her sexual awareness of Drake, because as it fell, her heat level rose. And here she was, within the three-foot limit, which hadn’t been a problem when she was hyperventilating over the possibility she’d have to deliver a foal.

  Now it was a problem, especially with him leaning over like that, which showcased his tight buns. She backed away from the truck. “I need to feed the pigs and chickens. When I discovered Dottie leaking, I lost track of everything else.”

  “Sure. Go ahead.” Rustling noises indicated he was still gathering supplies. He didn’t turn around. “I’ll take care of things here.”

  Then she realized something else. She should offer to feed him—another sticky wicket because logically they’d have to eat the meal together. He might have to spend considerable time within her three-foot limit. Maybe they could sit at opposite ends of Lily and Regan’s dining table as if they were a couple living in a manor house with servants.

  Then there was the menu. She doubted it would suit him, but she had to give it a shot. She’d talked him into occupying the premises, and the guy needed nourishment. A small town like Shoshone didn’t have a pizza parlor that delivered.

  She screwed up her courage. “After I feed the pigs and chickens, I’ll warm up some dinner for us.”

  He turned around, a box in one hand. “That would be great.” He gave her a quick smile.

  The effect was potent. She backed up another step. “I should warn you that Lily’s a vegetarian and Regan’s reverted to vegetarianism, too.”

  “I know. I’ve been over for dinner a few times.”

  “Right. I guess you would have.” So maybe this food situation would work out okay, after all. “Anyway, she was nice enough to prepare and freeze some food for me. I’ve thawed a container of lentil soup for tonight. There’s plenty for both of us, and she also made corn bread.”

  “I’m good with that.”

  She detected a distinct lack of enthusiasm, but she wasn’t surprised. Not a lot of guys became excited over lentil soup. “There’s also a huge chocolate cake.”

  “Now we’re talkin’!”

  She couldn’t help laughing. “Do you want dessert first?”

  “No, I do not. I’m not five. I’ll eat my lentil soup like a good boy.”

  “All right.” She did her best not to be charmed, but it was cute the way he drew out the word five.

  “Besides, it’s got to be better than the frozen dinners I’ve cooked for myself whenever I didn’t come into town for a meal.”

  She had a sudden image of Drake alone in the small cabin eating a microwaved meal by himself and felt a twinge of sympathy. She had so many friends, while he... No, she would not feel sorry for him. He could always go back to Virginia and resume his old life. For whatever reason, he’d chosen to stay here and be lonely.

  “I’ve had Lily’s lentil soup,” she said. “It’s good. Come on up to the house when you’re finished here.” She turned and walked away. All the way to the house she lectured herself about not letting down her guard.

  She knew all about the big flaw in Drake’s character. That should have been enough to keep her far, far away from him. Her mother had been seduced by a charmer like Drake, but her mother hadn’t had Tracy’s advantage of knowing she was dealing with a cheating bastard.

  Yes, he was coming to her aid at the moment, and she was thrilled about that. But she couldn’t let gratitude and her natural susceptibility override her good judgment. Somehow she had to strike a balance between being properly appreciative and throwing herself into his arms in a fit of lust. She wondered if simple friendship was an option. That might be the safe middle ground, assuming she could pull it off.

  Drake had betrayed his best friend, someone Tracy greatly admired. As she stood in the kitchen chopping veggies for the potbellied pigs, she faced a truth she’d been unwilling to admit until now. Drake was also extremely likable. Her choices would be so much easier if he could behave like an arrogant jerk. Then she’d have no trouble separating the guys in the white hats from the ones in the black hats.

  She finished filling the bowls for Wilbur and Harley and carried them out to their pens. At one time the two pigs had been free to roam the yard, but the bigger one, Harley, had bullied Wilbur into giving up his food. Now they each had a separate pen for mealtimes, although both had a gate out to a common yard and mud hole they could enjoy together when they weren’t eating.

  Tracy set a bowl in each pen and then quickly closed them in their respective homes. “That’s the answer.” She leaned against the fence and watched the pigs eat. “I should be friendly, because after all, the guy is doing me a big-ass favor. But I need to set boundaries, just like you have these fences between you.”

 
Having Drake sleep in the spare room would be no problem if they established some house rules. She couldn’t appear inhospitable, because after all, she’d invited him to stay. Perhaps she’d even begged him. Her memory wasn’t clear on that point because she’d been distraught at the time.

