Authors: Kerri Nelson
Baylor stuck her hand into the
pocket of her jeans and tried to refocus her thoughts out of the adult-rated
images she’d just had about this complete stranger.
“Well, sort of…” She looked
back up at Wyatt, who was still gazing at her with the same straight-faced
intensity. She’d noticed how his eyes had never wavered or left her face, even
when Aunt Melba had entered the room.
Baylor knew she was being
studied, observed, and sized up. Almost as if he saw her as competition.
She shrugged off the thought.
He was probably just trying to figure out how long it would take before he
could get into her pants.
And if my own fantasies are any indication, it won’t be long.
Blushing again at her explicit
mental confession, Baylor turned and followed her aunt into the dining room.
She had to put some distance between herself and this man.
But as she left, she allowed
one
more quick
peek backward. He was still surveying her
calmly, and the look on his face wasn’t one of kindness.
****
She took a bread basket out of
her aunt’s hand as Melba was bringing the last of the dishes out of the kitchen
to the table.
“Mel, let me help you with
those.” Baylor set the bread on the table and then turned toward the kitchen to
see what else needed to be served.
“Oh it’s all here, dear. You
just sit down and relax.”
Baylor took her seat at the
table and found herself right across from the man her aunt had introduced as
Wyatt. He was still eyeballing her, and she didn’t know if she’d be able to
withstand his penetrating stare for much longer.
Uncle Duane started serving up
his plate with heaps of corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, and roast beef. He
had his napkin tucked under his chin and his eyes were gleaming with merriment.
Baylor couldn’t help but grin
at him as he handed her the bowl of corn. Anything was a welcome distraction
from the uncomfortable scrutiny of the man across the table.
“We are so happy to have you
here, peanut. You don’t worry about a thing. You’ll be right at home in no
time.”
“Oh, thanks so much for letting
me stay here, Uncle Duane. It really means a lot to me.” Baylor found herself
unexpectedly choked up with emotion.
“Oh, you’re most welcome, and
Wyatt here will introduce you to the guys tomorrow and show you around. Isn’t
that right, Wyatt?”
Baylor looked up at Wyatt, and
he gave her a small smile as he spoke his first words of the evening in her
presence. “Don’t you worry,
Duane.
I’ll take extra
special care of peanut.”
Baylor’s face flushed as his
sexy voice rattled off her childhood nickname.
Despite her best intentions,
her treacherous eyes betrayed her by seeking out the source of her
embarrassment once again. That was when he winked at her.
Good Lord, I’ll never make it through this dinner with that man across
from me.
Chapter
Two
The bright
lights.
The roar of the crowd.
The smell of dirt
and hay and sweat.
The rodeo.
Wyatt mounted the snorting
beast carefully and adjusted the strap around his hand. The beast shook and
bucked beneath him. The bull didn’t like being ridden, and could smell fear a
mile away. But Wyatt had no fear. He was a pro. Tonight was his two hundredth
ride and there was a big celebration planned after tonight’s show.
“Okay, boys!”
He gave the go-ahead to open the chute’s
gate and out they went. Man against beast.
Trying to tame
something that didn’t want to be tamed.
The toughest
of the tough, the bull rider.
And then, pain and flashes of
light.
The sound of a monitor beeping nearby and the smell of
antiseptic.
The feeling of helplessness.
The inability to move or speak or wake up from this dream.
If I could just wake up from
this dream.
Panic and
suffocation.
Can’t breathe.
Help me!
Wyatt sat up in bed. His heart was
racing a mile a minute. His back was wet with sweat. He shook his head to ward
off the remnants of the nightmare. Only it was no nightmare.
He swung his bare legs off the
side of the bed and pushed himself off onto the floor, savoring the coolness of
the hardwood beneath his feet. The pain in his left knee stabbed as he hobbled
over to the window.
He watched the faint light of
sunrise over the horizon as it crept into view. He pressed his hand against the
windowsill for balance and slowly stretched out his knee while he took deep breaths
to manage the pain.
Every morning it was like this.
The pain would be with him for the rest of his life. His knee and his back
would keep him from doing what he loved to do. Well, that and the fear of
dying.
He grunted at his own mental
admission of fear.
Dammit. I’m the fucking sheriff. Get a fucking grip.
He chastised himself as he bent
down from the waist to stretch out his stiff back. He might have old wounds and
old ghosts still chasing him, but he’d be damned if he’d let himself start back
down that road again. Self-pity wouldn’t help him then and it sure as hell
wouldn’t help him now.
He had a mission and it started
with convincing Duane
Markum
to sell him the Double R
ranch. If only that redheaded, green-eyed little she-devil hadn’t shown up last
night to intervene.
His mind flashed back to last
night when she’d stood at the window, much like he was doing now, staring out
at the ranch and trying to convince herself she’d find happiness once again.
He’d studied her long auburn
locks as they cascaded down her slender back and stopped just short of her firm
little ass. She was short and tiny. So tiny he could lift her up with one arm
and carry her around like a little plaything.
The thought of lifting her up
and onto his currently hard, aching cock was not helping decrease his morning
stiffness.
He pushed away from the
windowsill and made his way to the bathroom. In the shadows, he pulled back the
shower curtain and turned on the faucet, adjusting the temperature to just the
right
spot
.
