by Erin Wright
There were a lot of shoulda, coulda, woulda’s in the world, but this time, Stetson was willing to trust his gut.
At least for now.
Chapter 26
Jennifer
Jennifer stole a sideways glance at the stupidly handsome farmer to her left, wondering why she’d just told him all of that. He probably thought she deserved to get her heart broken by Paul. After all, she was the enemy, right?
But as his dimples flashed in the elk horn chandelier lighting – who decorates with elk horns?? – she realized that he truly did seem to have started to believe her. He wasn’t holding back. He wasn’t waiting for her to let her guard down so he could tear her to shreds.
He actually believed her.
She was in shock, to be honest. She wasn’t used to men believing her. That had started with Paul, of course, but Greg didn’t help matters, either. Believing her because she said so?
It was a heady feeling.
They stood up to begin clearing off the table, and Jennifer cast about for something to say. “I’ve been meaning to ask – why did you inherit the Miller Farm? I don’t know much about farms, but even I know that the oldest son usually inherits. Did your brothers just not want to farm? Do they do something else?”
Stetson scraped the bits and pieces off the plates and into the trash, then stacked the dishes neatly in the sink. Carmelita had him well trained.
“Nope, they both own farms of their own, actually. My dad helped with the financing for both of them, putting his name on their deeds and co-signing on their loans so Goldfork Credit Union would take them seriously.”
“They borrowed money from a different bank?!” Jennifer said with a pretended huff of indignation. Stetson opened up his mouth to apologize or defend the decision or something, but she shot him a huge grin. “I’m just kidding. I always wondered why you guys borrowed from Intermountain, considering the nearest branch is in Boise.”
Stetson snagged a beer out of the fridge – a dark, bitter-looking thing – and held one up for her. She shook her head. “Wine?” he asked, sticking his head back in the fridge. “I have a riesling in here somewhere.”
“Sure!” she said. “A glass of riesling would be nice.” She shouldn’t be drinking wine with a client, but she also shouldn’t be eating dinner with them or flirting with them or spending the night at their house, so she figured one more “shouldn’t” wouldn’t hurt her at this point.
He popped the cork on the bottle and filled a glass for her – a huge goblet, actually – and she took it hesitantly. If she drank all of this, she’d be slobbering drunk by the end of it.
She’d have to take it slow. Small sips. At least she wasn’t driving tonight, right?
“My grandfather had a dispute with Goldfork Credit Union back in the day,” Stetson said, jerking Jennifer back to their conversation she’d mostly forgotten they’d been having. Picking up his beer with his bandaged hand, he led the way to the living room. “He vowed to never bank there again. I do believe that the offending charge was a quarter.” He shot her a self-deprecating grin. “I like to think that I came by my stubbornness naturally.”
She let out a loud chuckle as they settled into a plush, welcoming couch. A brick fireplace with a thick wooden beam serving as the mantle was in front of them, but because it was July, Carmelita had put a decorative candle holder in the hearth instead of stacking up logs. Stetson caught her studying the intricate metalwork of the candle holder, and pushed himself off the couch. “I always mean to do this but never actually do. It’s nicer to look at than a TV any ol’ day of the week.” He pulled a lighter out of a vase on the mantle and set about lighting the candles. The flickering glow instantly added a warmth to the room…or maybe it was the wine. She always had been a lightweight.
For some reason, she took another sip of the wine, because in that moment, it totally seemed like a good idea.
“By the time my brothers were ready to borrow for their farms,” Stetson continued, settling back down on the couch next to her, “my grandfather had passed away and my brothers wanted to do business locally, instead of driving back and forth to Boise for every little thing. I just stuck with Intermountain because…well, I don’t know. Old habits die hard, I suppose.”
“So your brothers bought their own farms, and you inherited this one?”
Stetson rearranged the pillows behind him for a moment, fussing with their placement, his internal debate stamped clearly on his face. She wondered how much he’d eventually choose to tell her, and how much he’d hold back. “I can’t pretend my brothers were happy about this,” he said finally, staring into the flickering white globe candles. “They weren’t. It caused a lot of problems, actually. Wyatt – he’s the oldest – and I…we never got along. But after I inherited the farm, lock, stock, and barrel, things didn’t exactly become better between us.” He took a long sip of his beer. “If he knew you were here…if he knew what was going on with the bank payment…” He let out a bitter laugh. “You think I have a bad temper? You should meet Wyatt. He makes a jumping cactus look as welcoming as a cold beer on a hot day in comparison.”
“If you ever want to see the true strength of a family, just start discussing who inherits what after a death,” Jennifer said with a small grin. “Banking is pretty boring for the most part, but I once saw a fistfight break out between an uncle and niece over who got to keep the fully restored two-door 1966 Chevy Nova.”
“Niece?” Stetson repeated with a startled laugh.
“Yup. And she had a pretty good right hook, actually. Laid her uncle out in the foyer of the bank. I was just glad that I was calling the police to report a fight, not a bank robbery.”
“I think you’re taking that ‘Be grateful for everything’ mantra a little too far,” Stetson said dryly.
