“Am I correct,” Adler started, poking his head into Sage’s office, “that you just popped next week’s work into the finished folder?”

She nodded, her gaze remaining focused on the computer screen, her fingers hovering above her keyboard. “Something else I can do? Your mom said something about Walker’s books.”

“Walker can get his own Girl Friday,” Adler chuckled. “You’re all mine.”

Her gaze jumped to him, but there wasn’t a trace of anything other than a boss not wanting to lose an employee who had more than tripled the efficiency of his office. Whatever feeling she’d had back at the hotel that Adler was developing a deeper interest in her had been just that—a feeling. He had returned to being all business the next day and every day since then.

“So,” she snorted, “What next? I was thinking I could scan some of the files you’ve got boxed in your office if they’re just audit protection. Then the boxes could be moved off-site, but available here on disc.”

“That’s more of a shredding party project,” he admitted. “Daddy had a hard time letting go of a piece of paper. But just me and Mama can really sort through it and I wanted to give her more time before asking for help.”

Her head bobbed in understanding. Waiting was the right thing to do, although she suspected Adler needed more time to pass, too. He was so busy making sure that the death of the ranch’s majority owner and a top-level key employee didn’t harm the business that he hadn’t fully dealt on an emotional level with the death of his father and sister.

“Well,” she said, gesturing at the standing file cabinets next to her desk. “I’ll find something I can do.”

“Oh, I already found something,” Adler said, crooking a finger at her. “I just wanted to make sure you were fully freed up.”

With Leah and her grandmother visiting Aunt Dotty for the day, Sage had nothing but free time.

“I am,” she agreed and reached for a pen and notepad.

“Wrong equipment.” Shaking his head, he left the hall and walked around to her side of the desk. With a sweeping glance, he took in her blouse, slacks, and low-heeled dress shoes. “First we’re going over to Betty Rae’s.”

Okay, the man was losing his marbles.

“Why?”

“You ever spot a clothes store in Willow Gap?”

“Not really.”

What passed for a grocery store had one row of essentials mostly geared at the seasonal ranch hands that passed through town. Dark t-shirts, lightweight denim jackets, white socks and briefs, blue jeans, handkerchiefs and work boots. Sage figured most of the people in the valley drove half an hour south to the first Walmart they came to, maybe driving another hour further a couple times each year to shop in Billings.

“Well, Betty Rae does trunk shows.”

She shook her head and he laughed.

“You’ll see. Grab your bag and I’ll call her once we’re in the truck.”

Half an hour later, Sage sat on Betty Rae’s couch, a treasure trove of women’s western wear spread all around the room, covering the coffee table, two club chairs, a side table, three chairs from the dining room and the DVD stand.

“You’ll want a thick denim for riding,” Betty Rae said, handing over a pair of jeans in Sage’s size.

That she had jeans in Sage’s size would have been a church-certified miracle in Baltimore, but things were different in Willow Gap. Women weren’t venerated for being thin or wearing false eyelashes and spending an hour each morning on hair and make-up. There were a lot of “fellow fluffies” and more than enough men flirting with them.

Siobhan had been right about would-be suitors. The single men around Willow Gap, including those on the ranch, found little ways to communicate their interest. A side wave, a smile, an offer to help Sage with whatever she was doing. If she wanted to play the game, Sage could go the rest of her single-but-marriageable life never pumping gas or carrying her own groceries.

“You like them?” Adler asked, misreading her smile.

Truth was, she hadn’t really looked at the jeans. Now that she did, she smiled again. They were definitely thick, but there were embroidered embellishments on them to maintain a level of femininity.

“I do,” she agreed.

The fact that the jeans—and everything else on display—didn’t have a price tag would have sent Sage running, but Adler had stressed on the drive over that he was paying for a riding outfit.

“Good boots, of course,” Betty Rae said and picked up a pair. “You don’t mind crosses, do you, dear? The ladies round here love vines, roses and crosses for the embellishments.”

