by Gigi Moore
Sam swallowed down the lump of anger that had suddenly risen up like bile as if to choke him. He didn’t want to be angry at anyone, much less his brother. He loved and admired Carson, but he couldn’t let the man run his life indefinitely. There would come a time for Sam to make a choice and just leave, the same way Carson had before Sam and their mother had chased him down a while back.
Maia squeezed his biceps to get his attention. “I haven’t lost you yet, have I?”
He turned to look at her and smiled. “Not a chance.”
“That’s good, because it might make this a little hard otherwise.”
Before Sam could ask her what she meant, Maia had slid her hand up behind his head, caressing the hair at his nape before she stood on tiptoes and crushed his mouth beneath hers.
Sam closed his eyes, instantly imagining Desiree’s lips pressed against his, tasting her tongue instead of Maia’s and hating himself for treating Maia like the substitute she remained even if she didn’t know it. It really wasn’t the gentlemanly thing to do, but even worse proved his reaction when he heard the tiny squeak-gasp behind him.
Sam gripped Maia by the shoulders and pushed her back none too gently, panting as he gaped at her. She may not have been her sister, but he was a man and the filly sure could kiss. “What was that for?”
“I was wondering the same thing.”
Merde.
He didn’t need to turn around to know Desiree stood behind him. He could tell that damn well by the grin gradually crawling up the side of Maia’s face.
“Whoops,” she whispered and patted his arm as she moved past him toward the exit. She paused at the barn door and smiled at her sister. “He’s all yours, hun.”
Desiree sputtered, and before she could get anything intelligible out of her mouth, Maia closed the barn door behind her.
How appropriate, Sam thought.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“You didn’t,” Sam blurted, then cleared his throat to start again. “I mean, Maia was just leaving anyway.”
“You two seemed busy when I arrived.”
Sam wondered exactly how much she had seen, certainly enough to cause that bright, rosy glow to her copper-toned, high-sculpted cheeks, enough to make her…jealous?
Was that what Maia had wanted, to make her sister jealous?
Damn, but she was a slick filly.
Sam looked at Desiree long and hard until she averted her whiskey-brown eyes and shuffled her feet.
Damn but she made his heart do all kinds of somersaults in his chest. It never failed.
Maia was cute in a mischievous, elfin way, but she couldn’t hold a candle to her older sister’s solemn, regal beauty. Just looking at Desiree made him want to knock her off of that figurative pedestal. He wanted to roll her around in the dirt just to see if any of that famous Colorado red would stick to her or roll off as if she were Teflon like he half suspected.
She seemed so untouchable all the time, yet fragile, too. Sometimes she actually acted kind of skittish, as if she was afraid of him, or just men in general.
The thought left a bad taste in Sam’s mouth and made him ready to run out, find the guy who had hurt her, and hurt him real bad.
Right at that moment, though, Desiree seemed more unsure than he had ever seen her. She always seemed out of her element on The Double R but especially in his personal space now.
How could he let her know that she was more than welcome in his space, especially when all he wanted to do was touch her, kiss her, hold her? Talking was the last thing on his mind when he was near Desiree, but he wouldn’t mind doing a little of that, too. He wouldn’t mind learning more about her from her own mouth instead of soaking up every admittedly miniscule piece of gossip that proliferated on the ranch.
Sam regretted making her nervous, making her hide those pretty peepers when all he wanted to do was drown in them. He let his gaze travel down from her face to her throat, tuning his senses to the pulse pounding there. He closed his eyes and inhaled deep, not surprised by the waft of arousal that greeted him.
She wanted him, and it was almost unfair that he knew it when he knew for damned sure that she didn’t want him to know.
Sam let his gaze travel farther, glancing over the curve of her lush breasts down to the erect nipples he was sure she wanted to hide. He dragged his eyes from the sight, unconsciously licking his lips before his gaze finally landed on the covered basket Desiree had in her hand. He motioned to it and said, “That for me or some other lucky cowpoke?”
Desiree looked at him and his cock reacted just like his heart had earlier, throbbing almost painfully in his jeans.
What was it about this one woman that near drove him to his knees when he hadn’t even kissed or held her yet? Was it that he hadn’t been with a woman in so long he’d forgotten what it was like and now was focusing all that pent-up energy on one of the first halfway intriguing, undoubtedly beautiful women he had come across in a while?
Court her? Sam didn’t think he’d make it through the process without losing his mind.
Desiree lifted the basket. “It’s for you and your brother, if you’re willing to share.”
Sam beat down the flash of possessiveness that made him see red for a moment at her comment. Share? He was a pretty laid-back, generous guy overall, but it depended on what and with whom she was talking about. He and his brother had been through a lot and he wasn’t closer to another being on the planet. He supposed if he got right down to it, he would share his most prized possession with Carson, and only Carson. “So what do you have there?”
“Authentic Louisiana pecan pie. At least I’m hoping you think so.”
“You made it?”
She nodded. “I thought you and Carson could tell me whether I’ve hit the mark or not. You guys are the only Cajuns I know of on the premises, besides your mother that is.”
“I’d be honored to be your Cajun guinea pig.”
