by Em Petrova
He looked Cort in the eyes. “I’m sorry.”
After a moment, he nodded. “No more careless mistakes, man. The ranch can’t afford it.”
With no words to explain, Theo watched Cort and Huxley walk away. He waited until they rounded the garage and were out of sight, then he set off toward the shed. Fury raged inside him as he reached for the door handle. He narrowly checked himself before he ripped it off the hinges. Adding more damage would send him packing.
Dragging in a burning breath, he stepped into the space crowded with old unused shovels, picks, rakes and a dozen other garden implements, but he stared straight at the spot where Jordy hid during most days.
“Get out here,” he growled.
The blond head appeared around a stack of crates. Jordy saw Theo and scrambled out, unfolded his long legs and faced him.
“Did you fill your canteen with water from the tank this morning before anybody came outside?” Theo demanded.
Jordy’s expression said it all. He nodded.
“You left the outlet on, and the tank completely drained into the pasture. The ground’s standing with water and we can’t use the pasture now. What were you thinking, Jordy? Why didn’t you make sure the outlet was closed off?”
Dust floated in the air between them, and the shadows across Jordy’s face helped to conceal any emotion he might be feeling about the situation.
“How do you know I did it? Maybe someone else used the tank. Maybe even you!”
Unable to stop himself, Theo moved one step toward his ward. “Are you seriously speaking to me this way right now? After all I’ve done for you. It isn’t as if my expectations are high, man. You don’t work for your meals. I ask little of you other than you stay hidden and stay out of trouble!”
Jordy held his ground but worry creased his brows. “I thought I closed the outlet, Theo.”
“Well, you didn’t! And Cort just busted me over my carelessness—again. I’m going to be paying for that tank of water same as I paid for that shed. And I’ll spend the rest of my day digging a ditch to try to drain the pasture. Now tell me—what are you gonna do to fix this, Jordy?”
“It’s not my land—why should I have to fix anything?”
He took one more quick step toward the kid, barely restraining himself at this point. How parents stayed out of prison while dealing with smart-mouthed offspring, he couldn’t guess.
“If you were one of the ranch hands, you’d pay for talking to me that way.”
The boy lowered his eyes to the floor. “Sorry.”
He stared at him for a long minute. He was only a troubled kid with nowhere to go. He looked hungry too. With his teen appetite, filling the kid up was proving difficult.
“Watch what you’re doing, Jordy.” He grabbed a shovel and walked out, closing and latching the door behind him. He crossed to the bunkhouse and leaned the shovel against the wall. Inside, the scent of leftover barbecue sandwiches from Milton’s restaurant in town filled the air. Theo leaned against the counter and ate two and then carried two back to Jordy.
When he walked into the shed and called out to the kid, he stepped out immediately. “Here—you need to eat. I’ll bring you something more later.” He handed the sandwiches to the boy.
He stood cradling the food in his hands, looking up at Theo. “I really am sorry for the water.”
His heart already had countless cracks that Jordy had put there. But one of the cracks lengthened at the contrite tone in his voice.
Gripping Jordy’s shoulder, he said, “Don’t let it happen again. I’ll see you when I can sneak away.”
Away from digging, he thought with a fresh surge of irritation. Fixing the water situation in the pasture wouldn’t be easy, and flooding could mean other problems down the road.
He had to figure out what to do with the kid—and fast—before he destroyed something else on the Bellamy. If Theo lost his job, he couldn’t care for the boy. They’d both be screwed.
Chapter Two
“I don’t know why the fruit salad isn’t getting eaten.” Jada scooped the fresh seasonal fruit into a paper bowl and turned from the buffet table to Sadie.
“Maybe if we soak the fruit in beer, the guys will eat it,” Sadie only half joked. In her knowledge of men like Jackson, Dom and many other cowboys who’d lounged around their house or hotel lobbies after a rodeo competition, guys reached for meat and potatoes to fill them up.
Which they were now. The brisket and pulled pork Dom brought from the barbecue joint he and Jada co-owned was nearly gone.
