Still, she said, “Am I going to hate this?”
“Maybe,” he answered with some orneriness.
But then he took her food containers around the pool with him and headed inside of his house. “Go on, change,” he called over his shoulder.
Lacey gave him a mock-stern look.
But, smiling to herself, she pivoted on her bare heels and did as she was told.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, dressed in a pair of old jeans and a T-shirt, with her most worn-out tennis shoes on her feet, Lacey found herself being led to one of the three warehouselike, state-of-the-art, two-story barns behind the garage. A place where she assumed animals were housed.
“I’m not crazy about getting too close to pets that are bigger than I am—if that’s how you’re thinking to get me to relax, it might not be the best idea,” she warned, as Seth led her inside.
He merely smiled.
The structure was dimly lit until he flipped a switch, and then it was flooded with bright light. Lacey could see a horse looking out one of the stalls in the distance to the right of a wide center aisle. That was the only animal in sight.
“That’s Bud, but he’s not who we came to see,” Seth informed her. “We’re here for Bud’s wife, Milly. She’s a sweetheart. I brought an offer of friendship that will win her over, so there’s nothing for you to be nervous about.”
Lacey had noticed that Seth was carrying an apple, but she’d thought maybe he was going to eat it himself.
“It’s a little smelly in here,” she observed, peering into empty stall after empty stall as they went up the center aisle.
“Smells like a barn. Since most of the animals are out in the paddocks, this is nothing.”
As they reached Bud’s stall, the big, black horse raised his head as if in greeting, and Seth patted his nose.
“Sorry to bother you, Bud,” he apologized, pausing to take what appeared to be sugar cubes out of his pocket with his free hand and feeding them to the horse before they moved on to the next stall.
As they approached it, he said, “Milly, you have company.”
A brown face with a white blaze down the nose appeared over the stall’s half door in answer.
“Bud’s wife, Milly?” Lacey asked with a laugh.
“Milly and Bud are my oldest horses—they’ve been here since we were all foals—after a lot of begging, my grandfather made them my seventh birthday present. They were a few months short of turning one. They were bought together, and they’ve been inseparable ever since.”
“That’s why they’re the only two horses in here?” Lacey asked.
“They’re fairly old for horses, and they don’t do as well in the high heat or the coldest cold, so they spend a lot of time in the barn year-round, where it’s climate-controlled. Bud can be a little more cantankerous, but Milly is as gentle a horse as I’ve ever known.”
Seth handed Lacey the apple. “Just hold it out to her in the palm of your hand. She’ll take it.”
“And my hand with it?” Lacey asked, only half joking.
“Maybe just a finger or two,” Seth said, grinning and obviously enjoying his own humor.
Lacey did as he’d instructed, holding the apple in the palm of her hand and tentatively offering it to the horse.
The animal took the fruit without Lacey feeling anything.
“Now rub her nose like this—” Seth demonstrated and Lacey followed suit.
“Okay, I’m relaxed already,” she announced, implying this outing didn’t need to go any further.
Seth chuckled at her and opened the stall door. “Stay with me to the side of her and keep a hand on her shoulder or her back so she knows you’re there.”
Again Lacey did as she was told and followed him into the stall.
“Milly loves to be brushed,” he said, taking a brush from a bucket nearby. “Sometimes I think she almost purrs, she loves it so much, and if you let yourself, you start to feel as good about it as she does. This is how you do it.”
Once more he demonstrated, showing Lacey how to smooth the brush over the horse’s coat in the direction that the hair grew; how to take slow, soft, rhythmic strokes; advising her to clear her mind and just be at one with the animal and the simple task of grooming her.
Then he handed the brush to Lacey.
She again did what he’d showed her, and strangely enough she could feel how much the horse really did like the brushing. The animal seemed to almost lean slightly into each stroke, and several times she turned her head to that side as if to tell Lacey how much she liked it.
And yes, Lacey did find the repetitive motion surprisingly soothing. Although in truth she thought it had more to do with Seth standing so close by, his big body protectively hovering, his powerful hand resting on the horse’s hindquarter as if to make sure Milly knew who was boss.
There was something comforting and arousing at the same time in his mere presence there. In his commanding, take-charge attitude. In how strong and capable he was. In his ability to be master to the huge animal.
“Okay, you’re right, there is something about this that kind of lulls you—smells and all,” she said.
Seth grinned down at her. “Don’t insult Milly by saying she stinks.”
Lacey laughed. “Sorry, Milly,” she said without taking her eyes off of Seth.
Lacey brought the brush to a stop on the horse’s back, not far from Seth’s hand, and laid her own head atop her outstretched arm as if she were too tired to go on. “Maybe I should just sleep out here in the barn,” she joked.
“Bud would get jealous,” Seth said. “He shares Milly for a little grooming but that’s about all.”
