WYATT FELT LIKE he had been trying to work out the tension that had seized up his muscles for the past three days. Since that trail ride with Lindy, his shoulders had been knotted up hard as a rock.
Frankly, it wasn’t the only part of him that was rock hard, thank you very much.
But he hadn’t decided what the hell he was going to do about it yet.
It had been one thing to try to prove his point with her on the trail ride, something he thought he had done quite effectively. It was another to figure out what happened next.
Oddly, pounding fenceposts into the ground wasn’t doing a thing for his muscles. Or for anything else.
“Are you trying to build a fence? Or are you fantasizing about killing a vampire?” His sister, Jamie, shouted over the sound of his post pounder connecting with wood.
“Is there something you want, Jamie?”
“I came by to help,” his sister said, walking over to him and planting her hands on her hips.
“You don’t need to help with fencing,” Grant said, straightening behind Wyatt. “This is...”
“If you say men’s work I’m going to plant a boot up your ass.”
“I wasn’t going to say men’s work,” Grant said. “I was going to say it’s heavy lifting.”
“I can lift heavy things,” Jamie said, her dark eyebrows drawing tightly together. “I can sure as hell buck hay, and handle pissed-off horses. Putting in a new fence is hardly going to break me.” She lifted her hands, revealing more than a few cuts and scrapes, and short fingernails. “It’s not like I’m worried about damaging my manicure.”
“If you want to help, Jamie,” Wyatt said. “By all means.”
“Why are you so pissed off?” Jamie asked, grabbing a roll of fencing and some tools.
“I’m not pissed off,” Wyatt said.
“Yes you are.”
“I’m not.”
“He is,” Jamie said, looking over at Grant. “Do you know why?”
“No,” Grant said. “I didn’t ask because I don’t actually care about Wyatt’s moods.”
“I’m not sure that I care,” Jamie clarified. “But I’m nosy.”
“You’re both a delight,” Wyatt interrupted, gritting his teeth so that he wouldn’t say something really asinine.
“No I’m not,” Grant said.
“He isn’t,” Jamie agreed.
“I’m stressed-out,” Wyatt said, pivoting to more comfortable territory. He wasn’t going to give them the lowdown on the entire situation, but in fairness, they did need to know that the grand opening of this place was important.
He’d been trying to handle it all himself. And while he wasn’t convinced he couldn’t, it seemed fair enough to let them know that it was essential. After all, they were invested in this too. Up above their waders.
Wyatt was past his eyeballs.
“I know there’s a lot to do...” Jamie trailed off.
“There’s a ton to do. We have to get this place looking good. We need to make sure that the bookings are full. Beyond the opening weekend. I want... I don’t want this to be a dead end for either of you. You both threw your hats in with me. Totally. I respect that,” he said. “I take it seriously.”
The degree to which he cared about Get Out of Dodge wasn’t really in keeping with his reputation, and he wanted to make sure it was clear to them. That he did care. That he wasn’t taking their loyalty for granted.
“It’s not like I left a good job or anything,” Jamie said. “I was working part-time at the Gunslinger. I’d rather be heading up trail rides.”
“And I can go back to the electric company anytime I want,” Grant put in. “I mean, not in the same position, but they would give me a job. I worked there for fifteen years.”
“Right. Well. Now I like both of you less because you made your sacrifices seem a helluva lot less impressive.”
“Neither of us are very sacrificial. That’s not the Dodge way. We care a hell of a lot about our own skin. But, handily, we’ve all put our lots in together. So, it forces us to care about each other’s.” Jamie said all of this as if it were an obvious fact.
“She’s not wrong,” Grant said. “That’s how this family functions. No one’s a martyr.”
“We wouldn’t respect anyone who was.”
Except, Wyatt was starting to feel like a martyr to the whole damned enterprise. The fact that he was going toe to toe with his dad after all the unspoken tension between them for so many years. The fact that it was forcing him to deny his attraction to Lindy...
Yeah, he was starting to feel a hell of a lot like a martyr. And for a guy who had spent so long chasing glory it was a strange position to find himself in.
He wasn’t sure he had liked his life as a bull rider, not when all was said and done. It was fine for a while, but it was a lot like drinking. Oblivion. Moving so fast that you couldn’t create connections. That you couldn’t think. All that was fine, but it was a bit of a younger man’s game.
It earned money, but there weren’t achievements he could hold on to.
