douse me with holy water type of intervention.”
Out of her peripheral vision Yasmine saw a young mother tug her toddler closer toward her, eyeing Yasmine with a frown on her face.
There she went again, talking out loud. Ugly habit she had, whenever anything plagued her.
“And Holt Wilde is just one big old plague,” she said out loud, again.
This time the woman grabbed her child’s hand and hurried in the opposite direction from Yasmine.
She ignored the woman and straightened her shoulders as she continued to stride through the airport. But no more.
No, she was determined that by the end of her stay at the ranch, things would change, she’d make sure of it. While helping her aunt, she had another agenda in mind. She would, once and for all, exorcise all thoughts and fantasies of the one man who had invaded her mind for nearly twenty years, rid herself of the feelings, feelings she knew were simply a residue of her girlhood crush, once and for all.
This time she would be the one to walk away …
Holt bit back a curse as he waited impatiently for the van packed full of tourists to move along. The uniformed police officer who whistled and waved his baton in front of the double-parked van in front of the airport was about as effective as an ass on a gnat, Holt thought, his irritation escalating.
Apprehension had his damn guts tied in knots, which didn’t help his current situation.
When his brother had asked him to pick up Lilly’s niece, Yasmine, from the airport, to say it was the last thing he wanted to do was putting it mildly. It was Sunday, the day he and his brothers, as well as the rest of the ranch hands, took it easy, the day they all attended to their own interests.
He thought back on his interest. That would be the blonde beauty he’d left in bed curled up around his pillow earlier that morning after he’d received the call from his brother Nate.
All thoughts of going another round with the woman came to a screeching halt when Nate had informed him that their housekeeper, Lilly, a woman they viewed more as a mother than an employee, needed a favor.
With her surgery coming up, the doctor had ordered as much rest for Lilly as possible, and the hour-and-a-half drive to pick her niece up from the airport wasn’t something she could manage.
He’d sat straight up in bed, impatiently shoving the hair from his eyes as he’d listened while his brother blithely went on to tell him that Holt needed to pick Yasmine up from the airport, as no one else was available.
Holt’s thick brows came together in a deep frown as he inched along the congested traffic at the airport, remembering the conversation.
“No one else can get her?” He’d questioned his oldest brother while glancing down at the woman who lay cuddled close to him, sound asleep in bed. “What about Jake? Last I knew he was staying at the ranch more than he was in town. Can’t he pick her up?”
Momentarily distracted, he saw her move … He frowned, trying to think of the woman’s name … Amy. Amy inched closer to him, the sheet covering her slim body slipping down to reveal one of her small, plump breasts. Before the call, that would have been more than enough enticement for Holt to awaken the sleepy woman and go at it another round.
But that was before he found out that Yasmine was returning. Now the image of the young girl he’d known long ago filled his mind.
“Payback can be a bitch, bro.”
“Asshat,” he’d bitten out as Nate’s booming laugh echoed into the phone, stabbing the end button on his cell and staring down at the phone, a deep frown on his face.
Nate was his oldest brother and had recently become engaged. The fact that Holt, along with their middle brother, Shilah, had hired Althea knowing Nate’s mandate of no women allowed had been an issue. Even though it had turned out well—better than that, the two of them had fallen head over heels in love, despite Nate’s avowals of never wanting to get married—both Holt and Shilah had known that he’d get them back for their interference.
Everyone knew, Holt included, that as a young girl Yasmine had had a major crush on him. Although he’d not allowed himself to think of her in romantic terms back then, he easily recalled her big brown eyes and riotous mane of curls and her laugh … The sound of her laugh had always made him pause.
“Round one goes to you, big brother, but the game ain’t over,” he’d said to the empty phone.
Holt had tossed the phone on the side table. The woman—hell, what was her name?—had sleepily turned to him at that moment, reaching out for him. He’d given her a distracted smile and kissed her on the forehead, promising to see her later in the week, that something had come up at the ranch, and within a matter of minutes he’d dressed and had headed out.
He’d planned to park and go inside to help Yasmine with her bags, but a last-minute change in the airport she was scheduled to fly into had made it so that he had barely got there in time for her plane to land. His glance fell to the dashboard. According to the flight itinerary she’d texted to Miss Lilly, she would have made it in thirty minutes ago.
There had always been something about Yasmine that made him want to go the other way whenever he was around her.
He remembered when she first came to the ranch; she couldn’t have been any older than nine or ten to his twelve years of age. He remembered that she rarely spoke; in fact, he’d wondered if she could until finally he had heard her laugh while in the kitchen with her aunt.
Her laughter, even back then, had drawn him to her, and briefly mesmerized, he’d stood in the doorway, staring across at her. But the minute she saw him, her light brown face flushed with color and she literally flew from the kitchen.
It hadn’t taken long for Holt to realize, as they grew older, that she had a crush on him.
That crush came to an awkward head when, the day before Holt left for college, the young Yasmine grabbed him and pulled him close and kissed him. Surprised, he’d pulled away. But not before he’d returned the kiss for a short time. The memory of her soft lips, the feel of her soft young curves against him, had intermittently whispered into his mind throughout the years.
That was the last time he’d seen her.
When he’d returned home, Yasmine had always been away, and within two years she had left for culinary school. The few times she’d come to visit her aunt, she’d always managed to come when he wasn’t home, whether by accident or design, Holt never knew.
Finally, the van moved and he scanned the crowded throng, looking for her.
He drew in a breath and froze, his hands gripping the steering wheel like a vise, his eyes widening, then narrowing. He felt as if he’d been sucker punched right in the gut.
Although it had been years since he’d seen her last, he knew the minute he saw the woman standing near the curb that it was her.
Yasmine Taylor. All grown up.
Damn.
The traffic and noise from the bustling travelers, the irritating shrill whistle from the cop, all faded to background noise as he sat behind the wheel, transfixed, staring at
