Of course he did. He visited the ranch often.
“Do you need any help?” she asked.
“No.”
She frowned. “If you don’t need help, then why are you here?”
He raised an eyebrow. “To supervise the ranch operation.”
“You’re also here to rest and heal.”
Obviously, he wasn’t the type to be waited on, but if he refused to let anyone help him, then what was she supposed to do?
Jenna followed Dustin into the hallway that led to his room, so Andy wouldn’t overhear their discussion.
“Dustin?” she whispered.
He turned and raised an eyebrow.
“I can’t understand why you are refusing my help.”
“I’m not refusing. I just need to do things for myself.”
She rolled her eyes. “But you can’t do everything. Admit it.”
“Maybe not, but I sure as hell am going to try.”
“Why?”
“Because I always have, Jenna. I’ve always been self-sufficient. I don’t know how to be anything else. I’ve been on my own since I was eighteen. I’ve had a lot of responsibility. I’ve seen a lot, done a lot and no one has ever held my hand through my injuries.”
She felt a pang of sadness for him, although he didn’t seem sorry for himself at all. He didn’t have a home to return to in between bull riding events, not really. She knew his parents sold their ranch when Dustin graduated from high school and took off, and they continued to travel in a motor home. Dustin remained in the Tucson area. He didn’t have family around. At least she had Tom.
In a way, Dustin had Tom, too.
But still, he needed help, and he was here. So was she.
“I know you want to remain self-sufficient, and I’ll let you do that, as long as you don’t hurt yourself doing so. How’s that?”
He grinned and touched her arm. His hand callused from riding, was warm to the touch.
“It works for me.”
“Good,” Jenna said, nodding. “Have a good rest.”
She returned to the kitchen, and while Andy finished his lunch, Jenna busied herself in the kitchen, thinking of her conversation with Dustin. She washed a handful of dishes and put everything away.
She sighed as remembered that she would have been in Brussels today.
Just as she closed the refrigerator, she heard a crash and a muffled curse.
“Stay here, Andy,” Jenna ordered.
She ran to the guest room, where Dustin was on the floor facedown. Turning his head, he looked up at her, then winced in pain. He was wearing only a pair of white boxers.
“Are you okay?” Jenna knelt down on the floor next to him. She touched his shoulder and ran her hand over his arm. His skin was tanned and warm to her touch, his body tight and muscled. “Anything broken?”
“I’m fine,” he said quickly. “Just feeling foolish. I tripped.”
“Let me help you up, Dustin,” Jenna said. “I don’t see how you can do it alone.”
Dustin shook his head. “Thanks, but there’s no way you can lift me. I’m too heavy. Just get that chair over by the desk and hold it still. I’ll use that as leverage.”
She held the chair in place and watched as Dustin slowly raised himself up from the floor, dragging his cast. She couldn’t help noticing the play of arm, shoulder and back muscles as he pivoted onto the bed, tired.
“Let me cover you up,” she said.
“Thanks,” he said, avoiding her gaze.
“Maybe you’ll let me help you more, Dustin. You could have seriously injured yourself.”
“I’m fine.”
“Blockhead,” she muttered under her breath.
“What’s that?”
“Blanket. I’ll get you a blanket.”
She found a brightly striped serape and covered Dustin with it, averting her eyes from his too-perfect body and noticing the circles under his eyes instead.
“Are you willing to admit now that you need my help?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Nope.”
She shook her head. “You stubborn…um…ah… bull rider.”
“Aww…such praise.” His eyes were half-shuttered, but she could still see the twinkling blue hue. “You’re the best, Jenna. I mean it.”
She’d waited years to hear him say that.
“Close those blue eyes, cowboy. We’ll talk later.”
“Can’t wait to catch up. I want to know what you’ve been doing. I want…to know…all about you.”
He was out. Sleeping. And she was walking on sunshine.
Maybe Dustin wasn’t Mr. Right. But he might be Mr. Right Now.
