Front Range Cowboys (5 Book Box Set)

by Evie Nichole

  “I thought you wanted to become a rancher.” He could not stop the bitterness that began creeping into his voice. “You know, live out on the range and raise some cows. Maybe a few pigs. Are you going to grow crops too?”

  She turned sideways on the bench and stared at him. “Wow. You’re really bitchy when you get your feelings hurt.”

  Cisco opened his mouth to dispute that but could not. She was absolutely right. He sighed. “I never thought you would want that place. It’s in the middle of nowhere. There are no restaurants or stores. You’ll have to commute to a job. Why would you sign up for that?”

  “I don’t want to ranch.” She pursed her lips and looked thoughtful. “I suppose I have to admit something to you.”

  “What’s that?” And why did his stomach feel like it had just dropped into his boots—er, his loafers actually.

  “I went to have a little heart-to-heart conversation with Paul Weatherby today at his place of business.” She rubbed a hand down her face in obvious irritation so Cisco knew it hadn’t gone well.

  “And?” he quietly prompted. There was no reason to say anything else. At this point, they could just be glad that she wasn’t trying to use him as her one phone call so he could bail her out of jail on some bogus charge.

  “That man is a really horrible person,” she whispered.

  Cisco could not argue with that. “Yes. He’s definitely a piece of work.”

  “He made me feel so stupid!” she moaned. In her overdramatic response, she flopped against him. Cisco put his arm around her shoulders and wouldn’t move it.

  “Why would you feel stupid?” he asked. “Weatherby is a cop. You think he’s supposed to be a good guy. Your brain tells you he can’t possibly be doing the stuff that he’s doing. We’ve all gotten used to that part of dealing with him, but this is new to you.”

  “I was going to offer to lease him the land. I just wanted answers about Watson.” She shook her head and went silent.

  Cisco could only imagine how that had gone over. He gently touched her face and stroked her hair. The physical contact felt good. She scooted closer whether she meant to or not. He scooted closer to her. Soon they were sitting squashed up against each other, and it was still too far apart in his opinion.

  “Cisco, he’s an evil man.” She refused to expand, but Cisco could only begin to imagine the threats that Paul Weatherby would have made against someone of her background.

  “Did he threaten to drag your juvie record out for show-and-tell?” Cisco asked quietly.

  She turned so quickly he heard her neck crackle. “How did you know that?”

  “He did the same thing to my younger brother Met.”

  Melody threw up her hands in frustration. “How is that even possible? A juvie record is sealed.”

  “In theory.” It was difficult to explain how that sort of thing worked. “But it still exists. It can’t not exist. It just isn’t held against you when you’re going through additional legal troubles—for the most part anyway—and it can’t be used against you when you’re trying to better yourself as an adult. But let me tell you, if you wanted to be a judge or a prosecutor or some certain type of government employee, that juvie record would be up for grabs because it happened and it’s still there.”

  “Which means you can be tried in the court of public opinion, according to Paul Weatherby and the Flying W,” she added bitterly.

  Cisco couldn’t stand it anymore. Yes. They were sitting on a bench just a few hundred yards from her former place of business. They were around the corner from his office building. There were dozens of people meandering by on foot and in cars. It was a nice day, and there were plenty of Denver residents out enjoying the beautiful spring weather.

  Cisco didn’t care. He put his arms around Melody and tugged her into his lap. He held her tight and rubbed her back as she pressed her face into his shoulder and finally—finally—let the tears go. She soaked his dress shirt. He didn’t care. He was done caring about that sort of thing when it came to Melody. Somehow, she existed outside all of his rules and boundaries and everything else.

  Gently threading his fingers through her tangled hair, he cupped the back of her head. His thumb and index finger found her earlobe. He gently massaged the sensitive area until she tilted her head to one side to give him better access.

  Her tears began to subside. He let his fingers trace the pulse point just below her ear where her jaw met her neck. The graceful column of her throat was covered in the silkiest skin he could imagine. He longed to kiss it with his lips. Of course, he longed to kiss any part of her with his lips.

  The floral feminine scent of her hair washed over him. There was a faint trace of lemon too. He nuzzled her hair and blew lightly into her ear. She shivered. He could feel her fingers curling into his shirt as her shoulders began to rise and fall with increasing speed.

  “Cisco?” She whispered his name.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re kind of turning me on.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “We’re sitting on a bench out in the open.”

  “Right.”

  Cisco didn’t care. He held her tight and kissed her neck. Then he moved his lips to her cheek. Gently nuzzling that sensitive skin, he kissed her earlobe and laved his tongue lightly around the shell of her ear until he felt her shiver.

  Was it his imagination, or could he feel her nipples begin to harden beneath her shirt? His heart was beginning to speed up. It hammered against his ribs in a staccato beat that left him almost breathless with anticipation and excitement.

  It wasn’t just the possibility of consummation that had him excited either. This was more. She turned her face to his, and he captured her lips in a very light, very loving kiss. He moved his mouth carefully. He didn’t want to push too fast or too hard. His goal was to coax and cajole. He let the tip of his tongue skate lightly over her full lower lip. She parted for him, and he gently eased inside her mouth. He tangled his tongue with hers until he felt her grip on his shirt tighten. She was trying to get closer. It felt so good that he let her.

