than a starched shirt with an ache in his muscles, joints, neck and lower back that he’d never felt in his life. Even the palms of his hands hurt; they were red and rough from wielding that shovel all day. His hands had remained mostly callus free and he had been perfectly fine with that. Perhaps it had even been a badge of honor to be a part of the white-collar and blue-blood class. But after watching Dallas work like she could keep going until nightfall while he was sucking wind an hour into the cleanup, he’d decided some calluses on his hands were exactly what he needed. He could stand a little toughening up.
Nick packed his belongings, put them in the rental car and checked out of the hotel. If Dallas could rough it out at Lightning Rock, then so could he. He grabbed a fast-food breakfast on his way out of town, ordering an extra-black coffee for Dallas just in case.
When he drove long distances, he liked to take the time to think. Same when he was stuck in rush-hour traffic back home in Chicago. He didn’t listen to music or books on CD. He always thought about his next move, his next big goal. His future. All the way out to Lightning Rock, Nick thought about the property, and what he might say to his uncle Hank when it came time to discuss the sale of Lightning Rock. Intertwined with business was Dallas. On his first night in Montana, he’d wondered if his interest in her, his curiosity about her, was a passing fancy. By his second night in Montana, he had his answer: no. It wasn’t a passing fancy. She fascinated him. He was drawn to her. He wanted to know more about her—about what made her tick. He liked her.
And there was this one moment yesterday that he couldn’t stop thinking over again and again: the moment when Dallas lifted up the bottom of her tank top to wipe the sweat off her face. It wasn’t meant to be a tease—it was an innocent, practical move on her part. But that flash of pale skin on her toned stomach, so different than the reddish brown of the skin on her arms and neck, made his body stir and made his mind turn to sex.
* * *
“I was beginnin’ to wonder if you’d decided to get the heck outta Dodge,” Dallas said to him as she dumped the contents of her cart onto the trash pile.
“Don’t think I didn’t consider it.” He was working hard not to walk in a way that would show how much hurt he was feeling. “I wasn’t sure if you drink it, but I brought an extra coffee just in case.”
“Been drinkin’ it since I was ten.” Dallas dropped the cart and walked over to him. “More of that unusual life of mine.”
He caught her meaning and wanted to clear the air now that he had the chance.
“I think you have a great life, Dallas. Unusual isn’t a bad thing in my book.”
The cowgirl didn’t respond to his comment, but he could read in her eyes that his words had hit their intended mark.
“It’s black,” he said of the coffee.
“I drink it any way I can get it,” the cowgirl said to him as she took the cup of coffee from him. “Thank you for thinkin’ about me.”
She’d probably be worried if she had any idea of how much actual thinking he had done about her.
“I have somethin’ for you too.” The cowgirl pointed to his shovel resting against the porch banister of the cabin; a cowboy hat was hanging on the end of the shovel’s handle.
“It was Davy’s,” she added.
Surprised by her thoughtful gift, Nick walked over to the cabin and unhooked the hat from the shovel’s handle.
Nick hadn’t spent time following bull riding since he was a kid—his interest stopped around the time his father and uncle Hank had their falling-out over the will—but, before that, he wanted to be like his uncle Hank, and his uncle Hank loved bull riding.
“Davy Dalton’s hat.” Nick held the aged brown Stetson in his hands reverently.
“And his gloves,” Dallas added. “Flip it over.”
Nick turned the hat over and saw a pair of work gloves tucked inside the inner band of the hat.
“If they don’t fit, don’t worry,” the cowgirl said.
“I feel like these are things that you should keep,” Nick replied.
“Why?” Dallas shook off his comment with a shake of her head. “They’re too big for me, and Pop can’t use ’em anymore. He’d think it was right that one of Hank’s kin found some use for ’em.”
Nick decided to take Dallas at her word; she didn’t strike him as someone who spent much time talking around the truth. If she said it, she seemed to mean it.
He tried on the hat first and was pleased that it fit pretty well. Then he tried on the gloves. With a little stretching of the leather, they would suit him just fine.
“Thank you.” He smiled at the cowgirl.
Dallas, who was pulling the cart back to the cabin, paused when she looked at him. A flicker of some emotion flashed quick and ephemeral, like a shooting star across a black sky. He couldn’t read the emotion it passed so quick.
After a second, Dallas said, “Pop is pleased.” And then she got back to work.
It took them three days of sweaty, backbreaking work to clean out the cabin and get it rehabbed enough for him to bunk there with relative comfort. It had running water and electricity in from the main part of the ranch. It was humble, but it was habitable. Dallas had taken a break from training long enough to get him in the cabin; today, the fourth day of cleanup, she insisted on taking a break to practice barrel racing.
“How are you gettin’ on?” Ketch asked him when he came back from giving Dallas some critiques on her technique.
Ketch was the only person Dallas had invited out to Lightning Rock. Nick had a feeling that Dallas didn’t trust many people, including him, but she trusted Tom Ketchum.
“She’s pretty quiet, most of the time.”
Ketch kept his focus on his student. “She’s been through a lot, that one.”
“I think everything we’ve been doing out at Lightning Rock,” Nick said about sifting through the remnants of Davy Dalton’s life, “would be sad for anyone.”
“Trouble is a private thing,” Ketch agreed, then went back to coaching Dallas.
Nick watched Dallas with unabashed fascination. She was in complete control of her horse; sometimes she careened around the barrels so fast and so low that it actually made him hold his breath thinking that the horse was going to tip over onto her leg and pin her on the ground. She was fearless, her hair flying loose down her back, her cowgirl hat worn square on the top of her head. He hadn’t thought she was beautiful when he first met her—cute, maybe. Now he had it in his head that she was one of the prettiest women he’d known. For sure, she was prettier on the inside than most he’d met. She was pretty on the inside like his sisters Taylor and Casey. That was the highest praise, as far as he was concerned.
“Woooo-weeee!” Dallas let out a loud whoop after her last barrel run. It felt great