So what was she going to do about it?
Chapter Two
As Dustin slept, Jenna spent the afternoon helping Andy with his reading. He was making painfully slow progress, but it was progress just the same. They still had a lot of work to do yet.
“Sound out the word, Andy,” she advised. “You’d know the word if you broke it down to smaller words or sounds.”
“Cot…ton…wood,” he said slowly.
“It’s a tree,” Dustin said from the doorway.
He was hanging over his crutches and looked more than a little rumpled.
“Hey, Uncle Dustin!” Andy said, his cute little face brimming with happiness. “Did you have a good sleep? Aunt Jenna said that it’s important, that you’ll get better faster.”
“That’s just what my doctor said, buckaroo.” He smiled at Andy, then turned to Jenna. “I didn’t mean to disturb your lesson.”
Andy answered instead. “You didn’t.” He slid his chair away from the kitchen table and looked hopefully at his aunt.
“Can I go now?”
“Finish the paragraph first,” Jenna said.
He pulled his chair back and glanced at the page. “The cot-ton-wood tree is found in North America and can live many, many years.”
Dustin cleared his throat. “The cottonwood tree is a good, sturdy tree, Andy. We had one on my father’s ranch, and he found out that it’s been around for four hundred years.” He paused. “That’s almost as old as your father.”
Andy giggled until Jenna thought he was going to fall out of the chair. Then Dustin pointed to the reading workbook and Andy sobered.
“The cottonwood tree is found in North America and can live many, many years,” Andy read once again, then turned to her. “Just like Uncle Dustin said.”
“I think we can stop for today, Andy,” she said with a sigh.
Dustin put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I saw a basketball hoop hanging from the barn wall. What do you say we shoot some hoops?”
“Awesome!” Andy replied.
“You’re going to have to spot me some points,” Dustin said.
“Don’t do it, Andy,” advised Jenna. “Dustin was an awesome basketball player in high school, and an awesome quarterback, besides being a champion rodeo rider.”
Dustin raised an eyebrow and looked at her strangely. “So, you remember that much about me from high school?”
“Well, you were Tom’s best friend. He always talked about you. Besides, I went to the games. I saw you play.” Absolutely she remembered him. Who wouldn’t? He’d always been the perfect jock.
Dustin’s eyes twinkled and a smile lit his face. He seemed…pleased by her answer.
Then he winked at Jenna, and her mouth went dry. Darn it. One wink from him in her freshman year of high school would have provided her with four years’ worth of joy. But they weren’t in high school anymore—and she’d have to remember that.
“I want ten points,” Andy insisted.
“I’ll spot you ten points only, and that’s high-way robbery,” Dustin protested good-naturedly, continuing the banter.
Jenna knew that the big, lanky cowboy would give Andy anything that he wanted. She knew Dustin’s generosity from talking to Tom, and it never failed to tweak her when it came to the boy’s birthday, just a bit.
It seeme
d like Dustin always knew the perfect gifts for a growing boy—a dirt bike, a basketball, a bat and glove—whereas she saw to it that he had a supply of nice clothes for school and books befitting his age.
Of course, Andy’s excitement and thankful hugs would be for the fun things, rather than the practical, so Jenna was grudgingly glad that Dustin’s gifts made Andy happy. Sure, she could have given him toys and such, but he was growing so fast, and needed clothes. Besides, she always felt the need to be his stand-in mother in the place of the ever-unhappy and lethargic Marla who’d think about shopping for Andy when school was well underway.
As she put together a lasagna for dinner, she could hear the easy dialogue between Dustin and Andy through the open window.
“You shoot like a girl,” Andy said.
“I’m on crutches, for Pete’s sake.”
“I want twenty points from you. Twenty. Even though you shoot like a girl, you still can shoot,” Andy said.
“No way, kiddo. We settled for ten.”
“Hey, we didn’t shake on it.”
And on and on it went. Jenna slipped the lasagna into the refrigerator and went outside to join them.