Jennifer shrugged. “It’s not hard to be an optimist when life generally goes my way.”
“You mean, when your boyfriend uses you for years to pay for his schooling, and then cheats on you once he’s actually made it as a doctor? That kind of good luck?”
“I didn’t say everything in my life goes my way,” she protested, her cheeks warming with embarrassment. He made her sound so Pollyanna. She wasn’t; she just chose to look on the bright side of life.
“What about that time you got assigned to audit a jackass of a farmer who made your life miserable, and then you got your car stuck in a muddy ditch while trying to leave his sorry ass behind?”
“Hmmm…I think you’re right,” Jennifer said, pretending to be serious for a moment. “I mean, have you met that guy? A real turd in the punchbowl.”
“Turd in the punchbowl!” Stetson howled, clutching at his chest in pain. “I’m sure he’s nothing like that!”
“Hey, I was just agreeing with you.” She shot him a triumphant grin. “Are you trying to say that your summation of his character wasn’t accurate?”
He paused, his beer bottle halfway up to his mouth. “I’m not quite sure how I got myself into this,” he grumbled as he took another long swig.
“I couldn’t begin to guess!” she informed him cheerily, holding her glass up to toast him. “I was just being a well-behaved guest, agreeing with my host.” She batted her eyelashes innocently as she took another sip of her own drink.
It was heady and strong and she felt another flush of heat wash over her body. She wondered for a moment if she should stop and go to bed and hide from this man who set her on fire with just a look, but he was taking her glass out of her hand instead, and she just watched it go, a little off-balance from the missing weight of the goblet.
And then he was kissing her.
Finally kissing her.
It felt like years that she’d been waiting for this moment – decades, maybe – the electricity crackling between them like lightning strikes on a beach. It was hot and painful and amazing and she wasn’t sure if she’d ever breathe right again. His mouth moved over hers, his tongue probing the seam of her lips, and then she was ope
ning her mouth with a groan that mingled with his, as his tongue swept inside, wild and passionate. Her hands clutched at his shirt, trying and failing to hold onto something that would stabilize her. Ground her.
He was hovering over her and she realized that at some point, he’d laid her back on the couch and she hadn’t even realized it had happened but instead of pushing him away as she should, instead of slapping him or kneeing him in the balls or something, she pulled harder on his shirt, tugging him towards her, wanting his weight on her, pressing her down, telling her that he wanted her too.
There was something that she should be worried about; some reason why having him take off her shirt wasn’t a good idea, but it was fuzzy and out of reach and so Jennifer ignored it. She only wanted to focus on this man and this moment. Nothing else mattered.
For one glorious heartbeat, his hard body was pressed along the length of hers and he was working the buttons of her shirt, trying to open it up to his mouth and hands and gaze, and then he was gone.
Gone.
Where had he gone?
Jenn’s eyes shot open – she hadn’t even realized she’d closed them – and she sat up, chest heaving, collapsing against the back of the couch as Stetson stared at her, wide-eyed.
“I shouldn’t have…I have to…goodnight.”
He scrambled off the couch like his ass was on fire, and had made it to the doorway of the living room before turning back to say, “Up the stairs. First door on the left. That’s your room.”
And then he was gone and she was left alone, just her and the flickering candles in the hearth and a mostly empty glass of wine.
Chapter 27
Stetson
He heard her stirring around long before she came down the stairs. He was sitting at the kitchen table, breakfast finished, doing his best to pretend as if everything was fine and normal, while Carmelita puttered around, humming happily to herself. Never one to miss a thing, she’d asked if he wanted fresh candles placed in the hearth for tonight, and he’d told her thank you, but no. She’d looked at him for a long moment, probably trying to decide how far she could press the questioning, but finally left it alone, going back to making breakfast for her and Jennifer.
Stetson could only hope that Jennifer liked to eat first thing in the morning, because Carma was cooking even more than normal, and that was truly saying something.
Finally, Jennifer stumbled down the stairs in a pair of basketball shorts and a t-shirt, both relics leftover from Stetson’s junior high years, and instantly, Stetson found that he had two competing thoughts in his head:
1) Why had Carmelita kept that clothing all this time? She surely didn’t expect to need to clothe an accountant years down the road who didn’t have the good grace to grow to a normal adult-sized height, and Stetson was surely never going to fit into those clothes again; and
2) Jennifer made basketball shorts and beat-up t-shirts look good. Damn good. Way too damn good.
He took a long sip of his coffee as he shifted in his chair, trying to hide his sudden arousal.
Yeah right. Who was he kidding? His arousal had never really left. After he’d run up the stairs last night and away from the temptation that was Jennifer the Accountant, he’d tried to take care of business the same way he always did, but the spark was missing after all these years, and the palm of his hand just wasn’t the date it used to be, dammit, especially all wrapped up in the ace bandage Carmelita was faithfully replacing every morning.
The cuts were clean and infection-free, sure, but the bandage did tend to put a damper on…certain activities.
“Good morning,” Jennifer said in a gravelly voice, jerking Stetson back to the present. She cleared her throat as she shoved her hair out of her face. “How are you guys this morning?” She had this crease across her face where her pillow must’ve been pressing into her cheek, and her hair was definitely on the mussed side.
