“Okay…”
Brett clamped his mouth shut, but there was this look in his eyes that said he knew better. He had more to say and if she were smart, she’d let it go. So, maybe she wasn’t so smart. “What’s with the look, Collier?”
He sighed and shook his head. “I shouldn’t say anything. Especially since I’m lined up to do some work for the Circle R.”
“I didn’t know that. Cole hired you?”
“Yeah, he did. I’ll be doing some structural changes to the interior of the stable along with a few other things. Starting at the beginning of next week.” He forked penne and shoveled it into his mouth.
“I’m glad to hear that, but you don’t strike me as the kind to back down about anything, Brett. If you have something to say, say it.”
“Fine, I will,” he said, swallowing down his pasta. “You’re not a quitter. That much I know about you already.”
“When the cause is hopeless, I kinda have to be. Don’t I?” Dakota asked biting her lip.
“That’s the thing,” he said. “I didn’t see hopeless when Cole looked at you today. I didn’t see hopeless when he eyed me standing next to you, holding your bags. He was cutting me daggers.”
She chuckled. “That’s only because he’s prideful. He offered to take my bags in and I wouldn’t let him.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew it’d get his goat. And because, it…hurts. When he’s nice like that…I don’t know, he’s always been kind of protective of me.”
“You mean like a brother?”
She shrugged, yet the pain of the notion seared like a branding iron. She’d learned to hide it all too well. Yeah, in her heart she feared Cole looked upon her as a little sis. “I guess.”
“No.” Brett forked another big mouthful.
“No, what?”
“That’s not what I was seeing today, May Day. I was seeing a man eager to look at you. Eager to keep you close, and not in a brotherly way. No, ma’am, not at all.”
*
November sunshine hit Cole’s cheeks as he stepped onto his front porch, but the slight warmth didn’t fool him. The morning air had a bite to it that woke him up fully. He strode across his yard, his boots hitting solid earth as he made his way to the stables some fifty yards away. With lightness in his step that hadn’t been there for the past two weeks, he hated to admit he was damn glad things around here would get back to normal again. Dakota was due back to work. She’d be here soon, if she wasn’t already. Scanning the parking area behind the barn, he didn’t see her car.
He reined in his disappointment. Disappointment he shouldn’t be feeling. Dakota was his employee and a damn good one. She was his friend too, but lately she hadn’t been acting like he was, not one bit, and she’d been giving him shit.
Tires spit gravel on the road and he swiveled his head around to see a truck pull up behind him. He recognized Brett Collier and squinted further to see Dakota in the passenger seat.
What the hell? It was eight o’clock in the morning and he wasn’t forgetting how he’d left Day yesterday, with Brett on the steps of her house. His chest tightened up. He didn’t like where his mind was going so he shoved it out and put on a taut smile. “Mornin’,” he said as Day exited the car, slinging a backpack bag over her shoulder. She kept small work items in that bag: gloves, extra clothes, snacks and vitamin water along with some other things.
“Mornin’, Cole.”
Brett stuck his head out of the car to greet him too. “Mornin’. Sure is a nice one.”
Cole gave him a nod. “Yeah, it is.”
Dakota walked around the car and stopped in front of Brett’s window, giving Cole her back. All that shiny black hair was pulled into a braid, trailing down her back. She had a slim figure, but it wasn’t lost on him that everything she did have was pretty damn near perfect. “Thanks for the ride,” she said to Brett.
“No problem—anytime, May Day.”
May Day? Cole’s teeth ground together watching Dakota smile at the guy, as if she didn’t mind him calling her by her middle name. The last time Cole tried calling her Dakota May, she’d gotten so mad her tirade nearly busted his eardrum.
After a few seconds of small talk, Brett finally drove away, leaving Day alone with him. “Well, I should get busy,” she said, gripping her bag, making ready to leave. “See how well you held down the fort while I was gone.” Her mouth lifted in that teasing way she had.
“We managed not to let things go to ruin without you.”
“We’ll see. I missed my ladies.” She started off, walking toward the stables, toward the horses she nurtured with an abundance of love.
