Cowboy Proud

His eyes heated. “Ever been in love, Emma?”

Warmth suffused her cheeks. “Not really a believer in happily-ever-after endings.”

“No? What do you believe in, then?”

She shrugged.

“C’mon, Emma. There has to be something,” Cade pressed. “And why wouldn’t you believe in true love?”

“You can’t believe in something you’ve never seen, never experienced.”

His eyes widened. “Yeah, actually, you can. It’s called having faith in someone or something. It’s like sitting down in a chair. I know it’s a chair because, even if I personally have never sat in a chair, I’ve watched others do it. So when I go to sit down, I have faith the chair will do what it was supposed to do and hold me up because I’ve witnessed it do so for others. Faith.” He reached up and undid the collar button on his shirt. “You probably understand more about love than you realize you do, Emma. You’ve witnessed it, whether over dinner with friends or between a man and woman standing on a busy street corner, so caught up in each other they miss their bus and don’t care. That’s love, so you’ve got something to draw on.”

She shifted in her seat, her gaze roaming the grandeur of the plains, her mind trying to commit the smallest details to memories.

He pressed further. “So, what—you want me to believe you’ve never loved anyone and never seen someone in love?” He settled his black Stetson firmly before shaking his head. “I don’t buy it, Ms. Graystone. Someone who looks like you? She’s been loved before, even if from afar.”

“It’s pretty to think so, isn’t it? Regardless, appearances have no bearing on love, particularly true love. Have you never watched a Disney movie? Beauty and the Beast, for example. Beautiful woman falls in love with a man cursed to beastly form. But love changes everything, making her whole and him the handsome prince he’d been before.” Emma fought to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “A fantastic tale that creates false hope in girls.” She choked on a bitter laugh. “As a kid, I wasn’t given anything but the hard truth. No disillusionment. Ever.”

“My old man was a real piece of work, too. Mom? We all swore she was an angel, but we lost her way too early. I get the maladjusted family bit,” he said, resting his wrist across the steering wheel casually. “We’ve all got some kind of dysfunction that dogs our heels. Doesn’t mean we have to let it herd us where it will, though.”

“You think I let my history determine my future?” How could he judge her? “I grew up with nannies. Some were young and nubile and spent a great deal of time in my father’s office. Then there were the rigid hardliners who stayed just long enough to offend my mother before being dismissed.

“It didn’t matter which camp they were in, though. Affection was forbidden. They were there to raise me, not coddle me.” She forced a smile. “My parents hated each other, but it was a strategic financial match, a practical investment of individual strengths in order to achieve mutual goals. So tell, me, Cade. Where in all of that should I have found faith in love and family? Perhaps somewhere between courses at dinner when I was allowed to eat with my parents so long as I didn’t speak? Or maybe at school, where my parents were the repeat no-shows for everything from concerts to parent-teacher conferences? No? I’ve got it! How about when I thought I’d bank on love and entered into a joint business venture they approved of with a man they’d chosen and suggested I marry in order to forge a stronger connection between the family businesses?” Her mind flashed to Michael, her business partner, the same one she currently suspected might be sabotaging the business she’d started before she’d met him and allowed him to buy in. “You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t get totally on board with the whole ‘love saves the day’ mentality.”

Lines appeared at the corners of Cade’s mouth as his frown deepened, but he didn’t comment on her outburst. He simply drove on, only the radio and road noise cutting the silence.

The reference to Michael reminded Emma of her worries. She’d left him a voice mail this morning, asking him to call her as soon as possible. The only thing she’d received was a text. “Good luck in the Wild West, Annie Oakley! Send a picture of you on a horse. Thanks for taking over this account and assuming responsibility for the Covington’s new dude ranch.”

The last line had bothered her. Why had he laid responsibility for both the account and, in particular, his clients at her feet?

“I’m under no delusions about what I want,” Cade said. His words sounded louder in a truck cab that had been silent as they’d traveled across the flat grassland all the way to the base of a mountain range.

She shook off thoughts of Michael. “Want? For what?”