“Want to play, Jenna?” Dustin asked when he saw her approach.
“I was just going to watch.”
“C’mon and play along with us. You can be on my team,” Dustin said.
“That’s not fair,” Andy whined.
“What if I give you twenty points?” Dustin asked.
“Thirty.”
“Done.”
Dustin tossed Jenna the ball. She took a shot. Perfect!
“Beginner’s luck,” she said with a grin. And it was beginner’s luck. She wasn’t much of a jock.
Ironically, as she started making the occasional basket, Dustin began to miss shot after shot. Unless he was letting Andy win.
How sweet of him.
But, she thought wryly, she didn’t have to let Andy win. She wasn’t that great a player, and most of her shots bounced off the rim.
Despite their good-natured fun, she was all-too aware when Dustin took off his shirt and she saw more proof of his strength.
Suddenly, she felt hot, breathless and shocked at her reaction to him. Mercifully, she’d thought to bring out three bottles of water. She grabbed one and took a long draw, desperate to cool herself and calm her racing pulse.
“Break,” she yelled, pushing her bangs off her forehead. She handed both of them a bottle of water. “Dustin needs to rest for a while.”
Dustin smiled his thanks, gingerly lowered himself onto a bench and took a long drink. Jenna could see his strong neck move as he swallowed.
She took another sip of water. Darn, it was getting hot out here…
Andy cupped his hands around his mouth. “Time’s up!”
Dustin stood up with difficulty. When he got the ball, he passed it to Jenna. She aimed and made the basket.
They gave each other a high five, but then Dustin’s fingers curled briefly around hers and an undeniable jolt shot through her body. It was nothing, she told herself.
She was overreacting.
Admittedly, she didn’t have much experience with men. She’d been a wallflower in high school, and her current lifestyle didn’t allow her much free time to meet anyone. That’s why her trip to Europe had meant so much. She’d needed that vacation for more than one reason.
Not only was it going to be a well-deserved vacation, but it would give her the opportunity to meet men.
For someone about to turn thirty, she hadn’t dated much at all. In fact, Jenna could count her dates on one hand—none of which resulted in a serious relationship.
As someone who wanted to get married and have a family, in that old-fashioned order, she hadn’t exactly had the time or the opportunity to meet many men.
But now she and Dustin were living together, so to speak, and she had the perfect opportunity to find out if she liked him as much as she’d always thought—and heaven knew she’d thought about him a lot throughout the years.
And she certainly wasn’t going to think twice about her brother’s silly command to stay away from Dustin, issued after her parents died when she was in her teens. Now, she could truthfully say they were acquaintances who only spoke when Tom was there to chaperone, come to think of it.
Dustin’s reputation and occupation spoke of experience with women. He’d always been a player, whereas she hadn’t even been in the game.
But she could change that. She remembered a magazine that she’d bought and stuck in her suitcase. It had advertised a specific article about how to catch a man and keep him.
Now, where did she put that magazine?
Dustin pretended to drop the ball, letting Andy retrieve it.
But his mind wasn’t on basketball. It was on Jenna and the increasingly obvious attraction between them. She’d ignored him in high school, but surprisingly, she was being nice now. And she’d changed so much. She seemed more relaxed and less stressed. He’d never lacked for female companionship, but this one girl from his past still had a hold on him—and she was the only one he could never have.
He couldn’t understand why he was noticing everything about her: the way her blond hair glinted in the desert sun. How her tank top lifted just an inch or so, showing a tanned, taut midriff whenever she threw the basketball. How her whole face lit up when she smiled.
Normally it might not be much of a challenge to use their close quarters as an opportunity to finally get her into bed, but she was Tom’s baby sister—and she was definitely off-limits. Even though they were the same age, that didn’t matter. She’d always be his best friend’s younger sister.
But he’d made his promise long ago. Maybe Tom had forgotten his edict by now. He must have, or else why would Tom push him toward recovering at the Bar R when he knew that Jenna would be there?