“Hey, Day?” Cole caught up to her in two long strides.
“Yeah?”
“What’s with you and Brett?” he blurted.
Day stopped up abruptly. “What do you mean?”
God, if only he could take those words back. It was none of his business what was going on between her and Brett. He didn’t have a claim on Dakota. He couldn’t. There were too many reasons lodged in his head to ever make that happen; yet there were slivers of time when crazy thoughts rushed in about him and her going the distance. But those were dangerous notions that he chalked up to loneliness. She was the only female around and she was pretty when she wasn’t covered in mud or cussing like a sailor.
Then there was his mother’s warning, drilled in his head since he was a kid.
You don’t hurt Dakota. You don’t touch Dakota. You only protect Dakota.
Cole had abided by those rules all of his life, not because he was so damn obedient.
But because of what had happened between him and Sarah Mulrooney.
He studied her confused expression and shrugged. “Just curious. Where’s your car?”
“My car?” She studied his face right back. “In the shop.”
God, she was making him pull the words out of her mouth. He should end the conversation and go about his work.
“Did you forget?” she asked. “That’s why I needed a ride home from the airport yesterday. My car’s still in the shop getting new brakes, tires rotated, a full tune-up and heaven knows what else.”
“Oh yeah, right, right.” Shoot, he had forgotten. Spotting her ride up in Brett’s truck had rattled his nerves and given him momentary amnesia. “Well, you need a ride to pick it up today, you just let me know.” He stared into her striking green eyes and found nothing there that hinted she’d spent the night with Brett Collier. Or not. His heart squeezed tight thinking it, but he couldn’t come right out and ask her now, could he?
“Mark said he’ll have my car delivered before the end of the workday.”
He nodded and took a swallow.
“Cole?”
“Yeah?”
“Are there any more questions? Because I’m dying to see the mares.”
“Nope, not a one. Nice to have you back at the Circle R, Day.”
“It’s good to be back.”
She marched toward the stables and Cole stood there watching her until Jerome came up to him. “Boss?”
He swiveled his head around to his newest hire. “It’s Cole, remember? What is it?”
“The boys want to know if we’re still on for the poker game tonight.”
He gave a final glance at Day’s backside as she entered the stable, took off his hat and ran a hand down his face. A sigh blew from his mouth. “Yep we sure are.”
Poker was a good way to get Dakota off his mind tonight.
*
The oval poker table set up in the bunkhouse sat seven but tonight only five were playing, one of the empty seats belonging to Jack Walker, the newlywed. Jack was his best friend and so freaking in love with his wife and adopted son, he didn’t come out to play much anymore. That, and being Hope Wells’ sheriff kept him busier than ever. Jack’s cousin Trey wasn’t here either. He had a baby on the way and didn’t like leaving Maddie for too long on the ranch. All this marital bliss was messing with his poker game.
He shuffled the cards with a flourish and sent them flying across the table to Sam, Rusty and Jerome, his hardworking ranch hands. A set of five cards landed in front of Brett Collier as well, the all-too-polished guy keeping his eyes unreadable as he picked up his cards and assessed his hand. “Oh shit,” he said, “I almost forgot.”
His chair scraped against hard wood in a noisy screech as he rose to grab a bag he’d laid on the counter. “Day would have my hide, if I didn’t put these out,” he said.
He pulled out a platter of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. “She said you all expect something sweet from her on poker night.”
Brett put the dish in the middle of the table, and the guys groaned as whiffs of chocolate reached their noses. “Oh man, Dakota didn’t forget us,” Sam said.
“That gal’s a peach,” Rusty said, reaching for a cookie.
“Nothin’ better than cookies and beer,” Jerome said, digging in too.
“You her courier now?” Cole asked Brett.
“No, sir. Just being neighborly. She didn’t want to disappoint you all.” Brett picked up his cards again. “Even though she’s a busy bee these days.”
Cole pursed his lips. He sure knew a lot about her. “That so?”
Brett shrugged. “So I’m told.”
