by Liz Peters
The room filled quickly with other familiar faces, the same ones she saw day in and day out. A change of scenery was nice, but it wasn’t really a change. They all fell into their roles automatically, even in a new location. Lunch was served, and they settled into their round tables at assigned seats and set into eating peppered with polite conversation that meant absolutely nothing. A senior partner was assigned to each table so that they could get as much exposure to the younger employees as possible. All of this was so carefully engineered that it might as well have been choreographed.
Sam caught herself looking for the ranch staff, but all she saw were the servers coming in periodically to refresh drinks and serve plates of food to the three tables in the large dining room. No sign of any of the ranch hands, just the wait staff bringing in and carrying out plates of food and glasses or water for the members of her group eating.
She should have been paying attention to the senior partner in her group. Will Swift was one of the founding members of the firm. She’d done work for him before so interaction would have been more or less effortless. He was the one of the three she needed to impress the most. She took one last, longing look around the room and turned her attention back to being social.
Lunch passed relatively uneventfully. It was just one of a million business lunches she’d been to in her career. The new setting made very little difference in what was going on in the room, and the fact that they were all dressed in work clothes for what was supposed to happen after lunch didn’t change the fact that they were all talking shop before the first course had been served. It was what they were all good at. She could have done this lunch on auto-pilot, and she was pretty much there by the time dessert was served.
At least the monotony of the day was shaken up when the ranch leader came out to announce they were splitting the group into threes to go out to work around the ranch. Each of the senior partners popped up to pick a list of people that were supposed to look random, but Sam knew them well enough to know they’d worked out who was going where long before they’d ever arrived at the ranch.
She had been near the top of the list of people that were going out to work with Ingersoll, and they’d barely walked out of the building before the ranch foreman informed them they were heading out to work on adding some fence to one of the cow pastures not too far from the ranch house. At least it wasn’t going to be too far away, and building a fence didn’t appear to be too mentally taxing. She could focus on making a good impression as much as possible because she knew they were going to be watching, even when she wasn’t aware they were doing it.
Sam got to the point where they were told they were going to work and the foreman started separating them off into individuals, assigning them to different tasks. Sam’s job was going to be digging post holes for the new fence posts while some of the other guys were splitting rails and cutting posts to slide into the holes when she was done. There were no tools around, but everyone was told to wait for a ranch hand to come to give them what they were going to need to get the job done. She stood there, watching everyone get their jobs and instructions and waiting for the person who was about to join her.
“Hey there, Legs.” She recognized the voice even before the nickname registered. Sam had to fight the smile that threatened to break out across her face in front of her co-workers. There was no way she was going to be able to live down even appearing to enjoy being called Legs. No one else around here would have gotten away with it, but they would have tried.
“Well hello, Stranger.” If he was going to call her by that name then there was no way she was going to refer to him as Reid. The nicknames at least kept them on an even playing field, though Sam was pretty sure she would rather that playing field be back in her cabin and spread across the king-sized bed instead of out here in a cow pasture with every man she was in competition with looking on.
Sam moved a hand to her hip, resting against the rough denim of the jeans that rode low and hugged her curves so much better than the skirt she’d worn to the ranch could have. She knew how good she looked in jeans, and she planned to use it to her advantage, at least in this situation.
He was holding a tool she didn’t recognize that looked like a pair of shovels attached together by a hinge near the bottom. Reid pushed it down, burying the blades into the grass next to him and leaned on the pair of handles as he looked her over one more time. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but she thought she saw the hungry look in his eyes that matched her own. It made her breath catch in her chest for a moment. Luckily, he started talking at just about the same moment and covered up the tiny sound that escaped her barely parted lips.
“So, tell me you’ve used a pair of posthole diggers before.” He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her reply.
Sam could only assume that he meant the thing he was leaning against. She couldn’t put a name to it, much less explain how to use it so all she could do was shake her head.
“If you mean that,” she gestured to the long handles stuck into the ground, “then no. I couldn’t tell you how to do anything with that. Now if you need me to explain how to write a contract that Satan himself couldn’t get out of then I’m your girl.”
Well, next time I need to do business with the Devil then I’ll know where to find you, I reckon. But for right now, we need to build a fence.” The chuckle in his voice melted into a real laugh as he gestured towards the tool he’d brought with him. “So, I guess I’m going to be showing you how these work then?”
“I guess so.” Sam couldn’t help but think that there was more than one tool she wouldn’t mind him showing her how to use, but she had to shake the thought as he hefted the post hole diggers out of the ground in front of him and came over to her side, scuffing a place in the dirt in front of her with the heel of his boot. She could have gotten lost in what happened next for the rest of the day if she’d let herself.