Stetson shifted again. He wanted to be the cause of her looking like that. He wanted to see her with her lips wrapped around—
“Good, good,” Carmelita said, breaking into Stetson’s increasingly naughty thoughts. “Here, have some coffee, and I have an omelet almost done.”
Jennifer slid into the other chair at the worn kitchen table, the one where Carmelita always sat, and the sight made Stetson feel distinctly…something. Uncomfortable? Happy? At peace? Disturbed? Horny?
Definitely something.
The accountant should not be sitting in Carmelita’s chair in his old athletic clothes – without a bra, he was pretty sure – with mussed hair and a sleep line criss-crossing her face.
Absolutely, positively should not be happening.
Which was probably why he was having a hard time breathing. That had to be it.
“So what are you going to do today?” she asked him, clearly fishing around for a safe topic. “Has it stopped raining yet?” She craned her neck to look out the window over the kitchen sink, but he doubted that she could see much from her viewpoint.
“Cleared out a couple of hours ago,” he answered, glad to have a non-bra-and-mussed-hair topic to concentrate on. “Hopefully no more rain this summer, especially not like that.”
Carmelita slid a plate overflowing with food in front of Jennifer, whose eyes were the size of saucers at the sheer amount of food in front of her. Stetson bit back a grin. Apparently, Jennifer didn’t eat enough food for three grown men every morning. Considering how tiny she was, he couldn’t say that he was overly surprised by that. Carma probably thought she needed to be fattened up. She was just perfect, by way of Stetson’s thinking. He could pick her up and slide her down—
“I thought farmers liked rain,” Jennifer said, confusion wrinkling her brow.
Stetson blinked for a moment, trying to remember what they were talking about.
“Right. They do. But not that much, all at once. Rain should water your crops, not drown them.”
“Fair enough,” Jennifer said, flashing a grin at him as she dug lustily into the plate in front of her. Carmelita clucked her approval as she watched Jenn go to town on her breakfast.
“Wyatt and Declan are coming over this afternoon to talk about harvest,” Stetson continued. “Wyatt was supposed to be harvesting right away because of the drought we were in – his dryland wheat was ripening faster than normal because of that – but now…I don’t know how he’ll want to deal with it, now that his wheat is drenched. Dryland farming is a bitch sometimes.” He shrugged, just as Carmelita snapped him across the head with the kitchen towel. “Dryland farming is downright awful sometimes!” he amended quickly. Carma gave him a pleased smile as Jennifer bit back a smile of her own.
Women…some days…
“Why does a drought cause wheat to ripen faster?” Jennifer asked, doggedly working her way through her plate of food. Stetson was quite impressed with her tenacity, actually.
“Evolution,” Stetson said with a shrug and another sip of his coffee. He’d long ago finished his breakfast and should be getting work done, but chatting with Jenn was more fun.
Probably too much fun, but he was going to ignore that fact for the moment.
“If wheat isn’t getting enough water,” he continued, “it will put all of its energy towards producing the kernels, because that’s its seed. Genetically, it wants to produce as much seed as possible before it dies, so a plant going through a drought will almost always stop any unnecessary growth, like leaves or roots, and focus only on developing their seeds as much as possible. How is it that you know so much about how much beef should cost, but not about how drought affects plants?”
She stopped with her fork halfway to her mouth, surprised by his brisk change in topic. “Oh. Well, because of my job. I go to farms and ranches and audit their books, to see if I can find anything of value to sell. I also make sure that all past deals are legit. Sometimes, people like to cook the books by over- or under-representing a sale, to either make themselves look more or less attractive to a bank, depending on their e
nd goal.”
Stetson cocked an eyebrow at her, confused. She sighed.
“So, let’s say a rancher says that they’re selling beef on the hoof for two dollars less than the going rate. Either he’s a really bad businessman – which is possible – or he’s lying and trying to hide income from the bank. If I don’t know the going rate for beef on the hoof, then I’d look at that figure and not realize that it was potentially a lie. So when I got hired at Intermountain, I quickly started paying attention to the markets. But the amount of water on crops affecting when it needs to be harvested doesn’t really enter the equation, so I haven’t had to learn about it.” She shrugged.
“Huh. Makes sense.” He scratched at his stubble-covered jaw. It was such a different way of looking at things, and yet it made perfect sense how she could be totally ignorant and totally intelligent about the same topic at the same time. It hurt his head a little, truthfully. “You wanna see a cattle operation in action?”
He had no idea where that question came from. Certainly not from him. It was his voice, and it was his mouth moving, sure. But he wouldn’t make that offer to Jennifer. Despite the fact that he trusted that she wanted to help him save his farm, that didn’t mean that she would actually be able to. There was no guarantee. So dating someone in that position – who held that kind of power over him – was an insanely bad idea.
Which was why he’d run last night. A small part of his brain still seemed to be keeping up with reality, which was that Jennifer and Intermountain West Bank & Loan held his future in their hands, and they may just choose to squash him flat.
Unfortunately, the part of his brain that was keeping up with that reality seemed to be growing smaller by the day.