by Dahlia West
“Hey, Mr. Cartwright,” she called out.
Cartwright gave her a wan smile. “Well, hello there, Erin!” he called back.
Jack gave him a sharp look, but Cartwright sneered at him when Erin didn’t correct him. Erin came to a stop next to him and put her hand on his arm. “Jack,” she implored, nodding at the dog.
He waited for a moment, not used to being dismissed like that. But he finally gave in. “Come on,” he ordered, slapping his thigh.
Duke gave one last menacing look to Cartwright and trotted along after Jack, toward the barn.
Erin’s business was her own and he wouldn’t interfere.
Jack moved out of earshot but not out of sight, though. Just in case.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‡
“Is there a problem, Mr. Cartwright?” Erin asked. He hadn’t been here a minute and her face was already straining with the fake smile she’d plastered on her lips.
She knew there wasn’t. There couldn’t be. Erin had hand-delivered her monthly mortgage check to the teller window in Highland, same as always, and gotten her receipt.
Despite Erin’s crystal clear memory of it, Cartwright reached into his pocket and produced a duplicate. “You forgot your receipt,” he lied, waving it at her.
Erin was more than a little irritated at his chastising tone. Especially since it was complete and utter bullshit. It wouldn’t do to call him on it, though. She wouldn’t get too far in life making enemies of everyone she knew and had dealings with.
She kept the fake smile in place and plucked it from his sausage fingers. “Thanks, Mr. Cartwright. I didn’t realize I’d forgotten.” She folded it carefully, fingers twitching because she just wanted to shred the stupid thing. Right in front of him, and fling the pieces into the air. But instead she tucked it into her own pocket and patted it firmly.
“Just wanted to make sure you had your paperwork in order,” he said, glancing around left and right.
Erin saw him spot the tarp and the recently purchased pile of lumber stacked up under the eaves.
The banker’s fingers danced back and forth at his sides, as though he were typing on an imaginary calculator. Barely checked greed shone in his eyes. “Doing some work, huh?” he asked, obviously trying to sound casual but failing miserably.
Erin nodded. “Yep. Yes, sir. Just a few standard repairs.”
It was true enough. For now. Erin had plans, though, for bigger and better things at Thunder Ridge. Don Cartwright didn’t need to know any of them, though. Especially since Erin was determined not to take out another bank loan to finance any of her projects.
She didn’t bother to let him know that he was out of the loop and would remain there indefinitely. He’d figure out soon enough that there was no goddamn way he was getting his hands on what was hers. “Well, thanks again, Mr. Cartwright.” She checked her watch meaningfully. “Burning daylight,” she told him pleasantly.
He nodded. “Oh, sure. Sure. Just wanted to bring you that receipt.”
He lumbered off to his little car and levered himself behind the driver’s seat. He gave her a honk and a jaunty wave as he rolled away.
Erin watched him go, sighing as he did. She wondered how long Cartwright—or any of them—were going to circle around her. “Buzzards,” she spat.
“What?” Jack demanded as he came up beside her.
She shook her head. “They’re vultures. The lot of them. Parasites.”
He seemed to relax and Erin’s brow knitted together. “You’ll have to get used to it, Jack. They aren’t going to stop any time soon.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. Guess so.” He nodded toward the highway. “What did that one want?” he asked as he tossed Duke’s favorite toy a few feet away.
The Lab scrambled after it.
Erin sighed. “Same old. Pretending that it’s all part of the Bank of the Badlands customer service experience,” she replied with a wry smile. She gazed around at the property, trying to see it through the bank manager’s eyes. “It’s all the trips to the hardware store,” she realized. “Tongues must be wagging in town. I’m sure he just wanted to see for himself.”
“See what?” Jack asked.
“You’re increasing the value of the place with all the work you’re doing.”
Jack snorted. “Doesn’t matter. He’s not getting his fat, manicured hands on it.”
She laughed. “They’re not manicured.”
