Learnin' The Ropes

by Shanna Hatfield

  Both Ty and Swede had hovered around her like two fussy old women. They brought her tea and toast, fluffed her pillows, and made sure she had plenty of tissues. Swede read her dad’s copy of The Virginian aloud from start to finish, and Ty carried her down to the family room to watch movies.

  It was while he was digging in the entertainment center where her dad had an assortment of movies that Ty discovered an old John Wayne movie called Girls Demand Excitement.

  When he opened the case, a slip of paper fell out with yet another clue.

  Best Bucket

  He and Lexi spent quite a bit of time speculating on what that meant before deciding to watch the movie.

  While she loved Swede like an uncle, her feelings for Ty were something else entirely. She finally recovered from her initial humiliation of him undressing her, then seeing her with a red, runny nose and watery eyes.

  It never crossed her mind that someone as big, strong, and as much of a loner as he was could be so tender and gentle in caring for a pathetically sick woman. If she hadn’t been half in love with him before she got sick, she was completely smitten with the man now. She just didn’t know what to do about that infatuation.

  Lost in her thoughts, Lexi didn’t hear the kitchen door open and jumped when Baby pressed against her leg.

  “Hey, Baby! I haven’t seen you forever.” Lexi rubbed the dog’s damp head. “Let’s get you dried off and you can hang out with me awhile.”

  She grabbed a couple of towels from the laundry room and dried off the dog then mopped the floor where the canine tracked in water and mud. Lexi put an old sheet on the floor by the counter and Baby plopped down, watching her intently.

  Lexi grinned. “Did you miss me, too, Baby?”

  The dog barked and wagged her tail.

  “I didn’t think you liked any human but Ty these days,” Lexi said to the dog as she finished her cup of tea.

  Unable to sit still, she decided to make Swede and Ty a batch of cookies as a thank you for taking care of her. Both men, in possession of a love of sweets, would appreciate a treat.

  Quickly creaming together butter and sugar, she stirred up a batch of sugar cookies. While the dough chilled, she turned up the radio and flipped through a clothing catalog that arrived in the previous day’s mail.

  Once the dough was cool enough to handle, she rolled it out, using a glass to cut rounds. She place them on a baking sheet, sprinkled the tops with sugar, and then popped the butter circles into the oven.

  As she waited for the cookies to bake, Lexi cranked up the volume on the radio when Luke Bryan’s Country Girl (Shake It For Me) started to play. She danced around the kitchen with abandon, unaware she had an audience.

  Not expecting Lexi to be out of bed, Ty heard music blaring when he stepped onto the porch of the house. The past few days, he and Swede had been in and out of the house multiple times without knocking. However, if Lexi was up and about, it didn’t seem right to barge right in. The loud music blasting from the kitchen was a good sign her health had improved.

  He knocked on the door and waited for Lexi to invite him in. As he waited for her to come to the door, he listened to the lyrics and found himself entertained by the song. Maybe Lexi’s country music had some merit. When he knocked again and got no response, he decided she must not be in the kitchen.

  Quietly opening the door, he stuck his head inside. Baby rested on the floor while Lexi danced around the kitchen, shaking a posterior that should have been registered as an assault weapon on the male senses, especially in the jeans she wore.

  Ty leaned against the counter and watched her move, rapidly losing his ability to think rationally. The more she danced, the hotter his blood ran and the tighter his insides twisted.

  The only thought registering in his head involved wrapping his arms around that beautiful body and kissing her until they both forgot everything but each other. And if she wanted to wiggle around the kitchen a little more, he wouldn’t object to that either.

  Seriously doubting Lexi would be quite so uninhibited if she knew she had an audience, his theory proved accurate. The moment she spied Ty, Baby released a loud bark, drawing Lexi’s attention. Lexi spun around and stopped mid-shake in her dance. Cheeks and neck red from furiously blushing, she stared at him. Ty mentally lambasted the dog for announcing his presence.

  “Don’t stop on my account,” he said, sticking his finger in the cookie dough and snitching a bite. He acted as though he didn’t have a care in the world, although he was surprised he could form coherent words with the way his senses sizzled on a Lexi overload.

