Later, when JC stepped into the family room Molly’s girlish laughter floated up from behind the sofa followed by Rafe’s deep voice saying, “Well, hello there, Barbie. Want to ride with me on old Dollar?”
Molly laughed again. Slowly, JC lowered one knee then the other to the sofa, rested her hands on the back and peeked over. She found father and daughter sprawled on the floor surrounded by doll clothes, a pile of Barbies in various states of undress, a Barbie car, Barbie’s dream house and an old stuffed horse with one eye missing and a stirrup ripped off its plastic saddle. Her heart melted. She would bet money that old horse was Rafe’s when he was a boy. Molly lay on her stomach and held her Barbie doll in one hand. “Yes. Can we go get some ice cream?”
Rafe lay on his side, his long legs spread out, socks on his feet. The jeans showcased his sexy rear end. His shoulders were broad and appeared strong, as if they could hold the weight of the world. He rested his head in one palm and with the other he held a Ken doll in his big, work-roughened hand. He moved the doll back and forth as if he were walking and shifted him closer to the Barbie Molly held. “Sure thing, Barbie. I know this great ice cream place.”
“Do you like sprinkles on your ice cream, Ken?”
“I love sprinkles. Dollar does too.”
Molly laughed. “Silly. Horses don’t eat ice cream.”
“Dollar does.”
JC laughed. “I like ice cream with sprinkles too.”
Two pairs of eyes fixed on her.
Molly grinned. “We’re playing Barbies.”
Heat burned up Rafe’s neck and over his cheeks until even his ears turned red.
JC smiled enjoying herself. “Yes, it looks like fun.”
Rafe avoided her gaze. She was fascinated by this other side of Rafe. She would never have imagined this rough, tough cowboy playing dolls with his little girl. “Can I play too?”
“Sure,” Molly said. She dug a doll out of the pile. “This is Chandra, Barbie’s friend. You can be her.” The doll’s long dark hair was in a tangle, the lower part of her body was twisted to the right and the upper part to the left. She was dressed in black pants and a bright pink top with a plastic silver necklace around her neck.
JC sat down behind the couch and took the doll. She straightened the doll’s body and held it so the doll’s bare feet touched the floor. “Can I go for ice cream too? If it’s okay with Ken, of course.”
Rafe cleared his throat straightening from his position on the floor. “I’ve got stuff to do.” He tossed the doll to the side and started to rise from the floor.
“Daddy, don’t go. We haven’t gone for ice cream yet.” Molly dug through a plastic bin filled with little plates, glasses and silver ware. She scrounged around for a minute and pulled out two tiny ice cream cones. “Please, Daddy. We got to get ice cream.”
JC couldn’t resist teasing him. “Yeah, Daddy, we’ve got to get ice cream.”
He swung his gaze to hers with an I’m-going-to-get-you-for-this look on his face. But his lips twitched and his blue eyes glinted. And for one crazy second, she wanted to lean down and give him a kiss. “Dollar can’t carry three people.”
“Barbie’s car is a four door. We can leave Dollar here and go in her car. What do you say?” JC suggested.
“Okay.”
They settled the dolls in the car with Barbie in the driver’s seat and together the three of them crawled over the hardwood floor with Molly in front, pushing the car along. Rafe glanced at JC. “Don’t even think about telling Linc you watched me playing dolls with Molly,” he said in a soft voice only she could hear.
JC batted her eyes. “Why, Ken, I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.”
Rafe’s gaze lowered to her lips for a moment then back to her eyes. “See that you don’t or there’ll be major payback.”
He could lick the red off her candy any day. Instinctively, she knew whatever retribution Rafe had in mind, would probably be the slow, sensual kind of punishment.
The three of them continued around the side of the sofa and over to the coffee table, resting on a beautiful rug with southwestern designs. Molly stopped the car under the table. “What kind of ice cream do you want, Ken?”
“I want chocolate with chocolate sprinkles.”
Molly put one of the tiny cones filled with fake ice cream to Ken’s plastic lips. “Taste it.”
