Chapter Six
Pueblo came and went. He’d ridden hard this weekend and had the bruises to show for it, but he wasn’t in the money, and his frustration was riding high on several fronts. The mediocre riding. Tour management’s greater than usual demands on his time for meet and greets and local interviews.
Rowan.
Rowan had been there both days and they’d talked as usual, and she’d sat with him and Paulo and Huck, as usual, and she drank with them in the hotel bar afterward—which wasn’t that normal but he’d take it.
She was staying with the bulls on a ranch outside the city limits and there was no sneaking away from there, or so she said. No turning up there on his part either. Not if they wanted to keep their relationship under wraps.
Rowan’s call and he’d abide by it, and by God he hated it.
All he wanted to do was roll her beneath him and drive himself home. Spend time with her alone. Watch her wake up beside him, her hair a silken cloud on the pillow and her shoulder tucked beneath his.
She’d kissed him once this weekend when no one had been looking and it almost undid him.
He was over thirty years old and he felt like he was fifteen again and sneaking around stealing kisses from the preacher’s daughter. There were too many eyes on him. There was no damn time to do anything except be restless with wanting and to sneak glances when he thought no one was looking, except there were people looking and Rowan’s father was only one of them.
Alicia the sharp-eyed and Gisele the softly knowing. Jock Morgan, Mab’s father, had taken to watching. Plenty of the other riders had noticed Casey’s agitation and a fair number had guessed the cause of it.
He took their ribbing in stride. Not as if he hadn’t dished out his share of it.
No point protesting this was different.
Even if it was different.
He spent his nights alone and restless and his days second-guessing every move he made.
There was no point staying down south after Pueblo, what with a three-week break before the next leg of the tour. Omaha, Deadwood, Billings—those were some of the stops coming up and they were practically in his backyard, not that anyone else in his family thought so. He could count on one hand the number of times his family had come to see him ride.
Jett had dragged their father along to Billings once. His brother Seth had watched him ride in Deadwood. Seth had been down that way already, hunting feature wood for a client. Casey hadn’t come anywhere near the money that time, sprained his wrist instead, but they’d ended up painting the town red regardless. Too many beers spread out amongst a small band of rodeo brothers and one real brother who’d taken the time to come and support him. It was why Casey never said no when Seth was a laborer short and needed a hand. It was why he defended Jett’s right to come and go and train and live the way he wanted to.
The sting of two older brothers with tongues that cut a little too deep and a habit of mocking other people’s success was why Casey only lasted two days back home this time before taking off for the cabin. He said it was because he needed to make sure it was in good repair before the first of the summer hikers came through. He wanted to check for leaks, tidy it up, see what the melt was doing.
He needed to keep moving. If he was moving he didn’t have to think about where he was going with Rowan and what he was doing.
He spent the first day at the cabin getting snow off the roof. Day two he started shoveling it off the porch and away from the doors. He lit a fire and chased the damp away, drove into Marietta and came back with enough non-perishable food to restock the pantry and the freezer.
Come dusk he stood at the door and looked out over the valley and tried to pretend he didn’t love it as much as he did. Tried to figure how he might one day get back here and be his own man, local livestock vet, breeding specialist, wildlife ranger. Something.
He thought of Rowan and her big brown eyes and expressive face. Pleasure or insecurity—everything showed on it, no wonder she wore a cap so often and tugged the brim low. Hid her perfect body beneath baggy, unisex clothes, although she was doing a little less of that these days.
When she wasn’t working the back pens at the show she might these days show up for socializing, often with Alicia Flores, sometimes with Kit’s wife Gisele. Still wouldn’t be seen leaving with him, for all that she’d talk to him in public, spend time with him, favor him.
And screw with him in secret until they were both a quivering mess.
She’d be going on a road trip during the break, she’d said. Hunting down the last of the signatures she needed before firming up pictures for a coffee table bull riders book she and Alicia were working on. The AEBR were sponsoring it and held part copyright of some of the pictures. A Colorado publisher was doing the rest.