“That’s right,” Sam said. “You did some work for that fancy lingerie shop Jack’s new wife opened up. Day is moonlighting there. Barely Here or something.”
Brett chuckled. “Close, Sam. It’s called Barely There. And yeah, I worked for Jillian and helped her get the place in shape.”
“Man, all that frilly stuff, makes a man’s head spin,” Rusty said, putting up his ante. “I walked into the shop one time, took a gander at all those cock-teaser outfits, turned red as a beet and walked out. Wasn’t the place for me to buy my sis a birthday present.”
Sam shook his head. “No, I don’t suppose. And it’s not that Day isn’t pretty and all, but she doesn’t strike me as the type of woman to go for that fancy stuff.”
Lazy-like, Brett tipped the beer bottle to his lips, took a sip and said, “Oh, I don’t know about that.” The guy looked him straight in the eye. “Women surprise you sometimes.”
Cole’s mouth nearly dropped to the floor. What the? If Brett was talking about Day from experience, Cole’s fist would be landing on his mouth any second now. “How would you know?”
“I don’t,” he added, eager to clear that up, and Cole could breathe again. “Not with Day anyway. But if I know women, even the shy ones want to look sexy for their man.”
Cole’s mind raced, imagining Day in that sinful red nightie he’d glimpsed at Jillian’s shop one day. The idea of sheer lace with tiny crimson bows caressing her body, and her lustrous hair falling like a sheet of black ice over the tightest rosy tips of her breasts, was pounding in his skull. Making him ache, making him hot.
“Stop!” Surprised, the guys snapped their heads up. Oh man. He didn’t mean to bark at his crew. This night was supposed to be fun, a way for them all to hang out. A way to forget about his past mistakes, forget about his sudden and budding fascination with Dakota. He forced calm into his voice. “Dakota’s a co-worker and friend. We’re not gonna disrespect her by talking behind her back. Got that?”
“Aw, Cole, we didn’t mean anything by it,” Sam said.
“I know,” he was quick to answer. A sigh heaved out of his chest. “Let’s just play.”
His ranch hands nodded and put their heads down, staring at their cards.
But when he spared a glance at Brett, the guy was doing his best to hold back a smirk. As if he knew what Cole had been thinking. As if he knew what he was fucking feeling.
Which was insane.
Because Cole was an expert at reining in his emotions.
He was an expert at hiding them too.
Chapter Two
“Hi, girls,” Dakota said, stepping inside the back door of Barely There. Marcie—the store manager—and Jillian were sitting in the lounge area, sipping early evening coffee, their heads down, voices low in deep conversation. “What’re you all conspiring about?”
“Hey, Day. Marcie was helping me plan a surprise baby shower for Maddie Walker,” Jillian whispered softly. Day took a peek into the shop and found Marla, their elderly employee, helping an equally aged woman look over their Vintage wear and understood Jillian’s reasons for secrecy. Busybody grapevines were notorious in small towns. One eavesdropped word and the surprise would be no more.
“Sounds like fun,” she whispered back. “Let me know if I can help.”
The women exchanged looks and then Jillian said, “Actually, we were hoping you’d say that. Marcie has given me some great ideas, but she’s off the clock and needs to get home. So, since we’re slow right now, I was hoping you could help me plan the shower.”
“Sure, Jillian. Not that I know a whole heck of a lot about babies or showers.”
“It’s not that hard,” Marcie said putting on her jacket. She took up her purse. “We’re working on a way to get Maddie off the ranch to surprise her. I’ll let Jillian explain. Gotta run.”
“Okay, bye, Marcie,” they both echoed and she was out the door.
“Have a seat, Day. I think Marla’s got the shop covered for the time being. Want some coffee? I made it fresh a little while ago.”
“No thanks. I’m full up on coffee. Since I’ve been back, I’m banking three cups a day at the ranch.”
“I don’t know how you do it, working the ranch and then coming here in the evenings.”
“It’s something I look forward to, so it’s not a hardship. And it’s only a few nights a week. What else do I have to do, right?”
“Well, uh…right. I’m glad to have you.”