“He’s possessive…”
“Well, she does seem to belong to him and he really likes her. You can’t blame a guy for that….”
Lacey had the impression that Seth wasn’t talking about the horses alone. That just maybe he was talking about himself. Liking her…
She was just glad to be there with him. To be looking up into that oh-so-handsome, slightly scruffy face. Into those blue eyes that were peering into hers in a way that let her know that all the stiffness, all the standoffishness that she’d sensed in him earlier was gone. A way that reminded her of how he’d looked at her just before he’d kissed her the night before…
Then he leaned forward. Instinct brought Lacey’s head up off her arm to meet him in a kiss.
Tonight it wasn’t over in a flash.
No, tonight’s kiss allowed their lips to meet lightly at first, then more firmly. It went on long enough for eyes to close and heads to tilt, naturally deepening all on its own.
It was a kiss that mingled his sweet breath with hers and let her know the full feel of his warm, supple, agile lips accompanied by just the slightest roughness of that shadow of his beard. The slightest roughness that she kind of liked…
Apparently, Milly didn’t like being the leaning post that supported their kiss, because the horse whinnied and nudged at them to let them know she was still there.
And ended the kiss before Lacey was ready to have it end.
Long before…
But Seth broke away to stand straight again, leaving Lacey no choice but to do the same.
Seth translated Milly’s neigh and nudge. “If there’s nothing in it for her, we’re just bothering her.”
“I think I’ve sufficiently learned the value of brushing a horse,” Lacey said, unwilling to go back to the chore when they’d moved on to something she liked so much better.
Seth took the brush from her and patted the horse’s rump once before dropping the brush back into the bucket and motioning for Lacey to lead the way out of the stall.
“’Night, Milly. ’Night, Bud. You two sleep tight,” Seth advised the ho
rses as he and Lacey retraced their steps to the door. He turned the lights down to a dim glow again as they left the barn.
Lacey had to admit to herself that whatever happened in that barn had left her feeling more relaxed, though. More at peace. More uplifted. But whether it had been the horse brushing or the kiss was a question she wasn’t sure she should answer.
“It is nice out here,” she said as they walked back to the pool area, feeling under the influence of the night air. “Peaceful, quiet and clean-smelling.”
That made him laugh. “Nothing like a little barn perfume to make you appreciate fresh air.”
She was hoping that once they reached the pool they wouldn’t split to go their separate ways. And they didn’t—Seth walked with her to the guesthouse.
But that was all he did before he said, “Now you can shower off the horse hair and smell and go right to sleep—works for me every time.”
“I will welcome the shower,” Lacey said, even though she hadn’t had enough to do with Milly to really need it.
Seth merely smiled down at her for a moment before he did what she wanted him to do—kissed her again. Another kiss that went on just long enough for her to be getting into it before it ended, even without the horse to interrupt them.
Then Seth said a simple good-night and left her. She went into the guesthouse and closed the door behind her, then stood there staring at it.
Staring at it and thinking about what she could do if only she didn’t have to rush to bed in order to get up again before dawn and be at work hours ahead of the earliest of her construction crew.
Thinking about going back outside, suggesting to Seth that they open a bottle of wine to share.
Thinking about where the rest of the night might take them, if only she could let it.
She yearned for that so much that it was a fight not to give in.
But she didn’t. Instead she reminded herself of all she had to do the next day.
And once again went the way of her goals.
Chapter Seven
The first week of construction on the training center did not go well. In fact it was hellish for Lacey. Equipment still hadn’t arrived. The wrong materials were delivered, had to be returned, reordered, and replacements were delayed. Her contractor had a family emergency and had to leave the state. Her construction foreman broke his wrist. A midweek windstorm blew down a power line.
To Lacey it seemed as if anything that could go wrong had. Plus she’d had problems with the fabric being used to make the bike shorts in her clothing line, there was a sudden increase in orders for hoodies that she wasn’t sure she could meet, and three new vendors had gotten irate over a shipment mix-up.
By Friday she was exhausted from getting even less sleep than usual, frazzled from dealing with too many problems on both of her business ventures, and so ragged around the edges that it was showing in the lack of color in her face and the circles under her eyes, which she couldn’t quite seem to conceal even when she had the time to try.
And on Friday morning she did make the time to try. That was the day Seth was due to clear out the Camden belongings from the attic and the barn.
She hadn’t seen him at all since he’d left her at the guesthouse door on Monday night. She just hadn’t spent enough time at home for it to happen. She regretted not seeing him, not getting to be with him. She’d still managed to be thinking about him more than she should have been, and daydreaming about him, and longing to hear his voice right in the midst of some of her worst crises at work.
So Friday—knowing that he was coming to the site—she sacrificed yet another half hour of sleep to get up early enough to make sure she could actually condition her hair, shape her eyebrows and work on covering up those dark circles before she added some color to her face with blush and applied mascara.
