at all. She sat stunned in silence for long minutes, trying to figure out what had just happened between them.
Her brain slowly came back around to focusing on her surroundings at the exact moment she heard Angie begin to stir in the back seat. Relieved and grateful, she figured that her baby would be a good distraction to take her mind off the odd reaction she’d had to Lance’s touch. Marcy unbuckled the seat belt and twisted around on her knees to check the little girl.
“What’s the matter with your baby?” he asked. “Is she all right?”
“She’s just waking up, but I’m betting she’ll soon be loudly voicing her complaints.”
“Complaints?”
Angie opened her eyes, and Marcy decided to slide past the center console to go between the two front seats in order to reach her. The familiar sounds of the baby’s “I’m wet and hungry” cries told her that it was indeed time for a change.
“Whoa,” Lance bellowed over the din created by Angie’s screams and the fierce sounds of the blowing winds. “Should I stop?”
“We’re barely moving as it is,” Marcy told him. “I trust you. Just keep going. I can reach her diaper bag in the back,” she continued. “Just let me change Angie and try giving her the water bottle. I’ll wait to feed her until we can get inside someplace warm.” At least, she hoped Angie could wait a little longer.
Lance concentrated on his driving. Still shaken from his crazy reaction to the touch of her skin and the spark of something he’d seen in her eyes, he now had one more thing about Marcy Griffin that deviled him.
She trusted him to keep them safe. He was frantically searching his memory for any other time when someone had actually trusted him that much. The only thing he could come up with was when Buck pulled him off the rodeo circuit and hired him to be in charge of his ranch’s rodeo stock program. He must’ve trusted him a lot to do that. Right?
Lance had never been able to figure out what made women tick, though. And this one was turning out to be more confusing than any of the others.
Take Buck’s daughter, Lorna, for instance. She was a good friend. Someone who would gladly ride across the Montana countryside with him, and someone he could also take to movies on lonely Saturday nights. Lorna was steady and predictable. And he was sure she would accept his ring. She would make him a good wife.
But never…ever…had he felt the same kind of steamy heat and staggering flood of senses that he’d experienced just by touching Marcy’s hands.
He couldn’t remember any time in those days before he settled down on the ranch—and certainly never with the woman who lived there now—when this intense kind of desire had bypassed his good judgment. With Lorna, he’d wanted to wait until the two of them were at least engaged before they took things past friendship. And he was sure Lorna felt the same way. Letting sex rule a relationship was not a thing he felt comfortable doing with someone who would be his life partner.
So this sudden craving to take a perfect stranger into his arms and kiss her senseless was totally unexpected and absolutely unwanted. Perhaps the life-and-death circumstances they found themselves in were making his normal male reactions to a pretty woman suddenly seem much more powerful.
He decided not to dwell on it too much. The best thing for him to do was to talk to Marcy. Try to make friends with her. Keep things casual. They probably would be together for several more hours at least. By the time he was on his way down the road without her, perhaps the two of them would’ve found they had nothing in common and his libido would’ve settled back in line.
Good plan. Now if only his body would cooperate.
Within fifteen minutes Marcy had quieted her baby and climbed back into the front seat. Lance was beyond tired and hungry. And Marcy looked as if she hadn’t eaten a decent meal in about a week.
“Another half hour and we should be at the truck stop,” he told her. He took his eyes off the road for a second and glanced over to check on her.
She smiled up at him. Actually smiled. It felt as if someone had flipped on a light in a pitch-black room.
The unexpected sizzle of heat and tension made him jerk his head back around to stare through the windshield. He figured it was too dangerous to take his eyes off the road ahead. In more ways than one.
“How come you know the country around here so well?” she asked congenially. “Are you from the area?”
Now, this was better. They could talk for a while. Just as long as he didn’t have to look at her.
“No, ma’am,” he said with a chuckle. “I’ve spent most of my adult life following the rodeo circuit. It’s a hectic way of life for a man…traveling from one rodeo town to the next. But after a few years of doing it, a guy gets to know the routes and stops pretty well. And a man can manage to make friends in the places he comes back to year after year.”
“You were in the rodeo? What’d you do there?” Surprise colored the tone of her questions, but she sounded more awed than disgusted.
He never knew what to expect when he mentioned his work. Many people had no idea about what went on at a rodeo. Others felt it was a low-class kind of life. Still others, like the buckle bunnies and camp followers, were too easily impressed by what was really just a job.
“I was a bull rider for the first few years,” he admitted. “Then later I rode the broncs.”
“Cool. That’s awesome. But isn’t it dangerous?”
“I’ve had my share of bruises and broken bones, I guess. But the point is to know when to stop before it takes you down for good.”
“You don’t do it anymore? You quit?”
Is that what he’d done? “I retired from the circuit. I moved on to something better.”
“Back at your ranch in Montana?”
“The ranch isn’t mine. I’m just a hired hand.”
She seemed hesitant to make a comment. “Really?” she finally said in a neutral tone. “What do you do there?”
He didn’t know if Marcy was truly interested, or if she’d even have the foggiest idea of what went into his job. But she was waiting for an answer. And he’d already made the decision that he wanted them to become friends.
So he figured he would just keep talking. “The ranch was always home for a good friend of mine. His family has lived on the land for nearly a hundred years.
“They’ve got a formidable operation there with many different kinds of businesses. Sheep. Cattle. They breed show horses and champion stock bulls, and do lots of other profitable things, as well. My friend’s dad, Buck Stanton, hired me to run the stock contracting end of the business.”
“Stock contracting?”
“Yeah. We supply the livestock to rodeos. Our operation isn’t big enough yet to produce the shows themselves. But we’ll be getting there someday.”
“Your ranch raises the bucking horses and those mean ol’ bulls?”
The