“For our wager. When I have you wrapped around my little finger with love in your eyes, I want you to refund the money we’ve paid you and do all the PR and marketing for the dude ranch pro bono for the next two years.”

“I’ll take those stakes.” And she would do it without regret. There was a better chance of her taking up competitive hurling—Ireland’s official “sport” that was more like sanctioned war with blunt objects and no armor—than fall in love.

She glanced at him to gauge his reaction and found herself nearly struck dumb by the unguarded thrill of challenge on his face. One corner of Cade’s mouth kicked up to reveal a deep dimple, then he winked at her. He shifted his attention to the long stretch of road before them that appeared, from her vantage point, as if it turned into the mountain and then was swallowed by it.

He’d winked at her.

There’d been nothing offensive at all in the flirtatious gesture, but her body’s response was positively traitorous. Heat bloomed between her thighs. She rubbed her legs together subtly, longing for his touch, absolutely craving the kind of heat a man like Cade could offer, the kind that would assuage her unanticipated, uncomplicated desires. Her heart beat a rock-hard rhythm inside her chest and a fine sweat decorated her upper lip.

Images of the two of them intertwined flashed through her brain. Her imagination had definitely missed the memo that she was a woman who did not have physical or emotional responses. But, client or not, she craved Cade’s touch like a hummingbird craved nectar—in a mandatory, had-to-have-it kind of way.

Forcing her attention to the quickly changing scenery, she watched as they traversed a bridge straddling a wide but shallow and very rocky creek.

She also noticed that the blue of the sky was slowly being eaten away by encroaching dark clouds that were tinged with the oddest shade of green. Gesturing to the clouds, she found her voice. “Is that going to be okay?”

Cade glanced at her. “You’re safe with me, Emma.”

She nodded and swallowed so loud he had to have heard it over the radio. “Sure.” Unbidden, a quote from Mark Twain wandered through her consciousness. The famous wordsmith had said, “There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it absolutely desirable.” And he’d been absolutely right.

She’d never been sexually attracted, let alone tempted, by a client. Cade had broken that track record. Shattered it, really. But he’d broken Twain’s theoretical “rule.” Cade had started out desirable—the kind of desirable that made a woman throw caution to the wind and go where chance led her. Whatever this thing was, she’d negotiate with regret later. For the first time, Emma wanted to set all the pressures of life and work aside and do nothing more than simply experience what it was to be alive.

She knew with inexplicable certainty that this man could give her that.

3

THE REST OF the trip back to the ranch could only be compared to jockeying a Shetland pony in the Kentucky Derby: a bumpy ride that seemed it would never end. The heat between them refused to dissipate no matter how high Cade ran the air-conditioning. She kept shooting him covert glances from the corners of her eyes. He knew because he was caught up doing the same thing, thereby catching the majority of interest in those brilliant green eyes.

What the hell am I playing at?

He was a cowboy—he didn’t understand the type of sexual byplay that involved a high-powered, corporate woman who’d walk in and out of his life so fast she’d leave his head spinning. The woman probably collected men the way most women around here collected canning jars. Store them on the shelf until she had a use for them and put them away when that usefulness passed. Cade would never allow himself to be put on a shelf any more than he would live through the daily wear and tear a relationship would bring. And what in God’s name was he doing, thinking in terms of jam jars and relationships? He’d only met Emma three hours ago. Yeah, they’d flirted, but that didn’t mean he’d be off ring shopping come morning.

The last sliver of sun disappeared behind the variable peaks and crags of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, casting the early-evening sky in broad swaths of brilliant color. The storm brewed southwest of them, spitting lightning as the winds increased and kicked up dust.

He pulled off his sunglasses and clipped them to the visor. At the rate the two of them were going, he and Emma would make it to the ranch before full dark set in roughly an hour from now. When Eli, the attorney in the family, heard how the trip had gone down, when he learned that Cade had flirted with and challenged a contractor-slash-guest about falling in love, the fact that they were blood wouldn’t keep Cade’s ass out of the sling his older brother would aim to park it in. The only blood that would matter was whatever they shed as they beat the crap out of each other. Most annoying? Cade knew he had it coming. Every. Meaty. Fist.