While he waited for the water
to heat up, he turned and looked in the mirror. His face was tanned from the
constant sun exposure and his goatee was looking a little scruffy around the
edges. A few gray hairs speckled throughout the hair on his chin and he blinked
as he studied himself. He still looked decent for a man about to turn forty. In
fact, the tired circles showing under his eyes were the most telling thing
about his age.
And then there was the slight
limp he had in the morning before he’d worked the kinks out. Of course, that
wasn’t from age as much as it was from a bull named Righteous Ride. The smell
of animal hair mixed with his own blood came back to him at the memory of the
animal that had ended his professional career as a bull rider and nearly ended
his life as well.
He shrugged it off and stepped
behind the curtain and under the hot blast of water to help work the remaining
stiffness out of his back.
His mind reverted back to the
little redhead and how she spun around from the window, lost in her own thoughts
and ran right into his chest. He’d caught just the hint of small, firm breasts
beneath her white blouse. Then she’d looked up at him, her face flushed pink
and those innocent eyes batting at him.
He’d wanted to reach out and
run his thumb along the curve of her pouting lower lip. She was an absolute knockout
and currently the only thing standing between him and the ranch.
****
Baylor
Stivers
was up early every morning of her adult life. She’d always been a morning
person, and that hadn’t changed throughout college, or when she’d gone straight
into a job at Emory Medical Center. She’d landed a post as one of the first
members of the trauma response team. As a nurse, her early-to-rise habit worked
well for her. Even at the crack of dawn she was sunny and cheerful for her
patients when they were hurting and scared.
Now that she was unemployed,
she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. She felt as if she was being
irresponsible by not having a job to go to this morning, so she hoped her uncle
would allow her to help out around the ranch. It was the least she could do to
earn her keep, and she was desperate to feel useful again.
She wasn’t sure what she could
do but was willing to learn and only hoped it didn’t involve staying in the
company of that mean-looking Wyatt all day long. She didn’t know what his
problem was with her, but he had made it clear to her last evening he was not
happy about her being here and he didn’t intend to make her stay pleasant.
Of course, she didn’t deny the
fact he was one of the sexiest men she’d ever laid eyes on.
Those
piercing hazel eyes and that hard muscled chest.
She’d had the desire to
run her fingers over those ripples and see how they felt under her fingertips.
Shaking her head at her wayward
lustful thoughts, she pulled on her white New Balance tennis shoes and tied the
laces in neat bows. Then she headed downstairs for breakfast.
Rich, tempting smells of bacon
and ham seduced her nostrils as she made her way down the staircase and around
the corner to the kitchen.
“Good morning, Aunt—” She
stopped mid-greeting as she rounded the doorway.
There at the stove top stood
the grumpy cowboy from the night before, his butt snug in a pair of jeans and
an apron string tied just above that fantastic ass.
He was cooking breakfast and
whistling while he worked. Glancing back over his shoulder to see her in the
doorway, he offered a breathtaking smile.
“Good morning, peanut,” he said
with a wink and then returned to his work.
Her heart thudded against her
breastbone as she stood there with an equal mix of surprise and attraction.
Wyatt was cooking breakfast in her aunt’s kitchen and seemed to know what he
was doing. And better yet, he looked damned sexy doing it.
Clearing her throat in an
effort to remove the sudden blockage forming there, she eased into a chair at
the small kitchen table and poured orange juice into a waiting glass.
Baylor was at a loss for words.
This man was full of surprises. Last night he’d all but stared her down with
hatred and contempt. Then this morning he was cooking in the kitchen bright and
early, and serving her breakfast with a smile and a wink.
Maybe he had some sort of
personality disorder or something. Maybe her aunt and uncle were sorry for him
and that was why they kept him around. Last night, her aunt had made some
mention of him being a former professional bull rider.
Baylor didn’t know much about
bull riding but as a trauma nurse, she could easily imagine the types of head
injuries that occurred with such a rough sport. Maybe he had some residual
brain damage.
“Hope you like bacon, ham,
biscuits, and eggs.”
His smooth voice broke her
train of thought as he placed two steaming plates down on the table. The one in
front of her was absolutely mouthwatering and she suddenly realized how extremely
hungry she was this morning.
In contrast to her lack of
appetite at last night’s supper, this morning she was absolutely ravenous. She
hadn’t had this sort of appetite in years. Maybe that was due to the stress of
her job. Images, which she’d promised herself she would forget, flickered
through her mind.
She shook her head once and
then looked up to find him watching her from across the table.
“This looks amazing, Wyatt.
Thank you very much.”
He nodded and then dug into his
plate with a passion for food that made Baylor smile. He was a real man. The
kind of man you had fantasies about.
Big and muscular and
apparently one of those daredevil bull riders.
She didn’t know why he’d
been so angry at her the night before, but she was glad she’d somehow passed on
to the next phase with him…though she couldn’t deny that his angry stare made
her nervous…and extremely turned on.
“Stop it, Baylor,” she muttered
to herself under her breath as she nibbled on a piece of salty, crisp bacon.
“Stop what?” he asked, studying
her with those tempting eyes once again.
“Oh,
nothing.”
She tried
clearing her throat again and instead swallowed the bacon down the wrong way.
She started coughing and had to take a sip of juice to settle things down.
“Didn’t mean
to choke you up.”
He watched
her as she nodded and covered her mouth with a napkin.