Maybe his dad was right in one respect or another. Maybe Wyatt did romanticize the idea of working the land. But, running a dude ranch was hardly the same thing as being a straight-up cowboy. And anyway... He was ready to make something with his hands that would last. Something that took more than eight seconds to call complete.
Something that might make him feel like he’d done something. Something other than cause his family pain. Something other than screw up good things when they came along.
He was trying. But if there was one lesson he learned from his former life as a rodeo cowboy, it was that there were no points for trying. Everyone put in their best effort. But you only got points if you finished the ride.
He had to finish this damn ride.
“What can we help you with?” Jamie asked.
“This fence,” Wyatt responded.
“That isn’t what I meant, and you know it. I meant, how can we help you handle the pressure that comes with reopening the ranch? What can we do to help with the stress?”
“What you’re doing,” Wyatt said. “I didn’t mean to make this your problem. But that’s the thing. I want this place to be solvent for all of us. As long as it’s mine, my responsibility, I should be doing the heavy lifting. You should be able to come and be confident in the fact that it’s going to work out for you.”
“That’s not how any of this works,” Grant said. “Everything’s a risk. Everything in life. I get that, maybe better than most.”
Silence fell between them. Yeah, Grant did know the ways that life could bite you in the ass. But, in Grant’s case, it hadn’t been that surprising either. Not that that made it less painful, but Grant had known about his wife’s illness before their marriage. He had chosen to marry her even knowing the outcome wouldn’t be good.
Wyatt sure as hell wanted to give his brother something better than that when it came to the ranch.
“This will all be fine as long as we don’t do a half-assed job,” Wyatt said.
Jamie shook her head and carried the bundle of fence down a few yards away from Grant and Wyatt. Just out of earshot.
“What’s really going on?” Grant asked.
For a second he considered telling his brother what was going on with their dad. That this was a trial period, and if Wyatt didn’t do something pretty damned amazing they were all going to lose everything.
But he wasn’t going to let that happen, so he didn’t need to confide in Grant. End of story.
“Nothing.”
“Sexual frustration.”
Wyatt lifted a brow. “You’re projecting.”
“Am I? I don’t think it’s a coincidence that you came home acting like you are ready to pick a fight with a bear after you went out riding with Lindy Parker.”
“I’ll pick a fight with anyone for a good time,” Wyatt said dryly. “You know that.”
“Sure. I won’t lie. You’re a contrary son of a gun. But you like to light fires for fun. You’re not usually angry. And you’ve been mean, Wyatt. That’s not like you.”
Grant just looked at him. Waited.
“I can’t,” Wyatt said. “Because we are doing business together.”
“Yeah. You said that.” Grant shook his head. “But, you’re still fixated on her, so clearly it’s not done you any good to go ahead and decide to abstain.”
“Doesn’t matter either way. It’s the right thing to do.”
“Since when do you care about that?”
Grant’s words struck him right in the chest, went clean through, like a particularly vicious arrow shot out of a compound bow.
“What?”
“I didn’t mean that as an insult,” Grant said, and Wyatt could tell that he meant it. “I only mean that it’s one of the things that I always admired about you, Wyatt. You do what pleases you. You don’t worry about higher callings and things like that. You took off when you were seventeen and pursued your dream in the rodeo.”
Wyatt could only stand there stunned. Shocked that his brother thought that about him. That he was convinced that Wyatt had left because it was something he wanted more than being with his family.
But then, he had dealt with some similar things with Luke Hollister, his friend and surrogate brother, a couple of months ago, when they’d fought about Wyatt abandoning the ranch.
Luke had felt like he held the place together while Wyatt had gone off and done whatever he felt like.
It made him wonder if everyone thought he was just a raging asshole who did whatever he felt like and he didn’t consider anyone else. He supposed he had never done anything to combat that assumption, but he wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to do either. Things were complicated, and for whatever reason that all shook out to look simple to everyone around him.
He didn’t know what in hell to do about that.
“I tried to do the right thing,” Grant said, his voice wooden. “Don’t get me wrong—I wanted to. I really wanted to be there for Lindsay. I wanted to marry her. But... I also didn’t see another way. That life... That life that we had... That was all the life she was going to get, Wyatt. At the end of the day, it was her only chance at being married. I don’t know what it’s left me with. That’s the problem. I knew how to center my life around her. How to center things around a limited amount of time. But I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with myself after.” Grant shook his head. “Sometimes I would look at your life, and I would think...what must that be like? To walk around not caring at all? For it to not matter whether or not anyone else thinks you’re a good guy. I don’t know why you would start worrying about it now.”
