Branded

by Stacy Gail

  Now, of course, she was trying to murder him with her glare alone.

  But by damn, she was still one hell of a looker.

  “What is it that I want from you?” Ry repeated, not bothering to stifle the urge to look her up and down, and all the way back up again nice and slow. If there was a finer pair of legs in all of Texas, he had yet to see them. “Oh, darlin’. That list is long and varied, you’ve got my honest-to-God word on that. But right at the top of my list of wants and desires—at least at this moment in time—is to get your ass planted at a table next to me, sipping a cold beer or margarita while we go over what I’d like done for Green Rock Ranch.”

  “I don’t drink, so let’s skip that part. We can talk right here.”

  “You drank that night, right here at this very bar.”

  The color in her face went nuclear. “I don’t remember half of what I did or said that night, okay? It was a graduation-slash-belated birthday party my friends threw for me.”

  “Birthday? That party happened in June. Do I have your birthday wrong?”

  “No, it was last week—Groundhog’s Day.” She gave him an odd look, as if she couldn’t figure out why he cared one way or another when her birthday was. “Since I was buried in projects that dictated whether or not I would graduate when my birthday rolled around, I told my friends I refused to celebrate my twenty-first birthday until I was safely graduated. That night last June was the, um...the result.”

  She was cute when she was mortified. “Ah, I get it. Yeah, you definitely did celebrate that night.”

  She shifted, and he could have sworn she’d just stopped herself from kicking him. “Look, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to you for anything horrible that I did while under the influence. I can assure you it’ll never—repeat, never—happen again.”

  “Damn, really? And I had such high hopes. You need to loosen up, darlin’,” he added when she made a furious sound and turned to get back into her car to leave his ass flat. “I’m the worst tease you’re ever going to meet, I’ll admit that right here and now. But I’m never mean or malicious about it, and I’ll always invite you to give me shit back in spades. I love it, the sassier the better. And unless I’m very much mistaken, you are more than capable of bringing the sass. Am I right, or,”—he leaned in until his face hovered so near hers he could feel her sweet breath feather like a caress over his mouth—“am I right?”

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw her hands bunch into fists. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  Slowly he smiled.

  As a start, it was damn promising.

  Chapter Two

  The Spot’s back deck jutted out over Armadillo Creek, a shallow, fast-rushing ribbon of water that ultimately fed into the Nueces River southeast of Bitterthorn. Twisted live oaks and lacy willows already budding with new leaves lined the creek bank, giving a treehouse feel to the serene dining space. Strings of multi-colored lights and torches that kept mosquitoes away lit the deck, and each wrought iron table had a glass-encased candle to keep the falling darkness at bay. Willie Nelson’s classic, “You Were Always on My Mind” played softly in the background, melding seamlessly with the never-ending whisper of the creek and the rustle of the trees.

  It should have been wildly romantic.

  Romance, though, was the last thing Celia would ever think about in Ry Brody’s presence. She’d learned her lesson all too well.

  Murder, however, was another matter.

  “Even if you’re not interested in drinking tonight, that’s not going to stop me from ordering a beer,” Ry announced as they settled at a table at the deck’s outer corner. “They make a great craft brew here, did you know that? My favorite’s called the Temptress, a name I find ironically appropriate for this evening. You should try it.”

  “Water’s fine, thank you.” Maybe she could get away with ordering just a house salad, slam it down while he told her about the job, and be out of there in less than twenty minutes. She could always hope.

  He shot her a wry glance. “Water, huh? Damn, woman, you sure know how to live.”

  “And just think, the night is young.” She forced her tone to be flippant, so he wouldn’t guess a large part of her just wanted to sit there and drink in all his breathtaking masculine perfection. “Who knows what’ll happen next?”

  “Now there’s the attitude I’ve been looking for.” He smiled again, and it dawned on her that it never really went away. That devastating smile was always there, lurking in the depths of his eyes, as if he was laughing his ass off at the world, and he didn’t give a damn who knew it.

  It was great to think that, except for one thing.

  It stung like hell to think of how he’d once laughed at her.

  “If attitude’s what you want, attitude’s what you’ll get.” Resolving to keep that as her motto when it came to dealing with Ryland Brody—second-oldest of the infamous Brody brothers—she settled back in her chair and tried to focus on the facts at hand. “Avoiding you didn’t work, so my only option now is to take the bull by the horns and see what you’ve got in mind. You mentioned Green Rock Ranch?”

  “Mm-hm. And for the record...one, I like how you referred to me as the bull. That means you know what I am, and exactly what I do, so I’m not going to worry about you getting offended by any shit I pull from here on out. And two, that whole avoidance crap you pulled didn’t just happen, darlin’. I let you avoid me. But we’re done with that now, so my advice is for you to get used to me.”

  Their waitress sashayed over to take their orders, forestalling Celia’s response. The waitress’s big hair was only outdone by thickly made-up eyes that bounced from Ry to her and back again. Celia gritted her teeth and tried not to squirm. Not only was she painfully aware that what she’d done while drunk to the great and wealthy Ry Brody was well known, there was also the fact that the Brody men were always a hot topic of gossip around town. Whether it had been their reckless father—whose affairs had produced a bastard and whose life had been cut short in a private plane crash—or the latest generation of unmarriable playboys, the wild-living, insanely wealthy ranchers known as the Brodys generated headlines wherever they went.

