“Better.” You wouldn’t have guessed that, though, from his grumpy tone. A tone that made it all the way to his expression and his sizzling blue eyes. He drank some coffee, then huffed. “You can’t think us sharing a bunkhouse, alone, is a good idea.”
It depended on the definition of good, so there were several ways she could interpret that. Maybe he was referring to his very male reaction when she’d put the lip balm on him. Or something else. Both, or either, would be weighing on his mind, so she decided to go ahead and get that thousand-pound gorilla out into the open.
“I’m sure you remember a group of us ended up at the Longhorn Bar after a charity rodeo,” she threw out there. “You and I drank some beer, danced, and when we ended up going outside for some fresh air, you kissed me.”
Nick stared at her for what felt like hours and then cursed. “I apologized for that. I was way out of line.”
Lindsay frowned, but that was exactly the answer she’d expected. “Clearly, you and I have a different take on things. You kissed me, and I liked it. No apology was necessary.”
“You can’t argue with the out of line part,” he grumbled. Nick did more of that cursing. “For Pete’s sake, you’re my ex-girlfriend’s sister. That makes you off-limits.”
Apparently, his feelings on that hadn’t changed in the past six months. Of course, her feelings hadn’t changed, either. Somewhere in between the dancing and the kiss, Lindsay had fallen hard for Nick. Probably best not to blurt that out, though, or it would send him running.
It had nearly sent her running, too.
She hadn’t been “in the market” for falling for a man. It hadn’t even been on her radar. In fact, until that kiss from Nick, she’d decided that the life her sister had would never be hers. Not that she envied what Carol Ann had now. Nope. But Lindsay had just about decided that being in love wasn’t something she would ever experience. She wasn’t in love with Nick, not yet, anyway, but she could see it as being a possibility. No way would Nick see it that way.
Lindsay smiled when she looked at him. Not especially hard to manage that, since he was hot eye candy in addition to being a decent guy. Her exes hadn’t quite qualified for decent status, and as Carol Ann liked to say, Lindsay was a turd magnet. Lindsay had totally agreed with her.
Until that kiss.
“When you kissed me that night, it felt as if something clicked,” she confessed. She went closer to him. Probably too close. But she didn’t want him to miss any part of this. Besides, it was just nice being next to him, especially when she took in the scent of his soap and the leather from his boots. “In that moment, I realized I couldn’t settle for another turd.”
In hindsight, she should have explained that better or at least given him a detail or two about the “turd” label. “Huh?” he asked. His forehead bunched up.
She would have explained herself, probably would have also moved closer to test his off-limits comment, but there was a knock on the bunkhouse door. Lindsay frowned, but it wasn’t as deep as Nick’s, and while checking his watch, he went to the door.
Lindsay checked the time 7:00 a.m. Early by some people’s standards, but their workday would start in about a half hour. Apparently, it was early enough for the boss, too, because their visitor was Dylan Granger.
He stepped in, his gaze sweeping around the bunkhouse before it landed first on Nick, then her and then on Nick again. The corner of Dylan’s mouth lifted.
“Did you two sleep all right?” Dylan asked.
It wasn’t just an ordinary question. Mainly because Dylan had seen the tail end of that kiss at the Longhorn, and judging by his expression, he hadn’t forgotten it any more than Lindsay had.
“Fine,” Nick snapped. “I just hadn’t thought I would have to share the place with anyone.”
Dylan lifted his shoulder. “I’m working to get Lindsay into the other bunkhouse. Just making sure that’s what you want.”
“It is.” Nick was still snapping. Dylan was still half smiling. Lindsay made as noncommittal a sound as she could make.
“All right, then,” Dylan said, his tone noncommittal, as well. “Well, I just wanted to make sure Lindsay was settling in.” He looked at her. “Nick will show you the ropes.”
No scowl or frown that time from Nick, but he did pull back his shoulders. “You usually have Bree work with the new trainers.”