Rafe licked his lips and made an mmmm sound deep in his throat which caused heat to rush to a lot of secret, hidden places in JC’s body.
“What flavor do you want, Chandra?”
JC pulled herself out of her haze and said, “I’ll take anything.” Molly handed JC the cone. JC held it to the doll’s lips. “Nice and creamy. What about you, Barbie?”
“I want vanilla with different colored sprinkles.”
Rafe said in a low voice, “My flavor is chocolate. What flavor is yours?”
For a second, JC couldn’t speak. She was dumbfounded thinking about what it would be like to taste ice cream on Rafe’s lips. “Strawberry.”
“Hey, where is everybody?”
At the sound of Linc’s voice, Rafe’s eyes widened. He dropped the doll, snatched up the newspaper from the coffee table and plopped on the sofa with the paper held upside down. In a moment, Linc strolled into the room and took in the scene. Ken lay flopped over the hood of Barbie’s car and JC couldn’t help laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Me and Daddy and JC were playing dollies,” Molly said.
Linc grinned as he walked over to Rafe and examined the upside down newspaper. He crunched the top of the paper with his hand. “Playing dollies were we?”
Rafe jerked the paper back up in front of his face. “JC was playing. I was just watching,” he said from behind the paper.
“Daddy was Ken, I was Barbie and JC was Chandra,” Molly piped in.
Linc’s mouth twitched and JC could tell he was trying hard not to laugh. “Daddy was Ken, huh. Interesting, sorry I missed it. I’ve never played dolls before, Rafe. Maybe you could show me how to play sometime?”
Rafe slapped the paper down on top of the sofa cushion, stood and closed in on his brother until their noses were almost touching. Linc grinned from ear to ear and Rafe scowled. “If you breathe one word of this to anybody your days on the bench are over,” he said in a quiet voice.
“Are you threatening a judge?” Linc said with mock seriousness.
“You’re damn right I am.” Rafe leaned closer to Linc’s ear and whispered something JC couldn’t hear. Whatever Rafe said to him, Linc’s cheeks grew red. “You wouldn’t?” he said.
“Faster than a cow can flick a fly, brother.”
Chapter Seven
JC crawled into bed, pulled up the covers and sighed. She thought of Rafe sprawled on the floor playing dolls with his daughter. He had shown her a deep tender side that made her care for him even more.
Steady on, okay? Cade’s warning came back to her. She knew she needed to be careful but a part of her wanted to fling caution to the night sky. She was more determined than ever to prove to him that they belonged together because she was so tired of being alone.
She hated going to bed alone, eating alone and watching movies alone. Despite her accident and sentence, the last several days had been heaven being here on the Rocking M. The house held such peace and contentment not to mention the love that pervaded the atmosphere. She rolled onto her side and looked at the shaft of moonlight spilling in through the bedroom window and closed her eyes. She imagined Rafe lying in bed, her body spooning against his, his breath on her neck, his arms holding her safe and secure.
She longed for it more than she’d ever longed for anything in her life because only then she knew the demons would never crowd in again. Despite her efforts to stop them, her mind filled with the memory of her father leering at her in a way that a father shouldn’t look at his teenage daughter, like it was her fault, like she was wrong somehow, like she shouldn’t have hips and breasts. Of course h
e looked at her that way when he’d come home drunk which was basically every day. The rest of the time she was invisible, nothing more than a dust mote floating in the air.
Her father had been a selfish man who never should have had a family. He took money out of their bank account for himself first and anything left her mother was welcome to use for paying for food, the mortgage, clothing and medical bills. She rolled to the other side and bunched the pillow. He ruined every holiday by getting drunk and making a scene. He even turned over the Christmas tree once while trying to plug in the lights.
Things were different now. Her father and mother were gone and she’d built a good life for herself. Now she had a chance to make Rafe and Molly a part of that life and she refused to let old fears get in the way.