His grip on the steering wheel tightened until he was choking the ever-loving hell out of the black leather. Sometime in the past half hour, the radio had officially devolved to short bursts of music followed by long runs of staticky white noise. The sound skipped across his nerves like a stone across water. Every point of contact was brief but annoyingly sharp.

If the dude ranch did well, the first thing he’d invest in was satellite radio. Screw the recurring expense. They could use it to play music in the sawdust-floored dining hall during gatherings and events. Hell, if he was going off the deep end anyway, maybe he’d forgo his cautious nature altogether and order the setup when he got home. He’d even add a second receiver to his truck as a personal bonus.

Mind on the possibilities of satellite radio, Cade reached out and turned down the volume, switching the output from FM to CD. Tyler Farr’s voice poured out of the sound system, his mournful song telling a story of heartbreak and betrayal. If Cade’s soul could have audibly sighed, it would have. Good music always did that for him, helping him calm and find his center no matter how strung out he was. Years of habit made Cade take a couple of deep breaths. Settling into the music, he began to sing.

Emma rounded on him, eyes wide. With deliberate care, she slipped her sunglasses into her short hair, little strands standing out in every direction. “What are you doing?” she asked.

Cade jerked, twisting the steering wheel to the right as he shot Emma a sharp look. “Singing. Why? Would you rather listen to the static?” He reached for the radio controls, surprised when she gripped his wrist hard enough the smaller bones ground together. Extricating his hand, his reproach was gentle. “That’s my roping hand.”

“Sorry.” Her apology, issued on a single breath, seemed almost anxious. “Will you sing some more?”

His brow creased. “Why?”

“Your voice is...” She waggled one hand between them before flattening it over her heart and drawing a slow, deep breath. “I’ve never heard anything as striking. Beautiful, even.”

Heat burned across his cheeks and he wished the option to hide behind his sunglasses still existed. “I don’t usually, uh, sing. For people.”

Her eyes widened. “Why on earth not? Your voice is amazing!”

“My mother...” He hesitated.

“She must have been proud,” Emma said on a soft smile.

“She died when I was nine. Last request she had was that I sing her to sleep.” His eyes burned, piquing both his irritation and his embarrassment. He tried to clear the gruffness from his throat.

She moved forward a fraction, froze, then settled deeper into her seat. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I can relate, though. I lost both of my parents at once.”

“Accident?”

She nodded. “Two years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me, too, but probably not as sorry as you were—are—about your mother.” Heat stained her cheeks a deep rose. “Forget I said that. I apologize.”

“I’m surprised the fact we lost her so early on didn’t make it into the commercial file you have on the ranch.”

“Why would it?”

“Just seems it would’ve been a marketing ploy—three brothers brought together after the loss of their mother but driven in different directions.” He shrugged. “Almost seems too easy to avoid using.”

“I would never exploit your pain that way,” she bit out.

“You don’t seem the type, maybe, but what about the guy that’s been working with Eli? What’s his name...” He rubbed his chin. “Michael?”

“Your account’s in my hands now. I won’t take easy routes or cheap shots.”

The invisible fist around his heart eased up some, but he couldn’t thank her. Not yet. The most he could manage was, “Good to know.”

“I’ve been working my way through the file. Michael has a lot of notes, so it’s taking a bit to sort through it all.”

He shot her a hard glance. “Cutting it a little close, having someone new take over so near the event. You don’t—can’t—possibly understand what we want for the place.” Or, more importantly, what they didn’t want.

Emma nodded. “In general, I agree. But what I’m envisioning as we drive is a remoteness that’s become a way of life, a sense of total privacy, of communion with your heritage and your responsibilities to earth and animal. Definitely not the big, commercial, circus-y production you find in lower-end travel brochures.”

Cade fought the urge to let gravity have its way with his jaw, pulling the damn thing open. How could she possibly key into the very things that were important to the family? How could she read all of them so well without ever having met them? “Is that what Michael had in his notes?” It was the only explanation.