  Melody was sitting in his lap now. Her legs hung over his thighs, and her feet were on the bench beside him. Her face was at the same height as his. She cupped his cheeks in her hands, and he gazed into her eyes for just a moment. There was tenderness in those green eyes of hers. There was hunger too. Neither one of them scared him. Not this time.

  “Cisco,” she whispered. “What if my boss sees?”

  “Didn’t she fire you because someone paid her a thousand bucks?” he whispered back.

  “Yes.”

  “Then, who the hell cares what she sees?” Cisco nipped her neck and then gently placed a kiss over the love bite. “I hope she sees how much I want to be with you and knows that there’s probably not a damn person on this planet who feels that way about her.”

  Melody’s eyes brightened, and she drew back just far enough to give a surprised laugh. “That’s naughty!”

  “It’s true,” he growled.

  She placed her fingers against his bottom lip and stroked it until he thought he might go daft because of the teasing touch. “Cisco, you aren’t really mine.”

  “I don’t want to be owned,” he said immediately. “Do you? Do you really want to belong to me?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. She made love to him with her mouth and with her hands. She twisted her fingers into his hair and tugged until he wanted to scream her name for the whole city to hear. She set her teeth to his lower lip and drew back slowly.

  Finally, she gazed at him and shook her head. “Now isn’t the time. We should go. We’re better than this. Don’t you think?”

  She had him there. He might be nothing more than a cowboy in disguise who left his scuffed-up boots in his closet at home, but as far as Cisco was concerned, Melody was a queen.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Melody could not process everything that was hap
pening to her. It was all going so quickly. That was about the only thing that seemed consistent. So, what happened when the only thing you could count on was the speed of change?

  “Sorry the place is a bit of a mess.”

  Melody turned to stare at Cisco. Was he kidding? Mess. So, basically, he considered the pair of boots sitting in the front entryway to be clutter. Great. Melody made a mental note to never let him inside her apartment. There was no way that she could ever feel comfortable with him inside her space. Clutter and mess apparently had multiple meanings with socioeconomic undertones.

  “It looks fine,” Melody finally managed to tell him.

  He glanced around, his gaze drifting toward the kitchen on the left side of the apartment. “Are you hungry? I could fix us something to eat.”

  “You cook?” She did know why, but this was suddenly a big deal. How was she supposed to compete with this guy? And what were they competing for anyway?

  He headed for the kitchen. “I actually enjoy cooking. It calms me down. It shouldn’t take too long to put something together.”

  “Well, don’t go to any trouble,” she murmured. “It isn’t even dinnertime, really.”

  No. It wasn’t. It was basically the middle of the afternoon, and now she was wondering why she had agreed to come with him to his apartment in the first place.

  He started bustling around the kitchen, and it became obvious very quickly that he certainly knew his way around. He pulled a big saucepan out of a cabinet and started unloading fresh ingredients into it. Other than the chopped raw chicken, she could not have named most of the stuff he put in there.

  The apartment was quiet and peaceful. They were on the tenth floor of a very posh building in the downtown area. The space was light and airy and very open. Once you walked through the entryway, the dining, kitchen, and living room space seemed to unfold in front of you. The color scheme of the entire place was black and white and chrome. It wasn’t just elegant. It reeked of money. She could not imagine living in such a place. Sure. It looked good, but she would be constantly afraid of getting a stain on the white sofa or knocking one of the weird metal sculptures off an end table.

  The kitchen itself was separated from the rest of the room by a series of counters in an L shape. There was tons of workspace and even more cabinet space. Melody had never seen anything like it, but then she had never really apartment shopped either. Her high school guidance counselor had helped her to find her current place, and she had been there ever since.

  “I haven’t heard back from Watson yet today, but I can check my e-mail.” Cisco spoke in a very relaxed voice that put Melody at ease. “He’s bound to give in on this stuff.”

  “But if he really embezzled from my grandparents, then wouldn’t he go to any lengths possible to hide it?”

  “I contacted a friend of mine who does private investigation work. He’s a computer whiz. I have him digging into Watson’s background as well as the Flying W files.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “Not technically.” Cisco shrugged. “He knows how to make it so the stuff he finds is admissible in court. Usually that’s because he finds enough to put pressure on the person to confess their sins away.”

  “So, basically, you’re trying to back him into a corner and force him to admit something incriminating,” Melody mused. “I would assume that’s sort of what you did with Janice.”

  “Except Chris filled in the holes,” Cisco admitted. “That kid is a good friend. He’s worth trusting.”

  “I like Chris,” Melody murmured. Then another thought came to her. “I like most of my coworkers, actually. I’ll miss them.”

  “You never know. You might go back to work there.” Cisco sounded mysterious. She hoped he wasn’t trying to “fix” it so that she could.

  “I don’t know.” Melody shrugged. For the first time, she thought there might actually be some kind of future out there for her. It was like a bunch of possibilities had just opened up and she didn’t know which way to jump. “I might decide to go a different direction now that the choice has sort of been taken out of my hands.”