He drove the ends of the blades into the dirt, pushing them in even further with his boot before levering the handles far apart and lifting a scoopful of soil out of the ground in front of him, dumping it on the ground near the hole and repeating the process. It was simple enough if you paid attention to what you were doing, but Sam wasn’t really paying attention to much besides the way Reid looked every time his muscles flexed to get one part of the job or another done. Distracted was an understatement.
She knew he was talking, but what he was saying didn’t register until he passed her the handle of the diggers and took a step back. It was Sam’s turn, and she wasn’t going to be able to promise anyone that she could do this without hurting herself or breaking something. But she was going to give it a shot. She also knew she was screwing this up from the minute she wrapped her fingers around the handles. A quick glance around her told her that the guys who’d spread out around her to do pretty much the same thing weren’t faring much better. A handful of ranch hands were spread around trying to show them exactly what to do. It had just been her luck that she’d gotten the only one who made her feel like her panties might just catch on fire.
She tried to focus on the task in front of her, but Sam was shocked into letting out a soft gasp when she felt the warmth of a pair of arms wrapping around her from behind, rough hands sliding along her arms just beyond where she had the sleeves of the red flannel shirt rolled up and lighting every nerve in her body on fire. Sam froze in place, and it took everything she had in her to keep from melting back into the chest that was pressed against her back when Reid’s arms wrapped around her own, his hands resting on top of hers to guide them into doing what it was they were supposed to do with the diggers. She knew she was supposed to be learning what to do, but there was nothing she could focus on when the heat of his body melted into her back. It was all she could do to keep from whimpering and pressing herself back into his embrace like she really wanted to do.
It was the opposite of what Sam knew she was supposed to be. She was strong and independent. She’d been doing it all on her own for yea
rs now, dating men who came and went, but never left her feeling weak in the knees from a simple contact the way this man had. He hadn’t even meant to, at least not from what she could tell. He was just doing his job, and doing that simple bit left her a mess.
He was talking again, walking her through the steps of what she was supposed to be doing, and instead of seeming like the intelligent woman she was, she probably looked like some slack-jawed moron, mooning over the ranch hand who was just doing what he was getting paid to do. At least he wasn’t moving. He kept his arms around her while he leaned in to talk in a low voice near her ear. It did nothing to help the state of affairs in her body. All it managed to do was to cause her body to tense, the muscles knotting in her abdomen as she finally let what he was saying hit her brain.
“See, Legs? It’s not that hard.” He was dead wrong because that was when she let herself move back into him, her ass fitting perfectly into the curve of his hips, and he most certainly was hard. She was beyond able to think straight, except she knew she had to do something before she made a fool of herself in front of everyone here including this guy. If she didn’t, she was going to reach back and dig her nails into his hip to pull him into her and do something everyone might regret in full sight of her boss and co-workers, because her brain was hitting the point where she just didn’t care.
Sam’s hands tightened on the handles under his, taking control of the tool and moving away from him as much as she could manage, just to keep herself under control.
“You’re right. It’s not. I think I’ve got it.” She knew the reply was short, but it was all she had in her. If she said more, she was going to be begging this man she barely knew to drag her back to her cabin and take her then and now. She was also going to be lucky not to lose her job if she didn’t watch herself, never mind the promotion she’d been working her ass off to get for months.
She hated herself for having to do it when he let go and moved back away from her. It was the exact opposite of what she wanted or needed, and the space behind her felt empty and cold as he took a step back, watching her work. She carefully repeated what he had done, getting herself together and focusing on getting the hole dug.
“Alright then, Samantha.” He’d gone back to using her name. It sent a pang through her chest, but again it was probably for the best. “That hole needs to be about a foot and a half or so deep. I’ll check in on you in a few?”
She could hear the question in his voice and the raised eyebrow. He was asking more than just if she felt comfortable enough with what she was doing, but she didn’t know what to tell him. She wanted him to do more than check up on her, but it was the one thing he really could do without raising too much suspicion from anyone around. She nodded.
“Yeah. Please?” Sam shot Reid a look that she hoped told him what she needed him to know. She wanted more but now wasn’t the time or place. Maybe there would be a chance later. Maybe not. But he hadn’t done anything wrong as far as she was concerned.
“Alright, then.” He nodded, reaching up to tip his hat in her direction. “I’ll see you in a few then, Legs.” He looked her over one last time before walking off to do something back at the truck full of tools that had been waiting for them all when they’d arrived out here. Sam watched him go with a soft sigh, going back to the work in front of her and hoping like hell that all this was going to pay off in the end and that she was going to be able to make it through the next two and a half days in one piece.
