Six Weeks to Catch a Cowboy

by Brenda Harlen

  He considered turning on the television in the family room and watching the game on the big screen—because there had to be some kind of game playing on one of the many sports channels. But he didn’t feel like going another round with his parents when they got home.

  He’d long ago accepted that he’d never live up to their expectations. Not if those expectations were for him to take a job at Blake Mining. And the absolute last thing he wanted was to put on a suit in the morning and spend most of every day trapped in an office. Not even if it was a corner office with windows all around.

  Margaret Channing blamed her father for what she viewed as her youngest son’s irrational affection for the land and the creatures that grazed upon it. Jesse Blake had been a child at Crooked Creek Ranch before gold and silver were discovered. He clearly remembered the lean times, his father’s worries about grain prices and beef prices and droughts and floods, his mother’s efforts to repair clothes they couldn’t afford to replace and her ability to make two days’ worth of food stretch over three.

  The discovery of precious metals had been a boon to the struggling family. And although Crooked Creek was a ranch more in name than practice these days, Gramps continued to manage a modest herd that bore its brand. He’d sat his grandson on his first horse and taught him not just to ride but to tack and groom and even muck out stalls. And while Spencer understood why the focus had shifted from ranching to mining, he had no desire to be a cog in the machine that was Blake Mining.

  His brother and youngest sister had made similar choices—Jay was now the CEO of Adventure Village, a family-friendly recreation park on the outskirts of town, and Brielle was a kindergarten teacher in New York City. Only Regan had opted to go into the family business, because she loved working with her family as much as numbers. Spencer didn’t understand it, but he didn’t judge her for it, either.

  Still, he wasn’t eager to hear again that his parents were shocked by his news and disappointed in him. He’d experienced all those same emotions when Linda appeared in Justice Creek to tell him that he had a child.

  Those same emotions and more.

  Most prominently: disbelief.

  It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be true. No way could Emily’s little girl be his little girl. Okay, so maybe the timing of her birth fit. And there’d been that one slip—literally—with the condom. But still, he refused to believe it.

  Didn’t want to believe it.

  Because that would mean he’d screwed up—Emily’s life and now his own. And as Linda expected him to take the kid, chances were, he’d screw up her life, too.

  That fear had driven him to confide in Kenzie. Not because she was his friend but because, as she’d pointed out, she wasn’t. Because their history was such that she wouldn’t feel obliged to spare his feelings or blunt any harsh truths. She didn’t owe him anything, which was why he knew she’d be nothing less than honest.

  But she’d surprised him—and maybe herself—when she’d responded to his question by saying yes, she could see him as a father. And her faith gave him at least a little bit of hope that it might be true.

  That vote of confidence also helped lift some of the worry he’d been carrying since he’d learned about Dani’s existence and Emily’s hope that he would raise their daughter. He still had a wagonload of doubts about his ability to be a single parent to a little girl he barely knew, but he would try his darnedest to figure it out. He’d come home to Haven because he figured he’d have a better chance of doing that with the support of family and friends.

  After enjoying the simple pleasures of sharing a meal and conversation with Kenzie, he thought maybe, someday, she might be one of those friends. And if he felt the stirring of an unexpected and unwelcome attraction in her presence, well, he could certainly put that aside.

  Or so he believed until he dropped off to sleep and dreamed about her—about the night he’d found her waiting for him in the hayloft at Crooked Creek Ranch.

  “I’m sixteen now.” She made the announcement in a way that suggested the number meant something, but the significance was lost on him.

  “Okay,” he acknowledged cautiously.

  “Sixteen’s the legal age of consent in Nevada.” The words spilled out of her mouth in a rush.

  “How do you know that?” he wondered aloud.

  “I looked it up,” she admitted, her cheeks flushing with color.

  “Why?” he asked, though he suspected he didn’t want to hear the answer to his question.

  She lifted her chin to meet his gaze, her soft gray eyes reflecting both uncertainty and determination. “Because I’m ready.”

  “For what?”

  “To do it.” The color in her cheeks deepened. “With you.”

  Ah, hell.

  “Kenzie, you’re not ready to have sex if you can’t even say the words,” he told her.

  “I am ready,” she insisted. “And I want you to be my first.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not going to happen.”

  But Kenzie would not be dissuaded. Instead of taking the hint, she took a step closer. Then she lifted herself onto her toes and pressed her mouth to his.

  He held himself still. He couldn’t think of a better way to communicate his disinterest than to refuse to kiss her back.

  But he hadn’t counted on her lips being so soft. Soft and sweet and seductive. And as her mouth moved tentatively against his, he began to respond.

  She gasped a little when his tongue slid between her parted lips, but she didn’t pull away. And when he pushed her back against the hay bales and pressed his body against hers, she didn’t protest. Even when he rubbed against her, so that she could feel the press of his erection—because he was a guy with a willing girl in his arms and, at eighteen, that was all it took to make him hard—she offered no resistance.

