Slow Burn Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  She had kissed him back. There was no denying that.

  And in that moment, it had been about the sweetest pang of torture he’d ever experienced. Like a jagged knife cutting down under his skin, the pain so sharp and shocking it had twisted itself into something else.

  There were a lot of years of need between them. At least, on his end.

  When she had first come into town she’d been seventeen years old, and far too young for him to show an interest in at twenty-three. Plus, she had been Mark’s younger sister. But then he’d gotten to know her in her own right. Care about her not based on who she was related to, but who she was.

  And while he had never found out exactly what had transpired between Lane and her parents, he knew that it was big. Big enough that she never spoke to them. That she never went back to visit.

  Hell, since coming to Copper Ridge the most traveling she’d done was up and down the West Coast. She had never gone back east.

  Though, it had never really struck him as overly strange, since he never went back to Washington, to the town he was raised in. He had left it behind when he had come to live with his grandfather, and he had left it behind thoroughly.

  Still, no matter that he’d known he should be protective of her, rather than turned on by her, it had been a challenge since she was eighteen years old. Since that moment that was carved into him like a mark on a tree. Part of him now, no way to remove it. That moment when she’d looked at him laughing, her fingertips brushing his thigh...

  But he’d pushed it down, even then. Because he had known she wasn’t what he needed. That he couldn’t give her what she deserved. And it had nothing to do with Mark. He was closer to Lane now than he had ever been to her brother.

  But no matter that he’d decided years ago he couldn’t act on his lust, it was still there. Always beneath the surface.

  It was her obliviousness to it that had finally gotten him. When he had burst into the shop and seen her standing there, completely fine, afraid of a mouse and not in any physical danger, he had wanted to shake her.

  Because even though most of him had known there was probably nothing serious going wrong, part of him had gone completely cold at the what if.

  He had wanted her to feel even a fraction of what he did in that moment. And it had hit him with all the force of a kick from an angry quarter horse that she simply didn’t feel a fraction of what he did when he was around her.

  For him, their friendship mattered, but more than that, it was all about restraint. All about shoving down the desire that he felt for her. All about trying to control this deep, needy thing that he had never managed to master.

  He had known that odds were nothing fatal was happening when she had called last night. But it was the possibility that had struck him. The possibility that something could be wrong, that she could be in serious danger. And faced with the prospect of losing Lane, his life had opened up into a yawning void. It had terrified him. And very little terrified him.

  But the worst part wasn’t the terror. It was how she hadn’t understood. Not even a little. That he was shaking, that he was shaken.

  He wasn’t in love with Lane. Love, to him, was something right next to torture. It was one of the biggest reasons—up to now—he’d never made a move on her.

  He wanted her, but couldn’t offer much more than what they already had, coupled with a physical relationship. She was vulnerable, and he’d always known that, and he didn’t want to push her into something she wasn’t comfortable with.

  She was important. And she occupied a space inside of him that lovers didn’t, that friends didn’t. That family didn’t. A spot that belonged solely to Lane. He had a feeling he did that for her too, but when he had looked at her last night, he had realized that it was something less, not something more.

  Yeah, Lane Jensen was something more than a friend to him. And he was her handyman.

  His phone vibrated in his pocket and he sighed, retrieving it. He frowned when he saw the name, but he was hardly going to avoid his friend’s call.

  “Mark,” he said, looking out toward the mountain, bringing his horse to a stop. “What’s going on?” For one, wild second, he was afraid that Lane had called him. That she had tattled on him. Told her big brother that mean old Finn Donnelly had grabbed hold of her and kissed her against her will until she had renounced their friendship and taken up an alliance with a rodent.

  “I just thought I would check in with you,” Mark said. “Your brothers are there, right?” He and Mark weren’t the type to have heart-to-heart talks, but of course he knew about Finn’s family situation.

  “Yes, they are. All of them.”

  “For how long?”

  “Indefinitely.”

  Mark swore, which was the mark of a good friend in Finn’s estimation. “That sucks.”

  “No kidding,” Finn returned. “How’s everything on the fishing boat?”

  “Fine. But I’m always happy to be back on dry land.” Mark hesitated. “You know I don’t like to do covert reconnaissance on Lane through you, because it’s a little bit awkward.” Tension crept up Finn’s spine, and he waited for the brick to drop. “But, does she seem okay to you?”

  His mind was cast back to last night. To the feeling of her warm body beneath his hands. Her soft lips beneath his. The way she had tasted. The way—just for a moment—she had leaned into it. Into him.

  It was possible Lane had told her brother, but the odds weren’t high. So Finn was going to go ahead and play dumb. Act like everything was normal. He had no reason not to. Though the fact that Mark was posing the question made Finn frown. Because if there was something going on that wasn’t related to the kiss they had shared, he wasn’t aware of it.

  Considering how uncharitable his line of thinking had just been, about their friendship and his proprietary ownership on caring the most, it seemed damned unforgivable.

