away from your mama, little guy.”
“He’s seven weeks,” a deep voice said from behind her. Startled, Lucy both cried out and lifted her head, banging it hard enough on the shelf above her to see stars.
The kitten dashed past as she struggled to wriggle out from where she’d squeezed herself. Head pounding and blinking away tears, she managed to back into the open space of the barn again. Still on her hands and knees, she looked over her shoulder to find the biggest, baddest-looking cowboy she’d ever seen staring down at her with a deep frown.
The wayward kitten was cradled in the crook of his elbow.
She hadn’t heard the man enter the barn but could see the play of light and afternoon shadows from the open door at the far end. Heat colored her cheeks as she realized that the whole time he’d been walking the length of the middle row, she’d been giving him a prime view of the faded jeans that covered her backside.
Way to make a first impression, Lucy.
“Hi,” she said, scrambling to her feet and holding out a hand. “I’m Lucy Renner. I’m—”
“The gold digger’s daughter,” he interrupted in a tone that reminded her of gravel crunching under tires. “You look like her, only not yet as ridden hard and put away wet.”
Lucy felt her mouth drop open as her protective streak exploded like a powder keg. Yes, she had problems with how her mother cycled through men, but this would-be Marlboro man, handsome as sin and clearly twice as dangerous, was way out of line.
The man nudged her out of the way as he opened the door to the cat room and dropped the kitten to the ground. “You’re also trespassing in my barn.”
“You’re rude,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Doesn’t make the words less true.”
Dusting off the front of her jacket, Lucy threw back her shoulders and glared at the man. “I don’t think Mr. Sharpe would appreciate you speaking about his soon-to-be bride that way.”
He started to turn away, and she grabbed his arm, refusing to be intimidated by his hulking physical presence. If there was one thing Lucy could do, it was appear more confident than she was. She had fake conviction to spare, and no way was she allowing some ranch hand to bully her or her mother.
“What’s your name?” she demanded. “I’m going to make sure this is your last day working for Garrett Sharpe.”
The man stared at her fingers, the pink polished nails so out of place on the dull brown canvas of his heavy coat. Then his gaze lifted to hers, those piercing green eyes as hard as granite.
“Caden,” he said so quietly she almost didn’t hear him. “My name is Caden Sharpe. Garrett is my—” he paused as if the word was stuck on his tongue “—my father,” he said after an awkward moment.
“I thought Garrett’s son died a few years ago?” Lucy regretted the question when Caden flinched. Maybe her mother had gotten the story wrong or played fast and loose with the facts to elicit sympathy when she was trying to convince Lucy to make the trip to Colorado.
Family is important to Garrett, her mother had said. He was devastated by his son’s death, and I want to show him I value family the way he does.
“Tyson.” Caden’s lips barely moved as he said the name. “Tyson was my brother.”
Then, as if her touch was physically painful to him, he shrugged it off and stalked away.
Caden forced himself to walk out of the barn at a measured pace, even though sweat rolled down between his shoulder blades and his hands shook like the leaves of an aspen tree in a strong wind.
He’d been back on the ranch for almost two years and was so used to everyone in town knowing his story that Lucy Renner’s question had caught him off guard.
It brought back all the regrets he had about his relationship with Tyson and how he’d failed the very people to whom he owed his life.
Two years of trying to make up for who he was and who he could never be to Garrett. Trying to keep the old man on track when he would have spiraled into depression after losing his flesh and blood.
A month ago, Garrett had returned from a business trip with Maureen Renner on his arm, a flashy peacock of a woman, so different from Garrett’s first wife, Julia, and ridiculously out of place on the ranch. Caden had been suspicious from the start, and when they’d announced at Thanksgiving that they planned to be married Christmas Day, he’d had no doubt Maureen was more interested in Garrett’s bank account than his life as a high-country rancher.
He had two weeks to convince Garrett to call off the wedding, and nothing was going to stop him from that goal. Certainly not a petite, chestnut-haired beauty who smelled like expensive perfume and looked like she belonged at one of the swanky lounges in neighboring Aspen, rubbing elbows with the rich and famous. She did not belong in Crimson and definitely not in Caden’s world.
His reaction to her had been unexpected and wholly unwelcome. As much as he wanted to blame it on the view she’d inadvertently given him of the most perfectly rounded hips and butt he’d ever seen, there was something more to it than that.
Caden hadn’t felt the powerful pull of attraction in years, not since his desire for a woman had driven a wedge between him and Tyson. Nothing was worth what he’d lost because of love. Or, more likely, it had been lust, which was even worse. Caden had sworn he’d never let another woman affect him that way.
But the immediate wanting—yearning—he’d felt when Lucy lifted those big brown eyes to his had been like an explosion going off in his brain. He didn’t want it, couldn’t handle it, and it only made him more committed to getting Lucy Renner and her mother away from the ranch for good.
His world would undoubtedly be turned upside down by those two women. He had a routine at the ranch—a mostly solitary existence, especially through the winter—that kept him busy. If it weren’t for the barn full of critters that made up his animal-rescue project, Caden could have gone for weeks without seeing anyone but Garrett and the other ranch hands.
In the waning light of afternoon, he checked the outlying cattle troughs, then returned to the barn to feed and water the rescue animals. Lucy’s scent still lingered in the air, and his body hardened in response. He forced the image of her out of his mind, focused on his routine and the animals he cared for. Next weekend he was opening the barn for a pre-Christmas adoption event, and he was way behind on preparations for it.
Erin MacDonald, the kindergarten teacher who also ran an after-school program for kids in the community, had convinced him to work with the local humane society to introduce more people to the animals he rescued. He hadn’t actually planned on running a makeshift animal shelter. Hell, keeping the ranch going was more than a full-time job. But it seemed as though Caden had been collecting strays since he was a boy.
Maybe because he’d been one until Garrett and Tyson had come into his life.
Once he was certain she’d gone to the house, he finished with the animals, taking time to give some attention to each one. He let the