He shrugged. “They looked soft to me.”
Erin couldn’t stop herself from looking down at Jack’s hands. They were rough and calloused, and God but sometimes she wanted to know what they would feel like on cupping her breasts.
Jack caught her looking and damn it if the man didn’t seem to know exactly what she was thinking.
She turned away quickly so he couldn’t see the heat creeping up on her face.
Duke brought back the toy and dropped it at their feet.
Jack scooped it up and shook it. “Duke. Banker. Grrr.”
Duke growled, mimicking Jack, and lunged for the toy.
Erin rolled her eyes at both of them and headed inside, thinking about Jack’s hands…as well as the rest of him.
Regular meals had put weight on him, in all the best places. As formidable as he’d seemed before, he was becoming a powerhouse now. The fact that he seemed to refuse to wear a damn shirt was giving her daily heart palpitations.
“Wash up for dinner,” she called over her shoulder as she made for the front porch.
“After you,” he replied.
Her step faltered a bit. A fleeting thought entered her mind that Jack somehow knew what she was doing in the shower nearly every day when the work was done. But he couldn’t know. Jesus, he wasn’t psychic. He saw a lot, and he was damn smart—she’d been able to tell that right off, but he didn’t know. She was just feeling guilty and embarrassed about it.
And about to feel even more guilty as she closed and locked the bathroom door and turned the shower on.
She glared at the drawer handle, like it was the vibrator’s fault she was in this predicament. She turned away from it and stripped out of her dirty, sweaty work clothes. She could make it one day, damn it!
As she lathered up the bar of soap in her hands and started to wash herself, she couldn’t stop imagining it was Jack’s hands instead of her own. Her clit liked this idea very, very much.
“Damn it,” Erin hissed and threw back the plastic curtain.
Promising to say a few Hail Marys or make a donation to the church later, she reached for the drawer handle.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‡
Erin had been taking extra-long showers at the end of the work day for a few weeks now. At first, Jack thought it was cute, but now he was once again standing on the other side of the door and listening to the soft, battery-powered hum on the other side.
And it wasn’t amusing anymore.
He might have just been slightly irritated from the banker’s visit earlier. God knew enough people tromped through Thunder Ridge like it was Grand Central Station, and none of them gave a shit about Erin.
Jack preferred to spend their days alone, just the two of them.
He didn’t like this, though. That was for damn sure.
He waited and heard Erin finally shut off the water. He should have left. He should have walked away, now that she was finished. Part of him knew it, but part of him was annoyed. And when something annoyed Jack, he took care of the problem.
The door swung open and Erin, wrapped in a fluffy bathrobe, jumped back with a yelp. Her wide eyes stared up at him as he loomed in the doorway.
“What…what are you doing?” she gasped, snatching at the robe to hold it shut. The pink on her cheeks deepened.
“Tylenol,” he grunted.
Her embarrassment faded and it was replaced by a look of concern. “Are you all right? Are you hurt? Or is it just—”
Jack lifted his hand to still her words. “Just my
ribs,” he lied. “No big deal.”
He wasn’t sure she believed him, but neither did he think she suspected that he’d been listening at the door, like a pervert, to the sounds of her satisfying herself.
She thought he was hiding his pain.
The sad part was, Jack was sort of doing just that, in a way.
Erin squeezed past him and Jack only moved a scant inch to let her escape. Her hip and shoulder rubbed up against him and he fisted his hand to keep from grabbing her.
He shut the bathroom door behind him and opened the medicine cabinet above the sink. He popped the top off the bottle, just in case Erin was doing her own eavesdropping, tossed a few caplets down the sink, and turned the faucet on.
With the water running and masking his movements, Jack impulsively pulled open the drawer where the vibrator had been stashed the night he’d forced himself into the house.