  Since Ry was rumored to be just as much a hedonistic player as any Brody who’d ever existed, she expected him to check out their waitress as she leaned in way too close to offer him a menu. But to her surprise, Ry barely glanced at her as he gave their drink order, and Celia was too busy puzzling over this and his words to realize he’d ordered a beer for her.

  “Let’s back up a second,” she said the moment they were alone again, ignoring the menu he tried handing her. “What does that mean, you let me avoid you? FYI, no one lets me do anything. I do what I want.”

  “Feisty and pretty.” That smile was back, more wicked than ever. She had to be a freaking maniac to think it was downright sexy. “Damn, woman, you are something else. I would say too hot to handle, but as far as I’m concerned there’s no such thing. And besides, being hot’s a plus, not a minus, yeah?”

  What the hell. “I hope you’re making sense to yourself, because you’re not making sense to me.”

  “You’re right. I should focus on what I brought you out here for.”

  Finally. “Green Rock Ranch and some kind of project.”

  “Not just some kind of project. A whole damn ad campaign, and I want you to design it.”

  That got her attention. “Tell me about it.”

  “Green Rock is all about Black Angus. You know that, right?”

  “Everyone in Texas knows that.”

  That earned her a quick grin that, for some reason, made her feel like she’d won something precious. “In the past six years, our bulls have won both the Texas and the National Angus Association Awards four times, along with a shit-ton of other, lesser awards. Most stud ranches like ours make their money off of one bull w
ith a reputation for siring top-quality calves that eventually offer prime Angus beef. We’ve got three bulls, all unrelated, and whose registered, award-winning bloodlines go back well over two hundred years. Their progeny are literally all over the world. If you see a sign in a steakhouse that offers Black Angus beef, there’s a good chance it originated from our bulls, or their offspring.”

  She nodded. “I’ve heard about Green Rock’s Black Angus my whole life.”

  “So our seed bulls aren’t something we need to shout about from the rooftops. What we do need to expand on is distribution sales of a little side project I’ve gotten into.”

  “Which is?”

  “In addition to our seed bulls, we’re now raising one-hundred percent range-fed, no-hormones, organically raised Angus beef—a project I’m calling Pure Angus. Currently we only have two regional buyers lined up for this specialty beef, and so far that’s not enough to pay for itself. We need a website revamp for Pure Angus, and an overall idea for a campaign that sells not just the beef itself, but it also needs to educate the public on the old-school, totally natural way these Black Angus are being raised. That’s where you come in.”

  “Wow,” Celia said faintly. “That’s a lot.”

  “Think you can handle it?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. From the sound of it, you need an entire creative team to tackle this Pure Angus project. You might be better off contacting a major ad company, bring them in so they can look at your operation to learn all the selling points, get a good feel for the project, and move forward from there.”

  He shook his head as the waitress approached. “I’m not shopping outside Bitterthorn for this. I want what we are—Green Rock Ranch and Bitterthorn itself—to be one of the main selling points for this project. An outsider would never be able to capture that feeling of small-town purity and the wholesomeness of ranch life. You will.”

  “The only thing I know about Bitterthorn is that I want to get the hell away from it,” she said flatly as two longnecks landed on the table. “I know next to nothing about Black Angus beef, free-range or otherwise. And when it comes to Green Rock Ranch, all I’ve ever done is drive by it on my way to San Antonio.”

  “Then it’s high time I change that. You could eat a T-bone, right?” He looked at the waitress. “Two T-bones, medium rare and... You like vegetables, right? You were buying lots of broccoli and Brussels sprouts plants when I ran into you at the hardware store.”

  Good grief, he remembered the weirdest things about her—first it was her February birthday, and now it was what she bought at the hardware store. “I grow a year-round vegetable garden for Pauline Padgett, not me. I’m no fan of veggies, but Pauline has gout and she’s on this special diet, so... It doesn’t matter, actually,” she added, mortified. Wow, who knew she could turn into such a babbling idiot? “Um, I’ll just have a small salad with the house—”

  “Yeah, no salads tonight. Two T-bones and whatever sides are selling tonight.”

  Celia did her best to fry him with a look as the waitress sped off. “High-handed much?”

  “You’re the one who didn’t want to look at the menu.”

  Crap, he had her there, she thought, reaching for a beer before she realized what she was reaching for. “Wait. This wasn’t what I asked for.”

  “Yeah, but it was what you wanted. Give it a try.”

  “Oh hell, no. Don’t even think about trying to mansplain to me what I want. I know what I want, and it isn’t a drink that has three days’ worth of carbs in it.”

  “Woman, there is no way you should be watching your weight. You couldn’t be more perfect if you tried, so just relax and knock back that beer. And if you don’t,” he added when she opened her mouth to tell him that the only thing she wanted to knock back was him, “I’m putting you on my lap and bottle-feeding you every damn drop. Go ahead, see if I won’t.”