There was no money in it, Rowan had told him with a hint of defiance. The advance would barely buy her a new outfit, not that she needed one, because she now had three dresses overall, she’d told him. She was tackling the project because she got to meet new people far removed from the sport of bull riding. She was spreading her wings. Trying on new identities for size and liking the fit.
He’d always encouraged it.
He wanted her to fly.
She was taking a week-long photography course with some famous photojournalist or other soon.
Professional development course, she’d said, and there’d been that smile he knew so well because he had one just like it. Defiance in the face of opposition. She wasn’t even expecting him to understand the opportunity she’d been given or the considerable amount of hard work and talent it had taken to get there.
Not expecting anyone to look close enough.
She was in Seattle this week. He knew as much because he damn well did listen during the foreplay and afterplay of their clandestine relationship. He listened to every word she said, never mind if he could barely keep his lips and hands off her. He listened because they were words spoken just for him.
When his phone rang the next morning, he wasn’t expecting it to be Rowan. If she phoned, she did it in the evening from the confines of her bedroom or a hotel room. Wasn’t her anyway, it was his mother’s voice he heard and he closed his eyes and rubbed at the frown lines between his eyes, because his mother had been uncharacteristically quiet around him lately, all worried eyes and furtive looks and he didn’t know why. He was all right. Doing well, all things considered. The woman he couldn’t stop thinking about was treating him like a dirty little secret and he didn’t feel good about that but he hadn’t said no to any of it. He was quite prepared to own his bad decisions outright.
“Mom. What can I do for you?”
“Just wondering whether you’re coming back down the mountain anytime soon.”
“Wasn’t planning to until Friday. Still doing some tidy-up. Cold got to the hot water pipes again.”
“Can you make it any earlier? You have a visitor and she’s here in my kitchen, nervous as a half-wild kitten and not real sure of her welcome. It pains me to say that I don’t know enough about your social life to know whether you want her here or not. Her name’s Rowan Harper.”
He stopped dead, leaking water pipes forgotten. “Rowan Harper is sitting in your kitchen?”
“That’s what I said. Who is she?”
“She’s, ah—”
His mother waited, but he didn’t know what word to choose.
“—she can be there. I mean, I don’t mind that she’s in your kitchen. I’m a little surprised, but it’s not a problem. For me. Is it a problem for you?”
“Very lucid of you, Tomas.”
He was getting there.
“What exactly should I be doing with her?” his mother asked. “Should I put out the good tableware? Offer her a bed for the night? Screen her for potential daughter-in-law status?”
What the hell? “Just give her a drink and keep her there. I’m coming to get her. And don’t let Cal or Mason hit on her or I swear to God I’ll relieve them of their teeth.”
“Ah,” his mother said quietly, and he didn’t even want to know what an ah like that meant. “Well, I was going to point her in your direction but I will confess to suddenly having a burning desire to see you in the same room together. See you soon, Tomas. I’ll make cookies.”
“No, Mom. Send her up. That’ll work.” Rowan was country born. She’d find her way. The road wasn’t that slippery. “Send her up!”
But he was talking to a dial tone.
*
Rowan looked up from the bone china teacup that was so thin and fine she could see the outline of her fingers through it. The cup was full of tea and liberally laced with sugar but she’d put it back down almost as soon as she picked it up. What if the handle broke or something sloshed? What if Casey’s mother could see at a glance the callouses on Rowan’s hands? Callouses that never seemed to go away no matter how many times she wore gloves when she worked.
The kitchen she was sitting in was a cheerful, sunshiny place to be. Clean but messy, mainly because Casey’s mother had been putting groceries away when Rowan arrived. Mail on the counter, pen and paper next to it. A lived-in kitchen in a regular ranch house, nothing fussy.
And nothing whatsoever like her own sparse, barely functional cooking space back home.
Casey’s mother had left the room to call Tomas down from some ridge or other, where he’d been working, and when the older woman had returned … that’s when the good china had come out and the madness had started and what had he said to his mother about her?
The kitchen table in front of Rowan was loaded with cookies the size of her hand. They were piled high atop a fancy serving plate, the kind people put on a sideboard in a formal dining room, and the teapot had real tea in it and the pattern on the outside of the teapot matched the pattern on the cup and the pattern on the milk jug, and the sugar cubes had a set of tiny silver tongs to go with it, and more cookies were in the oven now and the smell was making her stomach rumble, and Casey’s mother with the Southern accent was insisting Rowan call her Savannah and what was happening?
