Buch lesen: «Cowboy Blues»

CHAPTER ONE

NICK HASKINS HEARD the sounds in the bunkhouse the moment he stepped from the shower. Sounds of footsteps and somebody moving around on the creaky hardwood floor in the adjacent room.

Hell’s bells.

He checked the time, a little past 10:00 p.m., and he scowled. No one else should be here now that the other hands had moved to the new bunkhouse on the west side of the Granger Ranch. And if a straggler had returned for any reason, Nick darn sure wasn’t in the mood for company or an interruption of any sort.

Man, he hurt.

He had a bruise on his ribs where a temperamental gelding that he’d been training had thrown him, and it was throbbing. Almost as bad, his head was trying to compete for the award of the body part with the most pain. Nick figured both his head and side were in a dead heat for that award, because they caused him to wince and grunt every time he moved.

Doing more of that wincing/grunting, Nick wrapped the towel around himself and came out of the bathroom so he could make quick work of getting rid of whoever was clomping around in the other room. But he froze in the doorway when he looked in the bunkroom and saw the butt. Not one of the hands or even one of his bosses—they were all men.

This butt belonged to a woman.

She was facing away from him, leaning down over one of the beds, which meant all he could see of her was her back, butt and legs. She was wearing jeans that framed the part of her body that had grabbed on to his attention and was holding it hostage. Of course, anyone would have gotten his attention at this point, because no one should have been in there.

With annoyance sliding through him, Nick cleared his throat to get her attention. And he got it all right. She turned, not a whirling motion of someone who’d just been startled, but slow and easy movements as if she’d expected the throat clearing.

And expected him.

Nick got an instant jolt of recognition. He knew that face, and for just a split second he thought it was Carol Ann Gavin, his old high school girlfriend. However, when she cocked her head to the side and smiled, he realized it wasn’t Carol Ann but rather her identical twin, Lindsay. Carol Ann definitely wouldn’t have been smiling at him like that.

Or skimming her gaze over his body.

Nope. Not only was Carol Ann happily married, but she also hadn’t undressed him with her eyes in a very long time. Not since high school.

Only then did Nick remember that at the moment there wasn’t much of him to undress. He was wearing just a towel and a scowl. Neither the lack of clothing nor expression seemed to bother Lindsay. In fact, her smile widened as if there were something to actually smile about.

There wasn’t.

This wasn’t exactly a welcome reunion. Yes, he’d dated her sister for two years way back when, and Lindsay and he had been friendly enough—in a hands-off, keep-his-distance sort of way. Since she worked at a large ranch just one county over and often came back to town to visit her sister, Nick had seen her from time to time.

And he’d run into her that night.

A night about six months ago at the Longhorn Bar that he’d tried hard to keep in his “stuff to forget” box. It hadn’t worked. He still remembered that he’d noticed then what he was noticing now.

That she had curves in all the right places.

Something he really wished he hadn’t spotted right off. Actually, he wished her face hadn’t caught his attention, either. She was a looker, always had been. He’d especially seen it that night at the Longhorn, but he’d blamed that on too much beer and too little sleep.

“Nick,” Lindsay said. She went to him, outstretching her arms as if she might hug him. She stopped, though, and glanced at the towel. A long glance. “I should probably save a friendly hug for later, or it might go beyond the friendly point.” Then she chuckled.

Again, Nick saw nothing chuckle-worthy about this, especially since he’d noticed things about her that he shouldn’t be noticing about his ex-girlfriend’s sister. And he was also confused.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

Lindsay shrugged. “I moved back to Wrangler’s Creek.”

As if that explained everything, which it most certainly didn’t, she turned and went back to the bunk where he’d first seen her. The bunk that was just below his. She opened a suitcase that she’d put on the bed and started unpacking.

Nick made sure he got a good grip on his towel, and barefoot, he padded across the room. “What do you think you’re doing?”

She smiled, lifted her eyebrow. “Well, it’s generally called unpacking.” She tipped her head to his bare chest. “Is this a peep show I’m going to get every night, or is this a special occasion?”

Nick was certain there was a big-ass dumbfounded look on his face, and apparently it was effective because her forehead bunched up. “You don’t know?” she added. “Dylan didn’t tell you?”

Dylan was almost certainly Dylan Granger, his boss and one of the owners of the Granger Ranch, where Nick had worked for ten years, since he’d turned twenty-three. “Dylan got called out of town.” To handle some snags on a cattle deal he’d put together. Nick wouldn’t mention that, though, to an outsider.

Except maybe Lindsay didn’t fall into that “outsider” category.

The uneasy feeling went through him, and Nick didn’t think it was because of his lack of clothes or the way Lindsay kept glancing at him. The suitcase, the fact that she was here and mentioning Dylan all added up to one thing.

“You’re the new horse trainer Dylan hired,” Nick concluded.

“Bingo.” That smile came again, and she gave her long, dark ponytail an adjustment before she started removing more clothes from the suitcase.

Nick took hold of her hand. Not the brightest idea he’d ever had since now not only was he touching her, but the looser grip caused his towel to shift, and the darn thing nearly slid off his hips before he caught it.

Her attention shifted from his re-grip on the towel to her hand that he’d touched and then to the suitcase that kept snagging his volleyed gaze. “You didn’t know I’d be staying at the ranch until my own place is ready?”

Now it was his turn to say “bingo” because Lindsay had nailed it.