  “Really?” He raised his eyebrows as though he had expected her to work in that coffee shop until retirement. “What would you like to do?”

  The scent of cooking chicken, vegetables, and some kind of herbal sauce filled the apartment. Her mouth began to water, and she felt as though she were going to die of hunger. Had she really been that hungry? When had she last eaten? Maybe that was a better question. Eating had sort of fallen off her list of daily tasks since there wasn’t any good food to eat anyway.

  “Here you go.” Cisco set a plate on the countertop in front of her and laid a fork beside it.

  Melody tried to be nonchalant and unconcerned. She tried to pretend that she was not desperate. So, picking up the fork, she forced her hand to push the contents of the meal around the plate a few times to “mix” them together more thoroughly in the sauce. After that, she began to eat. Still, she tried to stop every few bites to try and slow down so she would not seem like some wild dog he’d allowed inside his home.

  “Melody?” Cisco’s low voice came from the barstool beside her. When had he moved? He was now sitting beside her in front of his own plate. “You don’t have to pretend you aren’t hungry. It’s very flattering that you like my cooking.”

  She almost laughed out loud. His cooking was good. She would never try to say it wasn’t. But as long as the chicken wasn’t raw, she would probably have devoured just about anything he set in front of her. It could have been burned and so spicy that it scorched her tongue, and she still would have gone after it like a rabid animal.

  They talked about inconsequential things then. Melody was shoveling food into her mouth about as quickly as she possibly could, but Cisco did not seem to notice. He was picking at his food. That was probably because he was doing most of the talking. He was surprisingly down-to-earth and easy to talk to. Melody would not have expected them to like the same things in books and movies. She wasn’t quite as well-read as he was, and she didn’t currently go to movies very often, but the two of them shared a lot of opinions and tastes when it came to media and their world in general.

  Of course, he was far better traveled than she was. Melody loved to listen to him talk about the places he had seen and the things he had done while he was in places as far away as New York City or even in Canada and Mexico.

  “You sound like you’ve done so many things and seen so many places that you should be a million years old!” Melody exclaimed. She stabbed the final piece of chicken on her plate and sighed. “I cannot imagine what it would be like to see that stuff. I’ve always thought the statue of liberty would be an incredible sight. All of the history! And I want to visit that church in Massachusetts where they put the lamps for Paul Revere.”

  “One by land, two by sea,” he agreed. “New England is a really fantastic place to visit. We’ll have to go sometime. I would love to show it to you.”

  Melody was on the verge of saying yes when she realized that there was absolutely no way in hell that he was ever going to take her on vacation. They weren’t a couple. They weren’t even a “thing,” if you could call it that. Whatever a “thing” meant these days anyway.

  “Oh, I want to show you something.” He got up from the counter and left his plate sitting there.

  Melody turned her head to watch him head across the room but could not bring herself to just follow. She quickly and quietly cleaned up her mess and his. She rinsed the dishes in the sink and stacked them in the right side where they would wait to go into the dishwasher, which was a total luxury item anyway.

  Finally, she headed after Cisco toward the wide bank of windows in his apartment that overlooked a long swath of green space there in the city. He was giving her a very strange look.

  “You didn’t have to clean up,” he finally told her. “I’ll get it later, or the cleaning lady will take care of it.”

  “You have
a cleaning lady?” Melody could not help it. She gaped. “You’re one person! Why do you need a cleaning lady?”

  “Because I’m too busy to take care of that sort of thing for myself.” He seemed to be thinking that over. “And I really hate folding laundry. Actually, I hate laundry in general.”

  Melody burst into laughter. She pointed to the window. “Okay. So, what is it you wanted to show me?”

  “The skyline.” He gestured to the beautiful view of downtown Denver that included the outline of Mile High Stadium. “It’s one of my favorite things to stare at while I think.”

  “While you think?” She could not imagine him just standing here for very long. “So, for what? Like three minutes at a time?”

  He nudged her with his shoulder. “Harsh! I can stand still for longer than that.”

  “I was surprised to see you on that bench for more than thirty seconds at a time.” Melody realized that she didn’t really mind his constant need to move around. “It’s kind of like you’re afraid to stand still, like you’re wasting time or something. I get it, I think.”

  “Oh, you do?”

  “I do, actually.” She sighed. “Sometimes it feels like life is so short and so fleeting that you have to wring every single second of pleasure out of it. Don’t you think?” She thought about how that applied to her life. “Every single day feels the same as the next. I wake up. I go to work. I deal with customers. I go home. I crash. Then I wake up and do it all again. But if I never stop and look at a sunset or pause to laugh at something that someone says to me, then I’m completely wasting my life.”

  “That’s a good philosophy.”

  She stared out at the skyline. The afternoon light was growing long. The shadows on the ground around the buildings looked as though they’d been stretched out of shape. She felt as though she had too. “You say that’s a good philosophy, but I haven’t really been remembering it lately. I think that’s why I want so badly to make a change in my life. I’m tapped out. I have nothing left to give, and I’m just tired.”