Grimacing, she shook her head. “He had plans for showy ads and more adventure-style photography. I’ll have a lot to do to change directions in two weeks, but it can be done. First thing I’ll do tonight is issue, via email, a formal stop order for all advertising until I can provide new directives in writing. I want a paper trail. Then I’ll revisit the long-term exposure plans that Michael created for your account.”

Shooting her yet another quick glance, he was surprised at the ferocity on her face. “Problems in paradise?”

“While there are undeniable perks, the reality is that owning your own commercial business is far from paradise.” Her eyelids fluttered shut, her head thumping the headrest. “Let’s leave this conversation with ‘I’m looking into it’ and fully intend to keep your account on my personal client list.”

Hmm. “Dun & Bradstreet didn’t give you a bad report by any means, but Eli said your creditworthiness had slipped in the last twenty-four months due to some serious fluctuations in cash flow when compared to the previous five years.” The shock on her face said she hadn’t expected them to do such intensive research on her.

“If you have concerns regarding my company’s financial stability or my ability to do my job—” she started, but Cade cut her off.

“We hired you. That ought to tell you everything you need to know. We’re not the type to make poor business decisions.” He couldn’t stop himself from adding, “We can’t afford to.”

The next few mile markers passed in silence, the emotional tension escalating inside the truck seeming to rival the storm building outside. Anxiety crackled between them as true as Mother Nature’s lightning did between sky and earth. The charge in the air gave off the same general discomfort, the kind that said, “Take cover.” Cade tried to reduce the strain by changing the subject.

“I’ve never been to New York,” he offered.

“Hmm.” Emma continued to stare out the window.

“You can do better than that, Graystone.” So could he. “Tell me something about yourself, seeing as none of us have really talked to you.”

“What would you like me to volunteer?” The question was polite but lacked the force of personality she’d shown.

“You single?”

Surprise colored her cheeks and brightened her eyes as she whipped around to face him. “What? That’s irrelevant when it comes to our business dealings.”

He fought the urge to grin. “Not really. The bet still stands. Love or loathing. No way can I win if you’re going home to someone in two weeks, someone who’s already got your heart. Of course,” he said, openly considering her, “I can’t imagine you’re the type to take such a wager if you had someone back home. And I doubt you’d have such a...unique take on happy endings if you were working toward your own, would you.”

When she didn’t answer, he rested his right forearm against the headrest on her seat, letting his fingers trace the silken skin of her neck. He was struck by the urge to move his fingers higher. Following the instinct, he played through the hair at her nape. Soft but thick.

He fought the craving to massage up her neck until he could play with the thick mass over her crown. He should move away, stop touching her, his personal temptation, without remorse. He was about to pull his hand away when she made a slight sound of encouragement. “Feel good?”

“Didn’t realize how stressed I’ve been.”

“So, will you answer me?” he said gently, never ceasing his tender attention.

Tipping her chin forward to give him better access, she mumbled, “I did. I said I didn’t realize I was so stressed.”

“That’s not what I was after, Emma, and you know it. Are you involved with anyone?”

She shifted in her seat, forcing Cade to move his hand. His fingertips brushed over the thin skin protecting her life vein. He paused, only briefly, but it was long enough to experience the thunder of her pulse beneath his thumb. He dropped his hand to the console between them. “You’re single.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” she objected. “I haven’t answered you.”

“Don’t have to.” Had she been seeing anyone, he had this innate, inexplicable knowledge she would never have taken the bet. She wasn’t that person. That was answer enough at this point. It also left him with plenty to consider. He cranked the radio up, trying to buy himself time to think.

A gust of wind caught the truck and pushed the behemoth like it was no more than a paper kite in the wind. The storm clouds had taken on a deeper greenish-gray tone that colored the land an odd, pre-twilight color that was impossible to mistake. Mother Nature was advising everyone in the county that she was about to unleash a can of whoop-ass. The wise man would hunker down. Problem was, there was no way Cade could get them to the ranch before the heavens loosed their fury. If it hailed, it could total his truck. Lightning posed the largest threat, though. They’d be okay on the flats if they stayed in the car.