“Well, I’m having some repairs done on the house I just bought. It’s the little cabin at the end of Creek Road that Mrs. Farley used to own. It has an acre of land and a small barn to hold a horse, but the place won’t be ready for a week or so.”

A week was way too long. Heck, five minutes was. But at least Nick had a fix for this. “This is the old bunkhouse. There’s a new one, and that’s where the other hands stay.”

Her quick nod made him think his fix wasn’t the solution she had in mind. “It’s full. Well, with the exception of a cot that’s in the corner of an unfinished room. That’s why I’m here.”

He hadn’t known about the full part, but Dylan had said something about taking on extra hands for some seasonal work. Still, if there was a cot, even if it happened to be in an unfinished room, that’s where she should be. Or her sister’s place. Though come to think of it, Carol Ann’s house was on the small side, and she did have a toddler.

She stared at him, not annoyed. More like amused. “You don’t know how jealous I always was of Carol Ann,” Lindsay said before he could speak.

Nick stared at her, confusion now mixed with his own annoyance. He was about to point out that he’d been her sister’s boyfriend and that she shouldn’t have been having thoughts like that about him, but that would be like the pot calling the kettle black.

Because he had indeed had thoughts like that about Lindsay.

Nick figured that was natural since they were identical twins, but it had always made him want to kick himself for noticing anything about her. That she was more outgoing, for instance. A risk-taker. Whereas Carol Ann had always made it clear she had deep roots in Wrangler’s Creek and had wanted to have and raise a family here.

The family plans hadn’t actually appealed much to Nick since he’d been a teenager, but Carol Ann was the “safe” twin. She had the good-girl label whereas Lindsay had been dubbed the wild child. There’d been no risk of getting in trouble or being arrested while he was with Carol Ann.

Staying out of jail had been a big priority for him in those days, since his dad had had repeated run-ins with the law. His father had been a screwup, and Nick had seen how it messed up his life. No way had he wanted to be Screwup Junior.

Nick still didn’t want that label, and while he was no longer concerned about arrests and such, that didn’t make this situation all right. Far from it. Because Lindsay could be a big problem.

He’d learned his lesson about taking his hand off the towel, but he used his head to motion to various parts of the room. Other than one chair, a small table and the bunk bed frames, there was no furniture. In fact, there were only two mattresses on the frames because the others had been taken to the new bunkhouse. Everything was scuffed, frayed or just plain old, and the smells of livestock and sweat had seeped permanently into the wood.

“Obviously, this isn’t a good place for you to stay,” he clarified.

She glanced around at the same things he’d just pointed out with his head tips. “It’s better than sleeping under the roof with sixteen other hands. Plus, if it’s good enough for you—”

“I want to be here,” Nick growled. Of course, that was a bad argument, one that only caused Lindsay to lift her eyebrow again.

“So do I.” She opened her mouth, probably to give him a better argument than the one he’d just given her, but then her expression changed when he shifted his position.

At first Nick thought that was because the towel had gaped in the wrong place and he’d flashed her, but she wasn’t looking at his groin area. She’d noticed the fist-sized bruise on his side. The one that was contributing significantly to his pissed-off mood. Of course, Lindsay’s being here sure wasn’t helping.

“What the heck happened to you?” she asked.

“A piebald gelding named Gumball. Trust me, there’s nothing sweet about him.”

Since Lindsay was a trainer, too, he nearly launched right into some details of the plan he had for future training sessions, but this wasn’t a conversation he wanted to continue. Somehow, he had to convince her to leave and go anywhere but here.

“The Grangers have a guesthouse you can probably use,” he added.

If Lindsay heard him, she didn’t respond. She went straight to the open kitchen, threw open the freezer. It was practically empty except for a frozen pizza. That sent her looking in the fridge, and she grabbed a cold beer before she headed back to him.

“Hold this,” she instructed when she thrust the bottle into his hand, then she dug through her suitcase to come up with a tube of something. “It’s an herbal lip balm,” she explained.

Sitting down on the edge of the bunk so that she was eye level with his side Lindsay began to dab the goo onto his ribs. Or at least that’s what she was doing before he stepped back.

“It works,” she assured him. She took hold of him, catching on to his hip, and pulled him closer.

Nick wanted to move, but the idiot part of him behind the towel started to react. Not just to the fact that she was touching him but also to her warm breath hitting his bare stomach. He just stood there, gritting his teeth and hoping for a quick end to the torture.

Apparently, though, Lindsay didn’t think that was enough to drive him crazy, because she stood, then bent down to continue the goo-smearing. Her hip brushed against the front of the towel.

And against the front of him.

She obviously figured out that he was a man with full working parts, because she moved back a bit. “Sorry,” she said, standing so that they were face-to-face. Breath-to-breath.

Their gazes held for a couple of seconds before she smiled. Again, there was nothing to warrant that grin.

“Well, I hadn’t expected you to react to me like that,” she added. “But it’s a nice perk. Now, hold that cold beer on your side to bring down the swelling.”

Since she’d run all those words together, it took Nick a moment to process the first part. He wanted to deny that he had any kind of thoughts about her that didn’t involve her leaving now. But it was difficult to lie when he had the beginnings of a hard-on.

“You’re sleeping here tonight,” he concluded when she took a pair of pj’s from the suitcase.

Lindsay nodded, smiled again and said something that Nick was certain would come back to haunt them.

“You’ll never even notice I’m here.” She added a wink. “And if you do notice, then all the better. Good night, Nick.”