Lone Star Burn_Lone Star Sizzle

by Reagan Phillips

  Sydney stepped forward. “Sounds like a horrible experience. I’m so glad you’re alright.” Her tone dripped feminine influence, something Blythe envied. “Now, who’s gonna show me around the place and teach me the routine? I’d like to hit the ground running by tomorrow.”

  Mr. Cole pushed his hat up from his brow and nodded at Hunter. “I’ve got to get back to the ranch and finish working those two new colts before the heat of the day takes hold. Hunter here will show you the ropes. I’ll have one of the boys bring your car by this afternoon.”

  “Great.” Sydney dropped a perfectly manicured hand on Hunter’s shoulder. “The grand tour please, then I’ll freshen up and drop my things in the apartment and we can get started.”

  The apartment. Blythe’s stomach clenched, reminding her that not only has she not eaten anything since sometime yesterday, but with the arrival of Ms. Pose-and-Manners, she’d also just lost her room for the night. She panicked and glanced at Hunter.

  Her rooming accommodations weren’t his problem. He’d already done enough, taking her in for one night and driving her around to find a car she’d somehow misplaced.

  When he glanced in her direction, she pushed her lips into a smile for him. “Go. I’ll work with Nancy to see if there are any openings in Galveston for the rest of the week and transportation.” Her stomach still wouldn’t settle. There was also a sadness that she would leave the sexiest non-cowboy she’d ever met in Texas without so much as seeing him in a cowboy hat.

  But it was the hesitation that entered his eyes that made her the most apprehensive to jump on booking a room.

  Hunter reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell. “In case you need to make calls. The kennel phone only makes local calls. Nancy, can you put Ms. Williams on the computer in the office?”

  Nancy glanced up from her work. “Sure thing, boss.”

  “And find Sheriff Carlton’s number. Blythe can give you the details.”

  With a sympathetic glance, he nodded to her. “Let Nancy know if you need anything. I’ll check in soon.”

  Blythe didn’t miss Sydney waving her off when Hunter turned his back.

  Landing Hunter isn’t a competition, lady. He’s all yours. Besides, after tonight she wouldn’t be around for it to even matter.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Admitting Gramps knew what was right for the family business was as painful as putting shoes on a stubborn mule. But this time, Gramps had been right on the money. Sydney knew her way around a working kennel, and with her experience managing a handful of smaller stables in the surrounding area, she also had the potential to bring in new clientele.

  If things went the right way, Hunter would be out of a job in less than a week and could put his focus back where it belonged on his ranch.

  After a tour of the facility, including the dog runs and the under-construction cooling pool in the back, he’d shown her the office files, the bathing and grooming facility, the boarding rooms, and finally, the supply room and cleaning closet. After today, the day-to-day weight of running Best Friends would shift to her capable hands.

  That also would leave him with his evenings free for the first time in a year. That thought brought him right back to Blythe. She had stirred something in him he didn’t think would settle again soon. A need. A desire. She’d wiggled her way under his skin and awoken feelings he’d long put to bed.

  “Ms. Williams is still in the office.” Nancy nodded to the closed door when he came around the front counter and helped himself to a cup of coffee, even though the hour was approaching lunch. “She’s been in there the whole time. I offered to help when things slowed down, but she seemed to have her search under control.”

  “Thanks for offering.” He smiled over the rim of his mug. “I get the feeling she’s the independent type.”

  Nancy tapped the pen she’d been writing with in his direction. “Just the kind of woman a man like you needs around. She’d give you a run for your money.”

  Since she’d met her husband at a Double C social, Nancy had been trying to set both him and Gramps up with just about any eligible woman within a day’s drive of Fort Mavis.

  “I can do my own matchmaking,” he quipped with a soft grin.

  Nancy wouldn’t harm a horse fly if it bit her on the ass, but she had no filter and spoke the truth, even if he didn’t care to acknowledge it.

