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.”
LINDSAY COULDN’T SAY she’d had the most restful night of sleep, but it had been interesting. Actually, everything about her return to Wrangler’s Creek had fallen into that category.
She’d landed her dream job at the Granger Ranch, would be working with some of the best horses and best equipment that money could buy—thanks to the Grangers’ deep pockets and love of the cowboy way of life. And she’d spent the night under the same roof as Nick.
He was the reason for both the interesting homecoming and why she’d had a less-than-perfect sleep cycle. Hard to relax when she’d seen so much of him in that little towel.
Good grief, the man got better looking with every passing day, and that was saying something since he’d been one of the hottest guys around in high school. He could still hold that hot label despite the scowls he’d continued to give her not just the night before but also this morning when he’d gotten up, grumbled something about needing a shower and headed into the bathroom.
Lindsay doubted he’d give her a second towel peep show, but her memories were clear enough that she didn’t need another visual. Though she wouldn’t have turned one down.
She winced at that thought. Somehow, she was going to have to rein in these feelings. Or not, she quickly amended when Nick came out of the bathroom and she got another eyeful of him. No towel this time, though. He was dressed in his work clothes—jeans, a blue shirt and boots—and he somehow managed to look almost as good dressed as he had naked.
Almost.
She finally decided that he was amazing no matter what the situation, and she was going to have to deal with the feelings that she’d had for him for years. It’d been a lot easier not to think about those feelings when he’d been out of sight, but even that hadn’t been a fix. Especially since she had seemed to run into him every time she’d come back to visit her sister.
The last visit had been especially memorable.
“I made coffee and scrambled eggs,” she told him.
It was a sort of peace offering, but Nick was still sporting that scowl. A scowl that would likely get worse when she told him what she’d learned from the phone call that she had made while he was dressing.
“Someone’s using the Granger guesthouse so I can’t go there,” Lindsay explained. “Dylan said he’d get someone to fix up the room in the new bunkhouse but that he wouldn’t be able to spare anyone to do it today. I told him that I understood, that you and I were both adults and that we could share the same space. Besides, this place suits me just fine.”
Nick had already started pouring himself a cup of coffee, but he stopped mid-pour