Rowan had already disclosed the fact that she traveled the AEBR circuit as a stock contractor, and from that point on the older woman had peppered Rowan with questions about bulls, about life on the road, about Casey’s riding, and about sponsorship. Questions a mother should already know the answers to, what with a son who’d been on the pro bull-riding circuit for the best part of the last four years.
Rowan’s knowledge of what mothers should know about their grown sons was sketchy at best, but surely they should know more than sweet jack all?
And then the back door opened and at first she thought it was Casey, only it wasn’t. This guy was dark-haired and well built but his face wasn’t nearly as arresting. The cocksure swagger Casey wore so well was missing. The guy blinked at the table groaning with food and fine china but recovered swiftly enough to send her a nod as he grabbed a cookie. “Ma’am. Mom.”
“My eldest son, Mason,” Casey’s mother told her. “Mason, this is Tomas’s friend Rowan. From the bull-riding tour.”
Mason came forward. He had a nice smile and a firm hand and his gaze was curious but careful too. Careful not to check her out. Wary for reasons of his own.
“Rowan’s been telling me how sponsorship works,” Casey’s mother said next. “She says Tomas’s main sponsorship deal was worth around ninety thousand to him last year.”
Rowan saw Casey’s brother wince out of the corner of her eye, but then he turned and headed for the kitchen and grabbed a coffee mug from the drying rack. When she turned back to Casey’s mother, the older woman was staring down at her hands, her shoulders a little more rounded than they had been before.
“He’s doing well though, this year,” Mason said gruffly, without turning around. “Real well.”
“If you could just talk to him about taking the money—”
“Not now, Mom. I’ll get to him later.” Brother Mason’s gaze swung back toward Rowan, coolly aloof. “We have a visitor now.”
Families were fascinating to Rowan. This one more than most.
“Yes, he’s riding well. Tomas.” She said his name aloud because he was Tomas here, amongst so many other Caseys, and she needed to get used to that. “He’s pulling in prize money, maybe even enough to cover the sponsorship loss, but it’s not just about money, you know?” Or maybe they didn’t know. “His reputation took a hit when he didn’t show for last year’s finals. Part-time cowboy, they call him now. Ungrateful for the chances he’s been given. He disappointed a lot of fans and even though he’s back and riding well, not all of them are interested in getting behind him again. They think he’s inconsiderate.”
She met big brother Mason’s hard stare with utter calm. “And don’t get me started on how much trouble he was in with the tour managers for not showing up, and not telling them why until later. To be fair, I daresay he knew what he was doing. The AEBR’s promo machine would have milked his father’s death for all it was worth, so at least he protected you from that circus. But don’t believe for one minute that he’s not wearing that decision this season. Doors that were once open to him are now closed.”
“The timing of the funeral couldn’t be changed,” big brother Mason grated.
“Yeah, I figured. I’m sure you tried,” she said and watched as a dull red flush crept across brother Mason’s face.
Oh.
Guess they hadn’t tried.
“Rowan’s been telling me about her photography project,” Casey’s mother cut in hurriedly, and as far as a change of topic was concerned it was a good one. Rowan had most of the photos in a folder on her phone and didn’t mind at all if people looked through it.
Rowan had pictures of Casey too, taken in Cheyenne and Pueblo before and after he rode, so she found them on her phone and passed the phone to his mother. Casey had known she was taking them but he didn’t yet know that she wanted one of them for the book. His mother spent a long time looking through them, asking about one aspect of bull riding and the next. The way the draw was set up, the order in which the riders rode. The injuries and what it took to stay at the top and ride every other week and rack up the points, injured or not.
“Casey—er, Tomas,” she corrected at two sets of blank looks. “Tomas was injured early this season with concussion, but was cleared to ride by the next event. A few weeks after that he dislocated his shoulder, but that’s an old injury, and one he’ll likely have to get seen to eventually—especially if he wants to keep riding left-handed the way he sometimes does.” At more blank looks she tried again. “He’s one of only a handful of cowboys in the competition who can ride both left- and right-handed, depending on the bull he draws. It’s his left shoulder he tore. Doesn’t he tell you any of this?”