Anger burned in Wyatt’s gut, but he didn’t know what to do with it. He didn’t want to get into discussions of all the skeletons that he had in his metaphorical closet. Didn’t want to confess to Grant that he’d done about the worst thing in the entire world to their father and had spent half a lifetime making up for it. That he had to leave. He certainly hadn’t chosen to because he wanted to. And what was the point in trying to convince his younger brother that he was a good guy? His younger brother who was—in kind of an awful way—trying to give him a compliment. Trying to tell him that he envied him.
“This isn’t about doing the right thing,” he said, and that at least was true. “This is about not screwing up what I’m trying to build here. I think I need Lindy’s help to make it all go.”
“Okay,” Grant said. “And you think that a fling with her would prevent you from doing that?”
“I don’t know. But it’s a generally bad precedent.”
“I’m kind of disappointed,” Grant said.
“Why?”
“You’re my bad behavior idol. I was hoping that you would keep on with it.”
Wyatt didn’t know what the hell to do with that. Not at all. And he stewed on it for the rest of the time he was out with Grant and Jamie working on the fence.
And then he wondered, if maybe this all wasn’t the problem he thought it was. Maybe he was trying too hard to fight his nature. Maybe there was no damned point.
He was acting like Lindy was some fragile ornaments set up on a shelf. She’d been under his skin for five damned years, and now there was no barrier to touching her except the ones that he’d created. And why? Because he was trying to be a nice guy?
He didn’t think that was the case, but now he wondered. And hell, if his own brother thought that wasn’t a good look on him, it probably wasn’t.
So here he was, caught in this hell of trying to deal with what his father had set out before him. Trying to make something of this place, and trying to limit his sexual urges all at the same time. And to what end?
If sex wasn’t a big deal, then sex with Lindy wasn’t a big deal either. There was no point treating her like she was special. Treating her like there was a tall fence built up around her. No point at all.
Maybe that’s why he was having difficulty figuring out how to handle all this. He was trying to be something he wasn’t.
And maybe some of it was that he had placed Lindy in an untouchable category a long time ago. That was pointless too. It was a game he wasn’t going to play, not anymore.
He knew who he was. His brother had just recited his list of sins to him, and Grant only knew the half of it.
Maybe that was the problem. This total reinvention. Maybe that was why his teeth were set on edge. He might have left the rodeo, but he was still himself. Working toward something permanent here didn’t change that.
What he wanted with Lindy... That was something temporary. Something hot and temporary.
It wasn’t enough to simply make sure she acknowledged the heat between them. Wasn’t enough to make her dream of him. No.
He was going to seduce her.
And he was going to have a hell of a good time doing it.
* * *
GOING TO THE Gold Valley Saloon for the second time in as many weeks was not generally Lindy’s thing. But as clarifying as the other day had been for her, she still felt like she needed to drink off some of her tension on Friday night.
This time she had managed to rally Sabrina to accompany her, Bea and Olivia to the bar.
Though, even by 7:30, Olivia was looking a little bit worse for wear, her pregnancy making it difficult for her to stay out late. Or to stay out at all. But, she had agreed to make an effort, since they didn’t see her as often now that she wasn’t working at the winery.
Her morning sickness was making it too difficult for her to be on her feet all day, and she was neck deep in helping her husband, Luke, get their new ranching operation up and running. Which included...fencing and cows, so it seemed to Lindy.
Lindy had never seen Olivia happier. In fact, before she had ended up with Luke, Lindy wasn’t sure she had ever seen Olivia truly happy. She had always been uptight, tense and brittle. Being with Luke brought out a different side to her. That was the kind of thing that Lindy couldn’t even imagine—a relationship bringing out something better in you.
She could imagine a relationship expanding horizons. She’d had one of those. But she wouldn’t say that Damien had made her a better version of herself. Sometimes she thought he had schooled her into a much more difficult version of herself than she needed to be.
Someone stiff and confined, someone she was just now beginning to shed ever so slightly.
She was starting to find that middle ground, she thought. Between her past, trailer trash self and the little Stepford wife Damien had molded her into.
But, she wasn’t going to think about that. Not now. She wasn’t going to think about him at all. She was having a girls’ night out, and she was going to enjoy herself. Thinking about Damien pretty much ensured that she wouldn’t.
“Okay,” Sabrina said, returning to the table with three bottles of beer and a Diet Coke. The Coke was for Olivia, who didn’t drink even when she wasn’t pregnant, so it didn’t make Lindy feel terribly guilty about imbibing in front of her.