As a rancher, he spared a thought for the poor animals. They didn’t always have a way to get out of this kind of mess, and if they balled up in a fence corner, the ranch would lose a few to electrocution when lightning struck the metal fencing.

Emma unbuckled her seat belt, twisted around and half climbed into the backseat.

“What’re you doing?”

A gust of wind slammed into the pickup, shoving the big vehicle hard enough it knocked Emma into him. She landed with her hip on his shoulder, that luscious ass in his face. The urge to nip it was nearly too much.

Her muffled reply caught him off guard. “Grabbing my camera.”

“Your camera?”

Another gust of wind parked her hip over his shoulder. She pushed herself up, clutching a black bag large enough to hold decent digital equipment.

Then she realized the predicament she was in. She had one knee solidly between his thighs and the other rested against the outside of his right hip. Her breasts were pressed intimately against his chest and arm. Her far hand was digging into his pectoral pad. She dipped her chin and peered down at him, her eyes wide with surprise. “How did I end up in your lap?”

His right hand moved of its own volition, coming to rest on the indention of her waist. “Your camera, Emma.”

She swallowed hard and nodded, a couple quick jerks of her chin. “The storm. I wanted a picture of the storm. I’ve never...”

“Never what?” he asked, urging her to finish her statement.

Without breaking her gaze, she set her camera bag in her seat and wrapped her hand around the nape of his neck. “I’ve never experienced anything similar to this. Never encountered anything so wild and free, something that acts without consequence or—”

“There’re always consequences.” His voice had devolved into a gruff whisper. “Always,” he repeated, tracing his thumb over her bottom lip.

“I’ll live with them,” she said, voice husky.

“All of them? Just like that?”

“Every. Single. One.”

So be it.

* * *

EMMA COULDN’T LOOK AWAY. Cade’s voice, sultry and wanting, had wiped out her every effort to maintain her composure. From the moment she’d met him, he’d had her heart rate speeding up in all the right ways. And for the last hundred miles, she’d been crossing and recrossing her legs in an effort to assuage the mild ache in her core. Then he’d sung. Just a few notes. That’s all it had taken to push her over sanity’s edge.

Driven by madness or not, she couldn’t give him complete control. No one held that over her head. Not ever. She would manage the way this happened—and it would happen. The undisguised desire on his face, that same face that had been so passive since meeting her, now empowered her. It was the type of desire a woman didn’t want to discount any more than she would the impressive bulge fighting to destroy his zipper.

She tossed her glasses onto the seat beside her before tipping up the rim of his cowboy hat. Tracing her fingers along the rough stubble lining his jaw, she leaned forward and laid her cheek next to his, her lips against his ear. “Just so I’m completely clear. You’re not involved at any level? Because I’ll never be anyone’s other woman or second choice.”

“Not involved, and you’re far from my second choice. You’re the first woman who’s ever crawled under my skin like this,” he replied, tension threaded through every word. His grasp on her hip tightened.

“That’s a powerful statement.” She nipped his ear. “Power is seductive, is it not?”

His breath came out in a rush. “You’re playing with fire, darlin’.”

She couldn’t help but agree any more than she could stop the rush of heat up her neck and down through her belly. This man was sin incarnate, from his boots to his jeans to his very, very fine body. Everything about him appealed to her. She’d never experienced this crazy rush of desire, the raw cravings that made her want to accept his stupid challenge and discover just what two weeks might bring. With absolutely no intention of falling in love, she could still enjoy the chase, the seduction, the touching and... She shivered.

Then she smiled, the stubble on Cade’s cheek leaving a slight whisker burn on her delicate skin. “I understand exactly what I’m doing, darlin’. I may be single, but I’ve never been celibate. I take liaisons as more than a casual fling but less than a plea for serious commitment. Clear?” She pressed closer, her lips brushing the shell of his ear. “And as for fire? You have no...idea...just how good it would be to burn with my particular brand of heat.”