  She searched his beautifully rugged face for a sign that he was joking, while her heart began to thrum against her ribs. “You would actually drag me onto your lap and make a spectacle of yourself like that?”

  “Now, see, I don’t look at it that way.” That wicked smile slipped back into his eyes, and it was as mesmerizing as watching dawn approach. “All I’d focus on is having you wiggle that fine ass around on my lap while you got used to the feel of me. Who gives a shit about making a spectacle when I’ve got the prettiest woman in the whole damn county sitting here right where I want her?”

  The thrumming of her heart got worse, and all the while she kept waiting for him to tell her he wasn’t serious, and that he’d have to be out of his mind to think she was pretty. “First I’m perfect, and now I’m the prettiest woman in the county with a fine ass.”

  “The finest, truth be told.”

  “Uh-huh.” She narrowed her eyes and took a slow sip of beer to cover her confusion. Damn, it really was as good as he’d said. “You must want me for this project something fierce.”

  “Darlin’, you have no idea,” came the chuckling response.

  * * *

  To Celia’s surprise, she found herself relaxing as the evening unfolded. It helped that both the food and the atmosphere were outstanding, but deep down she knew those weren’t the only reasons she felt more alive than she had in months.

  When he wanted to be, Ry Brody could be a charming devil.

  With the emphasis, of course, on devil.

  It wasn’t until they neared the end of the meal that some of the tension wormed its way back into her muscles. At first she couldn’t put her finger on why, but then the noise from a table just inside the grill’s open doors rose in volume with shouts of laughter, and boisterous calls for more pitchers of beer.

  The night of her party, it hadn’t been pitchers of beer.

  It had been strawberry margaritas.

  Since that night, she hadn’t been able to stand even the smell of them.

  “Someone’s going to wake up tomorrow morning wishing they were dead,” Ry observed, glancing idly through the open doorway toward the rowdy table. “Correction—a bunch of someones. Looks like a party’s going on and we weren’t invited.”

  She pushed her empty plate away and hoped he’d get the message that it was time to go. “I’m good with that.”

  His gaze returned to her to slide over every inch visible to him, and it was all she could do to not shiver at the near-tangible weight of it. “Did you wake up with a bad head after the party your friends threw for you? I was worried you would.”

  Shit, shit, shit. “Let’s just say I learned what a hangover was.”

  “Bad, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t call it good.” Unfortunately, the memory of cupping Ry’s rock-solid ass, giving it a hearty squeeze and announcing to the whole world that he was what she really wanted for her belated birthday present, would forever be worse.

  So.

  Much.

  Worse.

  He made a sound of sympathy that still came out like a chuckle. “You were pretty shitfaced that night.”

  “There was nothing pretty about it.”

  “You don’t go out drinking like that again.”

  “Oh, God no. Believe me, once was enough.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, but you misunderstand my meaning, Cel.” He leaned toward her, and to her absolute shock he snaked out a strong hand, latched on to the edge of her seat and hauled it all the way over to where he sat, with the legs of her chair stuttering across the deck. “I’ll rephrase this very carefully so that my meaning’s clear.”

  Holy freaking crap. “What are you—”

  “A friendly beer or margarita with your girlfriends is fine. No harm done, and in fact I thoroughly approve of this.”

  With her world still rocking from her unexpected wild ride, she gaped at him, now so close her shoulder almost touched his powerful, muscle-sculpted ar
m. “Goody. With your approval I can now die happy.”

  “But,” he pushed on, though a lightning-hot grin slashed across his face at the show of sass he claimed to enjoy so much, “if you’re not specifically with me, that’s all you’re allowed to drink. One beer, or one margarita. Understand?”

  Honestly, she didn’t. “Did you just say allowed?”

  “Your hearing is excellent.”

  “And yet I’m still not understanding a word you’re saying.”

  He lifted a shoulder. “What’s not to understand?”

  Oh, let her count the ways. “First off, why do you think you can tell me what I can and cannot drink? And why all of a sudden are you invading my space like you think you have a right to? We hardly know each other, yet you’re acting like we’ve been dating hot and heavy for a month, so what the hell’s up with that?”

  “You saying you’re not liking the way I treat you?”

  Um. “I’m saying it’s enough out of character to make me wonder if you’ve forgotten who I am to you. Which is no one, I might add.”

  “I know exactly who you are.” The low, purring chuckle that rolled from him was so damn charming she found herself irrationally resenting it. “And for what it’s worth, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll be able to figure out all these answers for yourself in your own time. For now I just want you to get used to me, and the world I live in. I want to do the same with you.”

  “That’s not necessary just for us to work together.”

  “It is if I say it is. And about what you can and cannot drink, that’s not me being an asshole. That’s me telling you that you can trust me. When you’re with me, you’re safe to get as drunk as you want, so you don’t have to worry about that. No matter what, I’ll always take care of you, and I’ll never take advantage. But I’m the only man you can trust like that, you hear me? All other men are fucking animals who won’t give you the respect you deserve.”