  But now that he’d agreed, they needed to establish a routine that would minimize...temptation. No, she couldn’t phrase it like that. The word temptation shouldn’t come up. They would strive to minimize...unanticipated encounters. That sounded stuffy. She’d have to find a better description, but that’s what she meant.

  For example, he should keep his shirt on at all times. If he was in the habit of wandering into the kitchen for a midnight snack, he couldn’t do that in his pajama bottoms. He had to put on... Uh-oh. He didn’t have pajama bottoms.

  She hadn’t thought this through. She’d pleaded with him to stay, but he hadn’t come prepared with extra clothes or toiletries. He certainly hadn’t come with pajamas, either tops or bottoms. Besides, he wouldn’t want to sleep in them, anyway, if he planned to check on Dottie periodically.

  She really hadn’t thought about how this would work. But now she could see it all playing out in living color. He’d sleep in his briefs, unless he chose to sleep naked. When he got up to check on the mare, he’d put on the basics—jeans, socks, boots. It was mid-July. Bothering with a shirt under the circumstances would be plain silly.

  Well, then, she’d stay in her room. That would solve the problem. No, it wouldn’t. She definitely wanted to be in on the action when Dottie gave birth. She couldn’t picture herself cowering in her room like some nervous virgin because Drake was shirtless while he delivered a foal. That would be stupid.

  “Still feeding the pigs?” The man in question walked toward her with a loose-hipped stride and a casual smile. He was sexy as hell.

  “I’m just finishing up.” He’d look amazing without his shirt. Tracy had no doubt about that. If only he could have a potbelly like the pigs, but then he wouldn’t have been able to seduce Regan’s fiancée, which was the crux of the problem.

  She had no idea how she’d handle the temptation of a bare-chested Drake, especially in the likely event that Dottie delivered her foal in the middle of the night. Tracy vaguely remembered discussions among the cowboys at Spirits and Spurs that mares often gave birth at night.

  “I didn’t realize you’d be so fast.” She pushed away from the fence as he moved past the five-foot mark and the tingle of awareness began traveling through her body.

  “Dottie’s colostrum production is still fairly minimal, which is good. The less she produces before giving birth, the better.”

  Three feet. Her skin began to warm. “I haven’t started on dinner.” She gestured toward the pigs. “I like to wait until they’re done so I can let them back into their communal area. They love being together, except I can’t allow it when they eat.”

  “Yeah, Lily explained that to me.” Drake stood next to her and peered down at the two pigs. “Harley seems a little skinnier, though, so I guess the new program is working.”

  “It’s working.” And her libido was working, too. Overtime, in fact. Her hormones were racing around like a championship Roller Derby team.

  He’d come here straight from hiking, something she remembered now. If the deodorant commercials were correct, his manly sweat should offend her. But something primitive was going on, because she longed to bury her nose in his shirt and take a big sniff of that heady scent. And then she’d...

  “Look at that pig eat!” Drake sounded amused. “He’s practically licking the bowl.”

  “Yeah. He’s insatiable.” Whoops. Not the best choice of words under the circumstances.

  Drake’s low chuckle held an undercurrent of awareness. “Hey, Harley, are you gonna let the lady talk about you like that?”

  “Well, he is.” As if she had no sense of self-preservation, she looked into Drake’s laughing eyes. Oh, Lord. She glanced away, but not quickly enough to mute the effect. Every secret, private place in her body responded. “I can let them loose now.” Her voice had a huskiness that she was very afraid he’d notice.

  “You’re sure that’s a good idea? Lily used to let them roam the property, but from what I hear, that didn’t work out well.”

  “I mean let them into their community area. They’ll still be fenced in.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah, that’s better.”

  As she walked over and opened the gates so they could both scurry into the communal pen, she told herself that she and Drake were having a conversation about the pigs. But if they had been, he should have been watching them. Instead his attention remained firmly on her, his gaze assessing.

  After she let the pigs into their shared enclosure, she faced him. “I desperately need you to stay here tonight, and maybe for the next several nights.”

  He remained watchful. “I know, and I’ve agreed to do that. It makes sense.”

