“And that one?” She pointed to another man who stood in the corner laughing it up with his buddies.
“Too loud.”
“And that one?”
“Too strange.”
“What about—”
“Too ugly,” he told her before she could even finish her question.
“Okay, fine.” She blew out an exasperated breath. “So which one is my type?”
“Let’s see.” His deep, husky voice lowered a notch as he leaned closer. The warmth of his body seeped through her cotton tank top and warmed her skin. “A woman like you needs a man who’ll appreciate her. Someone who likes home cooking.”
“Not all cooking,” she murmured. “I only do desserts.”
“A man with a sweet tooth,” he corrected. “A good-looking man with a sweet tooth.”
“I like good-looking.”
“And strong. An independent woman needs a strong man, otherwise, she’ll wind up pushing him around. A wimp is fine at first—women like a man who caters to her every whim—but it gets old pretty quick and kills the attraction, which means you can forget long-term. I haven’t met a woman yet who gets hot and bothered over a pushover.”
“True. At the same time, he can’t be overbearing. He needs to be strong, but not too strong.”
“Just strong enough to take the upper hand when necessary.”
“When I want him to.”
“When you need him to.” He pulled her into a dark corner of the room, nuzzling her ear, his soft breath stirring the hair at her temple, his chest brushing her back. “Someone who can cut through all the formality and get straight to the point. Someone who isn’t afraid to go after what he wants when he wants it.” His lips touched her neck. “Like me.” He slid a strong hand around her waist. His fingertips found their way beneath the hem of her tank top and grazed her bare skin. “Like now.”
She meant to step forward and break the contact. She really did. She’d promised herself to keep their association strictly business—the sex restricted to the right time, the right place—and to open herself up to a real relationship. One that went beyond the usual, safe, three-month mark. The kind that didn’t hinge on lust, but friendship. Respect. Genuine like.
She knew that, but with the darkness enveloping her and the slow, sweet country song filling her ears and thrumming through her body, she was having a very hard time keeping her priorities straight.
Relationship. Sex.
Sex. Relationship.
Relationship. Sex.
Then again, maybe it was his hands—so strong and warm and overwhelming—that melted her resolve completely.
His thumb traced a lazy circle a few inches beneath her breast and her knees trembled. It was definitely the hands.
“You need a man who knows how much you like this.” His touch moved higher, trailing the underside of her breast before slipping over her bra to the lace that covered her nipple. “A man who knows how much you like being touched here. Like this.” He fingered the ripe bud before catching it between his thumb and forefinger and tugging until her breath caught.
“It’s not just about sex,” she said, slightly breathless. “I want more. I want a future.”
“But do you want it more than this?”
She didn’t. At that moment, the only thing she wanted was Josh McGraw over her. Inside her. Again.
The realization sent a bolt of panic through her and she stiffened. “This isn’t the right time for this. We have a deal.”
“We had a deal. What we’ve got right now… Hell, I’m not sure what we have except that it’s a lot more intense than anything I’ve ever felt before. It’s more than business between us, Holly. You know it, you just won’t admit it. Not yet.”
“Not ever. When I give my word, I keep it. No strings attached. No deviating from the schedule.”
“I can’t see you and not want you, Holly. Hell, I want you even before I see you, whether it’s Saturday and I’m thinking about the night ahead, or Monday when I’m sitting across from you at a chamber of commerce meeting. I want you the same. Regardless of the time or place. When you’re in the same room with me—” his hand tightened on her waist for emphasis “—it’s all I can do not to push you up against the nearest wall and plunge into your soft, sweet body.”
“Don’t—”
“I can barely control myself, and I know you feel the same.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not part of the—”
“—deal,” he finished for her. “I know that, but I can’t help the way I feel any more than you can help the way you feel. I see your lips tremble when I get a little too close. I feel your body shiver and your muscles tense as if you can barely keep from reaching out.” He dropped his hand then, his fingers grazing the vee between her legs.
Heat speared her and her legs quivered.
“You want me, right here and right now, because we’re good together.”
“We want different things.”
“Right now we want the same thing.” His voice lowered. “Stop fighting, Holly. Let’s enjoy each other for the time being.”
But she didn’t want to enjoy him for the time being. She wanted forever.
Not with him, mind you. She knew Josh was as temporary as she’d always been. But with someone. A man she could laugh with, grow old with, love.
She wasn’t in love with Josh.
Not yet.
She forced aside the last thought. “I really have to go.”
“You have to or you want to?”
“What does it matter?”
“It doesn’t.” But she knew from the sudden desperation in his gaze that it mattered a great deal. As if he needed to know if she was doing her best to resist the attraction, or if she simply wasn’t that attracted in the first place.
The answer was there on the tip of her tongue. “I want to leave.” That’s all she had to say to put things in the proper perspective between them and make it crystal clear that he was wrong. That their relationship wasn’t anything out of the ordinary as far as she was concerned. No inexplicable intensity. No heightened level of desire. Nothing special.
