He stopped when he got to the top. The place was packed with trucks and vehicles parked at odd angles in the front, forcing him to wedge his truck between two cars. He could hear voices coming from inside the single-story stucco home, and so he headed toward a heavy wooden door set beneath a porch held up by arches.
“Welcome,” Jayden’s aunt said, smiling. “Come in. Everyone’s out back. I’ll introduce you.”
She let him pass, Colby’s attention caught by the wall of back numbers to his right, his footsteps slowing.
“They’re from the National Finals Rodeo,” she said. “There are buckles and saddles all over the place if you’re curious. More down at the house where Jayden grew up, but her dad’s not coming tonight, so you won’t get to see those.”
And the way she said the words, Colby could tell she wasn’t pleased.
“It’s amazing,” he said. Wow. He’d known Jayden’s family all competed, but he had no idea of the scope of it all until that moment.
“Feel free to linger,” Crystal said.
“No, that’s okay.”
She led him outside, through double doors with glass panes in them, and out onto a covered veranda with a trellis that held a grapevine of some sort. The longest table he’d ever seen sat beneath, and it was packed with people.
“Everyone, this is Colby Kotch, and that’s Kotch with a t.” He saw Jayden’s aunt wink, followed the direction of her gaze and spotted Jayden, her dark hair hard to miss.
“Colby, I’d introduce you to everyone, but you’d never remember everyone’s name. So this is the family. That’s my husband, Bob, at the end there. You know your boss’s family sitting by him. This—” she patted the shoulders of a man near her “—is Jayden’s brother Flynn. He’s in charge of the horse operation, and I understand he has some horses he thinks might work for your program.”
“Nice to meet you,” Colby said, holding out his hand.
“You, too,” Flynn said, taking his hand. “Heard a lot about you.”
He doubted anything from Jayden, who, by the way, ignored him. She was talking to Paisley, who sat in a booster chair next to her, the adorable little girl catching his eye. Her whole face erupted into a smile as big as the moon.
“Mommy. Look.”
Mommy clearly didn’t want to look. “I see him,” he heard her say over a chorus of hellos. “No, no. Don’t get up. Finish your snack.”
“Go see Cold-bee.”
“Paisley. Sit down and eat.”
A man with dark hair and sideburns leaned in next to her. “You want to get big like your cousin Bella, don’t you?”
Paisley nodded, looking at a dark-haired girl about nine or ten years old across the table from her.
“Then you better eat,” said the man.
“I told Jayden to take you down to the stables,” Crystal said.
Colby pulled his gaze away from the rest of the family, wondering who they all were.
“Might want to do that before the sun goes down,” said Flynn. “She knows the horses I have in mind.”
“Yes, go now,” Crystal said. “I’ll watch Paisley while you two go take a look.”
He glanced at Jayden just in time to see Jayden’s shoulders tense. “But she’s eating.”
“Jayden,” her aunt said. “Colby came all the way over here to look at those horses. Go on now. The adults aren’t eating for a while yet, so you have time.”
Jayden just shook her head, her long hair loose so it flipped over one shoulder. In her eyes he saw frustration. He didn’t blame her. He felt the same way.
“Pais,” she said to her daughter, “Auntie Crystal is going to watch you.”
“Jax,” Colby called to his boss. “You want to go, too?”
His boss smiled, shook his head. “That’s your deal, Colby. I still don’t know enough about horses to make an informed decision. You two go.” He waved him off with a hand until his attention was claimed by his wife, the pretty redhead saying something to him sotto voce, something that made him laugh.
Jayden looked at him. He stared right back. She shrugged.
Damn.
Chapter 12
They didn’t say a word to each other as they walked through the house and then headed down the drive.
“I take it you still haven’t patched things up with your dad?”
She felt her cheeks turn as red as the sunset behind him, because just the mention of her dad filled her with a combination of anger and dismay. She hated that they’d have to walk by his place on their way to the stable.
“I heard your aunt’s ultimatum the other day,” he said.
She released a breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding, some of the tension leaving her shoulders. It was good to talk to him, good to have her friend back.
“I tried speaking to him earlier this week,” she admitted. “Didn’t go very well.”
They lapsed into silence again, Jayden tensing the farther down the drive they walked. Her father’s house came into view.
“It was brave of you to try to work it out.”
She glanced over at him. There was approval in his eyes, but also sadness, and it made her wonder what had happened with his own father to cause such a rift.
“It’s been years since I’ve spoken to my dad, too.”
They’d made it to her dad’s driveway, and the relief she felt upon realizing his truck was gone was instantaneous. He’d known about the family get-together, of course, had purposely avoided attending...thanks to her.
“Did you disappoint your dad, too?”
She said the words half-flippantly, surprised when he didn’t immediately answer. When she looked up at him, he seemed deep in thought.
“Actually, I left because he stole my fiancée.”
She stopped in the middle of the driveway, thinking he was joking. The seriousness in his eyes convinced her otherwise.
“He stole her how?”