“I’m glad that you were able to come out,” Sabrina said. “You usually avoid things like this.”
“I’m usually too busy,” Lindy said. “There’s a difference between being too busy and avoiding.”
“Is there? I feel like your busyness is pretty artful.”
“It’s not artful,” Lindy said. “It’s just that I like work, so letting myself get consumed with it is easy. But I really, really needed to get out tonight. So. Thank you all for being here.”
“Cheers,” Bea said, grabbing hold of the beer bottle and holding it out.
The others followed suit.
“Is this related to Damien?” Bea asked.
Lindy shot her a deadly glare.
“I already know,” Sabrina said, looking down into her beer bottle. “Sorry.”
“Know what?” Olivia asked.
“That Damien’s new wife is pregnant.” Bea put it out there simple and matter-of-factly, as Bea was wont to do.
Lindy winced. Except, it didn’t hurt, so the wince had been reflexive more than necessary. “Well, I thought you might know,” Lindy said, directing that to Sabrina. “Considering he’s your brother and all.” She sighed heavily. “You know, this is really messed up. Because you should be happy that you’re having a niece or nephew. And it’s really not the baby’s fault that Damien sucks.”
“I know,” Sabrina said, grimacing. “And I am. But it’s... I’m mad at him, you know? He really hurt you. And whatever I know logically doesn’t make that not true. But we’re the baby’s aunts either way.”
Bea nodded. “Yeah. But, for what it’s worth, I still like you better than I like him.”
“You don’t have to do that either,” Lindy said. “You don’t have to choose between us.”
“I know that. But the truth is we’re stuck with him,” Sabrina said. “We chose you.”
“And I thought I had created a tangled family situation,” Olivia marveled.
“Right. How are Luke and Bennett navigating each other now?”
“It’s fine,” Olivia said. “Really, I think the two of us were only together because we were trying desperately not to be with the people we were supposed to be with. I knew... I always wanted Luke. I just didn’t want to acknowledge it. And Bennett and Kaylee... I think they were always meant to be together.”
“See,” Lindy said. “You didn’t cause family drama. You brought two people together who needed to be together, while finding the person you were meant to be with.”
“It felt a lot like drama when it happened,” Olivia said.
“Well. I can see how it did.”
They were silent for a moment. It was funny to all hang out. She was Sabrina’s boss, technically. Olivia’s ex-boss, and Bea was quite a bit younger than she was. They didn’t normally hang out socially like this. But, it wasn’t bad. It was good, in fact.
That was another thing that Lindy had lost over the course of her marriage. She had lost friends. Friends it turned out had only been with her because she was a Leighton. Who had only liked her because of Damien and the connections that he brought. And who—when it had all gone down—had sided with him.
Yes. She had kept the house. The winery. But in so many ways it had been like starting over.
For some reason, that made her think of Wyatt. And the fact that there were certain other things she was starting to miss. Things that would also be starting over.
Not relationships but...
As if he had been summoned by the force of her thoughts, the bar door opened and in he strode. Wyatt Dodge. Followed by Bennett, and Luke Hollister.
And it was like... Like the first time.
She hated to think about that first time. Because it made her feel...imbalanced. Because it reminded her that there was something between her and Wyatt that went beyond explanation. That went beyond anything she had ever felt before.
Their roles were reversed, as opposed to their first meeting. He was the one walking in the door, and she was the one sitting there. But, just like that night five years ago their eyes met.
It didn’t matter that there were two equally good-looking men flanking him. Wyatt was the one that reached inside of her and turned things all around.
Wyatt was the one that made it hard for her to breathe.
That made her breasts feel heavy and the space between her thighs feel hollow. Instantly. Maddeningly. Wyatt was the one who made her feel ruined with an upward tilt of those gorgeous lips of his. Wyatt was the one who made her feel destroyed by one hot look from those dark brown eyes.
She had been married for ten long years. Her husband’s body had become familiar. She’d thought that was a good thing.
But now...now she was suddenly obsessed with the possibility of something new. The first time she’d met Wyatt, being enticed by someone new had felt like a failure. She was married. And her prenuptial agreement had been structured the way it was because her mother-in-law had been convinced bad blood would win out, in the end.
That she would be inclined to stray if there were no repercussions, because that was what low-class women did.
Ironic, now that she knew a little bit more about her mother-in-law’s infidelities. Of course, that made some things make more sense. It was always the failings in yourself you judged most harshly in others.
It was better to put all that on Lindy. On a no-account piece of trailer trash.
