by Em Petrova
He slammed the door on that thought before it could run away with him.
She stood off to the side, hand on her hip as she watched. And that was when he decided on a new career path—he wanted to become a hand. A hand that could latch onto that delicious hip of hers anytime it wanted.
This attraction was quickly getting out of control. He couldn’t think of anything but Susannah since setting foot on the Ryan Ranch. Knowing this was her land as Paradise Valley was his—
He stopped. Paradise Valley wasn’t his but belonged to his aunt, uncle and cousins. He was an extra player on the game board and when his help was no longer needed, he would return to…
What?
His empty life.
Next time he visited, Susannah would be spoken for, snatched up by some lucky man in town or even one of her many brothers’ friends. She was smart and savvy and heart-stoppingly beautiful. Any man with two eyes would see these traits. Hell, he didn’t even need two. One eye would be plenty.
He finished smoothing the area and she pointed to another spot. Then another.
Soon the trail was as smooth as could be. He cut the engine and climbed out, shooting her a grin.
She smiled back, and damn if that didn’t feel good. To have a ray of sun beaming down on him.
“Was that so hard?” she asked.
“You mean the leveling of the trail? Not bad.”
“I mean smiling. Your face didn’t even crack.”
“I told you that I smile when the occasion arises.”
When he walked up to stand next to her, he noted a small shiver running through her.
He gazed down at her, taking in peachy skin and eyes as green as the fields. “Are you cold?”
“No.” She wrapped her arms around her middle. “Just excited!”
His heart flexed. A thrill made his stomach flutter.
“I can’t believe it’s happening,” she said.
Me either. I never thought after Gabby left I’d feel anything again.
“I worked so hard and your help is… Well, it’s priceless. Thank you, Ford.” She turned those green eyes up to him. And his name falling from her plump, perfect lips grabbed him by the heartstrings.
His body moved on its own, and he reached for her. She came into his arms and she hugged him around the neck, leaving him with so many lurid thoughts that he’d better spend the entire Sunday on his knees in church.
Then she tipped her head back to meet his gaze, and he knew without a doubt he had to stomp on these thoughts he was having. He couldn’t get entangled with another woman who would just walk like the last one.
But when she smiled up at him, it was so genuine that he kicked himself for being so jaded. The Ford who used to live in the moment would have asked her out on the spot, but he knew too much about the affairs of the heart to be anything less than cautious.
“You could at least smile again, Ford. Aren’t you pleased with your work?”
His lips twitched at one corner. “It looks great and I think the smoother trail will help these old horses stay limber.”
She nodded, turning back to the trail, a smile stretched over her pretty face. “I can’t wait to get started. When will you bring the horses?”
His stomach bottomed out at the thought of seeing her again. But he had volunteered, so he’d be seeing a lot of her. He still couldn’t figure out if that was a good thing or not. With such conflicted feelings, it was hard to tell. Better to stick to what he knew—horses and ranchin’.
But looking into her eyes reminded him what he knew about women and the kind of lover he could be with Susannah.
“Tomorrow. I can bring the horses tomorrow.”
Chapter Four
Ford picked at his taco salad and listened to the chatter at the supper table. Taco salad night was apparently one of the Daltons’ favorites, and the kids had been bouncing off the walls when they were told to get in line and choose their fixin’s. But they’d eaten in seconds and run back outside to play, leaving the adults time to talk for once.
He speared a tomato chunk and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing as he listened to various discussions but not entering into any.
“Is your salad all right, dear?” Aunt Maggie asked from the opposite end of the table.
“It’s great. The best I’ve had in my days.”
She beamed but dropped her gaze to his plate that was still more than half full while everyone else was nearly finished. He offered her a smile and dug in though his appetite wasn’t as hearty as usual today.
He kept thinking about Susannah. How she teased him about not smiling and how she felt in his arms. Soft breasts pressed against his chest and damn, he could still smell the traces of her perfume though he’d showered and washed his hands several times since.
“Charlotte, Witt and I would like to ask a favor of you and Hank.” Shelby’s announcement had everyone looking her way. Witt offered nothing, his mouth full of taco salad.
“Our anniversary is approaching, and we’d like to take a little road trip without the kids.”
Charlotte smiled in her sweet way. “Of course. The kids must come stay with Aunty Charlotte and Uncle Hank! We will have so much fun. Hank, we can finally set up that obstacle course the kids have been begging for.”
“Oh yeah, sounds great.” Hank sounded anything but thrilled but when Charlotte turned those eyes on him, a tender smile washed over his face. He patted her hand. “Of course we’ll do that. The kids have been wanting it, and we’ll invite them all up like the old days when we’d leave them all with Case.”
Everyone looked at that cousin, who sat so close to Annabelle that their shoulders touched. Ford hadn’t seen the pair separated once since arriving in Paradise Valley.
“Seems to me, that’s Ford’s job now.” Case grinned.
“I’m better with horses,” he mumbled.
“Kids aren’t much different. A little feed and water, take them for exercise and throw a blanket over them when night rolls around.” Everyone laughed at Case’s definition of babysitting.
“He’s not wrong,” Hank said, pointing his fork at Case.