“Thanks. So, what’s the plan with Maddie?”
“Okay, I think we’ve got the games and food covered. But getting Maddie out of the house without her getting suspicious is the hard part. Believe it or not, Jack came up with a great idea.”
Day chuckled. “Jack? Sheriff Walker, your husband? What’s his grand scheme?”
“Not so grand, but I think it’ll work out great. The best way to get Dr. Maddie to the shower is to pretend that there’s an animal in need and have her make a house call. So Jack asked Cole if we could use his place and he agreed. Cole could call and say a mare is struggling to foal. Or a heifer is in trouble. Cole would know what to say. Anyway, if you’re in agreement, since you work on the Circle R, you could maybe…” Jillian’s voice squeaked. “Maybe set things up on that end, do some decorating inside the house. I’ll come out to help too, but how does that sound to you?”
Maddie was a dedicated veterinarian who would definitely make a house call, especially for a friend. It seemed like a foolproof plan. And Day didn’t mind helping. “Sounds like a great idea.”
“Oh good,” Jillian said, relieved. “I promise this won’t be a burden on you. I want us all to have fun.”
“Well then, I’m in. What else?”
Just then the door chimed and Day turned to Jillian. “I’ll get that.”
She exited the lounge and headed to the counter, surprised to see Brett Collier walk in, holding a bakery box. “Brett, are you here to buy something for your next conquest?”
Brett chuckled. “I sure don’t know what you mean. I came bearing gifts for you all.”
“Oh, my bad,” she said, not sure what was up.
“Yeah, you are. When I was working here at the shop Jillian fed me doughnuts and pastries from the Bluebonnet Bakery.”
“And you’re returning the favor?”
“Something like that.” He walked over to the counter and set the box down near the espresso machine. “She here?”
“She’s in the back. I’ll go get her.”
“No, that’s not necessary…just tell her I stopped by.”
The door chimed again, and all heads turned to Ella Ashton, owner of the Bluebonnet. She halted just short of coming fully inside the s
hop. Her eyes shot straight to Brett. “I’m glad I caught you. You left your change on the counter.”
Brett’s eyes lit the second they landed on Ella and he walked over to her. She dashed some fives and change into his hand as if they were on fire. “Here you go.”
“I guess I forgot,” he said, fisting the money and smiling his Brett Collier smile. The guy had been born with an abundance of natural charm. “Thanks, Ella.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, and backed off. “I’d better go now, close up the bakery.”
“You sure you don’t want to stay and browse around the shop?” he asked, a brow arching up. The man was definitely flirting.
Ella’s eyes landed on a particularly provocative piece of lingerie adorning a mannequin and her face turned a deep shade of red. “Excuse me, but I didn’t know Jillian hired you as a salesman.”
“I helped build this place; I have a vested interest in its success.”
“I’ll remember that when I’m in need of new…”
He shot her a smile nearly as broad as his rock-solid shoulders, and for a second there, Ella smiled too, but just as quickly she backed away. “Never mind. I really have to go.”
“I’ll walk you out,” he told her. “It’s the least I can do for making you chase after me.”
“I didn’t chase after you, for goodness’ sake,” she said, her voice ringing out. “You stay and enjoy those doughnuts, Brett. I can find my way back to the bakery.”
His smile didn’t waver, but there was a hint of disappointment in his eyes as he nodded. “Okay.” Day knew the look; she knew how it felt to be shot down like that and pretend nonchalance.
Ella glanced at the rest of them and then as if just realizing her appearance, ran her hands down her stained blue apron. Her blonde hair was piled atop her head, minus the hairnet she usually wore while working, and she tucked a stray strand behind her ear. “Bye, everyone,” she said on her way out. “Have a good night.”
Dakota waved back. “You too.”
Brett watched Ella step outside and walk across the street to the Bluebonnet Bakery. Day wouldn’t have believed it, but her no-nonsense instincts revealed a hidden fact. Brett was crushing on Ella Ashton and Ella, who’d been burned by love years ago, wasn’t having any of it.
Redeeming the Texas Rancher Page 2