Silence.
Okay, then.
“I like this picture,” Casey’s mother said, into the silence. “When was this taken?”
It was one of Casey—Tomas—sitting in the dirt with his back against a wall as he trimmed his rope and tried to pretend that his side didn’t hurt like hell and that the bruise on his cheek and the split on his lip didn’t exist.
“That was after one of our bulls, Hammerfall, raked him along a rail. He rode once more that day, and stuck his ride, and then the doc hauled him in for a checkup. There’s a sports medicine team that travels with us. They mostly stop the guys from doing anything too stupid.”
Casey’s mother looked close to crying.
“No one’s looking to deliberately make injuries any worse,” Rowan offered hurriedly. “It’s just … sometimes the guys would rather ride than be sidelined. Sometimes they need to ride because they need the points or the money. The adrenaline helps—lets them ride through the pain and walk away afterward. A bull puts Casey on the ground, he’s going to want to pick himself up and walk out of the arena without help. It’s part of the show. It’s a matter of pride.”
“He always did have a lot of pride,” his mother said faintly. “Even as a little one, he never asked for help when he fell down. He always got back up, dusted himself off and kept right on trying to keep up with his older brothers. I had five boys under seven—and every last one of them a handful. There wasn’t a lot of time or attention to go around, and Tomas was so self-sufficient.”
“He got seen to,” Mason said curtly. “Tomas is fine, Mom. He could have told us what he was giving up by not riding at the end of last year. He chose not to.”
It was official. Rowan didn’t like this brother.
Mason stormed out as Casey—Tomas—came in.
“Whoa,” said Casey, and looked first toward his brother’s retreating form and then at the table filled with all the beautiful things and the mountain of food and then his gaze sought hers and there was a world of confused apology in it. “What’d I miss?”
“Tour talk.”
“You should have called ahead. I’d have made sure I was here.”
She knew that now. Hadn’t before. Figured she’d learned far more about him and his family in the short time she’d been with them in his absence than he ever wanted anyone to know. “That’s true, and I’m sorry for not thinking to. It wasn’t very considerate of me. I have two more photos to select for the picture book project and I haven’t been able to get the signatures I wanted, so I thought I might use photos of you instead. I’ve come to show you the shots and get your approval.”
He hovered by the door, and there might even have been a bit of wistful glancing in the direction his brother had gone, namely back out the door. And then he squared his shoulders and crossed the room, his hand gently caressing her shoulder and his thumb brushing the back of her neck as he bent and placed a sweetly gentle kiss on her lips.
“You know you’re welcome here anytime.” His mother could hear him. Anyone could hear him.
Maybe that was the point.
“Your brother made sandwiches,” his mother said.
“I’ve already eaten.” But he took a cookie and settled into the chair beside Rowan, and looked at the pictures, and nodded absently as she told him how she’d tracked down this person or that, and somewhere amongst the conversation when he said, “Can you stay a night? I have a cabin up the mountain,” it was the easiest thing in the world to say, “Yes.”
His mother got up and filled a basket for them after that. Food from the fridge and wine from the cupboard, and cookies and berries, enough for ten people, and when Casey protested his mother said, “Shush. Let me do this.”
So Rowan watched as Casey stood back awkwardly, hands in his pockets, while his mother fussed. Rowan knew nothing about what mothers did for their children but this seemed ballpark. Food was love. And Savannah Casey was packing a lot of food.
Ten minutes later Casey followed Rowan out the door with the food basket in his hand and walked with her toward her ride. There was another vehicle parked next to it that hadn’t been there earlier—a single-cab truck with a flat top and winch on the back—and he tucked the basket into the top corner and strapped it in.
“Sorry about that,” he muttered.
“Sorry about what?”
“Whatever that was back there. With my mother and all the fuss. She’s usually a lot more chill.”
“I should never have come without calling ahead. That might have helped.”