For a moment he thought it wasn’t there, that she’d taken it with her when she’d left the room, but he found it hidden at the very back, underneath a few old hairbrushes. He picked it up and wrapped his fingers around it. It was still damp, freshly washed. He resisted the urge to simply crush it in his hand. Instead he shoved it into his pocket, turned off the faucet, and strode back out of the room.
Erin was in the bedroom, he guessed, because the door was closed. Picturing her naked wasn’t doing his mood any good so he turned and headed back down the stairs.
Once again outside, Duke followed closely, eyes lighting up when Jack produced the vibrator in his hand.
Jack shook his head. “This toy isn’t for you, buddy,” he declared, squeezing it hard.
It wasn’t for anyone. Not anymore.
Why he gave a shit about when and how Erin got herself off, Jack really couldn’t say for sure. Except that Erin wasn’t Diamond. The more he saw of her, the clearer that became. Erin worked her ass off. And every man who showed up here wanting a piece of what she had, got Erin’s stiff spine and sharp tongue instead. No tits and ass here at Thunder Ridge. No whoring herself to get what she wanted.
Jack clutched the vibrator in his hand. She didn’t need this. She shouldn’t have to have it. A woman like Erin should have a man in her bed, giving her dick whenever she asked for it. A real man, one who’d appreciate her.
He drew his arm back and launched the plastic toy into the woods on the edge of the property. Jack wasn’t sure why, but he immediately felt a whole lot better. He turned and strode back to the barn, whistling as he walked.
As he stood in the tiny bunkroom bathroom, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and frowned. He’d let his beard grow out, way too long. And his hair was now falling down just above his eyes.
He looked like a deranged mountain man. Good for scaring bankers, he supposed. But not much else.
Jack rooted around the medicine cabinet until he discovered a tiny pair of scissors. He closed the door, watched himself in the mirror, and tugged down on one brown curl just over his left eye. He snipped it, about a half inch from the root and let the lock fall into the sink. An hour later he was short-haired, clean shaven, and dabbing blood from his neck. “I’m not a barber,” he told Duke who had been watching him curiously.
The dog whined and Jack turned back to the small mirror on the wall. “It doesn’t look that bad,” he argued.
Duke whimpered again and Jack raised an eyebrow at him.
“Well, you don’t even have thumbs,” he replied. “But you do have that goofy grin. Chicks don’t like goofballs.” He scooped up the hair and deposited it into the trashcan in the corner. “And they don’t like shaggy hair and scruffy beards, either.”
Duke raised his head, like he had something to say about that.
Jack glared at him. “Shut up,” he ordered. “It’s hot. That’s all. It’s hot outside. Now I won’t sweat my ass off so much when I work.” He gave the dog another look, daring him to argue, then he clicked off the overhead bulb and stomped toward the house.
Chapter Thirty
‡
Erin closed the oven door after she slid in the casserole, stood up, and nearly screamed.
A man very much like Jack loomed in the doorway and it took her a second to take it all in. When she did, she pressed her oven-gloved hand to her mouth and giggled.
Jack glared at her.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“It’s hot outside,” he argued.
The haircut had been the most noticeable, ragged and clumpy as it was, but after the initial shock, Erin was pleased that she could see his features more clearly now. As the weeks had gone by, Jack’s face had been more and more obscured by his burgeoning beard. She was glad to see it gone because it didn’t play a central role in any of her shower fantasies. She liked his sharp jaw, his strong chin, his ruby red lips. She wouldn’t dare kiss them, but she could still think about it.
This haircut wasn’t good for anything but a bit part in a Mel Brooks movie, though. And it had to go. If only for Erin’s pleasant dreams. She ditched the oven glove for a pair of scissors in the junk drawer and turned back to him.
Jack eyed her warily as she approached him. Seeing what he’d already done to himself, it was hard not to laugh.
“I trim my own hair all the time,” she told him. Mostly because she didn’t have the time or the money to go into Highland and have it done. “And it can’t look worse, Jack.”
He seemed to take a long time to consider it, looked at the scissors again, and then nodded slightly. “Okay,” he said slowly.