  Not that he was going to get naked with his little sister’s best friend. No way. No matter that she thought she was ready, or even that she’d told him she wanted him to be the first, he wasn’t that much of an ass.

  But he was enough of an ass to want to teach her a lesson. To make her understand that, if she was going to offer herself to guys in dark, shadowy corners of barns, she was going to get herself into trouble. So he yanked her shirt out of her jeans and slid his hands beneath the fabric. His palms moved over her skin, from her narrow waist to her ribs, then higher.

  He was only going to touch her through her bra—confident that action would be enough for her to realize things were moving too fast and push him away. But when his hands found the gentle swell of her breasts, he belatedly realized she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  Her unrestrained nipples pebbled against his palms, attesting to her excitement. Innocent, sixteen-year-old Kenzie Atkins was aroused. He gently pinched the rigid peaks, causing her to moan and arch against him.

  The instinctive movement pressed her pelvis against his, and damn if the moaning and rubbing didn’t stoke the fire rushing through his veins, throbbing in his groin.

  “Kenzie,” he said.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He hadn’t intended to go this far; he knew he should stop. But his body and his brain were locked in a battle between what he wanted and what he knew was right.

  I want you to be the first.

  And why shouldn’t he be?

  Because she’s barely sixteen years old.

  Because she’s your sister’s best friend.

  Because she obviously thinks she’s in love with you and you’re going to break her heart when you leave tomorrow.

  Even as he silently cursed the nagging voice of his conscience, he knew he that he had to end this. Now.

  Then she reached down and palmed him through his jeans. He suspected the boldness of her touch was more a product of curiosity than confidence, but the effect was the same...

  He wo
ke with his breathing labored and his body aroused.

  Well, at least he’d held it together in his bed—which was more than he’d managed to do in the barn seven years earlier.

  Shoving back the covers, he headed for the shower. The last thing he needed right now was an inconvenient attraction to his little sister’s best friend, but with so much heat coursing through his veins, he couldn’t deny it was there.

  Thankfully, the town wasn’t currently under any water restrictions because he could see a lot of cold showers in his future.

  Chapter Five

  She should have accepted Megan’s invitation to go to a movie.

  Instead, at eight o’clock on Friday night, Kenzie was already in her pajamas, sitting cross-legged on her sofa, television remote in hand, flipping between a home reno program, a low-budget rom-com and the Game Show Network. None of which succeeded in holding her attention for long because her thoughts were preoccupied with Spencer—as they’d been since she’d heard the first rumors of his return.

  She’d been apprehensive about seeing him again, worried that she might not be as completely over her teenage crush as she wanted to believe and that she’d somehow make a complete fool of herself. Again.

  But Kenzie was confident she’d handled that first meeting with professionalism and poise. Well, mostly. And if sexual awareness had hummed quietly in her veins, that was hardly cause for concern. After all, he was a good-looking guy and she was a red-blooded female who had obviously been celibate far too long.

  Which was another reason she should have gone out with Megan tonight—to at least preserve the illusion that she was willing to meet new people and potentially change that status. But the truth was, since ending her engagement eight months earlier, she’d started to lose faith that she was ever going to find her own happy-ever-after.

  She had no regrets about breaking up with Dale, because marrying a man she didn’t love would have been the wrong thing for both of them. And while her former fiancé had claimed to be heartbroken when she gave him back the ring, he’d started dating someone else only a few weeks later.

  She was glad that he’d moved on—she only wished she could do the same. It had taken less than five minutes with Spencer Channing for her to realize he was the real reason she hadn’t been able to fall in love with Dale—or anyone else over the years.

  Still, there was no harm in seeing a movie simply for the purposes of entertainment. But she knew that conversation with Megan would eventually come around to Spencer again, and Kenzie didn’t want to have to deflect her friend’s questions.

  By now everyone in town knew that Spencer was going to Back in the Game for therapy on his injured shoulder, but there was still speculation about the severity of the injury, how long he was likely to stay and whether he’d give up riding bulls. Kenzie didn’t let herself get drawn into those conversations, but she did wonder—especially about his future plans. Especially now that she understood how much was at stake.

  He’d said nothing more about his daughter when he’d been half-naked on her table again that morning. Not that she’d expected him to. But as her hands moved over his body, she’d found herself wondering how much of the tightness and tension was a consequence of the injury and how much was caused by worry and uncertainty about being a father. He’d told her that Dani’s grandmother was planning to bring her to Haven the following weekend, which didn’t give him much time to get ready for her arrival.

  Vanna White was revealing the contestant’s selected letters for the bonus round when the intercom buzzed. Kenzie uncrossed her legs and went to the speaker box, suspecting that Megan had changed her mind about the movie and decided to stop by instead.

  “Hello?”

  “Can you buzz me up?” It wasn’t Megan’s voice.

  “Spencer?”

  “Yeah.”

  She glanced down at her microfleece pants and the well-worn Henley that did nothing to hide her braless status. “I’m, uh, not really dressed for company,” she told him.