It was one of the many reasons her visceral reaction to Wyatt five years ago had felt so very, very wrong.
Why she was resisting the feelings now. But what if she didn’t?
What if for a moment she didn’t?
What would it be like to be with another man? To touch an unfamiliar body.
Wyatt was...unknown. Lindy was normally too much of a control freak to be enticed by the unknown. She didn’t like feeling out of her league either. Not now. Not now that she’d learned how to adapt. How to hide it when she was feeling insecure or confused.
If Wyatt touched her, she wouldn’t be able to think, let alone keep up an act.
She wondered what she would find if she peeled that shirt over his head? If she undid his belt buckle, slid the zipper down and...
“Are you okay?”
Lindy looked over at Sabrina and blinked. “Fine.”
“You looked like you were on another planet.”
Not on another planet, just entrenched deeply in a fantasy that she had no business having.
“I didn’t... It’s fine.”
Olivia had brightened considerably at the sight of Luke. And Luke’s presence made Lindy wonder if this was coincidental at all.
Granted, in small towns chance meetings happened frequently. But...
This didn’t feel like chance.
But then, for some reason the first time she had met Wyatt didn’t feel like chance either.
It had felt like lightning. Like a convergence in the road. But it hadn’t felt like chance.
The men wandered over to their table, Bennett looking somewhat sheepish, Luke grinning at his wife and Wyatt still staring right at her.
He didn’t do anything to minimize the intensity. Didn’t pretend he didn’t have his sights set directly on her.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” she returned, lifting her beer bottle to her lips.
And then, she inhaled it. She choked, slamming the bottle back down on the table and lurching forward, coughing uncontrollably and inwardly cursing as she hacked and hacked and tried to get control over her body.
But then, there was a large, warm hand placed in the middle of her back, certain, sure fingers sliding down the length of her spine. Oh lord. If the coughing didn’t kill her the shame from having a full-body reaction to fingertips brushing down her spine would.
He’d touched her face on the trail ride. But that was the only time. Until now.
It was...
And then he patted her.
Like she was a dog.
“Breathe, honey,” he said.
She turned her head slightly, her face a couple of inches from his. “I am breathing,” she said, her throat convulsing one more time.
“Yeah, the trick is to breathe after you swallow the beer. Not while you’re taking a sip.”
“I will end you,” she said, the threat falling flat as she wheezed through it.
“I don’t doubt you.” But the patronizing tone and the cocky grin on his face said that he did.
“Mind if we join you?” Luke asked, but they were already pulling up chairs and sitting down around the too-small table.
“Seeing as I’m your wife,” Olivia said, “I would be slightly offended if you didn’t.”
“No,” Sabrina said. “Rules of girls’ night. No husbands. Mine is sulking at home.”
“That’s cute,” Luke said. “Yours minds.”
Olivia made an exasperated noise. “I’m sorry. Mine isn’t house-trained.”
“There’s one room of the house I’m pretty well trained in.” His grin turned slightly feral. “The rest... Not so much. But...what I’m good at keeps me out of trouble.”
Olivia turned beet red. “This is what I have to put up with.”
“If I would have known this was an ambush,” Bennett said. “I would have brought Kaylee.”
“It wasn’t meant to be an ambush,” Wyatt said. “Just a chance meeting.” But, Lindy could tell that he was lying.
Bennett went off to procure drinks and the others were making conversation. Lindy lowered her voice, so that only Wyatt could hear her. “Own your own BS, Dodge,” she said. “Or you’re not half the man I was led to believe you were.”
“Honey, I have a feeling I’m twice the man you’re imagining I am.”
“Can you let one double entendre slide by?”
“No, I can’t. It would be a disservice to the conversation. Just think, some people get together and spend the entire evening on bland, dull exchanges. When you’re with me, you can be certain that’ll never happen. Nothing with me is bland or dull.”
“Right. Neither is it simple chance. Are you stalking me?”
“Yes,” he said, grinning.
She did not know what to do with that, and rather than making her angry, his answer sent her stomach tumbling down to her toes. She took a deep breath, as if the force of the suction might call it back up. “That... I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to that.”
“Say you’re flattered?”
“Why would I be flattered by...that.”
“Because, secretly, I think that’s what you want. You want me to have arranged to meet up with you here. You want this to be on purpose. But, you’d like to sit there and act indignant, pretend you’re irritated with me. It excites you.”
“It...it does not excite me.”
“Yes it does.”