Having been labeled a sin from the moment of conception, Sage had shied away from religion, but not the artistic use of its symbols.

“No problem,” she said. “But those look too beautiful for riding. That’s more like the women were wearing for line dancing.”

The boots also looked exceptionally expensive, but Sage kept that opinion to herself. She wasn’t sure she liked Adler buying an outfit for her, even if it was work related because there would be times she needed to ride, not drive. She figured it would be okay if she consented to his paying today, then she would pay him back with her next check.

“What about these?” Adler asked, handing over a pair.

The boots he selected were even more beautiful than the first pair, but in a subtler way. Cognac-colored leather flowed around Aztec geometry embroidered in muted earth tones. The hide was a medium caramel around the foot that darkened to a deep, nutty brown at the top. The interior was a soothing turquoise. Leather whipstitch accented the top and swirled along both sides of the shaft. A dark metal concha secured the pull-up straps.

Turning one boot over in her hand, she was certain it would require more than one paycheck to pay him back.

“I don’t think you can really decide until you try them on,” Betty Rae suggested, handing over a dark red work shirt to go with the jeans and boots. “Why don’t you just pop into the guest bedroom, give these a wear and let us see.”

Certain she wouldn’t want the boots to ever leave her feet once she tried them on, Sage dragged herself down the hall. Stripping out of her dress clothes, she considered the wider implications of letting Adler pay for the outfit today. Betty Rae wasn’t exactly known for being discreet. Hopefully, that wasn’t the case when it came to her business. Otherwise, all of Willow Gap would suspect there was something going on between Sage and Adler.

Returning to the living room and watching as his smile and midnight gaze suddenly deepened, Sage wondered if maybe all those suspicions could be right.

Adler passed a wad of bills to Betty Rae then extended his hand to Sage.

“Time for your first riding lesson.”

*

Adler picked two mares from the stable, promising Sage that they were the gentlest on the ranch and nearly impossible to spook. While Royce, one of the stable hands, readied the horses, Adler put a saddle across a tall bench and helped Sage get a leg over. He explained the parts of the saddle and showed her how and where to push her body weight to get the horse to respond. Giving her one end of a set of reins, he held the other. He demonstrated the basic pulls and had her repeat each one several times.

When Royce brought the mares to the front of the stables, it was time to do it all over again, this time with a live animal beneath her and a riding helmet on her head. Once she was properly seated in the saddle, Adler got on his horse. Royce stayed with them, leading Calamity, Sage’s mare, over to an enclosure where she could practice steering the horse. After a few minutes, she had Calamity up to a trot, riding the mare in a loose circle within the pen.

“Now, what did I say about if she bolts?”

Sage looked around the enclosure. She couldn’t imagine any horse bothering to run wild in the limited space.

“Don’t think Calamity can’t clear that fence,” Adler chuckled. “So what are you going to do if she bolts?”

“Regain my balance,” Sage answered, reconsidering the wisdom of learning to ride. “Get my feet back in the stirrups if they fall out…relax my muscles so I’m not bouncing out of the saddle.”

He nodded. “That’s the first of it.”

“If she’ll accept my steering, head her uphill or in a wide circle. Either will help slow her down. Avoid going downhill. Stay on and stay calm, don’t fight her to stop if there’s enough room for her to run.”

Sage chewed at her bottom lip trying to remember the rest of his instructions.

“Wait for you to rescue me?” she finished.

“There’s that,” he agreed with a wink. “Until Will or I clear you to ride alone, you’ll always have an experienced rider with you.”

“Two experienced riders would be good,” she chirped, head bobbing vigorously. “One on each side…like training wheels.”

He responded with a belly laugh.

“Come on.” He twitched his mare’s reins, directing her over to the gate where Royce waited to let them out. “Let’s get these girls over to where the sweet grass grows.”

Adler kept to a slow pace, explaining that the trot in the pen was to see if she could handle the bounce with confidence. This trip out of the enclosure was more about acclimating Sage to the commands her horse would understand and obey.