When Jada invited her for dinner, Sadie didn’t realize she meant her new friend planned to invite half the town. She had to admit she wished she could escape and hide for a spell. Being around guys who worked on a ranch…with big, dangerous animals, such as the one that took Jackson’s life when he fell off before his eight seconds were up, rattled the hell out of her.
Her plan to meet new people had come far too quick, and she didn’t even have find a place to live ticked off her list yet. So far, she’d come to Crossroads, checked into her B&B, bought some wine and hooked up with a stranger.
She ducked her head to hide the heat creeping up her cheeks whenever she thought of that encounter. Since then, she’d asked herself a hundred times what she’d been thinking? She wasn’t bold when it came to that sort of thing. But something about the guy had made her jump at a chance with him.
Maybe it was the way he walked, in that confident swagger so much like Jackson’s and yet nothing like his at all. The two men didn’t resemble each other in the least, and Theo had been taller.
Yet surprisingly, her body had fit against his.
Clamping off the vein of thought that continued to rupture daily ever since sleeping with the cowboy, she scooped up her own bowl of fruit.
Jada grinned at her. Shouts of welcome sounded from the door, and they both turned to look across the deck at the new arrival.
Her jaw dropped. Oh God.
Crossroads really was a small town.
It was him—the cowboy. Tall, broad and Mr. Callused Hands. Those hands woke her from a dead sleep with dreams of feeling them coursing over her body again.
Theo.
He sported the same hat and boots as when she’d met him, but his plain white tee had been replaced with a shirt that said: Boyfriend Material. Someone thrust a beer into his hand. Thank God he didn’t look her way.
She had enough seconds to skirt around the group and make a quick getaway.
Jada latched onto her forearm. “C’mon. You haven’t met Dom’s good friend Theo.”
Oh yes, I have. I know the length of his cock and the way he looks when he explodes.
“H-he looks busy. I’ll meet him another time,” she shot out.
Jada gave her a confused look and continued to tow her across the deck. Theo’s profile revealed he was smiling, the corner of his mouth tipped up and his eye creased on that side. Then he caught the movement of their approach, turned his head…and pierced her in his stare.
His very deep, unnerving, panty-melting stare.
She dug in her heels, but Jada was strong for a petite woman and dragged her forward. She faced the wall of muscle that was Theo’s chest, the one she’d slobbered all over in the back seat of his truck.
Could this get any more awkward?
“Hi, Sadie.”
Yes. Yes, it could.
Jada blinked. “You already met? Sadie, you didn’t tell me you knew Theo.”
She did—far too much, in fact. She practically traced the line of his love trail, invisible under his shirt, down to his belt buckle.
She spotted the rodeo buckle and her heart went into a nosedive. Oh no. No, no, no. Absolutely no rodeo men, or real cowboys either, for that matter. She couldn’t become entangled with any man who risked his life working around huge, dangerous animals.
What did she expect, though? She had a thing for a man who could rock a hat and a pair of boots. Most men didn’t wear those as a fashio
n statement.
Theo never shifted his stare from her. “Can I…talk to you?”
Jada’s brows shot up, and her brown eyes went wide. Probably not as wide as Sadie’s must be right this second.
“Actually, I was going to get more fruit salad.” She pulled free of Jada’s grip on her arm and spun back to the buffet table.
She didn’t need to look up to know Theo followed her—his heavy boots striking the deck made her well aware. Her insides quivered as she realized she couldn’t avoid this situation without a confrontation.
She grabbed a bowl off the buffet table and began to heap fruit into it.
Theo’s body heat blazed from behind. He leaned over her, making her feel as small and dainty and feminine and cherished as he had that day in his truck.
“Sadie.”
She continued to scoop grapes and watermelon into her bowl.
“Sadie, stop.” He reached around her and plucked the bowl from her hands. He dropped it onto the table and grabbed her arm.