“Do you see any confetti? Have I blown up even one balloon, Dodge? There are no signs of excitement anywhere.”
“Sure there are,” he said, leaning in, his brown eyes intense on hers. “First of all, your pupils are dilated, your breathing is kind of shallow. I can see your pulse—” He lifted his hand, pressed his thumb to the base of her neck. She inhaled sharply. “Careful,” he said, his voice soft, almost a whisper. “Don’t want to choke again.”
No one was watching them. Thank God. She looked around furtively, taking great comfort in the fact that Luke seemed to be entertaining the entire table, and that Bennett had not yet returned from the bar.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I just told you.”
“Stalking me isn’t an answer. Particularly when we both know it isn’t true. But, I do think that you’re here on purpose at the same time I am.”
“Guilty,” he responded. “Luke knew that you’d be here. Because of Olivia.”
“Great. I have a Benedict Arnold in the ranks.”
“In fairness she didn’t mean to. But, Luke came by earlier and he happened to casually mention that Olivia was going out with you. So I hatched a plan.”
“Why?” She was getting desperate for an answer to that question. Because they had been dancing around each other for a long time. And she didn’t think there was any good reason for them to stop dancing around each other. For them to dance toward each other. Or whatever it would actually be.
She should tell him to go away. She should dump what remained of her beer in his lap and walk out of the bar.
But she didn’t move. Instead, she sat there, staring at him. At the planes and angles of his handsome face, at the enticing curve of his mouth. The only part of him that didn’t look sculpted, hard. No, it looked like it would mold right to hers. Or like it would mobilize easily to take control, to force her to conform to his shape.
She shivered.
And she knew without a doubt that he noticed that too.
He didn’t miss anything. That was the scary thing about Wyatt Dodge. He played the part of cocky, easygoing cowboy. But there was an intensity to him that she could sense, vibrating beneath the surface. She wondered if anyone else did. She wondered if anyone knew what was beneath all of that laid-back, lazy cowboy charm he showed the world.
She had felt it the moment she had first seen him. In that second his eyes had first connected with hers.
Like she understood.
One person wrapped in a created shell to another.
They were different shells, that was for sure. But the reality of it remained the same.
Wyatt looked away from her, and she followed his gaze, to Bennett, who was standing at the edge of the table, holding drinks, and appraising them both with a speculative look on his face.
“Have a seat,” Wyatt said, his tone hard.
“Sure,” Bennett said, plunking down in the chair next to Wyatt. “Talking serious ranch and vineyard business?”
“Yes,” Lindy said. “More about the grand opening.”
The lie slipped smooth and easy through her lips. She didn’t consider herself a liar by nature, but she was very good at keeping interaction smooth. She didn’t like being caught off guard, and she didn’t like it when someone else steered the interaction. Because of that, she had gotten very good at commanding subject changes, and giving easy, innocuous answers that would allow them to slide forward in the conversation without getting hung up on any metaphorical rocks.
“Yeah,” Wyatt agreed. “Lindy has agreed to a karaoke competition. I’m going to sing ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.’ She’s going to sing ‘Shake It Off.’”
Lindy treated him to an evil glare. “We were not discussing any such thing,” she said to Bennett. “Mostly because if I sang you really would be so lonesome you could cry, Wyatt, as all of the guests would leave.”
“Music not your thing?”
She shook her head and laughed, picking up her beer bottle. “Not remotely.”
“I’m sure you have other talents,” Bennett said, his tone was completely innocent, but she and Wyatt looked at each other, and the heat in his eyes was anything but innocent.
“Sure,” she said, taking another quick swallow of beer.
Somehow, she managed to extricate herself from the verbal triangle they had going and to loop in the rest of the table on the conversation so that she could manage to get some kind of relief from so much direct interaction with Wyatt. Except he was still sitting next to her with the heat of his body radiating onto hers.
He shifted, and his arm brushed against hers, a zing of attraction firing through her.
She spent the rest of the evening with sparks running through her blood. And she wished more than anything that it would just stop.
But she didn’t move away from Wyatt either.
About an hour after the guys had joined them, Luke and Olivia excused themselves. Olivia was tired, so she said, but Lindy had a feeling the actual reason was that Luke wanted to go have some alone time with his wife.
Either way, that shrunk the group. Bennett said his goodbyes after that, wanting to get back home to Kaylee—who had been on call that evening—and his son, Dallas.
That left Sabrina, Bea, Wyatt and Lindy.
The buffer had been reduced, and Lindy really didn’t need that.