  “I… it was… you… Oh!” Lexi stuttered, embarrassed and flustered. How long had he been standing there, anyway?

  “Feeling better today?” Ty stole another bite of dough, desperately wanting to hold Lexi in his arms.

  “Yes, I am.” She turned off the radio and busied herself with a pan of cookies she took out of the oven. Carefully placing the cookies on a rack to cool, she put in another pan before looking at Ty.

  Ty tossed her a teasing grin. “I might have to start listening to country music if the songs all make you move like that.” He took a step toward Lexi. She took a step back as he took another forward, until she bumped into the refrigerator. Focused entirely on her, he placed his muscled arms on either side of her, blocking her in, as he leaned against the refrigerator door. His hot blue eyes melded to hers and his voice dropped to an alluring rumble. “You want to shake it for me again, Lexi Jo?”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t. In the first place, I didn’t shake anything for you.” Unable to pull her eyes from his, heat, tension, and desire pulsed between them. “Besides, I don’t make it a habit of dancing around the kitchen, just so you know.”

  “Maybe you should,” Ty growled. His sweet sugar-laced breath blew warm against her face.

  “I… I was just…” Lexi stammered, unsettled by the intense light glowing in his eyes and the warmth of his big body so close to hers.

  “Making it really, really hard for me to not do this...” While his lips trailed hot kisses along her neck, his hands slid down her hips and landed on her backside, nudging her flush against him.

  Consumed by the wonder of Ty holding her so close with his kisses branding her skin, Lexi ran her hands up his arms and around his neck. As his lips tempted hers, she forgot everything except Ty — except for the glorious sensations he stirred in her. When his hands slid beneath her shirt and seared the soft skin of her sides, she gasped and shoved against his solid chest.

  “Ty! You can’t…”

  Abruptly tumbling back to reality, he sighed and dropped his hands. “Lexi, I’m sorry.” Genuinely remorseful, common sense flooded his head. “I didn’t mean to get carried away.”

  Before she could say anything further, Ty ran his hands through his hair and released a frustrated breath. He was out of line. Way out of line. Repentant, he took another step back.

  Still breathing hard, Lexi scrambled to find her mental footing. No longer surrounded by Ty’s warmth, she felt chilled to the bone and oddly bereft. “I shouldn’t have encouraged you. It’s okay.”

  “No, it isn’t. I’m sorry.” Aware of her discomfort, although not the reason for it, he worried over how she would react to him now that he’d kissed her so passionately. He didn’t come to the house intent on seducing her. He only thought to see if she felt better and offer to make her breakfast.

  Lexi’s fanny-shaking dance, a sight that would quite likely be emblazoned in his brain for the remainder of his life on earth, wasn’t anything he planned on seeing this morning. It caught him by surprise. How else was a red-blooded man supposed to react? Despite his best intentions, Ty couldn’t keep from touching the body that constantly tempted him.

  Men generally fell into like, lust, or love with a woman. Quite likely, what he felt was a lethal cocktail of all three. The more he tasted, the more his thirst grew.

  “I don’t want you to be afraid of me,” he said with sin
cerity. It would kill him if she feared him.

  “I’m not.” Lexi looked at him with warmth in her gaze and placed a hand on his arm. “I’m a little afraid of this…um… thing between us, but not of you.”

  The statement didn’t exactly reassure Ty, but at least she hadn’t told him to get out. Gently placing his hand over hers, he rubbed soft circles on the back of her hand with his thumb.

  “I’m a little afraid of this thing too, Lexi. I’ve never…” Ty realized he was about to say more than he probably should, but plunged ahead. “I’ve never felt like this before.”

  “Me either,” she whispered, staring at his chest, unable to meet his eyes. “Regardless of what we’re feeling, we can’t keep getting carried away. What are we going to do?”

  “Take it slow and easy,” Ty said with one of the grins that made Lexi’s knees feel wobbly. “I’m not going anywhere. You aren’t going anywhere. We have all the time in the world to explore whatever this is.”

  “Okay. Slow and easy,” she repeated as the smell of burning cookies reached her nose. “Oh! The cookies!”

  Grabbing a potholder, she pulled a pan of overly-browned cookies from the oven and dropped it on the counter.