“Yep. Would have. What are you doing here, Rowan? I was under the impression that all you wanted from me was a tumble every now and then, and absolute secrecy about it afterward.”
“I—yeah.” She nodded jerkily. “I did. I do. Most likely. Or maybe not. I really should have called ahead.” Or driven home another way altogether and not called in on him at all. “I can go.”
“Not what I said.” He leaned back against the side of the truck and shoved his hands in his jeans. “You sought me out. Surely you knew that if you came here I’d claim a relationship with you. This is home turf for me. My rules now, not yours.”
He stood there with the eyes he’d inherited from his mother and those long, long legs. He wasn’t huge around his arms and chest but what was there was all sinewy muscle. Enough strength to stick to the back of a bull with brute force, courage and skill. And then there was his sheer unbreakable will. This man did not let go if he wanted something hard enough, be it eight seconds on a bull or an answer to his question.
“So I’m asking again,” he said quietly. “Why are you here?”
“I missed you. That’s why I’m here.” Once she got started it was easy to continue. “I wanted to know more about you. That’s another reason I’m here.” There was more. “I wanted to tell you I’m not trucking bulls to Omaha next week, so wouldn’t be catching up with you there. That was reason three. Reasons four through eight had something to do with your kisses. I’ve mentioned reason nine already, in that I really do want to use two pictures of you and need your consent. Reason ten is that I’m done trying to keep what I feel for you a secret, and I really should have called ahead to see if you were okay with that, this being your family home and—”
His kiss came hard and hungry, and his arms at her waist were tight bands that held her fast, and she hoped to hell that his mother wasn’t looking out the window or his brother wasn’t over at the barn door looking out.
And then his lips gentled and his thumb caressed the curve of a rib and she gave herself over to saying hello in the way she’d wanted to ever since he’d walked into his mother’s kitchen and looked at her and smiled.
“Get in the truck.” He was lifting her up to make it happen, even as he spoke, and she wrapped her hands around his upper arms and her legs around his waist, which helped them not at all. “Where’s your overnight bag?”
“Over there.” But he was here standing right between her legs, so hard and warm, and she didn’t want to let him go. She drew him down for another kiss and then another, and then he pulled back with a groan and shut the door on her once she was all the way in. There was a thud and the slightest bounce of the cab and that was her carryall stowed in the back, and then he headed for the driver’s side door.
He drove with the careless competence that came of being put behind the wheel young and knowing the road to the extent that he could probably drive it while blindfolded. Snow had left the valley but as they headed up they encountered more and now the all-terrain tires on his vehicle made a lot more sense.
He was rock hard beneath his jeans, legs spread wide, his jaw clenched and there was too much space between the seats otherwise she’d have been tempted to rest her hand on his thigh and let her fingers track the inner seam of his jeans.
“How much further?” she said when they rounded a bend, and drove past a clearing surrounded by trees and largely hidden from the valley below.
“Five more minutes. Ever been parking?”
“No, my father kept me on too tight a leash for that.” Especially after … yeah, Casey probably didn’t need to know about her teenage crushes and the lengths she’d had to go to in order to evade her father’s watchful eye. Her secretiveness wasn’t a new development.
“Want to park now?” he asked, with a glint in his eye that promised deliciousness if she did. Always willing to help her out with new experiences, this man. What a giver.
“Does this mean you’re something of a parking expert?” she asked.
“Four brothers and not a lot of privacy. We made do. That spot back there was particularly popular. You had to book it in advance.”
She blinked. He grinned.
“Nothing worse than headlights coming around the bend when you’re in the middle of something,” he said.
“And were you often in the middle of something?”
“Me? No. Them? Always.”
She didn’t believe him for a minute. Tomas James Casey had game. And he was enjoying teasing her far too much.
“Your mother and Mason didn’t seem to know what you’d given up last year when you chose not to ride,” she said by way of ensuring she lasted five more minutes on the road without putting her hands on him.
The effect of those words was instantaneous. He shot her a hard glance before returning his attention to the road.
“I got the impression it was a touchy subject hereabouts. I may not have improved things.” She didn’t want to make trouble for him. Mostly, she wanted to confess her sins so they could get on with the earth-shattering sex.