She also chose her clothing more carefully, opting for tan slacks that did a come-hither hug of her rear end, and a T-shirt adorned with a cluster of knit roses that cascaded from one shoulder diagonally across the front.
Then, rather than the simple ponytail that had been her quick and easy staple, she twisted her hair up the back of her head and left a geyser of curls at her crown so it was still out of her way but looked a little more done than the ponytail.
Unfortunately, Lacey was under fire when Seth arrived at the site Friday afternoon. She was in the middle of a phone call with her father, who was shouting at her. He claimed that if a man were in charge of the training center project, none of the disasters this week would have happened.
“Well, of course a man wouldn’t have let any of it happen, Dad, because everyone knows that men have the ability to foresee the future and superpowers to keep the worst from happening!” Lacey retorted.
“Don’t get smart with me, little girl. I saw you with Seth Camden at the wedding. He never left your side and you didn’t seem to mind it too much. And you’re living at his place—these things at the construction office better not be happening because you’re paying more attention to him than to this job!”
“I’m staying in the guesthouse on the Camden ranch and I haven’t even seen Seth since Monday night. I’ve been right here at the site for so many hours this week that I might as well have pitched a tent for myself. And nothing—nothing—that happened this week had anything to do with Seth Camden or could have been prevented or handled any differently by anyone else!” she insisted forcefully.
“Just make sure the training center is coming first.”
It wasn’t the first thing on her mind at that moment, when Lacey was all too aware that Seth was out at the barn and that she was hating that she wasn’t out there with him. But still she said, “The training center is coming first. We just had a bad run after the groundbreaking but everything will be fine from here on.”
Her father grumbled and groused some more before he finally let her off the phone. But that still didn’t free Lacey to say hello to Seth, because as soon as she hung up with her father, the foreman came in to tell her that even when the crane arrived they wouldn’t have an operator for it because the man they’d hired wasn’t taking the job after all. And now Lacey needed to find them another one.
She was still in the middle of the new crisis when Seth left the barn and came into his family’s former house to deal with the attic. All Lacey could do was wave to him when he poked his head into the dining room she used as her office, whisper for him to go ahead and do what he needed to do, and continue with the phone call she was in the middle of then.
At least as best she could when she kept losing her train of thought watching the big cowboy lug something out to his truck.
From her vantage point she couldn’t see him until he got whatever he was taking out onto the front porch. But then, framed by the living room’s picture window that she could see through from her desk because there was an open archway joining the dining room with the living room, she feasted on the sight of massively muscled arms beneath the short sleeves of his white T-shirt, thick thighs testing the denim of his jeans, broad shoulders flexed to their limit toting boxes stacked on top of boxes.
But just when she thought she might be able to get off the phone knowing that she had a new crane operator lined up, she saw Seth put what was apparently the last of his family’s old belongings in the truck and raise the tailgate to lock it into place. Then he glanced back at the house, and when he saw through the window that she had her phone to her ear, he merely waved to signal that he was done and ready to leave.
And the only thing Lacey had been looking forward to all week—seeing Seth, getting to talk to him—wasn’t going to happen.
“I’m sorry, I’m going to have to call you back,” she said, cutting the call short so she could rush out the old house’s front door to catch Seth.
“Hi!”
Okay, bursting out the door a
nd saying that as breathlessly as she had was not how she’d planned to handle the situation. But it did stop Seth from getting behind the wheel and driving away without a word to her.
“Hey, stranger,” he said with a forlorn sort of frown creasing his brow. He paused on the other side of the truck bed, leaning both of his arms on it and glancing at her. “Looked like you were busy—I didn’t want to bother you…”
“‘Busy’ doesn’t even cover it—I’ve been swamped all week.”
He nodded, as if she wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t already guessed. “Everything going okay?”
“No. It’s been one disaster after another around here and with my sportswear business.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Seth said. But there seemed to be something removed and distant about him.
Lacey went down the porch steps and joined him on the other side of his truck bed, closing at least some of the physical distance between them. “Did you get everything?” she asked with a nod at the contents of his truck.
“I had one of my ranch hands follow me over in the truck with the trailer on it—he came in the back way. We got the rotary hoe—the farm equipment thingy, as you call it—loaded onto the trailer and Ross took it out of here after he helped me with the desk. He left a little while ago while I did the rest. But now I think you’re free and clear—the place is all yours to do with as you please.”
“Thanks.”
Silence.
Lacey wondered why this seemed a little strained. A little awkward. Was it just because so much time had passed since they’d last seen each other?
Searching for something else to talk about in order to have a few more minutes of looking at that sharply drawn, sun-gilded face, she said, “What about that old trunk you found in the tackroom last week—did you have a key for the lock?”
“No key. I pried the lock off.”
“What was inside?”
The Camden Cowboy Page 10