Erin waved to the kitchen chair closest to them and he lowered himself down into it. He’d cut it a little too short for her liking. As she touched it now, the sensation didn’t last nearly long enough before the jaggedly-clipped ends slipped through her fingers. “You could’ve left it a little longer,” she told him.
He hesitated a moment, then said, “I’ll keep it in mind next time,” in his gravelly tone.
A few weeks outside had given his dull brown hair natural golden highlights. He looked less like a wild animal now and more like an ad for Wranglers. As Erin stood behind him, running the comb through what was left of his hair, she took a deep breath and smelled sunshine and hay and the distinct male scent that had been missing in her life for far too long.
She reached out a hand to wipe the tiny little clippings from the back of his T-shirt, feeling hard, sinewy muscles underneath the stretched fabric. She might have left her fingers there just a little too long, but she couldn’t see the harm in it. She’d wondered what he felt like and there was no better opportunity than this to find out.
Jack stiffened a little, though, as she touched him. She cleared her throat and wiped a little harder, this time with short jerks of her wrist, a little less…intimate. “Don’t want to leave a mess,” she told him.
He shifted a bit in his chair and she reluctantly abandoned her position behind him, wanting to feel a little bit more of him while she still had the chance. She came around to the front and got a good, close-up look at his freshly shaven face. He’d done a better job with that, but only just barely. He’d missed a few tiny hairs and seemed to have injured himself in the process.
She delicately pressed a fingernail to the tiny cut just beside his Adam’s apple and grinned at him. “Did you use a chainsaw?”
He grunted and his throat rumbled underneath the pads of her fingertips. “An old razor.”
Erin frowned down at him, her teasing mood turning to ice. “Don’t,” she said sharply. “Throw it away. I’ll get you another one. Don’t…don’t use anything of his.”
A long moment hung between them as Jack watched her carefully. “Okay. I’ll get rid of it.”
Erin didn’t want to be reminded of anything bad, especially not right now. Instead she focused on the gold flecks in Jack’s eyes as he looked up at her, and the way they mirrored the new streaks in his hair. She preferred Jack to Hank, in every way possible. She preferred Jack to anyone, actually.
She moved in front
and he parted his knees so she could get closer. Erin stepped in between them and reached for the shorn locks that hung well above his eyes now. She slipped them between her fingers, an inch at a time, and clipped carefully.
This close to him, she could swear she felt heat radiating off his body. He did spend an inordinate amount of time in the sun and that was certainly possible. But his legs were pressed to the outsides of her own and she probably imagined the warmth she felt there, too.
She’d dressed in a button-down shirt this morning, showing as much cleavage as she dared, owing to the blazing summer sun. As her hands framed Jack’s face and she measured each trim, she could feel his breath on her exposed skin. It made her shiver.
She could straddle him now, as he sat in the chair, sink her hips down low until she was riding him, feeling him get hard underneath her. Her thoughts swirled as she tried to imagine what he’d do then. Would he grab her ass? Would he kiss that dip at her collarbone that his breath was tickling now? What would his now-smooth skin feel like against her own?
Erin stepped out from between his legs and moved to the side, unwilling to try anything so rash. Jack wasn’t like any man she’d ever met, and this was very shaky ground. She smoothed one last out-of-place hair and turned to the kitchen counter, abandoning Jack and all impure thoughts about ravaging him. “There’s more beer in the fridge,” she told him, keeping her voice light. “Dinner’s almost ready. I’m going to go wash up.”
She left without looking back at him and high-tailed it up the stairs to the second floor. She should not have been moving so fast. She should not have been so close to out-of-control.
She practically slammed the bathroom door and kicked off her boots, sending them flying across the tile floor. With one hand she unbuttoned her shirt and with the other she flipped on the shower head until the water ran hot under her palm. Her water bill was going to eclipse her mortgage payment if Jack stayed at Thunder Ridge any longer.