shorts matched the tan on her legs and drew his attention to how long and smooth they were, stretching down to a newer, shinier version of yesterday’s boots.
A baggy, dark navy sweatshirt hid the rest of her. Its round neckline half covered a thin gold chain she hadn’t been wearing yesterday, and showed the occasional glimpse of something white—a tank-top shoulder strap, or possibly her bra.
She had her hair looped and knotted at the back, with some sexy little tendrils already escaping. She even wore makeup. It made her eyes more startling than ever in their unusual color. Her lips were darker and redder, and he noticed them every time she spoke, every time he dared take his eyes from the road to look sideways.
Yesterday, she’d dressed down for him. Today, she’d apparently dressed up, in her own way, for wild horses and Steamboat Springs.
Heck, how long was it since he’d met a woman who considered polished riding boots a big step up on the fashion ladder?
For most of the drive, he forgot to think about what Dad or Raine would want if they were here. Raine hated hair-raising roads with no guardrails and steep drops. She hated getting dust on the car. Actually the car rental company might not be too thrilled about that, either.
Hair-raising roads with no guard rails and steep drops didn’t seem to trouble Reba Grant. The temperature climbed and she took off her sweatshirt. Yes, the white fabric did belong to a tank-top—a little stretchy cotton thing with a triangular panel of lace in front. It fit snugly over her curves and her ribs, and he could faintly see the pretty shape of a white bra beneath it.
Using the discarded sweatshirt for a pillow behind her head, she slid her seat back and stretched her long legs out in front. She pointed out wildlife and vistas and potholes in the road with a combination of familiarity and fresh interest that sparked his own curiosity.
“You sat up like a startled cat just now, but you must have seen elk around here before.”
“Sometimes you forget to look, when you’ve seen something before. You take it for granted. I told myself I wasn’t going to do that today.”
“Because you’re selling? Because you won’t be here any more? I thought you were staying in Biggins.”
“I want to. Wanted to,” Reba corrected herself.
Yesterday, she would have resented Lucas probing her on personal issues like this. Today, she wanted to talk, and still had last night’s odd sense that he could be the right person to listen.
Something about his eyes.
The perception.
The blunt honesty.
He’d talked about bulldozing her home. Bluntness could be refreshing, sometimes. It could be necessary. Even if she got angry with him, anger could give clarity, the way it had last night, with Gordie. She couldn’t simply wait for the explosion in her life to settle. She had to go out and look for the pieces.
“I didn’t really consider the alternatives,” she went on. “I don’t want to move to Florida. I’m not sure what there would be for me there. I love this country.” She took a breath of the mint-clean morning air flooding through the half-open window. “But I don’t want to end up twenty years from now, still a short-order cook at the same restaurant, with corns on my feet and dreams that faded before I even knew I had them—”
“Can’t picture you like that, for sure.”
“—because I never had the courage or took the time to really think about the future. This is a—a huge turning point. I don’t want to just let it happen to me.”
His glance arrowed across in her direction. As usual he seemed to take her whole soul in at a glance. And her whole body. “You don’t want your father to sell the ranch. That’s clear. Jim Broadbent said your mother’s health made the decision. She has lupus, right?”
“Systemic Lupus Erythematosis, yes.”
She hated the disease, hated its long, unpronounceable name. Some people called it SLE, which was snappy, at least. It had variable, wandering symptoms that were unique to each person. It had unpredictable phases of exacerbation and remission, and it could kill Mom eventually, if her kidneys failed or the disease reached other vital organs. Those worst case scenarios might not occur for years, or ever, but she’d never be cured.
“And your dad wouldn’t consider leaving the place for you to run?”
“No, they need the money. But I couldn’t run it. My brain’s not built that way.”
“You seem pretty bright to me, and totally at home around the ranch.”
“It’s not just about doing the right chores at the right time. It’s a business. You’d know that. I don’t have a business brain. I’d have to get a really competent manager, which would eat up too much cash flow, on top of the wages for the hands and everything else.”
“It could still be a profitable enterprise.”
“All my parents’ assets are tied up in Seven Mile Creek, and if they don’t sell, they’ll have to rent in Florida, and watch their pennies. Mom’s medical bills are getting higher every year. No, the ranch has to be sold.”
“But you’d prefer a local buyer, not me,” Lucas said, pushing Reba a little. He wanted all of this clear, and out in the open. He wanted to understand the sources of this woman’s anger, her unhappiness, and her fight.
Her voice dropped and slowed and took on a throaty quality he knew she couldn’t control, and maybe didn’t even hear. She ran her palm down her bare thigh and he heard the light friction of her work-roughened skin. Palms like cardboard, legs like silk, inner thighs like whipped cream melting over apple—
Hell, he had to stop thinking about her this way…didn’t he?
Did he?
Maybe she wanted him to.
Her eyes glared at him a lot, but the rest of her body said something different. Powerfully. His groin tightened and filled even more, and he stared ahead at the road, not daring to look sideways, in case he gave too much away. Or in case he caught fire.
She tilted her head, smiled a little, like a slow dawn breaking. “Actually, I’m getting used to you,” she said.
All the way through brunch at Steamboat, a look around the resort, and a failed attempt to find the wild horses, all through the winding drive back, Reba felt the exhilarating prick of danger in Lucas Halliday’s company.
Just yesterday, her emotional compass had been arrowed toward a hopeless need to protect the ranch, to protect the childhood she’d loved by staving off this big city buyer until a better one came along—a buyer like Gordie McConnell would have been, if he’d had the money, or the right claim on her heart.
She had wanted a buyer who would come into the steakhouse every night, regular as clockwork, tell her how the place was going and listen to everything she said about keeping it the same.
Today, everything was different.
Gordie was the only lover she’d ever had. He’d been in her life too long, and had stopped her from seeing
