Heart Of A Cowboy: Creed's Honor / Unforgiven

Tricia descended the inside stairway and followed the sound through Natty’s chilly rooms to the kitchen.

Silence.

Then the clang came again, this time from directly under her feet.

Tricia started slightly, then after gathering her resolve, marched over to Natty’s basement door. She barely registered the rapid rush of footsteps on the wooden stairs beyond—she hadn’t had coffee yet—and she’d turned the knob and pulled before it occurred to her that the idea might not have been a good one.

A squeak scratched its way up her windpipe and past her vocal cords when she found herself staring directly into Conner Creed’s smiling face. Because he was still on the basement stairs, they were at eye level.

And that alone was disconcerting.

“Sorry,” he said, clearly delighted by her expression. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“What are you doing here?” The squeak had turned to a squawk, but at least she could speak coherently now. Tricia’s heart seemed to be trying to crash through her rib cage.

Conner held up a roll of gray duct tape in one hand and a wrench—no doubt the source of the clanging sounds—in the other. “Plumbing?” he asked, as though he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d been doing and wanted Tricia to affirm it for him.

She folded her arms, foolishly barring his way into the kitchen. “You could have knocked,” she said.

Conner lifted one shoulder, lowered it again. His grin didn’t falter. “Natty called me last night and asked me to wrap the pipes. I crawled around under the house with a flashlight for a while, making sure there weren’t any obvious leaks, and then I checked the situation in the basement.” He paused, ran his eyes lightly over Tricia’s rumpled hair, coming loose from its braid, before letting his gaze rest on her lips for one tingly moment. “The padlock on the cellar door probably rusted through years ago. I didn’t need the key Natty told me about.”

At last, Tricia found the presence of mind to back up so Conner could step into the kitchen. Now he stood a head taller.

“I’ll be happy to replace it,” he added. His eyes narrowed a little as he watched her, as if he’d suddenly noticed something new and disturbing about her.

“Replace what?” she asked.

The grin returned, faintly insolent and, at the same time, affable. Even friendly.

“The padlock?” he prompted, in the same guessing-game tone he’d used moments before.

It was the most ordinary conversation—about padlocks and plumbing, for Pete’s sake. So why did she feel like a shy debutante about to step onto the dance floor at her coming-out ball?

“Oh,” she finally managed. “Right. The padlock.”

Natty’s kitchen was frigidly cold, and yet, because they were standing within a few feet of each other, the hard heat coming off Conner’s body made Tricia feel as though she were standing in front of a blazing bonfire.

Or was she the source of it?

Conner set the duct tape and the wrench aside on a countertop, rested his hands on his hips. “Will you be joining us for the trail ride on Sunday?” he asked.

Not for the first time, Tricia had a strange sense of needing to translate the things this man said from some other language before she could grasp their meaning. “I—guess,” she said, recalling in the next instant that she’d promised Sasha the outing, and backing out wasn’t an option.

“But—?” he asked, watching her.

She finally rustled up a smile, but it felt flimsy on her mouth and wouldn’t stick. “It’s just that I’ve never been on a horse before,” she admitted.

His eyes lit at that, blue fire framed by a narrow rim of steely gray, and his mouth crooked up in that way Tricia couldn’t seem to get used to. “No problem,” he told her, his tone faintly gruff.

No problem.

Easy enough for him to say, she thought, just as Valentino and Sasha clomped down the stairs from her apartment. Conner Creed had probably been born in the saddle, growing up on a ranch the way he had. She, on the other hand, had never ridden anything more dangerous than a carousel.

“We’ll put you on one of the mares,” Conner went on, when she didn’t speak. “Sunflower would be a good choice—she’s three years older than dirt and you’d be more likely to get hurt riding a stick horse.”

Tricia was relieved and, at the same time, a little indignant. Before she could come up with a fitting response, however, Sasha and Valentino made their appearance.

Seeing Conner, Sasha beamed. “Hello, Mr. Creed,” she said.

He nodded to the child, smiled back. “It’s okay to call me Conner,” he told her.

Pleased, Sasha barely glanced at Tricia, stroking Valentino’s head as the two of them stood just inside the kitchen doorway. “I’m Sasha,” she announced.

“I remember,” Conner said easily. “My nephew, Matt, introduced us at the barbecue last weekend, didn’t he?”

Sasha nodded eagerly. “He’s pretty nice, for a little kid,” she said.

Conner chuckled and looked briefly in Tricia’s direction—just in time to catch her sneaking a step back. She felt magnetized, like a passing asteroid being pulled into the orbit of some enormous planet.

He smiled, dashing all hope that he hadn’t noticed.

Tricia’s cheeks flamed. She’d worked hard, ever since high school, to overcome her natural shyness, but when it came to this man, all that effort seemed to be for nothing. A look from him, a word, and every cell in her body suddenly leaped to electrified attention.

It was ridiculous.

“Do you think Natty’s all right?” he asked, his expression serious now. His face could change in an instant, it seemed, and that made him hard to read.

Tricia didn’t like it when people were hard to read.

“Why do you ask?” she inquired, a little jolt of alarm trembling in the pit of her stomach.

Conner wasn’t wearing a hat, being indoors, though she could tell that he’d had one on earlier. He ran the fingers of his left hand through his hair, watched with a smile in his eyes as Sasha excused herself and left the room, Valentino trotting alongside.

“I guess it bothers me a little that she’s staying on in Denver,” Conner sighed, when he and Tricia were alone in the big kitchen again. “It’s not like your great-grandmother to miss out on the big weekend, even if she has stepped down as head chili commando.”

Though quiet, his tone was so genuine that it touched something deep and private inside Tricia, stirred a soft but still-bruising sweetness where he shouldn’t have been able to reach. They were basically strangers, she and Conner—they certainly hadn’t been more than summer acquaintances growing up—and yet it was as if they’d known each other well, once upon a time and somewhere far, far away.

When she thought she could trust herself to speak, Tricia found another smile, and managed to hold on to it a little longer this time. In truth, she was worried, too. Should she mention that Natty was staying in Denver at the suggestion of her doctor?

No, she decided, in the next second. If Natty had wanted Conner to know why she’d postponed her return to Lonesome Bend, she would have told him herself.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” she said at last, though of course she wasn’t sure at all. Natty had said her heart had been racing.

Conner studied her for a few moments, looking like he wanted to say something but wouldn’t, and then he flashed that dazzling grin at her again. It was like stepping into the glare of a searchlight on a moonless night, and Tricia blinked once.

“You might want to keep it a little warmer in here,” he said, in another of those hairpin conversational turns of his. “Even wrapped, some of the pipes might freeze if you don’t turn on the heat.”

Tricia nodded, feeling stupid because no response came to mind.