Chapter Four
Reid wondered if that woman knew what the hell she was doing to him because she sure was doing a good job at it. She’d been doing it since she climbed out of that cab this morning, too. It was only worse when she’d walked out of the ranch house in a pair of jeans and a men’s shirt rolled up to her elbows. His head went straight to the idea of seeing her in nothing but one of his shirts instead. He had one just like it back in his bunk, and she’d look a whole damn sight better in it than he did.
He’d walked straight over to Cole when he saw what was going on and traded jobs with him on the spot. The boys didn’t like working with the guests when they could get by with it, and he jumped at the chance to go out and brand the new calves that were old enough to go out to pasture with the rest of the cattle instead of heading out to show a bunch of greenhorns how to build a fence they were going to have to go back and fix in a couple of days anyway. They never did anything like that right the first time, and none of them ever knew what they were doing. At least usually. They did occasionally get someone who knew their way around a tool or two, but that was always the exception instead of the rule.
With this crew, it looked like they were going to be more work than they were worth. Reid had volunteered to help Matty with the calves at the sight of the word law firm on the job lists for the week, but he hadn’t known that he was going to have something he was far more interested in out with the guests than somewhere off at the back of the ranch. Besides, the foreman didn’t like to let him work with guests all the time, because Reid had a chip on his shoulder when it came to the rich boys who’d been born with a spoon in their mouth that usually came along with the businesses that came out here for this kind of thing. He was far more likely to put a fist in someone’s jaw than to be much of help, but Reid was going to mind his Ps and Qs for now at least. He didn’t think it was a good idea to try to get on her good side by punching one of her friends before the first date.
It took everything he had in him to walk away after the way her body had molded into his out in the pasture using the post hole diggers. He’d have taught her how to do just about anything if it meant that she was going to stay pressed up against him like that. But she’d been the one to pull away. Lucky for them both because he was going to wind up pinning her against the tree and ripping those jeans off her hips no matter how good they looked on her right that second or who was watching. This woman was the exact thing that was going to get them both in a lot of trouble. The good thing about it was that Reid loved trouble.
The rest of the afternoon passed by without too many problems, except that Sam seemed to try to be pretending he didn’t exist. He checked on her a few more times, and she was getting on well enough, better than all of the men who’d been put in the same group at least. Most of them didn’t look like they could find their way out a wet paper bag, much less build a real fence. He and Matty were going to be out here next week after they left fixing everything they’d done wrong before it could actually be used. But at least the posts were going to be going in straight and deep enough. He could work with that.
He could have stood there and watched her work for the rest of the afternoon if he hadn’t had anything else to do. It looked good on her, and she did a damned sight better than he would have expected watching those legs slide out of the taxi when she arrived. He also wouldn’t have bet she was half as good a rider as she turned out to be.
The first afternoon always involved riding lessons for the cattle roundup that happened the second day. The horses could have done the job without a rider on their back, to be honest, but it wouldn’t have been a good idea to send them out to fall off a horse and get kicked in the head by one of the cows when they weren’t paying attention. They needed to learn enough to make sure they could stay in the saddle. It never failed that one of the guests had had some kind of riding lessons and tried to be a show-off. That happened again today, but then there was Sam who just climbed up on the back of the horse like she’d been born to do it.
Reid overheard her mention to the stable master that she’d had some lessons before, but it wasn’t in that loud bragging tone that the other guy had used. She also could have ridden circles around him. Reid could only hope that he hadn’t paid too much for those damned lessons because after a day in the saddle sitting like that he was going to be walking funny for the rest of the week.
He leaned against a tree for a moment, taking a breath as he pulled his hat off and wiped the sweat off his brow and let out a laugh at t
he thought, shooting her a grin when he caught Sam glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. He didn’t know if she was trying to avoid him or not, but he was determined to find out.
The evening was going to be some kind of party for the group. Drinks and food in the main house with the whole cowboy cookout theme that the owner had been running the entire time that Reid had worked here. It was getting old. To be honest, these things were his kind of party. He’d have much rather went to some bonfire out somewhere and sat around drinking beers with some of the locals that worked at the place, but tonight, he found himself wanting to go, if nothing else to see what Sam got herself up to.
He pulled on a clean pair of jeans and the best shirt he had in the simple closet that was on his side of the cabin he shared with one of the other ranch hands. One glance in the mirror before he smoothed his hand over the slightly ruffled hair and pulled on a hat to cover it up. Dolling himself up wasn’t one of Reid’s strong points, but he was at least going to make an effort to look presentable before he walked into the party. Hands were always invited. It made the clients feel special to pal around with the help for some reason, but he generally avoided the room on nights like tonight unless someone with a bigger paycheck than him forced him into going. Tonight, there was another force entirely that had him walking into the back door and making his way to the reception hall and bar.