“Don’t pester Ford with jobs he doesn’t want,” Aunt Maggie said. “He’s busy with the ranch and helping Susannah Ryan.”
He glanced up at her name, the knot inside him tightening all over again.
“Smart woman, very ambitious,” his aunt added.
“And beautiful too, Ford.” Charlotte lifted her brows at him.
He nodded. “She’s all of those things, that’s true.” But seeing the Dalton couples, he didn’t think he could become one of them. He couldn’t even picture him and Gabby sitting here discussing romantic getaways or big children’s sleepovers. Give him a crop of hay and some oats to sell and he was in his element.
“I’m taking those mares up to Susannah today and then I’ll be back to help around the ranch.” He took a big forkful he didn’t feel like eating.
“No need. It’s Sunday. After you’re finished at the Ryans’, take some time for yourself, Ford,” Uncle Ted said. “You’ve been putting in long hours for us.”
“I don’t mind. I like the work.”
“We love having you around.”
Ford exchanged a look and a nod of thanks with his uncle and then got up with his plate.
“Oh dang, Ford, I forgot. Susannah was up here this morning looking for you. Easton saw her and told me to pass on the message when he was headin’ for home.” Hank stood and fished something out of his back pocket. He held out a folded piece of paper, and Ford came closer to take it.
He looked down at the thick, folded sheet. A brochure.
“Thanks. And it’s okay—you’ve got a lot on your mind rebuilding your house.” He wondered if Susannah had come up because she was excited, eager to have the horses delivered to her and wanted him to come sooner.
Instead, he’d been putting off going to the Ryan Ranch since rooster’s crow. In fact, he’d taken on as many chores as p
ossible just to avoid going up there.
He turned the brochure over and there was her picture—Susannah smiling alongside her horse, her long blonde hair waving in the wind and the horse’s mane rippling.
He turned for the kitchen and dumped his food into the trash. Then he placed his dish in the dishwasher and leaned against the sink for a moment to unfold the brochure and have a better look.
The front image was full-length, giving him a view of Susannah in all her curvy country girl glory of jeans, boots and a tank top. The horse’s coat gleamed in the sunshine. He spread the paper open to read.
“There’s a grand open house.” Aunt Maggie’s voice startled him. He turned from the sink. “I heard all about it in church this morning. Her family is so proud, with her parents talking about nothing else. They were passing those out after service.”
He glanced over the list of improvements to be seen from equine therapy—emotional awareness, empathy, stress tolerance and flexibility to name a few.
The stirring feeling in his chest didn’t have anything to do with what he was reading but everything to do with the woman so passionate about the work. He wanted to make it a great success for her, and he’d already let her down by not delivering the horses when he’d promised.
Of course, he’d said today, and midnight hadn’t come around yet.
“I’ll go up right now,” he said.
Aunt Maggie nodded. “That’d be good of you, Ford.”
On the way out the door, he stopped to brush a kiss against her cheek. “Thanks for dinner, Aunty.”
“You know how I love feeding my family. The front door will be unlocked for you in case you come back late.”
He blinked. Now why had she put that thought into his head? The idea of sitting under the stars with Susannah, of seeing the kiss of the moonlight on her golden hair…
He spent some time rounding up the horses and loading them into the trailer. The ride was short, and he could have just led them across the fields to the Ryan Ranch, but he wanted his truck in case he needed to make a hasty escape. He didn’t trust himself right now not to make some misstep with Susannah. Grabbing her and bending her over his arm to kiss her wasn’t exactly good for a working relationship.
When he drove through the Ryan gates, his chest tightened. He barely approached the house when Susannah came running out the front door, cowgirl hat in hand. She shoved it over her flowing hair and he could see her smile all the way from his truck.
He parked and got out as she ran up to him. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“Did you think I’d forgotten?” He studied her high cheekbones and the spattering of freckles across them.
She shook her head and smacked his arm in a way that was far too casual for the thoughts coursing through his mind. “I need your advice on how to set things up in the barn so it’s safe for the kids. I have my ideas, but I’d like your take if you don’t mind.”
As she led the way to the barn, he forced his thoughts away from her backside in that set of cutoff shorts. “I would have thought you’d be all set up for open house.”
She tossed him a look. “Oh, I’ve had it set up for two months at least. But I keep tweaking things. I want things perfect.”
He liked that about her. Daltons were all perfectionists and they threw themselves wholeheartedly into anything they did. Well, up until he’d been forced out of the rodeo and into his shitty manual labor job, that was. He’d given his forty hours a week to collect his paycheck and nothing else.
The sun was starting to sink down the sky, leaving shadows interspersed with shafts of light in the barn. The place was immaculately clean.
“My pa’d be impressed with how you keep the barn. My Uncle Ted too.”
She beamed, an inner glow lighting her up like a kid on Christmas Day.
It also punched the breath right out of him.
Swallowing his heart back down his throat, he turned his attention to the setup. His gaze swiped from side to side and then up and down. At first glance, everything looked to be in order. But his job with the rodeo had been not only to ensure the animals were safe but the handlers as well.