He started walking, and she followed along. “I brought her home with me when I was discharged from the army. We were planning on getting married, but then things started to change. I didn’t realize what was going on until I caught the two of them together.”
She stopped again. He kept walking a few more steps, but then turned back to face her.
“Colby, that’s terrible.”
He shrugged. “It happens.”
She shook her head. “Not in a normal family, it doesn’t.”
“Who said I was normal?”
He started heading back down the hill. They were almost to the bottom now, the vineyards directly ahead, a part of Jayden keeping an eye out for her dad, but he’d clearly left the ranch.
“When was the last time you went home?” she asked.
His chest rose and fell, he took such a deep breath. “The last time I saw my dad was the day he told me he was marrying Liz.”
Liz. So that was her name. The woman who’d done so much to damage Colby’s heart, because it was clear she had. They were alike, in a way, each of them wounded by a family member, each of them trying to make their own way in the world.
“I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “I’m over it now.”
Was he? Was he really? Somehow she doubted it.
“So, tell me about the horses you have in mind for our program.”
Change of subject. She didn’t blame him. It was hard for her to talk about her dad, too.
“There’s two,” she said, taking her own deep breath. “One of them is my old show horse.”
Out of the corner of her eye she saw him nod. “What kind of show horse? You mentioned you rode cutting horses and jumping horses.”
He remembered. Why did that make her flush?
“She’s a cutting horse. Her name is Scarlett Kisses. Little sorrel mare who nev
er took a wrong step in her life. She’s older, but still in great shape. We tried to breed her, but we could never get her in foal. Dad would give her a home for life, but I think he’d rather see her put to good use rather than living in a pasture 24/7.”
They’d reached the flat portion of the driveway, the stables to their left. When the sound of a rooster crowing reached them, Jayden stopped again.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Just making sure Foghorn isn’t around.”
She finally grew brave enough to look up at him. Curiosity lit up his eyes, and she admitted this was better. There was still a tension between them, but talking had been good for them. It was the most time they’d spent alone with each other all week.
“Foghorn?” he asked.
“Leghorn.” She moved toward the stables again. “My dad got this idea in his head that the ranch needed farm fresh chickens. It was right after his heart attack, and he got on a health kick. Anyway, he bought a bunch of eggs, hatched them up from babies, then set them free to forage on the ranch.” She shook her head. “The darn things have been terrorizing the place ever since.”
When she risked glancing up at him again she thought she saw a smile. The tension in her shoulders started to ease. This was good. Humor. A balm to the soul.
“They tore up my aunt’s garden earlier this year. Scratched it out of existence. She told my dad she was going to eat them all.”
Yup. That was definitely a smile starting to crack the surface of his stony face.
“Well, one of them turned out to be a rooster.” She paused in front of the stables. This time of day the setting sun was blocked by the mountains to the west, but there was enough ambient light that she could tell he’d had some experience with roosters. His lips twitched.
“Yeah.” She shook her head. “It’s part of why I don’t come down here very often anymore. Well, that and my dad. I’ve been calling him Hannibal the Cannibal.” It was her turn to smile. “If you see him, run.”
“Duly noted.”
They turned back to the stable, the smell of pine shavings hanging in the air. One of her family members must have raked the barn aisle earlier, probably Flynn.
“This place is really something,” she heard him say.
“My dad and uncle had it built.”
“I thought it was a villa when I first drove in.”
She smiled. “A lot of people think that. It’s actually taller than the house I grew up in.” She looked up at a large window. “We keep hay up there. Office at the end. Show horses are in the barn. Ranch and rodeo horses are kept outside.”
They moved toward a stall on her right, a bright-eyed mare peeking her head up, a piece of hay sticking out of her mouth.
“Hey there, old girl,” she said softly.
There was nothing more soothing to her than the smell of horse. She opened the stall door, slowly sliding the door to the right, Scarlett taking a step toward her.
She suddenly found herself teary-eyed.
“How are you?” she asked, walking up to the mare, hand outstretched. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
Why had she stayed away so long? Jayden wondered. She shouldn’t have let her dad scare her away. Or used that damned rooster as an excuse.
Her old friend clearly recognized her, forgetting her food for a moment so she could give Jayden a good sniff. She laughed, having forgotten Colby’s presence for a moment.
“Looking for treats?” she asked, the mare sniffing her pockets. “I’m afraid I don’t have any.” She scratched the mare’s jaw. “I’ll go get you one in a moment.”
“She definitely seems to have the kind of personality we’re always looking for.”
She nodded. Scarlett lifted her head, curious about the man who’d come in behind her.
“She does. I think she’d make an amazing therapy horse. Plus, it’d be great to work with her again.”
Because she felt guilty. Riding had once been such a huge part of her life, but she hadn’t even brought Paisley down in here in weeks. Aunt Crystal was always the one letting her daughter pet the horses. And all because of her pride.
“Let me show you Sparky next.”
“Sparky?”
“He’s in the last stall on the left.”
Colby didn’t move for a moment. She froze, her pulse skittering off, because she’d noticed it, too.
It was back.