“Usually,” Dylan repeated. “But I need her to go up to Abilene and take a look at some Appaloosas I want to buy. Showing Lindsay around won’t be a problem, will it?”
And just like that, the scowl had returned. “Can we have a word?” Nick asked, but he didn’t wait for Dylan to answer. Nick just headed out the back door.
Dylan didn’t immediately follow him, though. He looked at Lindsay. “Is this about the kiss?” Dylan asked her.
She could have softened her response with a maybe or even a possibly, but it would have been a lie. Lindsay nodded. Dylan just sighed and went outside where Nick was waiting.
Since Nick clearly wanted the conversation to be private so he could gripe to Dylan about why this sleeping—and perhaps the working—arrangement wasn’t going to cut it for him, Lindsay went out the front door. She could go around the massive main house and then make her way to the barn. At least that way she could get a start on the job she’d been hired to do. However, when Lindsay made it to the house, she spotted someone in the driveway.
Her sister.
Carol Ann was just getting out of her minivan and came her way the moment she saw Lindsay. “I know it’s early, but I wanted to catch you before you started work. I won’t stay long,” Carol Ann immediately added. “I have to get back fast, because Craig needs to leave for work at the store.”
Craig was her husband along with being the manager of the hardware and feed store. Since Carol Ann was a stay-at-home mom, that meant she’d need to get back to their son, Tanner.
“I just wanted to drop by and wish you good luck on your first day here at the ranch,” Carol Ann added.
“Thanks.” Lindsay hugged her. “I was on my way to the barn. You want to walk with me?”
“Sure. Just don’t let me get in the way of anything you have to do.” Carol Ann fell in step alongside her as they walked around the house. “So, how is it being here?”
As she’d done with Dylan, Lindsay went with the truth. “Nick and I are staying in the same bunkhouse. Alone. Just the two of us.” And she left it at that.
“Oh.” There was both surprise and concern in her sister’s voice. “You think that’s a good idea?”
Lindsay nearly smiled, because that was a version of the question that Nick had asked. “According to Nick, no. I think he’s being cautious after the kiss at the Longhorn.” A kiss that Lindsay had told her sister all about.
Carol Ann dragged in a long breath that could mean she was gearing up for a long response. Or maybe she was steeling herself. “I can definitely see Nick’s side of this. It was weird for you two to kiss.”
Lindsay frowned. When she’d first told Carol Ann about what’d happened, her sister hadn’t considered it peculiar. Looking back, though, Tanner had been throwing a tantrum, and Carol Ann had been getting over a cold. Maybe it hadn’t actually sunk in.
“I kissed your husband back in middle school before he was even on your radar—or you on his,” Lindsay reminded her. And yes, Carol Ann knew all about that kiss, too.
Her sister gave Lindsay a flat look. “You were both twelve. That doesn’t count.”
“You were seventeen and eighteen when you were with Nick,” Lindsay argued.
“Big difference. Nick and I were together, as a couple. It wasn’t just an innocent peck under the bleachers after a football game. Or a kiss after a night of drinking.”
Lindsay frowned at that, too. Her sister’s first description had been dead-on. The kiss with Craig had been a peck. Not
the one with Nick, though, and she didn’t like that Carol Ann had dismissed it with the “night of drinking.”
“Nick was my actual boyfriend,” Carol said as if she needed to bolster up her argument even more.
“But you never had actual sex,” Lindsay pointed out. Well, there’d been no sex unless Carol Ann had failed to tell her. They hadn’t been as close as most twins, because they’d always been complete opposites, but Lindsay believed they’d spilled the truth about the big stuff. And this would have been big.
“No, I didn’t have sex with Nick,” Carol Ann muttered several long moments later. “But we came very, very close a couple of times.”
Lindsay wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved about that or not. Very, very close could include things she definitely didn’t want to think about, especially since she had been fantasizing about doing those same things, and more, with Nick since the kiss at the bar.