All you needed was one small opportunity to get hurt, and sure as the sun rose, somebody would. His own spine was stiff after a day’s work, and he reached back to rub his thumb down the sore spot.
“Well?” Susannah waited, face upturned for his answer.
Dragging in a deep breath only filled his head with her scent.
“For starters, whoever shod the horses missed a nail.” He bent and using a forefinger, dug a shoe nail out of a crack between boards.
Her jaw dropped as he placed it on her palm. “I can’t believe I missed that!”
He pointed across the barn to the pitchfork. “Best to keep tools like that up. You can’t be sure what would interest a kid.”
“You’re right,” she said faintly, paling a bit at the thoughts of what could happen.
“But my true concern is this.” He pointed to a heavy-duty metal gate normally used to keep bulls from ramming through, but it looked like the Ryans had repurposed it here as a gate leading from barn to pasture. “If a kid got between an animal and this,” he pounded a fist off it, “they’d be in a world of hurt. And so would your family after theirs sued you.”
She issued a rasping breath. “Why didn’t I see it?”
He shrugged. “Because it’s stuff you’ve been around your whole life. The kids haven’t. And things happen all too fast.”
She eyed him closely. “Do you know someone who was hurt?”
“Yeah—me.”
She blinked.
He might as well tell her the story now that he’d opened the gate. “You may know I was a flankman in the rodeo.”
“My brother said your cousin had told him one time.”
He scrubbed his knuckles over his jaw. “Yeah. I got hung up between a bull and a gate like this. Bent me back over it and rammed me twice before I crumpled. But not before I’d broken two vertebrae.”
“Oh my God, Ford. I’ve seen you rub your back but didn’t realize how bad it was for you.”
She’d noticed something like that? Maybe she was just more observant than most.
“They didn’t know if I’d walk again at first.”
Her green eyes widened. “I know some about physical therapy and how much work it must have taken you to get here. To do that, you must be a fighter,” she said.
That stunned him. Maybe he’d never thought of himself that way or maybe he’d never guessed a woman would think it of him. Either way, he floundered to find words.
“I had a surgery to fuse the vertebrae and then got on with my life. Thing that helped me most, though, was ridin’. I missed it fierce when I couldn’t, having been around horses my whole life. It’s what makes me believe what you’re doing here is good. It will help those kids.”
It was her turn to be speechless. She moved closer and touched his arm, leaving tingles in her wake.
“I’m sorry to make you talk about it.” Her eyes were luminous as she looked up at him. And small dust motes swirled in the ray of light streaming through the upper windows, like tiny fairies.
Tiny fairies? Jeez, who the hell was he?
Apparently he was a man who would reach out for a woman with dust fairies swirling around her beautiful face, because his hands touched warm flesh.
She issued a low sigh, and her parted lips beckoned.
“I shouldn’t, but I can’t stop myself.” His guttural tone was sure to turn her off and make her pull away, but she stood frozen. He lowered his head by degrees, giving her time to run like a good girl should.
“Ford.” Her whisper barely made it past her lips before he dropped his mouth to hers. The initial touch sent him reeling, and he yanked her onto tiptoe, bringing her body flush against him.
A gasp escaped her, and he swept his tongue into her mouth.
Oh God, she tasted like woman and pure sin.
He yanked aw
ay, breathing hard, and stared at her as he lowered her off tiptoe. “I’m sorry,” he grated out.
“I’m not.” She swiped her tongue over her lower lip, enticing him tenfold. He fisted his hands to keep from hauling her against him once more.
He twisted away from her, certain that if she kept gazing up at him that way, he’d have her rolled into the nearest hay bale. He ripped the hat off his head and stared at nothing.
“Sorry, Susannah,” he muttered.
“Keep sayin’ that, but I’m still not.”
He threw her a look that extended for two heartbeats, five, ten.
“Anyway, I’ll get this fixed,” she said.
“Let’s get these horses unloaded.” He walked out of the barn, but every muscle in his body screamed at him to go back in. As quickly as possible, he unloaded four horses he’d promised to help her start with and settled them in their new stalls. Susannah fussed over them and brought them hot mash for a treat, which only made her seem more and more like the best woman he could possibly want for himself.
He needed to get out of here, fast. That kiss had shaken him—no, rocked his world. He hadn’t thought about any woman besides Gabby in a long time.
Gabby who, his body asked. He couldn’t even remember how her lips felt under his.
* * * * *
Susannah watched Ford’s truck until it was out of sight, leaving only a dust cloud behind. Funny, she felt he’d done the same to her body after his kiss. Sucked her up into a tornado of feeling and then set her down abruptly, only to twist on down the road.
Pushing out a sigh, she shook her head. Whoever Ford Dalton was, she’d probably never know. The man wouldn’t allow her to get close enough to find out.
When they were working together, talking horses and trails and how to fix the barn to make it a hundred percent safe, he was at ease with her. So what had made him grab her and kiss her?
Deep in her core, she still felt the anticipation of that moment. A dark flutter that could only be sexual need urged her to jump in her truck and chase him down the road. But she wasn’t that kinda girl.
“Did I just see Ford leave?” Ryan appeared at her side, hat pulled low against the setting sun.