“What did you say to them?”
“That it damaged your reputation within the industry and that tour publicity would have made a meal out of your father’s death had you said anything. I never told you how much I admire what you did do.”
“What did I do?”
He still wouldn’t look at her, and she wished she was wearing her cap so she could pull it down low over her face and observe him more covertly. “You put your family’s needs before yours. That’s …” Not what I’m used to, she wanted to say. “I think that’s love,” she said instead. “I think more of you because of it. Not less.” Never less.
“Yeah, well.” Casey—Tomas—took one hand from the steering wheel to rub the back of his neck. She wanted her hand there, didn’t know if he would accept it. Maybe it would feel too much like comfort. “Mason was the one who found him, the one who had to deal with all the red tape and the funeral arrangements. He wasn’t tracking too well afterward. No one was. Better all around to help clear the path and get on with burying the man.”
“Did you have a good relationship with your father?”
“It wasn’t bad.” He didn’t say any more for a while and she let the silence stand. “We didn’t always hold the same views; he could never understand my wanderlust or my need to prove myself somewhere else that wasn’t here, but he knew I loved him. There was nothing left unsaid between us. Nothing I’m brooding on.”
“And your mother? How are you with her?”
“What is this? Twenty questions?”
“I know nothing of mothers,” she admitted. But that encounter back there between Casey and his mother hadn’t seemed picture-perfect to her. “She packed us a basket full of food. That was nice. Welcoming. But before that there were fancy teacups and cake plates and baking. I’m not exactly sure what that was about.”
“Don’t look to me for answers. I try to keep my social life out of my mother’s kitchen.”
There it was again, a not so silent rebuke for tracking him down.
“Jett doesn’t,” Casey continued. “He hooked up with Mardie, who already has a baby girl, and my mother dotes on them all. Pretty sure they don’t get the good plates although I suspect they get more cookies.”
“Did you say something to your mother to make her think I needed the good plates?”
“No.”
“Because back home, we don’t have good plates.” Her father had never worried about those things and neither had she.
“You’re still living in your family home?” he asked, and now there was a question with a lot behind it.
“Yes.”
“Ever thought about moving out? Having your own space?”
“I’m barely there as it is. Why would I want more space to not live in?”
“I’m wondering if you’re ever going to be free to bring someone like me home and not have to get your father’s permission first.”
“I don’t need permission.” Not that she’d ever brought anyone home. “My house isn’t like the one we just came from. It’s not family space that needs protecting.”
The house she lived in was a sprawling two-story ranch with far more bedrooms than people. Rowan occupied the east wing and had her own entry, kitchen, bathroom, laundry and living spaces. “Where I live … there’s one roof but I have my own separate entry and living areas. My father has his on the other side of the house. In between there’s a whole lot of common living space that no one ever uses. It’s been that way since I was ten. So while I can’t say my father would be happy if I brought a man back to the ranch, it wouldn’t be as if I was inviting someone into his living room.”
Casey was looking at her weirdly.
“Okay, I’m pretty sure my father would try to intimidate whoever I brought home, so there is that to consider. You’ve met the man. I doubt this is news to you.”
“Since you were ten,” he echoed.
“Are we having the same conversation?”
“You’ve been living separately from your father since you were ten?”
“It’s the same house.” They were definitely not having the same conversation. “It wasn’t as if he didn’t keep an eye on me.”
“How? How could he possibly keep an eye on you when he was half a mile away doing his own thing?”
“Binoculars,” she said, deadpan, but he didn’t smile. “So I didn’t have a mother who baked me cookies. I still got fed. I had a roof over my head.” No need to mention those early years when she’d known without words that sometimes her father had wanted to pack up and go and leave her behind. Her father had never left her, no matter what his eyes had said. He’d always taken her with him, and she’d always done her best to not make him regret it. “Wasn’t easy for my father, carting me around all the time. He had work to do.”
“You should probably stop talking now.” Casey’s voice came at her rough and low. A muscle throbbed in his jaw and he kept his eyes on the road. “Unless you want my loathing for your father to be absolute.”