“I believe it would bother Nick to be with you,” Carol Ann went on. “It should bother you, too. I mean, how would you know he wasn’t thinking about me when he was kissing you?”
Good point. It would be impossible for Nick to push something like that out of his mind. It was a part of his past, and while it didn’t lessen the heat Lindsay felt for him, it tightened her stomach until it was in a knot.
While Lindsay mulled that over, they made it to the barn, and she immediately saw the focus of her mulling. Nick. He was at the corral fence, sipping his coffee and looking at a gelding. Maybe Gumball, since he was a piebald. No Dylan, but one of the local large animal vets, Allie Devlin, was examining a bay mare on the other side of the corral.
“I should go,” Carol Ann said the moment her attention landed on Nick. She made it a step but then caught on to Lindsay’s shoulder as if balancing herself.
That got Lindsay’s attention, and she took hold of her sister’s arm. “Are you okay?” Lindsay asked.
Carol Ann sighed. “Just a little dizzy spell, that’s all. I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant. Don’t tell anyone yet, not even Craig,” she quickly added. “We’ve been trying for a couple of months now, and I don’t want to get his hopes up if it turns out I’m wrong.” She smiled softly. “I’m not wrong, though. I just need to get the test to verify it, and then I can give him the good news on his birthday in two weeks.”
Lindsay hugged her sister. “I’m so happy for you.” And she was.
Carol Ann certainly didn’t say the same thing to her, and when she brushed a kiss on Lindsay’s cheek, she added, “Remember what I just told you about Nick.”
Lindsay doubted she’d ever forget it, but the possibility of that happening went up a notch when Nick turned around, his gaze going to hers. And there it was. The build-up of heat became an avalanche.
Good grief.
Because he was a man she’d known for most of her life, it stunned her that she could feel something so strong that hadn’t been there before the kiss. It was as if his mouth had unlocked something. And no, that wasn’t purely sexual, though it was a huge part of it.
Why couldn’t she just get him out of her thoughts, and why did her eyes think it was a wonderful idea to mentally undress him and get another look at what she’d seen the night before? Lindsay didn’t have those answers, but she steeled herself and went closer.
“We need to talk,” Nick said right off, and he motioned for her to follow him into the barn.
She did, dreading every step. His expression definitely wasn’t one of a friendly “showing her the ropes.” Thankfully, there wasn’t anyone else in the barn, so there wouldn’t be an audience in case this turned ugly.
“Did you talk Dylan into firing me?” she came out and asked.
His expression immediately changed—his eyes widening—and he looked at her as if she’d sprouted an extra ear or something. “No. Hell no,” he added, and he scrubbed his hand over his face. “I just wanted to let him know that there could be a problem. Because of...well...because of the kissing.”
Oh.
She’d never seen Nick flustered, but Lindsay was pretty sure he was now. It made her want to smile, just a little, because she was certainly flustered with her feelings for him. She doubted a smile would go over very well, though, and besides, he’d brought up a subject she felt needed some clarification.
“Did you think about Carol Ann when you kissed me that night at the Longhorn?” she asked.
He belted out another “hell” and then added another, “No.” Nick hadn’t hesitated on that, either, which meant Carol Ann had been wrong. And that made Lindsay smile.
“What else did you tell Dylan about the kiss?” Lindsay pressed.
Nick looked at her for several dragging moments. “I didn’t talk to Dylan about what had gone on at the Longhorn. I told him there was a strong possibility that there’d be other kisses. With you.”
Lindsay could have sworn her heart dropped all the way to the heels of her boots, and it took all the air in her lungs with it. “What?” she managed to say.
But that was the only word that came out of her mouth before Nick pulled her to him and put his mouth on hers.
Wow. That was the first thought that went through her head. More wows followed as the memories of the other kiss collided with this one.
She’d thought the other one had been memorable, but this one was the king of kisses. All fire, need and a whole lot of touching as Nick yanked her against him. It was as if he was trying to work out his frustrations, cool his temper and give her an orgasm all in the same deep kiss. Lindsay didn’t know if it worked for the first two, but she was pretty sure she felt the third one coming on.