  Nancy smiled until her light blue eyes sparkled. “Good, because if you don’t make a move, I’m worried your grandfather might.” She chuckled and dropped her head back to the stack of papers on the counter.

  Hunter laughed and shook his head. He wouldn’t put it past the old man to go after someone a good forty years his junior, but Blythe would be the one making the old man run for his money.

  Distracted by the thought, Hunter twisted the office doorknob and opened it in slow motion to find Blythe on his cell with her back to the door and her legs propped on the counter behind his desk. She had her hair down and flung over the back of the chair, running one hand lazily through its length while she held the phone to her ear with the other.

  I wouldn’t mind her stroking me like that. He cursed himself for the thought, but with her so off guard and relaxed in his chair, he’d never be able to sit there again without imagining her on his lap, her teeth nibbling at the corner of her mouth, and her hand strumming back and forth over his length.

  “He’s not anything like I’d imagined I’d find, Mandy. Not a cowboy hat or a plaid shirt in sight. Well, boots. He does have those.”

  It was wrong, but he couldn’t help leaning on the door jam and listening in, wondering just who wasn’t anything like she’d imagined.

  “I’m telling you, the whole cowboy-charm thing is a myth. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Hunter’s super nice, but—I don’t know. There’s something different about this one. Something almost sad.”

  Sad? She thinks I’m sad?

  “His grandfather was super nice. Maybe he just fell too far from the tree.”

  Too far from what tree? The cowboy hat, plaid shirt, dirty boot tree? Is this woman for real?

  “But the voice.” She leaned back in the chair and sighed. “Listening to him talk could almost make me orgasm.”

  Hunter raised a brow. So if listening to my voice makes you want to come, I can’t wait to see what happens when I put my mouth on those perky breasts or press my fingertips into your soft folds.

  He spread his legs a little wider and adjusted his growing crotch.

  “I couldn’t get a room in Galveston. It seems schools around here have Spring Break the same time as ours. But I did find a bus heading to North Carolina in the morning. That would give me enough time to figure out the car situation here and leave my contact information for the Sheriff. Maybe I could talk Mike into taking a detour from Rehoboth and picking me up along the way.” She laughed deeply.

  Mike? The deadbeat who left you for some chick’s beach house? Damn, you aren’t contacting that jerk to help you get home. Not after making me hard as a stone just standing here. No way he gets a second chance with you.

  “I’ll be careful. I’m sure there’s a motel somewhere near town. I’ll call you in the morning. Yes, this number works fine if you can’t reach me on my phone. Yeah, it’s his number. Wait until you hear his accent. You’ll die. Hear from you soon.”

  She hung up and swiveled in the chair before he could push off the wall. Caught, he had no choice but to face her.

  “Were you listening?” The shock on her face was priceless.

  “Only at the end.” He smirked and took the chair on the opposite side of his desk, careful not to hurt his crotch when he sat. “Long enough to hear your plans to get home.”

  “Yeah, well.” She flung her hair over one shoulder and handed back his phone, looking a little more than flushed.

  Yeah, Honey. I heard what my voice does to you. I know your dirty little secret.

  “My options are limited. I can’t very well stay in the apartment with Sydn
ey. She doesn’t seem the type to share well with others.” Her little eye roll at the end made him chuckle from somewhere deep within.

  “Yep. The apartment is full now.” It was evil, but he enjoyed watching her bite that corner of her lip until the flesh turned white when she worried it. “And the only motel is too far away. I don’t like the idea of you stranded there without a car or a way to get around town.”

  “I could stay at the bus station tonight. I’ve slept in worse.”

  Something hot shot through him. Anger. Frustration. Desire. He couldn’t place it, but it ate away at the pleasant mood Blythe’s flirtatious conversation had left him in.

  “You’re not sleeping in a bus station. I have an extra bedroom at the ranch house. It’s not much more than a bed and a dresser, but it’s yours for as long as you need it.” How’s that for cowboy charm?

  There she went at that lip again. He could taste the cherry ChapStick he’d smelled on her earlier. He licked his lips.