“I need to head back to Copper Ridge,” Sabrina said. “Liam will probably already be asleep. Or about to be. And that makes him cranky.”
“I can catch a ride with you,” Bea said. “I have to be at the clinic early.”
Was this a setup? Was she being set up by her friends? She was going to... Well... Nothing, because they were gathering their things and leaving and if she said something it was going to be obvious that she was really put out that they were leaving her.
“We were having so much fun,” she said, grinning widely. Fakely.
“Yeah,” Bea said. “But I’m tired.”
“I can drive you...”
“I’ve got it,” Sabrina said, far too cheerful.
Lindy doubted Bea had any idea what was going on, but Sabrina was orchestrating something. Sabrina was far from innocent.
Less than thirty seconds later she was sitting at the table. Alone. With Wyatt.
“I think you planned this too,” she said.
“I swear I didn’t,” he responded.
“Really?”
“It’s not my fault if everyone is invested in us hooking up.”
“Everyone is not invested in that.”
“My brother Grant is.”
She rolled her eyes. “Really? Or are you just saying that because Grant has become a strange pawn in this thing.”
“No,” Wyatt said. “I’m not just saying that.”
“He knows that we’re not going to...actually have a relationship, right?” Just saying that felt like it had a cost to it, because it was acknowledging the fact that there was an attraction between them. And acknowledging that to herself was hard enough. Actually saying it to Wyatt was another thing entirely. It was much better to be annoyed with him.
Except... He had not only been sexy the other day on the trail ride, he had been downright... Well, not horrible. The things he had asked her. The subjects he had brought up. He had been interesting. He had seemed interested in her.
As more than simply a female body he would like to get up on.
She would never have expected such a thing of him. She had lumped him in with the rodeo guys. And, she had a feeling that assessment was somewhat fair. But there was more to him too. That depth again.
“Oh, I don’t think Grant expects for one moment I’m going to magically transform into a relationship guy,” Wyatt said, his tone dry. “But, he thinks that I’m wandering around being a surly asshole because I’m sexually frustrated.”
“Really?”
Wyatt let out a long, slow sigh, and Lindy was suddenly conscious of the fact that they were still sitting right next to each other, even though now they didn’t have to be.
She didn’t move.
Neither did he.
“Cards on the table,” he said. “I’m attracted to you.”
If she’d grabbed hold of her hair and found it on fire she wouldn’t have been shocked. Her whole head felt hot. “Well. I’m...female. And stuff. Men like you have a pretty low bar.”
“You’re attracted to me,” he continued, as if she hadn’t just insulted him.
Her throat tightened, a lump forming at the base of it. She felt like she’d swallowed a hedgehog. But what was she going to say to that? It was stupid to pretend she didn’t find him attractive. Any woman would.
Denying it made it personal. Denying it made it bigger than oh hey look at that hot guy. She didn’t want it to be bigger than that.
“So what?” She lifted a shoulder. “I’m attracted to brownies. I’m attracted to doughnuts. But, I still have to eat damn salad if I want to maintain my health.”
“You can eat brownies sometimes.”
She growled. “That’s incredibly pragmatic and annoying. I’m trying to come up with metaphors on the fly with a beer coursing through my system.”
“Stop talking in metaphor,” he said. “Let’s talk literally. You want me. Why don’t you want to let yourself have me?”
“I’m not...” She clamped her mouth back shut when she realized she had literally been about to say she wasn’t that kind of girl. “I’m still navigating what my life looks like post-divorce. I haven’t figured out where all that stuff’s at yet.”
“Are you telling me you haven’t been with anyone else since the divorce?”
Her face got hot. “I really don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“We’re having a conversation about sex,” he said. “About the fact that I would like to pursue that with you. I think it’s a fair enough question.”
Her face was on fire. It had to be. That was the only way to explain the heat burning in her cheeks. “I’m going to go now,” she said, standing up, her heart hammering, her blood running hot and reckless.
Again, she felt like she was trapped in some strange time parallel. Where she was both back in the past, and in the present.
Experiencing that intense, overwhelming sense of desire she had felt the first time she’d seen Wyatt, and the crushing regret that she knew would result from acting on it.
“Lindy...”
He reached out to grab her arm, but she pulled away from him and walked toward the bar, taking out money and putting three twenties on the counter, which she knew would be more than enough. Then, she clutched her purse tightly to her body, trying to hold herself together as she walked out the front door of the saloon.
“Lindy,” came Wyatt’s insistent voice from behind her. “Wait.”