  Baby had quietly observed the proceedings between her two favorite people. Suddenly, she grew excited and jumped between them, barking and wagging her tail. The dog nearly knocked Lexi off balance as she slid another pan of cookies in the oven.

  “Guess you better not shake and bake anymore,” Ty teased with a wicked glint in his eye, picking up a handful of cookies from the cooling rack.

  Lexi threw her potholder at him with a grin. “Get out of my kitchen, Ty Lewis! And take that blasted dog with you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ty said, sidestepped Lexi when she snapped a damp dishtowel at him. He rushed out the door with Baby hot on his heels.

  The next day, Ty awoke with a sore throat and pounding headache. Too late, he realized he probably shouldn’t have gotten quite so cozy with Lexi while she had a cold. He rarely got sick and didn’t think much of it until later in the day when his head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. Barely able to swallow, he felt feverish.

  Swede ambled into the shop to ask him a question, taking in his glazed eyes and flushed skin with a shake of his head.

  “Son, ya done got what the boss had, don’t ya?” Swede pulled off his glove and placed a rough hand to Ty’s forehead. “Whooee! Ya could fry an egg on yer head, dude.”

  “I’m fine,” Ty tried to say around his thick tongue and sore throat.

  “Sure ya are, and I’m a monkey’s uncle. Let’s git ya to bed, pard.” Swede settled a hand on Ty’s shoulder and gave him a gentle nudge off the stool where he sat.

  “I don’t think…” Ty fought the dizziness that made the shop spin.

  “Dude! Don’t ya go passin’ out on me. Yer too big fer me to wrangle. Lean on me and I’ll have ya in the bunkhouse in no-time.”

  Ty closed his eyes and shuffled his feet, following where Swede led. Sunlight touched his face as they made it out the door, but the world picked up the pace as it spun around.

  “Jimmy!” Swede bellowed in the direction of the barn.

  Jimmy stuck his head out the door of the tack room and saw Swede trying to keep Ty upright. Sprinting to them, Jimmy got there just in time to keep Ty from falling to the ground.

  Between the two of them, they dragged Ty across the ranch yard, up the bunkhouse steps, and to his room. Quickly unlacing his boots and pulling off his coveralls, they let him flop back on the bed.

  “Jes leave him be for a while. I’ll go tell the boss he’s sick. She’ll want to know,” Swede said as Jimmy backed out of the room, not wanting to get whatever Ty had. “Thanks for coming to help. Thought he was gonna eat dirt for a minute.”

  “We could have teased him about that for weeks.” Jimmy grinned then returned to the tack room.

  Upon learning of Ty’s illness, Lexi insisted Swede help move him to the house so she could care for him. Swede told her it wouldn’t be proper, so she marched to the bunkhouse and into his room. Ty was right where Swede had left him, fully clothed on his bed, heat radiating from his fevered skin.

  “Get him undressed while I get a cool washcloth,” Lexi ordered Swede, sweeping out of the room.

  Dressed in his usual T-shirt and baggy jeans, Swede managed to strip Ty down to his underwear and pull a sheet over him before Lexi returned with a couple of washcloths and a bowl of tepid water.

  Lexi sat on the edge of the bed and placed a cloth on Ty’s head then began sponging down his arms and chest. Swede brought a glass of cold juice and helped Lexi coax Ty into drinking some before he drifted off to sleep.

  The rest of the ranch hands were surprised to find Ty sick and Lexi taking care of him when they came in for dinner. Swede shooed Lexi out before bedtime, assuring her he could take care of Ty.

  Before midnight Ty’s fever broke, so Swede went back to his house to rest.

  They were all supposed to leave the next morning to attend a two-day branding for one of the neighbors. Ty stumbled out to the table and slumped in his chair, trying to gather the energy to take a drink from the mug of coffee Gus sat in front of him.

  “Ya ain’t gonna go nowhere today, son,” Swede said as he walked inside. “Jes haul yer tough ol’ hide right back to bed.”

  “I promised Mr. Anders I’d help,” Ty rasped around his sore throat.