  “But asking you to stay doesn’t mean that I—”

  “Of course not.” Pain was reflected ever so briefly in his expression. “I’ve been waiting for you to warn me off. Why would you get involved with a man you don’t like very much?” Bitterness laced his comment.

  In a flash of insight, she knew that he’d picked up on her unbidden reaction to him. Knowing she wanted him even though she didn’t approve of him was...insulting? Degrading? Maybe both. “Drake, I—”

  “No worries.” His jaw tightened. “I wouldn’t dream of causing you to do something you don’t want to do. Women tend to have a certain response to me. Always have, ever since I was a teenager. Mostly it’s fun for both parties, but in this case...”

  She’d hurt his feelings. There was no way around it. “I’m sorry.”

  “Just for the record, I don’t make a habit of moving in on another man’s territory.” He massaged the back of his neck and glanced away. “I’ve only done it once, and if I could take it back, I would.” Then he sighed and looked over at her. “I’ve never said that to anybody. It sounds like doing it once is no big deal when I know it is. I just wish... Damn it, I wish that one stupid mistake wasn’t the only thing you saw when you looked at me.”

  At that moment, it wasn’t the only thing she saw. She saw a man who, for whatever reason, had betrayed himself as well as his best friend. She believed him when he claimed never to have cheated before or since. But why had it happened at all? She thought the answer would be complicated, and unraveling complicated motivations was her passion.

  He gave her a crooked smile. “You have that look on your face again.”

  “What look?”

  “The same one you got back at the Spirits and Spurs when I said I must be a glutton for punishment. I told Regan about your reaction, and that’s when he mentioned your field of study.”

  “Huh.” She wasn’t sure which surprised her more—that he’d been paying such close attention to her expressions or that he and Regan had been discussing her that night and she’d had no idea. Apparently she’d been so wrapped up in being cool that she’d missed some things.

  “I figure, when you look like that, you’re fixin’ to psychoanalyze me.”

  “And you wouldn’t like that.”

  “Not much, mostly because you’ve already decided I’m a bad character. I don’t think your evaluation would be unbiased.”

  She flushed at that truth. “You’re right. It’s a failing of mine. Being judgmental is a no-no for a psychologist, and I am judgmental. I’ll have to give that up if I expect to be an effective therapist.”

  “Then why not start with me?”

  “I thought you didn’t want me to work with you.”

  “I don’t if you consider me lower than whale poop.”

  “I don’t consider you lower than whale poop.” That was hard to say without laughing. “Whale poop is at
the bottom of the ocean. That’s as low as anybody can go, and I don’t consider you that bad.”

  “Okay, then where would you rank me? How about lower than a snake’s belly?”

  She couldn’t hold back a grin. “Stop it. You’re being ridiculous.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m trying to get a bead on just how bad your bad opinion of me is.”

  “No, you’re trying to charm me.”

  His expression was priceless, exactly like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Busted.” He gazed at her. “Was it working?”

  “You know it was. It’s what you do best. That’s why I’m so leery of you.”

  “Leery? You mean like afraid?”

  She thought about that. “Maybe.”

  “Why would you be afraid of me?” He spread his arms wide. “I’m completely harmless.” Then he sniffed and made a face. “However, I stink to high heaven. I could use a shower before we sit down to eat. I can’t stand myself, so I can only imagine what I’m puttin’ you through. If you want to be judgmental about that, I wouldn’t blame you a bit.”

  Smiling, she shook her head. “You just can’t help it, can you?”

  “Help what?”

  “Never mind. Let’s go back to the house so I can fix us some dinner and you can shower.” She started walking in that direction, but her thoughts remained with their conversation. If she understood him correctly, he was offering himself as a guinea pig, but only if she could stop judging him long enough to help him work through some issues.

  He fell into step beside her. “Obviously I didn’t bring any spare clothes.”

  “I thought of that.” She didn’t want him to know how long she’d obsessed about it. “How close are you to Regan’s size?”

  “Pretty close, if you’re willing to raid his underwear drawer and maybe snag me a shirt or two. The jeans will be okay for another day or so.”

  “I’ll see what I can find and leave them in your room.”

  “That would be great. While you’re at it, maybe if you nose around you’ll come up with a spare razor, and maybe even a new toothbrush and toothpaste. Regan typically has backup stuff like that. He likes being organized.”