“My father does his best by me. I don’t hold grudges.”
Casey had that air of implacability about him that he sometimes got before an especially tough ride. “I do.”
They rounded a curve and the cabin came into view, rough-hewn log and stone walls, long and low, carved into the landscape rather than soaring out of it. But there were a lot of glass windows on show, some of them running from floor to ceiling. Not a cookie-cutter building effort.
“It’s lovely,” she said and it was even better inside. Handcrafted, from the cupboards in the kitchen to the round fireplace that dominated the living room, it was an earthy, masculine, open-plan space, dominated by blue and tan furnishings and dark, plush carpet that her feet sank into as she made her way to the window.
The house looked over a different valley to the one they’d come from. It was more of a mountain pass than prime grazing land, but the view was spectacular and the mountains soared in the distance.
She turned to find him watching her, his very fine rear propped against the corner of the sofa and his hands in his pockets again. His look was keen and assessing and his smile was crooked. “Remote enough for you?”
“I do like the lack of neighbors,” she said. “I’ve never been ravished in front of the fire in anyone’s high-country cabin before either. In case you were wondering.”
“Do you like it?” he asked, as if her answer actually mattered to him.
“Yes.” It didn’t quite have the lived-in vibe of the main house in the valley below, but no expense had been spared when it came to comfort and the furnishings and the cabin itself fit the location perfectly. “No deer heads mounted on the walls,” she said.
“I rent this place out for part of the year. Tourists don’t quite know what to make of them. Some like them; some don’t. Me, I’m not big on death for pleasure, although I like taxidermy. It’s a conundrum.”
“So many big words.”
“I’ll shoot to protect. I won’t shoot for sport. And I know you understand the big words.”
“You say you want to be a vet,” she said, and he nodded. “Have you ever thought about being a traveling vet on the tour?”
He looked as if he hadn’t thought of it at all.
“You know the bulls; you know what’s expected of them. Contractors have their own vets and animal whisperers, sure, but they’re not always around when they need to be, are they? Just a thought.”
“My reputation’s shot,” he said, with a shake of his head. “Not going to happen.”
“Your bull-riding reputation is shaky. Your reputation for compassion and making tough choices is sound.”
“Who are you?” he muttered. “You’re like a secret weapon that clears away all the bullshit in your path.”
“I have shoveled a lot of bullshit in my time,” she said with a smile, and it was as if the sun rose over the mountains when he smiled back at her with no artifice, no deliberation, no knowledge of how good he looked doing it. It was a smile, freely given and she would have more of them. “What I meant to say was that I like what you’ve done with the place.”
“My brothers helped build it. I went online and bought furniture. My mother online shopped her way through the kitchen cupboards—no flower patterns allowed—and I think she enjoyed it. I even have candlesticks. Somewhere.”
“How many houses are there on the property?” she asked.
“Five, including the bunkhouse. There’s a second family house that came with neighboring land my father bought years ago. One of my other brothers—he’s a builder—he lives in that one. There’s another cabin we built for practice but it’s higher up and hard to get to. Jett uses that one when he takes people heli-skiing. And then there’s this one.”
Not a family who were scratching for money, never mind that that he’d freely admitted that the family property wouldn’t sustain five sons.
“You talk about your younger brother a lot.”
“He’s hard to miss. Show-off, Olympic gold medalist, world champ, good guy. They say I’m like him only not.”
“How not?”
“I refuse to use the word prettier, even though I am.”
She smirked and ventured closer. “It’s a word we all use around you. Take your lumps.”
“He has drive and a will to succeed like you wouldn’t believe.”
“And you don’t? Could have fooled me.” Closer still. She put a hand to his chest and her lips to his cheek and he drew a shaky breath, not nearly as composed as he seemed. “What else?”
“He has a family now and I’ve never seen him happier. That … surprised me.”
“Mm hm.” He was so hard beneath her hands. So responsive.
“There’s a competition to see who can buy the most outrageous hair ribbon for his little girl. I’m winning.”
“Of course you are.” The leather of his belt was well-worn and butter-soft beneath her fingers. “We should eat after the sex.”
“I’m willing.”
He really was.