  “I’ve had trouble getting her to return my calls. And when I get a hold of her she’s less chatty than I am. Which is weird.”

  “She’s busy with work things,” he said. Which was true. And, come to think of it, she had been kind of manic about that lately. About trying to get him to move forward with all those plans she had for the dairy. Frantically trying to come up with ideas to expand the business.

  “Lane is the first person to accuse me of being impossible to read,” Mark said. “She’s always going on and on about how difficult I am to talk to. But she’s worse. She just pretends to talk. She’s my sister, Finn, and I don’t know that much about her. Not really. She’s always been more comfortable with you. So, just keep an eye on her.” There was a pause. “Has she been dating anyone recently, or anything?”

  “No,” Finn said. That he knew definitively. Because he always knew when Lane was dating someone. It never failed to bother him, even if he happened to be with someone himself at the time.

  Whenever he and Lane dated other people it threw things into a little bit of a tailspin. Because inevitably the woman he was with hated Lane hanging around, and of course every guy who passed through Lane’s life hated the fact that Finn spent evenings at her place.

  No matter what either of them said, nobody really believed they were platonic.

  But, up until last night, they genuinely had been. At least, externally. His fantasies were another matter.

  “I assumed maybe she had gone through a breakup or something.”

  Finn shook his head, belatedly realizing his friend couldn’t see the motion. “Not that I know of. And typically, I know. The town is too small for her to hide it.” Unless she was sleeping with somebody secretly. He was thinking of dating, of course. But she might have a hookup he didn’t know about.

  He didn’t like that idea at all.

  He gritted his teeth, wondering now if part of her reaction to him last night
had been based on the fact that she was with someone else. Or had been recently.

  Now he was going over every interaction he’d had with her over the past couple of weeks, looking for signs to connect what Mark was telling him with what he had observed during time spent with her.

  “To be honest with you, I’ve been up to my neck. And Lane has been bringing me food and in general making sure everything’s okay.” As soon as he said that he felt guilt, yet again, for his earlier uncharitable thoughts. “But I promise to pay closer attention.”

  “Hey, your grandpa just died. I don’t really blame you.”

  Yes, his grandpa had just died. And he most definitely had grief associated with that. But it wasn’t the biggest part of the turmoil in his life right now.

  “Still,” Finn said, “she is your sister. And my friend.” Again, memories of last night crept up on him. Her hands on his body, pressed hard against his chest... The way she’d made him feel made a mockery of that statement. “I’ll figure out what’s up.”

  The problem was it was more than likely him.

  “Thanks,” Mark said. “Appreciate it.”

  For some reason, Finn reflected, once they’d hung up, that phone call had gotten his head back in the right space. He was being unfair to Lane. Maybe there was something going on in her life, and he had missed it, because he had been so consumed by his own. She had a right to be mad at him about last night.

  He gritted his teeth. He didn’t like admitting that, even to himself. But she had a point about their friendship. About the importance of it. For both of them. And the fact remained that the reason he had never made a move on her in the first place stood. Yes, denying the attraction between them was hard. But now probably hadn’t been the best time for him to make a move toward dealing with it. Especially not the way he had chosen to.

  He wasn’t thinking clearly. And he sure as hell wasn’t feeling clearly.

  So, he would go check on her tonight, as a favor to Mark. And he would do what he could to try and set things to rights between them.

  He pictured her as she had been last night, enraged, her lips faintly swollen, her cheeks flooded with color. And in spite of himself, he felt his body beginning to harden. Desire rolled through him like dark clouds, signaling a thunderstorm was on its way.

  He pushed it down, because he was good at that.

  Yeah, he was going to confront her tonight. To deal with the aftermath of what had happened yesterday. Because whatever happened after this, Lane mattered to him. She was one of the pillars of his life here in Copper Ridge. That all-important existence he’d built for himself when he’d finally decided to cut and run from his life in Washington. From a life lived at the mercy of his parents’ whims.

  One kiss wasn’t going to change that.

  * * *

  HE DIDN’T CALL FIRST. He didn’t want her to make an excuse not to see him. He was reasonably certain she didn’t have any plans tonight—because no matter how unobservant he might be about her mental state, he was pretty damned observant about her schedule—and he knew about what time she would get home after quitting at the store.

  He was also armed with dessert. And okay, technically he was kind of regifting dessert, since Alison had sent over some pies a couple of weeks ago and he had put them in the freezer. But he knew Lane well enough to know that she wouldn’t look a gift pie in the mouth.

  It wasn’t only dessert he planned to use to help soothe her anger. He had also come with a new lightbulb for her porch. He was bringing food and man services. She could hardly complain about that.

  He shifted the items under his arm, then knocked.

  He didn’t know what he expected. Maybe some hesitance. Maybe for her to ignore his presence altogether. Given the way she had acted last night, there really was no telling. Except he knew he had not expected her to open the door immediately, a wide grin fixed on her face.