“You might not think so once you taste it, even if it is your mother’s recipe.”
Sam chuckled, lifting the linen cloth to peek beneath. He lowered his nose and inhaled deep. “Smells good.” Not as good as you, though. He was a second away from blurting it out but bit his tongue, somehow knowing it wouldn’t go over too well with this prim and proper woman, at least not yet, anyway. He knew he was going to have to earn the privilege and do a lot of softening her up.
Save it for later.
“You’re being nice.”
Sam reached into the basket to scoop out one of the presliced pieces of pie with the spatula inside and took a bite of the pie without hesitation.
“How is it?”
He tried not to laugh around the food in his mouth, continued chewing it all, and swallowing before responding. “Impatient little thing, aren’t you?”
She blushed. “It’s just that I’ve been working on this for a week, trying to get everything just right, like your mother’s…”
As she let her words drift off, Sam mentally filled in the blanks. It was plain to see the woman was a stickler in everything she did. Getting every ingredient just right in a pie would be no different to her than dotting every i and crossing every t on a tax return she prepared for a client. She’d want the end result to be the same—perfection. He could see all this a mile away even if he didn’t spend that much time around her. He knew her type, from the glossy copper hair on her head to the unscuffed, shiny toes of her boots, he knew her. He wanted to know her even better. He wanted to take her hair out of that perpetual ponytail, run his hands through and muss it up, see if it proved as soft as it looked. “This is delicious.”
“Like your mom’s?” she asked, eagerness lighting her gaze.
“It’s different.” Sam watched her pout and almost laughed out loud. He wanted to kiss the sulk right off her full lips. Instead, he explained. “Different isn’t bad. No two Cajun or Creole cooks make the same dish the same way, even when they use the same exact ingredients. Each cook puts her
mark on a recipe, no matter how small.” He paused here, giving her a meaningful look. “I like your mark.”
He didn’t realize he had closed the space between them until she took a step back, face flaming red as if the temperature in the barn had shot up twenty degrees.
God, why did he just say that? He was going to scare the woman away before he could even begin to court her.
Thanks to Maia for putting a word to something that had been nothing more than an amorphous concept before now.
Desiree took another step back toward the door. “Well, I’d better go.”
“To find Carson?”
She nodded and reached behind her to open the door.
Good luck with that, Sam thought. If he thought he had scared her, he imagined Carson’s gruff, remote manner would downright terrify her.
Sam licked his lips again as he watched her leave, tasting remnants of the appetizing pie as he appreciated how the denim of her jeans hugged her luscious ass, the way her hips swung back and forth in a natural, seductive sway.
He fought the impulse to follow Desiree and hoped his brother had better luck with her than Sam had. He hoped Carson didn’t mess things up for the both of them.
Chapter 4
Boredom was a dangerous thing. Oh, sure, it had led to some interesting self-discoveries and skill sets over the years. Overall, however, like the inclination that had led her out to the barn to test out her latest culinary masterpiece on Helena’s youngest son, boredom proved, like idle hands, to be the devil’s playground.
What other possible reason did she have for seeking out Sam Quarry to sample her creation, aside from letting Maia goad her into being “friendlier” and getting to know the residents of the ranch a little better? Like her life wasn’t fine the way it was? Like she wasn’t perfectly okay living and keeping to herself the way she always had?
The more she thought about it, however, the more sense it made to do like her sister said and get to know the people on the ranch, be friendlier. What good did moving halfway across the country do her if she was going to take the same baggage with her and be the same stiff, stick-in-the-mud person she had been in New York? Colorado was supposed to be a new beginning for her, a fresh start, and even though it wasn’t Vegas, she intended for anything that happened here to stay here.
Despite being on the ranch almost a year, Desiree hadn’t thought of Colorado with any sort of permanence before a couple of weeks ago, but the more she hung around Helena and her very capable cooking staff, the more she realized she liked the ranch and the people who lived and worked on it. Heck, it was just a hop and a skip from hanging out with Helena and her cooking crew to watching the cowboys and other hands proceed with their daily chores and ranch operations and even help with some of the work when time from her career permitted.
Tracking down the taciturn Carson after spending an enjoyable if also nerve-racking time with his brother Sam proved a horse of another color altogether.
Approaching Sam had been an experiment, a way to ease out of her comfort zone. Finding him with Maia, however, had been as much of a shock as the flash of jealousy that shot through Desiree at the sight of her sister wrapped around the young cowboy.
Seeing the lust for Desiree shining out of Sam’s eyes once Maia left had been a jolting wake-up call that had Desiree loath to consider that her sister might be onto something.
My visions don’t lie, Desi. They may not always be clear and detailed, but they don’t lie.
Wasn’t that the truth? Maia’s visions rarely spelled things out, were rarely black and white. They always seemed so full of ambiguity and symbolism that only Maia could interpret them. What good did that do anyone, especially Desiree? What good had it done her? What good was any of it if it couldn’t prevent what had happened to Desiree five years ago? For some reason, however, these most recent visions, the ones involving Sam, Carson and Desiree, were as clear as a bell, or so Maia said.
The idea should have emboldened her, made her eager to find Carson and test Maia’s visions, but how could Desiree trust what her sister saw? How could she believe that she was meant to be with two men when she had yet to have a successful relationship with one?
