“All right, beautiful.” I couldn’t help the endearment. She was so fucking lovely. Inside and out. “I don’t want to make more work for you.” I crooked my finger. “Come over here.”
“I really need to get back to my work.” She thumbed over her shoulder toward the fridge.
“North’s a sweetheart, you said. She’ll understand you wanting to take a minute to talk to a hot cowboy.”
She huffed out a laugh. “If I’d known it would go to your head, I’d never have said it.”
“Too late.”
Yeah, it was too fucking late for both of us.
“You’re cute,” she countered.
It was my turn to laugh. “Cute? Beautiful, I’ve never been called cute in my life.”
Fucker. Dumbass. Pansy. Stupid. Macon had tossed all that out and I’d let it stick. For years. But I’d still gone to art school. Gotten away from his poison and lived my life. Made something of myself on my own. Proved him wrong. I just hadn’t realized the price North paid for it until after the asshole had been dead and buried.
“You know what’s cute?” I said, steering my thoughts back to what was important. Her. “That ass of yours. Now get it over here.”
A pretty flush crept into her cheeks. I saw the interest in her eyes. The desire to obey. She thought I was more than hot. More than cute. I couldn’t miss the hard points of her nipples through her t-shirt. I’d bet my latest commission she was wet for me.
She came over but not close enough. I reached out, snagged her hand in mine and pulled her so my chest almost bumped hers. I wanted her in my arms, my mouth on hers, to drag her into some barely-used room and learn what made her gasp my name, but I was smart enough not to come on too strong. If she could read my mind, she’d run away screaming. Good thing she couldn’t.
Jed came into the kitchen from deep in the house. For some reason, he liked to work at Macon’s desk in that stuffy fucking office. The room had been filled with animal heads; conquests Macon had killed for sport. North and Jed had found a place to deal with the animals respectfully, so it wasn’t like a horror flick going in there any longer.
She flushed and tried to take a step back seeing Jed, but I curled my fingers around her elbow.
“Be with you in a sec, Jed,” I said, never taking my eyes off of her.
“Came to tell you I’m driving to Billings to get North. Too windy for the helicopter,” he murmured. “I’ll talk with you when I get back.”
“Sure,” I replied. “Got a phone, beautiful?”
She nodded as Jed’s footsteps got quieter. We were alone again.
“Can I see it?”
“Why?” she asked, even while pulling it out of her jeans’ pocket. She had a Band-Aid around the top of her pointer finger. I wasn’t the only one who had rough hands. I didn’t like the idea of her getting hurt, even something small that only required a simple covering.
“So I can put my number in there so you’ll call me,” I explained.
She handed it to me as she bit her lip. Yet she asked again, “Why?”
I leaned in so we were eye to eye. “Because I want to take you out. Get to know you. Kiss you.”
She laughed again. “You just met me five minutes ago.”
“Don’t need more than that to know what I want. Besides, you just met me and handed me your phone. You feel it, too.”
She looked up at me, her head tilted back because I was so much taller. Nodded.
Fuck, yes.
“But Jed—”
“Don’t worry about Jed. We’ve done nothing wrong.”
I texted myself from her cell and mine dinged from my pocket. Confident I wouldn’t be without her for long, I handed hers back. Stroked a knuckle down her cheek. “I respect you have work to do. I’ll let you get back to it. Text me.”
I leaned down, brushed my lips against her forehead, then left, confident. As I turned around to leave—the meeting with Jed delayed—I grinned. I didn’t even know her name, yet the woman was mine. I was leaving her now, but not for long.
2
MAISEY
I swiped at the steamy mirror in my tiny bathroom. Grabbing my glasses I’d left on the sink while I showered, I stared at myself and wondered what the guy saw in me. I took in my wet hair that clung to my neck and back. My plain eyes. Plain face. Everything about me was plain. Boring. Average.
Yet he’d called me beautiful.
I couldn’t stop thinking about him. He’d scared the crap out of me, then rocked my world. And all we’d done was talk. I’d given him my phone as if under a spell. Maybe I had been. Still was, hours later.
I thought of his broad shoulders and the way his dirty t-shirt had been molded to them. The worn jeans that cupped… everything just right. But it had been his eyes that had pulled me in. The deepest blue. I wasn’t used to being the focus of such intense scrutiny, instead usually ignored. He’d looked at me as if I was… everything. As if he’d been waiting for me.
It felt as if I’d been waiting for him. The guys I’d dated in the past, they’d been boys in comparison. Actually, they really had been boys. Mere high schoolers. After my sister’s I-want-what-you-have attitude had ruined any chance at a boyfriend in high school, I’d eventually given up because she stole every one of them. Any hint of interest on my part and she took it. Especially after Tommy, the only guy I’d slept with. Once. Then she’d sunk her claws into him, and they’d done things together I still hadn’t tried. Guys had always wanted her instead of me, even though we were identical.
She was the fun one. The wild one. She had the same plain hair and eyes and yet she wasn’t plain.
I’d never stood a chance, especially since she saw sex as part of the conquest. I still wasn’t sure if it was to prove she was better than me or solely because she liked new and shiny things. Maybe both. She was a narcissist through and through. She wasn’t satisfied until she had what she wanted that was mine, then twisted it around so it was my fault she’d taken it from me. A homecoming date. A paycheck. My entire bank account.
But Paisley wasn’t here. After what she’d done—this time—I cleared out in the middle of the night. Took whatever fit in my car and left. Ditched my phone for a cheap pay-in-cash model. Cut up my sole credit card—even though I’d be paying down the maxed-out balance she’d accrued for years. I paid the minimum on my student loans and was living hand to mouth.
If I had extra cash, it would go to the mammogram that was recommended. I set my fingers over my left breast, pressed on the spot where I’d found the small lump. I’d gone to the free clinic where the nurse had felt it too and told me to go to Billings or Bozeman for more tests. She’d said I was young and it was probably nothing. A fluid filled cyst.
Still, they were tests I couldn’t afford thanks to Paisley since I didn’t have insurance.
For the past two months, she didn’t know where I was. I’d get enough to pay for the tests and try not to panic in the meantime. I could think of better things. Like the guy at the ranch. Knowing Paisley wasn’t around had given me some confidence when I’d talked with him.