This was terrible. Sadie had to find a way to get away—fast. Before she broke down. She’d slept with a stranger, who wasn’t any stranger. He was another friend of Dom’s, like her late husband had been. And Theo sported a buckle that proved he entered rodeos. Took risks.
She pivoted and craned her neck to look up at him. “Theo, there’s nothing to say. It was”—she looked around, expecting to see Jada standing close enough to overhear, though she wasn’t—“one time.”
He didn’t remove his gaze from her, locking her firmly in place with those deep, warm, brown eyes even if he hadn’t trapped her between his muscled body and the buffet.
“Theo,” somebody called.
He didn’t even look around to see who wanted his attention. Every one of those golden specks of his eyes were riveted on her.
He pitched his voice low. “There are things I want to say to you.”
She ran for it. Ducked under his arm and rushed across the deck. She hit the doorway leading inside Jada and Dom’s home and launched herself through it, not looking back as she grabbed her purse from the front entrance and practically sprinted out to her truck.
When she found Theo standing at her driver’s door, her knees almost buckled. She stumbled to a stop, purse in hand, and shook her head.
“Sadie, don’t run from me. I’m not going to hurt you.”
No, he wouldn’t, because she wouldn’t let him.
He spread his hands and then dropped them to his sides. “Look, if you don’t want to acknowledge what happened, and you don’t want to see me, I get it.”
The hurt ringing in his voice made her look up. Her eyes bored into the words Boyfriend Material straining across his broad chest.
Suddenly, she felt like a huge ass. She never considered herself one of those wishy-washy women she often worked with on house flipping projects or some of the wives of rodeo stars. Sadie prided herself on being down-to-earth, serious and stable.
Except right now she felt far from those things. The feminine part of her that Theo’s presence aroused hovered in fantasy-land, where she and the cowboy tumbled in the grass under a beautiful Georgia sky. He made her feel as off-balance as a schoolgirl.
She shook her head. Somehow, she must right things with him.
“Don’t leave. They’re your friends,” she said.
“Yours too. I had no idea you were the person Jada and Dom were throwing a party for.”
She sucked in a deep breath of air, filling her lungs with the male scent that flooded her dreams and tormented her days. She ran her tongue over her dry lips.
Damn if Theo didn’t track the action.
That same connection she’d felt as the sunset faded in the sky haunted her now.
“You must think I’m crazy,” she said.
He stared at her for a long heartbeat and then that smile appeared, the wide, full-lipped, easygoing boyfriend material one.
“Maybe a little,” he admitted.
How could she resist that honesty? She burst out laughing, a full belly laugh as if she’d heard the funniest joke in her life—and it was aimed at her too.
She sent him an embarrassed look and bit down on her lip. “You’re right.”
His grin didn’t fade. “So you’ll come back to the party?”
* * * * *
Theo returned to the party first and headed straight for the beer cooler. Not only was he parched from running into Sadie again, but he was also keyed up from seeing her glorious ass first from across the deck and then when he chased her through the house and outside.
Hell, one beer wouldn’t be near enough. He hadn’t planned on getting drunk at his friends’ party, but sometimes a situation called for it.
Dom appeared at his side, as he knew he would. He looked him over. “You okay, buddy?”
Theo chugged the cold brew and broke off with a gasp. He gave a nod.
A gleam came into Dom’s eye. “How do you know Sadie?”
There was no getting out of this, was there? For her sake—and his own—he needed to come up with a hell of a convincing lie.
“Ran into each other at the winery.” Rule one about lies—stick to the truth as much as possible.
Dom waited for more. “And that’s all?” he asked finally.
He nodded. “Yup. She was new to town, she said. She bought wine. I bought wine. We exchanged names.”
And bodily fluids.
Time to change the subject.
“How do you know Sadie?” he turned the tables on Dom and plunged a fist into the ice, coming out with a beer.
The woman in question returned to the deck. Jada jumped on her like starch on grits, and he heard Sadie mutter something about forgetting to make a phone call about a house for sale.