As they rode, Adler talked about Leah and how Lindy was hoping Jake would accept her offer of moving into the main house.

“She would love to have you here, too,” Adler assured Sage. “Siobhan doesn’t get around nearly enough for Mama’s comfort and Maureen’s time is rightfully monopolized by her mother when she’s home from college.”

“The first thing is for Jake to make up his mind,” Sage said.

The conversation on living arrangements made her uncomfortable. As friendly and generous as everyone around the ranch was, she knew she wasn’t family. At best, she was extended family. Either way, the whole concept felt foreign. Then add in this “thing, not a thing” situation between her and Adler where they both seemed more than willing to have a random tumble, but not a relationship.

At least it was clear Adler wasn’t looking for a relationship with Sage. He avoided her more often than not. And she sure as hell wasn’t a random tumble kind of girl, regardless of what she had allowed Adler to do that first Sunday in the bathroom or how many times she had replayed every delicious second of the encounter in her mind.

Nope, not at all a random tumble woman, no matter how much she embellished the memory, playing the scene out to Adler freeing his cock from his jeans, pulling her to the edge of the counter, wrapping her legs around his hips, her thighs rhythmically tensing—

“Have you decided whether you’ll keep the job?”

Mind possessed by the image of Adler finally pushing between her slick folds to drive hard and deep, Sage jerked at the question. Calamity reacted by pulling right. Sage pulled on the rein, over correcting. She lost her balance for a second, only recovering it by pushing her hips down and forward as she squeezed with her knees.

Calamity took off.

“Whoa! Whoa!”

Every last safety instruction Adler had Sage recount flew straight out of her head as the horse picked up speed.

Balance! her brain screamed.

Right, feet in the stirrups? Check. Lean forward or lean back?

Adler’s gloved hand shot out and grabbed the side of the bridle before Sage could decided. He didn’t yank or even gently pull, just held tight, his mare keeping pace with Calamity until the two horses fell into the same rhythm. When he slowed his mare a little, Calamity responded with an equal decrease in speed until she was back to a trot then a walk and, finally, she came to a stop.

“S-sorry…I d-don’t.”

“Shh,” he soothed, dismounting and leading the horses over to a section of fencing. He looped Calamity’s reins around the fence then held his arms out.

Sage practically fell into them, her body as stuttering in its movements as her voice had been.

Adler wrapped his arms around her, cinching Sage to him. The longer he held her, the tighter the embrace. Slowly, she realized it wasn’t just her body that was shaking. Adler trembled like a leaf at the edge of a tornado.

Peeling her riding helmet off, Sage tried to stutter out a joke.

“I guess I failed my first lesson.”

“Not funny, baby.”

Just like that, the ragged embrace turned into something more. Wrapping Sage’s braid around his fist, Adler immobilized her head, his lips fierce and unyielding as he claimed her mouth.

Pulling down on the braid, he hyperextended her neck, his mouth arcing in a flash to bite at the corner of her jaw. The bites moved down her neck and then he was sucking and nibbling at the curve of her shoulder, one fist yanking the collar of her shirt to the side to give his lips and teeth access.

When desire buckled Sage’s legs, Adler braced her against a fence post. His knee pushed against hers, parting her soft thighs. He filled the space with his own muscular thigh, one bulging muscle in particular pressing and moving against her mound as Sage slowly started to soak through her panties.

“I need you now,” Adler growled.

She swallowed, mute, gaze darting around them. They were in a field, away from a road, but that didn’t mean away from the sixty plus ranch and stable hands.

“Say ‘yes,’” he groaned. “Or tell me to get the hell away.”

“Here?” she asked, voice trembling.

He growled again, his mouth ceasing its sharp kisses. His head lifted, the sharp gaze scanned the field, and then his chin tilted at a small rise.

Sage didn’t see how the elevation made anything more private—the opposite, really, but Adler seemed to think her question was at least tentative consent. His hand dropped from her braid down to her wrist.

“Walk with me.”