  “I know thet, but ya couldn’t wrestle a sleepy kitten today let alone a half-grown calf. I’m tellin’ ya, yer stayin’ home. Rest up and ya can go with us to the next one. Ya don’t want to miss it.” Swede pointed down the hall toward Ty’s room.

  “Fine.” Ty didn’t move from the table. Standing would require more effort than he could muster.

  “Cal, Keith, git him up,” Swede said, instructing the twins to help Ty. They flanked him while Ty draped his arms over their shoulders.

  “Thanks, guys,” Ty said, embarrassed by his inability to move without assistance.

  “No problem, dude. Maybe next time the boss is sick, you’ll keep a little distance,” Cal teased.

  “Yeah. How come Swede didn’t get sick?” Keith asked, winking at his brother.

  “Maybe ‘cause he and the boss aren’t on as friendly terms as she is with this one,” Cal commented as they dumped Ty on his bed.

  “I don’t see her wanting to cozy up to Swede the way she does ol’ dude.” Keith offered Ty a cocky grin as he moved to the door. “It boggles my mind why she’d pick an ugly little ol’ thing like you when she has all us handsome cowboys to choose from.”

  If he could have thought of a snappy comeback or stirred up enough strength to punch one of the twins, Ty would have.

  “Thet’s enough, both of ya,” Swede said, from the hallway. Cal and Keith left snickering, but not before Cal made several kissy-face motions Ty’s direction.

  Ty closed his eyes and went back to sleep. He’d have plenty of time to plot some payback for the twins later.

  Hours later, Ty awoke to a quiet house, feeling much better than he had at breakfast. He wandered to the kitchen, made himself two pieces of toast and drank a cup of hot water, since he couldn’t find any tea bags. A note on the table from Swede said they’d be back after dark and not to worry about anything.

  Ty went back to bed and slept for a while. When he awakened, he called Beth and caught up on news from Portland before going in search of something to interrupt his boredom.

  He tried watching one of the talk shows on television but found it ridiculous, so he picked up a book to read and made it through the first chapter before he fell asleep on the couch. The crew returned to find him still sleeping there.

  Lexi’s scent, mingled with that of horses and cattle, drifted around him and her cool hand brushed across his forehead. Swiftly concluding feigning sleep would be to his advantage, he kept his eyes closed.

  “His fever’s gone,” Lexi commented as she touched his cheeks and pulled the blanket
from the back of the couch over him. “I feel bad he got sick taking care of me.”

  “Don’t worry about it too much, boss,” Swede said. “I don’t think ya could’ve made him stay away from ya if ya wanted to. He does a right smart job of nursing, too. Where ya ‘spose he learned how?”

  “His mom,” Lexi whispered, not wanting to share anything personal in front of the rest of the hands. If Ty wanted them to know, he’d tell them himself. “I think he took care of his mother when she was sick.”

  “I knew he was a good egg,” Swede said, walking into the kitchen. The hands threw together leftovers for a slap-dash meal.

  “I’ll run up to the house and make him some soup,” Lexi said, studying Swede for a long moment. “You feel okay?”

  “Fit as a fiddle.” Swede shot her a knowing smile. “I think dude got a little more exposure to your germs than I did.”

  Lexi blushed and hurried out the door. That was the last time she’d kiss anyone when she was sick. Technically, Ty instigated the kissing, but she fully participated once it started. As she walked to her house, she mentally lectured herself about not losing control again.

  The branding wasn’t as much fun without him there that day. Several single women acted extremely disappointed to find out he wouldn’t be coming. Their interest in him made Lexi unreasonably annoyed and a little jealous.

  Maybe she should give a little more thought to what Aunt Bertie said about putting her brand on him.

  Lesson Thirteen

  The Desert Blooms as Paradise

  “Sometimes ya gotta throw on the brakes

  and take a minute to enjoy creation.”

  “Sure you feel up to going?” Lexi asked Ty for the third time that morning.

  Instead of reassuring her again that he was fine after two days of bed rest and another day of recuperating, he rolled his eyes.

  Everyone, with the exception of Gus, planned to drive to her uncle’s spread in Fields for a branding. His ranch was about a two-hour drive south of Burns on Highway 205, also known as the High Desert Discovery Scenic Byway.