She shot him a look from the corner of her eye, and he returned it with one of his own. Damn, the woman was seriously fine. Finer than even his sluggish memory recalled, but now every detail of Sadie and their moments in the back of his truck glowed in neon and technicolor.
He distracted himself by popping the top off another beer and sealing his lips to the bottle. Oh yeah—Dom still hadn’t answered.
He met the man’s eyes, catching the amusement in his eyes.
Theo cocked a brow at him.
“Sadie is Sadie James. Jackson Jesse James’s widow.”
His gaze flashed to her even as his stomach dropped like a stone in the Satilla River that cut through Crossroads. Everybody knew the story of the legendary Jackson Jesse James, how he’d fallen off a bull before hitting the eight second buzzer, got caught beneath the hooves and…
Well, Dom had been pretty broken up over it, being the one to jump into the area and risk his life to try to save him.
He swung his gaze up to Dom. “Damn…that’s rough.”
He nodded. “She moved here for a fresh start. It’s been over a year, but I imagine running in the same circles and living in Dallas didn’t give her the distance she needed from her grief.”
Suddenly, Theo felt like a huge ass. He’d touched a widow, which to his mind was hallowed ground. Had she even been with other men since her late husband? Hell…
But she took charge that evening. She’d lured him in and admitted it too. If he’d known…
Would he have done anything different? Christ on a bike, he wanted to put his hands on her right now, even knowing her situation.
He brought the beer back to his lips, and Dom went on, “Jada and I persuaded her to move here, and she arrived a few weeks back.”
Oh he remembered far too well the date of her arrival. Three weeks, one day and about…he looked up at the sky to judge the time…twenty-two hours, by his estimate.
“She stayin’ here with y’all?” he grated out and swigged more beer.
“No, at the bed and breakfast. Jada offered her our guest room, but she wanted her own space. She’s some kind of interior designer. Calls herself Doctor Fixer Upper.”
Theo stared at her. Beauty and talent. The
double punch to his type. Not that he’d ever met anyone close to Sadie. All the girls he dated were simply pretty but lacking more.
“What the hell’s a fixer upper?”
Dom chuckled. “Beats me. Something with flipping houses? All I know is she’s looking for a place to live, and then she plans to start work.”
“Plenty of places to settle down in Crossroads.”
Like on my cock.
Jesus on a piece of toast, he had to purge this woman from his mind. Her running away to escape seeing him again was proof enough that he couldn’t think about making a move on her.
Several steps away, she had picked up her abandoned bowl of fruit and was making a noble attempt to eat it. He also noted that she wore a pair of jeans the way a damn supermodel would. The denim clung to her curves and accentuated all the right places a man wanted to put his hands. If he moved around behind her to get a good look at her ass again, would she notice?
Her brown hair had been streaked with reds and golds from the sunset that night, and now wasn’t much different. Her natural brown had a red cast that shimmered whenever she moved her head. She wore the long locks off her face, the sides sort of twisted back and pinned. The effect gave her a girl next door look that strung his heart out even more.
And that top…hell, he might never get over her if she moved one more time, because the buttons stretched taut over her breasts. While he couldn’t see anything from across the deck, and from around the bodies of a dozen other friends, he wondered if he worked his finger into the gap if he’d find the lacy bra she’d been wearing that night.
Fuck!
His jeans grew tight, and he had to twist away, back to Dom.
The man eyed him. “She’s fragile. Jackson’s death hit her hard.”
And Theo’d been the one to take advantage of that, even without knowing it, the minute she rolled into town.
He polished off his third beer. At this rate, he wouldn’t be driving home anytime soon. That didn’t stop him from reaching for a third.
Dom arched a brow at him. “Somethin’ eating at you, Theo?”
Yes. The fact his dick wanted to crawl across the deck boards and bury itself in Sadie’s sweet pussy for one. Throw in being a disappointment to his family for dropping out of college, and Cort and everyone else at the Bellamy believing he’d burned down the shed and then flooded a pasture with his carelessness seemed like good places to start.