***
Rafe heard Jennifer laughing with the owner of Duncan’s hardware as Rafe climbed from his truck. He’d been at the realtor’s office finalizing the sale of the old mansion to the town and was looking forward to telling Jennifer. She’d pulled her hair up into a messy knot and wore a white bib overall already sprinkled with a few dots of forest green paint. Yesterday he’d scored a big fat zero in his quest to prove to her that they didn’t belong together and today he was determined to even the score. Noticing that her arms and neck were bare to the sun, he frowned. He hoped she’d applied sunscreen but just in case she forgot, he had a tube in his pocket. He didn’t know why he was so concerned about her delicate skin, he shouldn’t be. After all, he wanted to win the bet right? But the sun’s rays blasted down like a blacksmith’s fire and she wasn’t used to working this hard in the heat. In fact, he didn’t particularly like the idea of her working outside on such a hot day.
She leaned over and poured some paint into a roller pan. The overalls pulled snugly over her shapely rear causing his pulse to beat hard at the base of his throat. Relax, McCade. She’s a woman in painting duds not high heels and a short skirt. For a moment a picture of her wearing those heels and skirt flashed like sunlight on a silver concha into his brain.
“Hi, Rafe.”
The sound of Jennifer’s voice jerked him from his lust-filled haze. “Hi, ready to start?”
“Yep, pull up a paint brush.”
Rafe nodded to Matt Duncan. “Got a pair of overalls for me too?”
“Sure thing.”
Rafe pulled off his shirt and slipped on the overalls. In a moment, he joined Jennifer and they started to paint. Most of the business owners were painting their storefronts with help from a lot of locals who had turned out to help.
He and Jennifer got to work on the area surrounding the large front window of the store. “By the way, the owners have accepted the town’s offer. The mansion officially belongs to the town of Salvation.”
She turned with a big smile on her face. “That’s great. All we need to do now is draw up some definite plans for the renovation and get started.” She sounded hopeful and excited and for some crazy reason he wanted her to keep sounding that way. He wanted her to always be hopeful and never feel down again. But that was ridiculous because he wasn’t interested in getting involved with her. He couldn’t. It was the best thing for both of them. The hot wind blew strands of her hair around and he wanted to smooth them away from her face. Sweat beaded on his forehead and beneath his hat. “Did you remember to put on sunscreen?”
She glanced at him, licked her lips then smiled. When her pink tongue swept over her lips he nearly lost it. Suddenly, he felt hot all over and desire curled in his stomach. He was going to be one poor cowboy if he didn’t get a hold of himself.
“I remembered but I might need some help reapplying it in a while because it’s really steamy out here.”
His gaze skimmed her face, neck and arms, the sunlight glistening on her skin, skin he knew was silky to the touch. Would she purr like a cat lying in the sun if he rubbed some lotion on her? “Yeah, better be careful. This heat can sneak up on you and the next thing you know you’ve got sunstroke.”
She brushed on some paint. “Worried about me or afraid of losing the bet? Because if that’s the case I’m worried about you too and that’s just one more thing that makes us right for each other. We’re both caring people.”
“You’re worried about me? What for?”
She glanced at his feet.
He looked down and saw several large drops spattered on his boots. “Damn.”
“Cowboys and paint don’t seem to go together. So, which is it? Worried about me or losing the bet?”
“First, I am worried about you passing out in this heat and second I’m not the least worried about losing the bet.” He was such a liar. “I’ll give you another hour before you find some air conditioning and a cold drink.”
She stopped painting, propped one fisted hand on her hip while she pointed at him with the paint brush. “Want to add to that bet?”
“Sure, how much?”
“I wasn’t talking about money.”
Uh, oh, he had a bad feeling about this. “Then what do you want?”
She tipped her chin in his direction and gave him the sweetest smile, a smile designed for charm and it worked like gang-busters. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
“I like to know up front what I’m betting on.”
“You’re not chicken are you?”
“No way.”
“Then prove it.”
“Okay, you’re on.”
They began painting in earnest. While they worked, Grace and some of her staff set up a small tent next to the curb with tables and chairs underneath. The day grew hotter and the sun beat down like fire. Rafe watched Jennifer to make sure she kept hydrated and wasn’t pushing things to the detriment of her health just to prove a point. But she seemed to be doing fine, not ready to quit at all.