The sexual tension that refused to go away. She gave Colby as wide a berth as possible, latching the stall door closed and turning toward Sparky’s stall.
And that was when she saw him. A two-legged demon with white feathers.
“Colby, watch out.”
The rooster ran at him like Road Runner in a Looney Tunes cartoon. Colby turned. The rooster took flight. Colby narrowly missed being spurred, his cry of “Hey” startling the horses in the barn, but the man had the reflexes of a cat, because in the next instant he’d snatched off his hat, tossing it at Foghorn like a Frisbee, which made Leghorn squawk in protest and leave just as quickly as he’d come.
Jayden could only stare, and then her shoulders began to shake.
“Damn thing,” he said, marching forward to pick up his hat, slapping it against his leg to clean it off. “It tried to kill me.”
She collapsed against Scarlett’s stall. She couldn’t help it. It must have been the stress of the past week or maybe a release of the tension in the air, but suddenly she couldn’t breathe, she laughed so hard.
Colby just stared.
She doubled over. Dear goodness, she had tears coming out of her eyes.
“The look on your face,” she gasped out. “You must have thought you were back in a war zone.”
When she straightened again, he hadn’t moved. Her laughter faded. Why was he looking at her like that?
“I’ve never seen you laugh like that before.”
Because she rarely ever did, not lately, not with work and school and raising a kid and trying to make ends meet and trying to make rent and keep the power on and make her car payments and her sorrow over her dad.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve done that,” she admitted.
Her heart began to pound. He wasn’t moving. Neither was she.
It happened again.
The electricity danced in the air. It sizzled between them, making her forget that she’d sworn to stop thinking about their kiss. That was all she could think about right now. The way he’d touched her. How it’d felt to have his lips press up against her own.
“Why?”
She had to blink. Had to think about his question. “No time.”
He took a step toward her. Goose bumps sprouted on her arms. His stare was like a physical touch, one that made her hyperaware of the fact that he was a man and she was a woman.
“It’s been hard for you, hasn’t it?”
She nodded. “I’d be lying if I told you it’s been easy.”
He took another step toward her. Her skin began to tingle.
“Not that my aunt and uncle wouldn’t give me the shirts off their backs if I asked.”
One more step. “But you never ask.”
She shook her head, perhaps a bit too fast. She felt dizzy all of a sudden, or maybe that was the result of him being so near, of the way the smell of him drifted on a current of air.
“I never wanted to put them in that position.” Her voice sounded strange to her ears. “If my dad found out, it would put a strain on their relationship. I had to ask my aunt and uncle to help me make rent last month. It killed me.”
He was inches away now, and she knew, she just knew, that they would kiss again, that they could no more stay away from each other than rain could fall toward the sky.
“You shouldn’t have to take care of yourself.” His head lowered. “You should be p
ampered and cherished and made love to every night.”
She gasped. He gently pulled her toward him, and she let him, God help her, she let him pull her up against his hard body, her eyes closing as her head fell back so he could kiss her.
The world tilted. Her feet lifted off the ground. Or at least, that was what it felt like. The same dizzying sensation, like stepping off a curb that she didn’t see, the same disorientation, the same need to right herself, overcame her. The only way to anchor herself was to hold him. She felt him tense for a second, thought he might stop, but he must have lost his battle with common sense, too, because suddenly his arms slipped around her, his mouth pressing against her own so that she did the most reckless thing of all. She opened her mouth. His tongue slipped inside, and he tasted like perfection, a salty sweetness that spread warmth through her soul.
His hand dropped down to her side, and she flinched from his touch as if it hurt, but it didn’t hurt, far from it. Pleasure. That was all she felt. His fingers were like the jolt from an outlet, a jolt that traveled through her body and made her moan. And then he tensed again, and she realized he was moving against her, pushing her so that her back was up against a wall. He lifted her slightly, and she wrapped her legs around him. He groaned. She tipped her head to the side, trying to tell him without words what she wanted, and he must have heard her silent cry because he started to move against her. She arched into him, thought she heard him moan when their bodies touched at that most intimate of junctures, and she wanted more. So much more.
His hand slid beneath the T-shirt she wore. No special clothes for him, she’d told herself. No dressing up. And now she reaped the rewards because it was easy for him to cup her breasts, to pull her bra down, to lift the shirt so his mouth could...
She groaned. Dear Lord, if he kept this up she’d lose herself right here and now.
A rooster crowed.
They both froze, both turned, both spotted the feathered white devil standing at the end of the barn. It eyed them in the same way a shark would eye its next meal, and from nowhere came the urge to laugh again. It was wrong. What they were doing couldn’t happen, but then he was laughing and slowly letting her down, and it should have been a disappointment because she’d wanted what his mouth and his hands and his body promised her, but his smile and the soft sound he made when he laughed, oh, it did things to her. Did things that made her want to revert to the wild and crazy young woman she once was...before Paisley. Before disappointing her dad. Before she’d had to pull herself up by the bootstraps and support herself.
Home on the Ranch: Her Cowboy Hero Page 11