  “I’d hate to impose on a stranger like that. I’m sure—”

  “We’re not strangers. You stayed here alone all night last night. And I’m not taking no for an answer. As soon as I leave here, I’m putting your bags in the truck. You can come with them, or stay. I’ll leave that choice up to you. At least your luggage will get a good night’s sleep in a comfy room and breakfast and coffee in the morning.”

  He could almost see her pondering the decision in her head, yet what was there to decide? A soft bed in a quaint little ranch with the promise of coffee and the voice that could make her pant, or a bus station bench? If he didn’t win out, his pride would be bruised for all eternity.

  “If you’d rather,” he said, walking over to lean on the doorframe again. “I could drop you at the bus station. I’m not forcing you to decide between me and a night on a cold bench, but I am telling you, I make damn good coffee. You’ll never want Starbucks again.”

  Not that coffee was what he had in mind when thinking of things he’d like to offer her.

  “That’s big talk. You don’t understand my Starbucks addiction.” The slight twinkle in her eye made him wonder if she’d caught on and wasn’t talking about just coffee either. Oh, how his palm longed to tug at her shirt right where the V dropped between two perfectly rounded breasts. If only he could taste her there. Cherries. Somehow he knew she’d taste just like cherries.

  “You wouldn’t think it was big talk if you’d ever had my coffee.” He pushed off the wall and turned back to the front. She would either follow or stay behind. That choice had to be up to her. But if she did come with him, he was in for a long night of reminding himself of the gentleman his grandmother raised, not the cowboy Blythe had hoped to find.

  ****

  When Hunter said he lived on a ranch, Blythe pictured a large, Dallas-style spread with green fields stretching into the horizon and a large mansion style house dead center.

  Hunter’s place wasn’t that at all. It was charming, with pastures on either side of a long, narrow drive that snaked around trees and fence posts until it ended at the foot of a modest sized stone and wood beamed house about the size of her family’s home back in Virginia.

  Nothing was overly grand about the house except for the large front porch with shade trees covering one corner and a large swing sitting in the other.

  A small barn sat in the back where Hunter pulled the truck to a stop. Two bay colored horses ran along the side of the vehicle. A herd of longhorns munched grass on the other.

  “Beautiful horses. What kind are they?” Not sure the proper lingo, she cringed at his bark of laughter at her question.

  “Arabians. Not what you typically find on a ranch, but I prefer their temperament and high spirit over the Quarter Horse.”

  So he likes his fillies high-spirited. Blythe scolded herself for the thought, though the more she learned about Hunter’s personal tastes, the more she imagined herself liking him.

  “The house is a fixer-upper.” His voice startled her. “It was built in the early 1900s and refurbished in the early 50s. The land was used for cattle since sometime in the late 1800s. The herd belongs to Gramps. He’s been building up his steers in hopes of making a run of his place across town once he leaves the Double C. This herd will move over once they get more fencing put up.”

  “He’s retiring soon, right? Your grandfather.” At seventy-two Mr. Cole was already ten years her father’s senior, and he’d been retired from the pulp mill for several years.

  The deep rumble of a laugh answered her first. It was good to hear the humor in Hunter’s voice. It helped ease her nerves and made Hunter more approachable.

  “There’s no such word as retire around here. You work until you drop dead, and you’re glad to do it.”

  Hunter pulled her bags from the toolbox in the back of the truck and lugged them around the corner of the house and up the steps, stopping outside the screen door. “I’ve got to feed the horses before they bust through the gate looking for food. Go on in and have a look around. I’ll bring your bags up in a few minutes.”

  Horses. Now we’re getting into real cowboy stuff. Blythe edged closer to Hunter’s shoulder. “I’d like to come with you. I haven’t smelled a real horse barn since I was a kid. I miss it.”

  His brows knitted at the comment. “Miss the smell of manure? You’re full of surprises.”

  More surprises than you know.