She would have done better to have just left the basket with Sam and let him hunt up his brother, except that she wanted to get feedback from the horse’s mouth. She wanted to see Carson, conquer her fear, and prove to herself that he wasn’t as intimidating as she had made him out to be. He wasn’t the big bad wolf in her dreams, as whimsical as that sounded and despite Maia’s visions. He was just a man after all, granted one shrouded in privacy and arrogance, but a man nonetheless. She had handled tougher than him before. She had survived much worse.
She had to admit, however, once she found out Carson was occupied at the Western town, doing his part in the daily exhibitions that took place there, she’d breathed a sigh of relief that she wouldn’t be alone with Sam’s older brother.
Desiree made her way over to the make-believe Old West town before she lost her nerve, feeling a bit like Little Red Riding Hood with her basket of goodies for Grandma. Only she wasn’t going to visit Grandma but the big bad wolf.
Stop it! There are no such things as werewolves no matter what you saw in your dreams. No matter how many shifters you read about in all those paranormal romances on your bookshelves, they simply do not exist in real life.
She had seen the Western town in passing, impressed, even at a distance, with its authenticity and the attention to detail that Jax Reynolds had put into it, but she’d never lingered or participated in the regularly scheduled staged shootouts. They were a popular attraction among The Double R’s guests and, she’d heard from Maia, a real blast. Even their mother had gone to the target range in the town and fired off some rounds.
Desiree didn’t like guns, though, didn’t see the need for them. Guns killed more innocent people than not, and invariably when they were kept in a house for “protection,” someone tragically wound up the victim of mistaken identity or a misfire. On a modern working ranch she didn’t see where there was much difference from the urban jungle, except for the needed rifle to run off stray wild animals now and again.
Maybe it was her background with stats, but she believed in hard-core facts. She believed in numbers, not the allure of a righteous man and his gun against an evil and wild world.
The sound of gunfire reached Desiree’s ears as she neared the outskirts of the town, second thoughts beginning to hound her.
She’d made more than enough pie to accommodate any extra cowboys who might be participating in the shootout. However, only one opinion really mattered to her.
Two sets of Western-clad figures ran from the town’s bank. The first set comprised of three outlaws with bandanas tied around their noses and mouths. The second comprised of two lawmen giving chase, one of whom remained Carson Quarry.
Desiree’s heart did a little Texas two-step in her chest when he dove to the side and behind a watering trough to evade one of the outlaw’s bullets.
The sights and sounds were so genuine that Desiree had a hard time convincing herself not to fear for the lawmen’s lives as the outlaws fired on them. Intellectually, she knew they weren’t in any real danger, that the bullets were blanks and that the blood spurting from the deputy’s chest as he fell back against the bank façade was fake. Viscerally, however, she felt the danger and, if she was being honest with herself, the thrill of what she was watching.
She got so engrossed in the action in front of her she barely noticed the shouts of the spectators to her right watching the action at a safe distance in the unobtrusive bleacher seats. Unlike her, who stood right in the path of the outlaws as they spurred their horses into a gallop and headed for the outskirts of town, Carson on their heels.
Desiree heard the shouted warnings as the three horses barreled toward her on a collision course and stood rooted to the spot. Indecision was her worst enemy, but she couldn’t bring herself to move before the lead horses
reached her.
Carson kicked his stallion into gear, speeding past the other animals and veering in front of them as he reached down an arm to scoop Desiree up into the saddle with him.
She had a moment to yelp as he decelerated enough to let her settle into her seat behind him and wrap both her arms about his waist with everything in her.
“Ohmygod! Oh God, oh God, oh God!” Desiree squeezed her eyes closed as she pressed her face against his back, inhaling the fresh, laundered scent of his shirt. Clean and musky mixed together with all male and instantly made her moist between her legs.
She couldn’t figure out if she was so turned on because she had just barely escaped being trampled or because Carson was the one who had rescued her.
Desiree lifted her face from his soft cotton shirt in time to hear the spectator applause as if she were emerging from deep underwater.
They all thought her appearance and near-trampling were part of the show. Didn’t Desiree just wish!
“She all right?” one of the play-outlaws asked as he and his partners got off their horses and rushed to where Carson and Desiree sat on his horse.
“I think so,” Carson answered for her.
Desiree remained silent and watched as he signaled to the men. In the next moment the three outlaws headed over to the bleachers, clapping their hands and informing the crowd that the show was over for now and they had to clear out.
Carson turned his horse back around to the sound of ahs and groans as the crowd grudgingly dispersed. He steered the horse back toward town and that’s when Desiree noticed her basket overturned in the middle of the road.
“My pie!”
“Pie?” Carson swung around in his seat, green eyes raking up and down the length of her with obvious shock and more than a little disdain.
“Authentic Louisiana pecan pie,” she murmured in her defense, knowing how deranged she must sound. Here she’d almost been killed and she was worried about damn pie. She couldn’t help it, though. She’d put a lot of effort into making that pie, had pretty much risked life and limb to get it to Carson, and after all this he probably wouldn’t get a chance to sample it.