“Come and get it!” Grace called.
“Ready for some lunch?”
She swiped her arm over her forehead. “Yes, I’m starved.”
Me too and it isn’t for food.
In a few minutes, Rafe and Jennifer were settled in chairs beneath the shelter of the tent with plates filled with sandwiches and potato salad. Jennifer slipped off her sunglasses and gazed at him as she took a bite of her sandwich. She hooked them in the front of her overall causing them to dip slightly, giving him a little more view of her chest. Her eyes sparkled with mischief in the light beneath the tent. He had better win because he was worried about this bet he had agreed to. Now, with her getting fortified with food and drink, she might just last out the day. Of course he would never admit that to her. She’d already implied that he was chicken. She was hot and sweaty and had paint smudges on her cheeks, but she’d never looked more beautiful.
He took a bite of his sandwich followed by a long swig of Grace’s peach iced tea.
Jennifer unscrewed the top of her water bottle and took a long gulp. She tilted her head back and he couldn’t help but admire her neck, the skin smooth and creamy. When she finished she poured some of the cool water over her arms and he nearly lost it.
The water sluiced over her skin and made him think of a nice warm shower, his hands smoothing soap over every inch of her body. Before he could unscramble the thoughts from his brain she began smoothing more sunscreen on her arms then handed him the tube. She turned her back and lowered her chin almost to her chest. “Would you do me, please?”
He swallowed. “Do you?”
“My neck. I need more sunscreen.”
“Right.” He squeezed some of the lotion onto his palm then laid his fingers on her skin. Touching her nearly undid him. Her skin was silky soft. He smoothed the lotion on as she turned her head first one way then the other. She pulled down the straps of her overalls and the shirt she wore underneath so he could rub lotion on her shoulders. Instead of a purr, she sighed and that sigh nailed him right in the groin. He wanted to lean closer and take a good, long sniff while he pressed his lips to the back of her neck. Her skin would feel like a hot Texas night under his mouth. He had to stop these thoug
hts, he had to stop thinking of Jennifer in that way or he was a dead man. He removed his hands, and handed her the tube. “We’d better get back to work.”
By the time the last swipe of paint was applied the sun was sinking on the horizon, Jennifer was still standing and Rafe knew he had lost. They stripped off the overalls and headed for their vehicles. “So, are you going to tell me what you want? It seems you won the bet.”
She walked beside him to the driver’s door of his truck and leaned against it. “That’s right, I did.” She smiled. “I want a real date. With you. My choice of when and where. You up for it?”
Up, yeah he was definitely up or at least a part of him was. “Sure, but what is your definition of a real date?”
“A real date is holding hands, a kiss or three, dancing under the stars, good food, nice music and conversation. So, how about tomorrow night starting at six. Sound good?”
His gaze flicked to her hands then to her face and mouth. Hand holding and kissing with starlight sprinkling down on her face. He had to try to get out of this. But how? Then it came to him. “You haven’t heard my definition of a real date.”
She shrugged. “Okay, that’s fair. Go ahead.”
“A real date is—let me rephrase that—a first date is a quiet dinner, good food and conversation followed by a hand shake or a kiss on the cheek. See how different our ideas are?”
She started laughing and the sound caused a shiver of desire to buck through his veins. “What’s so funny?”
“We aren’t so different, Rafe.” She straightened from the side of his truck, leaned close to him and placed a palm on his chest. She looked up into his eyes and he down into hers. “We have the good food and conversation. It won’t take much to move from a hand shake and kiss on the cheek to hand holding and a couple of kisses on the lips. Just a matter of compromise and we’ve already proven we’re both good at that.”
Damn, she’s turned the tables on him in short order. He wasn’t going to be able to get out of this date because she was right. He would just have to be ready to deflect each and every one of her advances. He had to make her see that he was wrong for her and maybe a date would begin to help her see his side of things. “Okay, when and where?”
The Rancher and The Event Planner (A Salvation Texas Novel) Page 7