“Walk fast or get left behind, Dodge,” she said, continuing on down the sidewalk.
The street had been crowded when she had arrived and she’d had to park at the end of Main Street. Walking alone at night in Gold Valley didn’t scare her. In this town, the only ambushes that happened were unfortunate run-ins with people who wanted to add you to their yearly family Christmas card list.
“All right,” he said, catching up to her easily. He was over six feet tall, there was no way he wasn’t going to catch up with her. And easily. She sighed heavily, but continued to walk, stepping purposefully in the center of one of the pools of light on the sidewalk, cast there from one of the streetlamps.
“What’s the worst that would happen?” he asked. “If you and I were to sleep together while we worked on this project.”
She reached the end of the sidewalk, standing next to her little car. She turned away from it, looking at the large Victorian house that sat at the end of the block, a large house that had stood empty for years. There was a For Sale sign out front. “Look at that,” she said. “That house is finally for sale. It’s just been standing there forever. No one doing anything with it. What a waste.”
“You’re deflecting,” he said. “But, as a matter of fact, that’s exactly how I feel about you and me. About this thing between us. It’s just been sitting there, unused for a long damn time. Seems a shame to waste something like that.”
She looked over at him finally, their gazes colliding in the dark. His face looked even more chiseled right now, the only light coming from the streetlamp behind him. It forced those cheekbones, the hollows in his face into sharper relief. Somehow made his scars look deeper, more obvious.
“That isn’t how I...do things.” Except... She didn’t have an answer about why. She had met Damien, she had fallen for Damien. She had married him. Because she had...loved him so much? Or she had loved everything that had come with him so much, anyway.
Sometimes she wondered if she was a gold digger. Or if part of her was. Not that she hadn’t loved him. She had, really and truly. But, there had been something so enticing and attractive about this whole new life coming with a marriage. Not simply a husband, but all of that opportunity. She would be lying if she said she would have married a poor man just as quickly.
A man who could offer her nothing but more of the same life she had already lived.
In addition to that, she hadn’t cried since the divorce. There had always been some distance between Damien and herself. There was distance between her and everyone.
She wondered what that said about her sometimes.
But, then she went back out to work on her land, and she decided she didn’t care. She spent an awful lot of time worrying about who she was and why. What people thought.
Damien had cheated on her with a younger woman and walked around with his head held high. Hung out with the same friends, went to the same restaurants, with his new wife on his arm. He didn’t worry. He wasn’t ashamed.
Why did she worry?
Why was she still worried she’d never been worthy of him in the first place? That this was somehow her fault when she knew full well it wasn’t.
“But what if you did?” he asked, taking a step closer to her, reaching out and cupping her chin, tilting her face upward.
She could take a step away from him. She should. He wasn’t holding on to her tightly, he was simply holding her, the warmth from his touch spreading from where he was making contact with her, through the rest of her body.
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
I could get hurt.
Except she didn’t need anything from Wyatt. Nothing but his body, anyway. If, in theory, she were to give in to their attraction. He couldn’t take anything from her. Not her house, not her land. And if she didn’t love him he couldn’t take her self-respect, he couldn’t take her heart and he couldn’t give her any pain.
Really, what was the point of going through the trauma of betrayal in a ten-year marriage if you didn’t learn something from it? If she knew this was only going to be physical. Only temporary...
What was the worst that could happen?
“I...”
He leaned in, his face a whisper from hers. And oh...the way he smelled. Like sunshine and hay. Hard work and something that was unique to him. Only him.
She wondered if he would taste just the same.
She was about to find out, she knew. He was leaning in, so close now.
She wanted... She wanted to kiss him.
She wanted to kiss another man, finally. To take that step to move on. But more than that, she wanted to kiss Wyatt Dodge more than she wanted to breathe.
And bless him for taking the control. Something she never thought she would think, ever. But he was going to take the decision away from her, and she wasn’t going to have to answer his questions, wasn’t going to have to do a single thing other than stand there and be kissed.
She was ready.
He squeezed her chin gently, pressing his thumb down on her lower lip, and then he released his hold on her, taking a step back. “Think on it,” he said.
“I... What?”
But he was already moving away from her. “Think on it, Lindy,” he said, turning around and strolling away from her.
Leaving her standing between the real estate sign that had served as some kind of metaphor for their attraction, and her little car that served as a metaphor for her freedom.
All alone.
She looked around, incredulous. But the street was empty, and there was no one to shout her outrage to.
And damn that man, she still wanted him to kiss her.