  But that was exactly what happened.

  “Hi,” she said, the grin stretching impossibly wider. Any more, and it would crack her face completely. “I wasn’t expecting you. Did we have plans?”

  She knew full well they did not have plans. And she was being weird.

  “No,” he said, “but I brought pie. And I brought a lightbulb for your front porch. I thought I would change it for you.”

  There was only a slight flicker in her dark eyes that betrayed the fact that she found this remotely strange. “That’s thoughtful of you. I really appreciate it.”

  “So,” he said, frowning, “I’m going to change the lightbulb now.”

  “Great! I’ll take the pie.” She was all too bright and sparkly when she grabbed the pastry box from his hand and disappeared back into the house.

  He turned to see to the task at hand, clearing the cobwebs away from the porch light before taking out the old lightbulb and putting the new one in. He felt like there was a rock in his chest. And then he felt like maybe there was a rock in his head.

  She was going to pretend that nothing had happened. She wasn’t just mad, she was furious, but she was going to keep on smiling at him, keep on pretending that everything was fine so that they didn’t have to talk about this.

  Rage trickled through him like wildfire. Burning everywhere it touched. He threw his tools down onto the porch and walked inside, not bothering to keep his footsteps light.

  “That was fast,” she said, that same near-manic smile fixed on her face.

  He crossed his arms over his chest, rocking back on his heels. “Everything okay?”

  “Fine,” she said, waving a hand. “Just fine. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  Oh, that did it. He was a strong man. Growing up like he had, that had been a necessity. When his father had left his mother, it had been up to Finn to take care of her. To assume the responsibilities of the household, even though he’d been a boy. And then, when his mother had left... He’d been on his own.

  There had been no space for him in his father’s life, with his new wife and his sons. He could bear a lot of things. Had done so. Would continue to do so, if his brothers’ presence at his ranch was any indicator. But he would be damned if he would bear this. She could be angry about his kiss, but he would not let her ignore it.

  It had changed things. Rearranged something in him. Ripped away the excuses he’d been making for years about not touching her. Because she wanted him too, and now he knew it.

  And he couldn’t unknow it.

  “No reason,” he said, his anger a dark, flickering thing inside of him, making him reckless. Making him mean. “Mark called.”

  “Cool. Did you guys talk about girls?”

  “We talked about you,” he said, appraising her openly, not bothering to hide it. She looked wary, and he didn’t love that. But he did love the ski-slope curve of her nose, and the way the corners of her lips twitched when she was trying to hold back a smile.

  He felt gratified when he saw color mount in her cheeks. “He wanted to know what was up with you.”

  “Did you tell him nothing? Because there’s nothing up with me.”

  “Really. Did you talk to him last night sometime by any chance?”

  Her mouth dropped open, then snapped shut again. “I did not,” she said, her tone flat.

  “Okay, because I feel like if you had, that might’ve been significant.”

  “Why would it have been significant?” The question sounded as though it had been dipped in sugar.

  “No reason,” he said, taking a step closer to her. She took a step back. Then, she edged around to the other side of the counter, putting it between them.

  He was supposed to be here to make things right. But it didn’t seem fair. That making it right meant letting her pretend nothing happened. That making it right meant letting her live in a fiction where he didn’t ache to have her wi
th every breath.

  If she would just acknowledge the kiss. Maybe that would be enough.

  Maybe.

  For a moment, just a moment, the voice of sanity screamed inside of him that it was ridiculous to be acting like this with the woman he considered to be his best friend in the entire world. But that voice was drowned out by the roar of testosterone. And so he continued on as he had started.

  “So, then what is going on?” he asked, placing his fingertips lightly on the countertop and dragging them over the smooth surface as he moved toward her. “Some guy break your heart?”

  “My heart is cast in iron,” she said, trying to keep her tone flippant. But he could see that she was on edge. Good. He wanted her over the edge. He was going to keep pushing until she had to admit that there was something going on. Something happening between them. Until she stopped resolutely living in Laneland where everything was rainbows and he was sexless, while he lived in the real world dealing with the aftermath of this explosion between them.

  He had been prepared to walk in and have her scream at him, but he could not allow her to ignore him.

  “Good to know. Are your panties also made of iron? Or are you sleeping with some guy and it’s gone haywire and that’s why you’re in a mood?”

  She scowled, her brows locking together. “You jackass. That’s none of your business.”

  “Sure it is, Lane. We’re friends. Don’t friends talk about things like that? If some guy is messing you up, don’t I have a right to know?”

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Am I? Because you’re acting strange. And Mark thinks so too. He wanted to know what was up, and so do I.”

  She snorted. “News flash, Finn, Mark can ask me what he wants, but you’re not my brother.”

  She tried to brush past him, and he reached out, grabbing hold of her arm and stopping her. He lifted it, drawing her toward him. There was something rushing through him that transcended anger. Something reckless and hot, something that had done away with his self-control completely.