  Hunter crossed the small yard and pushed one of the two sliding barn doors open and whistled. Both bays whinnied into the air and trotted over to the feed troughs built into the wooden fence near the door. He turned on an overhead light and opened a small door next to a row of empty stalls.

  There was sadness in the barn. No smell of manure or fresh shavings. No stomping feet, or high-pitched calls for food. No hustle. Just an eerie quiet that chilled her skin. It was a large space, equipped to handle at least eight horses with large birthing stalls, a wash pit, tack room, hayloft, and a hallway wide and high enough to ride in, yet the only two horses she saw on the property Hunter kept outside.

  Hunter emerged from the room with two scoops of grain and a couple flakes of hay and headed to the paddock attached to the barn’s side. “The truck is their dinner bell. If I don’t feed them before I go inside, they end up breaking down the gate and meet me on the porch. Damn obstinate beasts.”

  “You have only the two here? It looks like there is plenty of room for more.”

  By the sudden tightness in his jaw, she guessed she’d hit a soft spot.

  “These two girls haven’t taken to being bred.” He tilted his head to the smaller of the two. “She’s lost two already this year, and the other one had a stillborn in the spring.”

  “That’s horrible.” Not that her knowledge of breeding horses was anything above novice, but keeping the animals had to be costing him a small fortune in hay and grain. “Are you going to try to breed them again?”

  He put his hands to the fence and dropped his head between his arms before raising it again to answer. “Not these girls. Stud fees are too high to take another hit. But, they’re not going anywhere. I figure they pay their keep in lawn service.”

  Blythe watched the harsh lines of worry along his face soften into a warm smile that made her stomach flutter. “That’s kind of you.” Resisting the urge to reach out and pull him into a hug was an internal battle she came close to losing.

  “I do kind things even without a cowboy hat. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

  She glanced away. “You eavesdropped on my phone conversation.”

  The warmth in his grin vanished, replaced by something far hotter. “Guilty. But you can’t blame me after being accused of not being a real cowboy.” He put air quotes around the last two words. “My hat’s in the barn, and it’s too damn hot for plaid, but if it will make me more of a man in your eyes, I’ll play along. Open shirt of course. It’s too damn hot to button anything up.”

  As if cued by his seductive glance, a bead of sweat dropped b
etween her breasts, and her nipples tightened just at the suggestion of his appraising glare.

  She backed a step and bumped into the fence post behind her. “You shouldn’t have listened. The conversation was private.”

  “As private as my voice giving you orgasms?”

  Fuck! She’d forgotten that damning comment. But she couldn’t deny it. By the heated way he was assessing her with his eyes, and the crooning of his accent near her ear, it wouldn’t take much more than a touch to send her over the edge.

  “A gentleman would have walked away.”

  Hunter closed the small gap between them in one step. His chest bumped her sensitive nipples, and the enlarged inseam of his jeans pressed into her hipbone. “No one has ever accused me of being a gentleman.”

  That’s not surprising.

  He surged closer until there was no room between them and nowhere for her to go. Trapped between the heat of the late afternoon and the desire coming off him in waves, she almost choked on her tongue.

  “What’s my voice doing to you right now? Tell me. I want to hear every detail.”

  Blythe pulled in a shaky breath and squared her gaze on him. If he wanted to play tough, she could play the game, too. “It’s not your voice that’s doing something to me right now, so much as what’s pressed into my thigh.”

  “And what is pressed into your thigh?”

  “Sorry, you’ll have to eavesdrop on my next conversation to find that out.”

  His smile deepened, wrinkling the corner of his eyes, making her want to reach out and touch the soft lines. This time, she took the bold step and traced her finger along them.

  His eyes heated. His head dropped until his lips grazed her right ear. “Call it what it is, Blythe. I want to hear you make those pink lips say cock. And later, I want to feel them around mine.”

  Blythe settled herself against the fence post and tried to remind herself how to breathe.

  Dirty. Hunter liked to talk dirty, and to her surprise, it turned her on in ways no man’s touch ever had. If his voice gave her orgasms, his words were going to make her lose control.