aside and yanked the cord to raise the closed blinds. Matt and Trace stood near the walkway below, talking, but her impatience with the blinds drew their attention.
Trace tipped his head back, and with his forefinger, pushed up the brim of his Stetson. With the sun shining on his tanned face, his green eyes seemed to sparkle. “Morning, sunshine,” he said, his mouth curving in a grin.
Nikki knew exactly what she looked like and her first instinct was to jump back and jerk the curtain closed. But giving in would only tell him she cared how he saw her. And that was so much worse. “God, can you be any louder? Some of us have to work at night.”
“Have to?” Matt lifted an eyebrow at her. Apparently he wasn’t in the best mood. He hated that she worked at the Watering Hole instead of adjusting to the ranch, though lately he hadn’t said much. “I’m pretty sure you could’ve gone to sleep earlier than four.”
Her heart sank. If he knew when she’d turned off her lamp, that probably meant he’d been up with Wallace. In fact, Matt looked drawn and tired. She was the worst sister in the whole world. How did he put up with her?
“Would y’all like some coffee?” Her neckline had slipped down her shoulder and she pulled the nightshirt back in place. “I’ll bring it out to you.”
“Sure.” Matt rubbed his eyes, then frowned. “No, that’s okay. I wasn’t thinking…Go back to bed.”
“I’m up. It’s no trouble.”
“I wouldn’t mind a cup.” Trace wasn’t smiling anymore but he was staring up at her.
Her nightshirt was made of thin yellow T-shirt fabric and she wasn’t wearing a bra. No, he wasn’t being obvious or horrible but he’d noticed all right. “Cream and sugar?” she asked, stepping backward.
“I like my women sweet, my coffee not so much.”
Nikki rolled her eyes and noticed Matt trying not to smile. “Is that your oh-so-charming way of saying no sugar?”
“You got it, darlin’.”
She hated when he called her that, and he knew it. The smile was back, and he might’ve winked, she wasn’t sure with the sun in his face. Very tempting to renege on the offer, go back to bed and let them get their own coffee. Oh, who was she kidding? She’d never go back to sleep knowing he was just outside. She only wished she knew why he was here.
“Okay, give me a few minutes.” She pulled the curtain closed and grabbed a pair of jeans she’d tossed on the blue upholstered chair last night.
It took her a minute to sift through her underwear drawer before she realized he wouldn’t actually see that her bra and panties matched. Sighing, she plucked a black thong from the pile along with the most unflattering white bra she owned. She found a clean red T-shirt, washed her face, brushed her teeth, then twisted her hair up and clipped it.
She hurried to the kitchen, still wondering what Trace was doing here. All she needed was for him to flirt with her like he did at the bar. She didn’t know how Matt would react. He liked Trace but Matt was protective of her and he’d seen how Trace behaved around the Sundance guests.
But then Trace already had kind of flirted with her earlier. Or maybe that was just how a guy teased his friend’s kid sister. In many ways, having a brother was still new to her. Little things surprised her, like how Matt worried that she drove home alone at midnight. It was that sort of reaction that made her realize Matt didn’t truly understand how she and her mom had lived. Because Nikki would feel a whole lot safer with a pack of coyotes than she’d felt in her old neighborhood.
Holding three mugs made it hard to open the front door. She managed, but pulling it closed was trickier. If only she had someplace to set down…
In seconds Trace was at her side. “I figured you went back to bed,” he said, closing the door and reaching for a mug. “Which one’s mine?”
“The blue.” She held it out to him.
He wrapped his hand around the cup, his warm fingers brushing against her knuckles. It had to be deliberate, the way he let the tips trail along the backs of her own fingers before he took the mug from her.
She stared down at his hand. “You have calluses.”
“What?” He gave her a funny look. “I work on a ranch, you know. Here, I’ll take Matt’s.”
“I didn’t mean anything. I was just—” She let go of the coffee with cream and sugar, and this time, he was careful not to touch her. “Trace?”
He’d already started walking toward Matt and acknowledged her with a quick glance over his shoulder.
It was too awkward to talk with all that space between them. Plus Matt would hear her fumbling to explain that the calluses had surprised her and she had no idea why. She followed him in mute frustration wishing Matt wasn’t standing so close to the corral where two mean-looking horses had been kept yesterday. No sign of them now, but Nikki was already edgy and she preferred a vast distance between her and where any animal the size of a horse might be. Dogs and cats were fine. She’d always wanted a cocker spaniel or a cute little poodle. But people’s fascination with horses? She didn’t get it. Those beasts were huge and dangerous.
“You said something back there.” Trace had already given Matt his coffee, and he was leaning against the railing watching her as she joined them. Well, sort of joined them…by stopping a good six feet away. “Sorry, I didn’t catch it.”
“Oh, it was nothing.” She cradled her mug with both hands and sipped from it, sweeping a gaze toward the barn and stable.
“You haven’t been out here before, have you?” Matt asked, and Trace laughed.
She could see why he thought it was a joke. They weren’t that far from the walkway, but still farther than she’d ever ventured. The area between the front door and where she parked the truck on the side of the house, now that was her turf.
“No,” she said, and had to clear her throat and try again. “I haven’t.”
A pair of hired hands left the barn on noisy ATVs so no one bothered to say anything. Trace drank his coffee, watching her, his brows puckered in a slight frown. She hoped he wouldn’t ask why she hadn’t been to the corral, because she didn’t really want to answer in front of Matt. He didn’t know about her fear of large animals. It had only started after she’d watched him compete in the Houston rodeo last year.
He was a professional bull rider, with fancy belt buckles and millions in prize money. Nothing intimidated him. He’d been calm and cool sitting on top of that fifteen-hundred-pound bull. She was pretty sure his eight-second ride had knocked a year off her life. That had been the first and last time she’d gone to a rodeo.
Matt kept glancing toward the stable as if he were waiting for someone. Trace apparently preferred to stare at her. It made her nervous, and she pretended not to notice, but what annoyed her most was that she would’ve liked the chance to check him out.
He wasn’t dressed all that differently from when he came into the bar. If he owned more than one pair of pants that weren’t jeans she’d be shocked. And he seemed to like T-shirts. He wore them all the time, even in this chilly morning air. Twice he’d come into the Watering Hole