“I need to go,” she murmured, and then she turned and walked away before she completely lost her head and kissed him just because she wanted to.
No. She wasn’t giving in. She’d had far too much practice at holding her emotions in check to let loose now. Sure, she’d done it in the past because she’d been the one leaving, the one hesitant to get involved when now it was Josh who couldn’t commit to a relationship. But the principle was the same—control.
She’d perfected it over the years and it was simply a matter of practicing it until their arrangement was over and Josh went back to his life.
That’s what she told herself. Unfortunately, the notion made her more depressed than relieved. As much as Holly hated to admit it to herself, she didn’t just need Josh McGraw to help prepare for the luncheon with the Juliets.
She wanted him.
More than she’d ever wanted any other man in her life.
“IT’S COMPLETELY lactose free,” Holly told Old Duke the next morning when she stopped by his place on her way to nearby Cherryville to ship her orders. She held up the white box. “I used special ingredients.”
Old Duke lifted the lid and eyeballed the contents before shaking his head. “It’s got strawberries. Strawberries break my boy out something terrible. Everybody knows that.” Old Duke pushed his glasses up and gazed at her. “So how long did you say you was in town for?”Holly gave him her best smile. “I live here now.”
“Do tell? Where’d you say you was from again? Harrisburg? Hamlet?”
“Houston.”
He made a face. “Now that’s a shame. Got me a second cousin over in Hamlet, and a great-nephew over in Harrisburg. Nice little towns.” He shook his head. “Cain’t say the same for Houston, though. Never did like those Rockets much. The San Antonio Spurs… Now there’s a basketball team. Talented bunch of
fellers, and close to home, too.”
Holly blew out a disappointed breath and started to turn. “Sorry to bother you.”
“Hold up, there.” Old Duke reached for the box and whisked it out of her hands. “We all make mistakes. You don’t fret over it. Just run on along and I’ll take care of this for you.”
“Sassy and Frassy again?”
“Damn straight.” He smiled. “Those gals will eat anything.”
“YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED to be here,” Holly told Josh when she opened the door to find him standing on her doorstep the following evening. “It’s Tuesday.”
He grinned and winked. “Then I’m right on time.”She shook her head. “We’re not meeting tonight. I’m hosting the car wash committee. We’re painting signs tonight.”
“What do you know?” His grin widened as he pulled a paintbrush out of his back pocket. “I’m a member of that committee.”
“Since when?”
“Since about one o’clock this afternoon. I ran into Stewart at the diner and he mentioned that he still needed volunteers.” When she frowned, he added, “Don’t get yourself all worked up, cupcake.” He stepped toward her, backing her up into the foyer as he walked inside. “My being here doesn’t violate our agreement.” Just before he moved past her, he leaned down, his lips grazing her ear. “We’re not having sex.”
Technically, he was right.
Holly held tight to the thought for the next few hours as she served refreshments, helped with the dozen signs needed to advertise Friday’s fund-raiser and tried to ignore Josh and his smile.
Impossible. He was there every time she turned around. He followed her into the kitchen and helped her carry the cheese and crackers. He helped her spread newspapers throughout the living room to catch any spilled paint. He popped open cans of paint and carried the finished signs out onto the front porch to dry.
After everyone left, he even lingered to help her clean up the mess.
“You really don’t have to stay.” Holly pressed a lid onto what was left of a can of orange paint.
“I don’t mind.” He set the lid on a quart of robin-egg blue and hammered it down.
“Even so, you don’t have to. I’m sure you’ve got lots of other, more important things to do.”
“Like play referee for my great-aunt Lurline and my great-uncle Eustace?” He shook his head. “Trust me, clean-up duty is a hell of a lot better.”
“I was thinking more important, as in cattle to tend and supplies to order and other general ranch stuff.” She eyed him as he hammered down the lid on a can of hot pink and her mind raced with questions.
Of course, she wasn’t going to ask any of them. The less she knew about him the better.
Then again, if she knew more, maybe she wouldn’t wonder so much and then she could stop thinking about him.
It was a weak argument, but it won with all the heat and testosterone smothering her common sense. That and the fact that it only seemed natural to talk to him. He was her neighbor, albeit temporary.
“So your great-aunt and -uncle live at the Iron Horse?”
He nodded. “For the past five years. They moved in when my grandfather found out that he had prostate cancer. Aunt Lurline wanted to take care of him—she was his only sister. Since she and Uncle Eustace lived on their own spread a good forty miles away and they don’t like to drive—they’re in their late eighties and they’ve got cataracts—they thought it would be easier just to move. They sold the place, distributed the proceeds between eight kids and headed for the Iron Horse.”
“So what are they going to do now that your grandfather’s gone?”
“Nothing. It’s their home now. The house is big enough for three families, let alone three people. They’ll stay on and Mason will keep an eye on them.”
“And play referee?”
He grinned and reached for the last can of paint. “They argue a lot.”
“What about?”
“Anything. Everything.”