  There was a momentary pause before he said, “Are you naked?”

  “Of course I’m not naked,” she immediately replied, shocked that he would even ask such a question.

  “Damn,” he muttered, shocking her again.

  Then, when she made no response to that, he said, “I don’t care what you’re wearing. I have to tell you something, so just buzz me up.”

  Something in his voice suggested that he was a little buzzed, and though she knew she might be making a mistake, she released the lock on the exterior door. While he made his way up the stairs, she raced to her bedroom and grabbed her robe.

  He was knocking before she’d succeeded in knotting the belt at her waist. With her flannel coat of armor finally secure, she pulled open the door.

  His blue gaze swept over her in a leisurely perusal, then he shook his head. “You’re not even naked under that robe.”

  She eyed him cautiously. “Have you been drinking?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “But apparently not enough.”

  “Why don’t you come in?” she invited. “It’ll just take me a minute to make coffee.”

  “I don’t want coffee.” He caught the two ends of her belt in his hands. “I want you.”

  Her heart stuttered. Because even if she was completely over her teenage infatuation, it was gratifying and exciting, and—Lord help her—more than a little tempting to hear those words from the object of her one-time crush.

  “You are drunk,” she decided.

  But he pinned her with a surprisingly clear-eyed gaze. “You’re on my mind, Kenzie. And I’ve got too many things messing up my head already without adding an unwanted attraction to the mix.”

  She was simultaneously flattered and insulted by the remark. “I’m sorry—who knocked on whose door?”

  One side of his mouth turned up in a half smile that did crazy things to her insides. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be here.”

  “Okay, then,” she said, and started to close the door.

  He stuck the toe of his boot into the opening. “You invited me to come in,” he reminded her.

  “For coffee,” she said firmly, before stepping back to allow him entry.

  “I’d rather have a beer,” he told her.

  She didn’t ask how many he’d had already, because he was a grown man and it was none of her business. But she felt compelled to caution, “You shouldn’t mix alcohol with your pain meds.”

  “I’m not taking any pain meds.”

  Though she’d personally never dislocated her shoulder, she knew it was an uncomfortable injury and recovery, and that management of the pain helped a patient attain the mobility necessary to rehab. “Why not?”

  “They make my head feel fuzzy.”

  “And the alcohol doesn’t?”

  He smiled. “Touché.”

  She put a coffee pod in her machine, set a mug under the spout and gestured for him to take a seat at the island.

  “What kind of muffins are those?” he asked, reaching for the bag on the counter.

  She snatched it out of his grasp. “The kind that are for Mrs. Powell.”

  She’d delivered the first batch to her mother, as promised, the previous morning. Then she’d made a second batch as an excuse to stop by and visit her widowed friend on the weekend.

  But Spencer looked so sincerely disappointed by her response, she opened the bag and removed one of the muffins, setting it on a plate for him.

  “You said you had something to tell me,” she reminded him, as his coffee finished brewing.

  He nodded, his mouth full of muffin. Then, after he’d swallowed, he said, “Yeah, we should talk about that first.”

  “Talk about what first?” she prompted.

  “I asked for another therapist to take over my treatments.”

 
“What?” She was stunned. “Why?”

  “Because instead of loosening up my shoulder, my whole body tightens up when you touch me.”

  She carefully set the mug of coffee beside his plate, resisting the urge to chuck it at him, as conflicting emotions warred inside her. She was hurt that he’d take such a step without talking to her first, relieved that she wouldn’t have to deal with the temptation of his half-naked body on her table—and the undoubtedly unprofessional thoughts that filled her head while her hands were on him—and angry, because the implication was that she wasn’t meeting his needs—professionally speaking, of course.

  “Well,” she said, “I hope you explained my incompetency in clear terms to my office manager. It will undoubtedly be very helpful at my next performance review.”

  He eyed her warily as he drew the mug closer. “I didn’t say you were incompetent. I told her that we had some personal history that might interfere with the success of my treatment.”

  “Personal history?” she scoffed, her pride still stinging. “I was your sister’s best friend—nothing more.”

  “I tried to think of you as my sister’s best friend.” He sipped his coffee, then shook his head. “No, the truth is, because you were my sister’s best friend, I tried not to think about you at all.”

  “I’m good at my job,” she told him. “In the fifteen months I’ve been working at the clinic, I’ve never had any complaints about my techniques or my results.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” he said.

  “Now my hopes of getting full-time when Eva goes off on mat leave are pretty much out the window,” she said, refusing to be placated. “And all because we shared a few kisses seven years ago?”

  He pushed away from the island. “Not just because of that.”

  “Then what?” she demanded to know.

  “Because I want to kiss you again. Now. And I don’t want to stop there.”

  Before Kenzie could decide how to respond to his unexpected confession, Spencer was kissing her.

  And...wow.

  It was everything she remembered kissing him had been, but somehow more. Because it wasn’t just a memory, it was happening now.