Dustin remembered back in high school when he’d told Tom that he wanted to date Jenna. Tom had squashed the idea in a hurry.
“Forget it,” Tom had said. “Jenna is something special—she’s not just another cheerleader. Keep your hands off her. Promise me.”
Dustin hoped that everything was cool with Tom. He knew that if he became involved with Jenna—even after all these years—it would be the end of his friendship with Tom.
He couldn’t blame Tom—after all, aside from Andy, Jenna was his only family.
It wasn’t worth risking Tom’s displeasure by dating Jenna, especially when they weren’t just friends, but business partners as well. They co-owned several rank bulls and broncs here on the Bar R.
He tried to concentrate on the game, but he missed his shot, and this time it wasn’t on purpose. Jenna was just too distracting.
Just then, she tripped on one of his crutches and fell into him. They both toppled into a heap on the blacktop.
“Are you okay, Jenna?” he asked after they both caught their breaths. He slipped a hand under her head to protect it from the hard surface.
“I’m fine. Just feeling a little clumsy.”
“These crutches…” he began. “It’s my fault.”
He continued to look into her eyes, her big, brilliant green eyes. It wouldn’t take much to close the distance between them and taste her full lips.
Something nagged at him, but he pushed it to the back of his mind. All he wanted to savor right now was the unbelievable feeling of holding Jenna in his arms.
“I’m so sorry!” she gasped, leaping to her feet all too soon. “Oh, Dustin! Did I hurt you?”
Actually, it was a little bit of heaven. Her scent, her body close to his, her weight pressing on him. Nice. He didn’t give a hoot about the pain that throbbed around his ankle. “I’ll live.”
“That’s the second time you’ve been on the ground today. You must be—”
“I’m fine,” he said. But he wasn’t. He had parts that were killing him, and he didn’t mean the parts that were in the cast.
“Let me help you,” she said, brow furrowed
in concern.
“Just hold on to my crutches, and I’ll use them to pull myself up.”
He did, but it took him four tries.
“Nice job, Andy.” He shook the boy’s hand, then hobbled over to the porch, and slumped into one of the rocking chairs. Looking down at the jeans he’d cut up to pull over his cast, he decided to get his mind off Jenna and think of something else.
Like his lack of clothes.
“Jenna, I’m going to get a ranch hand to give me a ride to my apartment so I can pick up some clothes and things.”
“I’d be glad to drive you to Tubac,” she said, taking a sip of water. “I don’t mind at all. Besides, Andy and I could both use a change of scenery. How about tomorrow morning?”
Dustin sighed. So much for trying to stay away from her. Still, there was no polite way to refuse. “I’m meeting with the ranch hands at the bunkhouse first thing in the morning. It shouldn’t take long. I just want to have a better handle on the workings of Tom’s ranch.”
“We can go after your meeting,” she said.
“That would be great. Thanks.”
He was looking forward to the meeting, and as much as it killed him to impose, the ride with Jenna and Andy would give him something else to look forward to in the morning…
The desert morning dawned hot and bright. Dustin washed his hair in the sink and the rest of him as best he could, vowing to rig up something so he could take a shower or a bath. He could already hear Jenna and Andy in the kitchen. The smell of coffee and something cooking, pancakes maybe, drifted in the air, making his stomach growl.
He could get used to this.
It was all so…homey.
He thought of all the buckle bunnies who hung around the rodeos. They were usually heavily made up and wore low-cut and tight-fitting clothes. Jenna wasn’t like them at all. With her no-frills beauty and modest clothes, Jenna was more attractive than any woman he’d met on the circuit.
He could get used to this, if he didn’t have other, more immediate goals. He needed to get back to riding bulls and win the PBR Finals in Vegas. That was his plan. Not giving in to a flirtation that could only lead to trouble.
Dustin lumbered into the kitchen and took a big whiff. He hadn’t had a good breakfast since…well, it had been a while.
How to Lasso a Cowboy Page 3