“So you’re not really here to help. You’re here to hide.”
“That’s half the reason.”
“And the other half?”
He eyed her and she had the strange feeling he was asking himself the very same question. “Have you sized up any more relationship prospects?”
“You pretty much eliminated most of the single men in town last night.”
“There were a few that didn’t make it to the dinner.”
“I’m talking living, breathing, viable options.”
He grinned. “So am I.”
“Like who?”
He shrugged. “There’s Slim Collier. James Pitt. Scooter Perkins.”
Holly shook her head. “First off, Slim Collier is divorced from Mabel, who’s a jealous nut. I don’t need to find any dead rabbits in my oven. James Pitt is even worse because he’s the jealous nut. He beat up a guy just for saying ‘excuse me’ to his last date. As for Scooter Perkins, he’s like a hundred years old and the oldest citizen in Romeo.”
He let loose a low whistle. “You’ve been doing your homework.”
“Sue filled me in on the first two. I ran into Scooter—literally—at the Food-o-rama when he was buying denture cream. I accidentally hit him with my backside. I said I was sorry and he said, “Hi, there. I’m Scooter.” She did her best Southern drawl. “I’m the oldest SOB around these-here parts.”
Josh grinned. “He’s a proud man.”
Her own smile faded as she eyed him. “What about you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You and your brothers own the largest ranch for hundreds of miles. Your ancestors founded this town. You ought to be just as puffed up as Scooter, yet all you want is to walk away from here. I can’t help but wonder why.”
“I have a business in Arizona.”
“A charter business that you run single-handedly. An apartment you’re obviously too busy to live in. No significant other. Nothing really pulling you away. Most of the family you have left are right here. It makes sense that you would settle down in Romeo.”
“I like my own space.”
“Obviously. But you still haven’t answered my question.” Her gaze met his. “Why?”
He stared at her a long moment before he finally shook his head and shrugged. “I guess old habits die hard.”
“Meaning?”
“When my folks died, it was really hard on my grandfather. My dad was his only child. Seeing me and my brothers day in and day out only made it that much harder, so he pushed us away. He didn’t want us helping him around the ranch like we usually did. Hell, he could barely tolerate to look at us over the dinner table. The less time we spent at home, the better.”
“That must have been hard.”
It had been hard, which was why Josh didn’t like to think about it, much less talk about the subject. He hadn’t just lost his parents. He’d lost his home. His grandfather. Everything. But for some reason, saying the words now, to Holly, didn’t make his gut ache.
“Rance started sleeping over at his coach’s house,” he went on, “and spending every waking moment on the football field. Mason entered any and every rodeo that took him out of town when he wasn’t in school or practicing at a nearby ranch. I got an after-school job at the Baines’s farm on the other side of town. Mr. Baines did his own crop dusting. That’s where I first started flying. When we graduated, Rance went off to play for Texas A M, Mason left to rodeo full-time and I headed for Austin to get my pilot’s license. We’ve been gone ever since.”
“Until now.”
“Actually, until about four years ago. When my grandfather found out about his prostate cancer, he tracked us down and apologized. We’ve been home off and on since then.”
“He’s lucky you forgave him.”
“There wasn’t anything to really forgive. We stayed away because he wanted us to, not because we were pissed off. We know he had his reasons. Christ, he’d just lost the closest person to him.”
�
�You lost, too.” The fierce way she jumped to Josh’s defense stirred a warmth in his chest. “You lost a mother and a father, and you didn’t turn your back on anyone.”
“No, but I turned my back on this town.” He was still turning his back. Still walking away from his past and trying to stay one step ahead of the guilt that dogged him. “The same way I turned my back on my mother when I lied to her.”
“You were just a kid and you were scared.”
“I should have told her the truth.”
“Yes, but it still wouldn’t have changed what happened. She would have still died and your father would have still reacted the same way when he found out.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Maybe.” Silence settled between them for a long moment before she added, “But maybe it wasn’t guilt that sent your father off into a tailspin, so much as regret.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe he loved her and he couldn’t stand the thought of living without her. Maybe he didn’t want to live without her. I know when my mother died, the thought of waking up and facing the next day on my own scared the hell out of me.”
“But you didn’t kill yourself.”
“I was a kid. I didn’t think like that. But if I had been older, I might have considered it.”
“My dad wouldn’t have cheated on my mother if he’d loved her.”
“Maybe he didn’t realize the depth of his feelings for her until he lost her. The world is full of people who take things for granted and never really appreciate all that they have until something is taken away. Your father could have been one of them.”
“Why are you trying to defend him?”
“I’m not. I’m just saying that things might not be what they seem.”
“They’re what they seem, all right. You didn’t know my father.”
“True. But I know you and I know that you’re taking full responsibility for something that wasn’t your fault. You’re not to blame for what your father did or didn’t do. You’re you, not him.”
He’d told himself the same thing so many times, but he’d never quite believed it until Holly Farraday stared into his eyes and said it with such conviction because she truly believed it.
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