Just as Nick ended it.
And with a single word of bad profanity leaving his mouth, he snapped away from her and stormed off.
CHAPTER THREE
NICK HAD TAKEN more cold showers in the past week than he had during his entire lifetime. And he could only blame himself for the extreme need for all that icy water. He’d been the one to launch right into that kiss with Lindsay, and now he was paying the price for it.
By wanting another kiss.
By needing to get her in his bed.
He couldn’t do either of those. He’d figured that out a split second after he’d taken his mouth off hers. That’s why he’d walked away, started working, and been working as hard and as long as possible—along with trying to cool down his body with the cold showers.
The work and showers had helped. More help had come when Dylan had assigned Lindsay to pair up with another trainer to deal with those new Appaloosas he’d brought in. That had put her on the other side of the ranch in the barn just off the back pasture. And the final help had come when she’d moved to the house she’d bought from the widow, Mrs. Farley, who’d relocated to Dallas to be closer to her kids. Being in her own place had gotten Lindsay out of sight in the evenings. So far, nothing had worked for getting her out of his mind for all the hours in the days and nights.
Nick put Gumball through the paces of training, careful of the gelding’s hind legs. Like the other horses he had on his training schedule, Gumball had settled down plenty since that first day Nick had worked with him. Nick still didn’t have him to the point, though, where just anyone could ride him, and he was too skittish around the cattle.
“You got any idea what they do with horses that don’t live up to expectations?” he grumbled to Gumball. “It’s not pretty. It starts with g and rhymes with loo.”
Gumball looked over at him and made a sound that could have only been interpreted as “bullshit.” Which is was. The gelding wouldn’t be shipped off to the glue factory had there been such a thing, but if he didn’t settle in, then he’d be sold to someone who didn’t mind a persnickety horse who couldn’t do the job of getting hands to and from all parts of the ranch.
The next look Gumball gave him let Nick know he had no concerns about that whatso
ever. And maybe he didn’t. Dylan had been the one to buy him, and he had a knack for seeing potential in a horse. That meant it was Nick’s job to polish that potential, and he could do that by following the training plan.
By following the rules, he mentally added.
Rules worked. They kept things running as they should and lessened the chances of complications. And yes, a big reason for why he believed that was his god-awful upbringing.
Nick heard the laughter coming from the other side of the corral and looked up to see Lindsay riding up on a paint gelding. Rules work, he repeated to himself.
But he frowned.
Sometimes, rules sucked, too, when they held you back from kissing a woman you wanted to kiss.
Lindsay was riding up with Skeeter Muldoon, the oldest hand at the ranch. Nick wasn’t sure how old Skeeter was exactly, but the man’s wrinkles had wrinkles, and he’d been around during the days when Dylan’s grandfather had run the place.
After they got off the horses, Skeeter and Lindsay chatted awhile and laughed a little longer before she finally looked at Nick. He’d spotted her a time or two over the past week, but she’d always waved, smiled and gone on her way. Probably because she knew he was trying to keep some distance between his mouth and hers. Today was different, though. She said something he didn’t catch to Skeeter, and the old hand took the reins of both horses and headed into the barn with them.
And Lindsay came his way.
He was about to warn her of Gumball’s moody tendencies, but the gelding went to Lindsay as if they were old friends and gave Lindsay’s shoulder a gentle nudge.
“Such a sweet boy,” Lindsay purred, and Gumball gave Nick a gloating glance before he sauntered—yes, sauntered—toward the water trough.
Lindsay was still smiling when she walked closer to him. “Skeeter said rain was coming in an hour or so. Said he could feel it because he had a ‘mighty powerful ache’ in the bone he broke in his arm when he was twelve.” She sounded skeptical when she glanced up at the sky. Not completely cloudless but close. “How accurate is he on weather predictions?”
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