A Texas Soldier's Family

The feel of him against her, chest to chest, thigh to thigh, sucked all the remaining air from her lungs.

“What are you doing?” she gasped, wishing he didn’t feel so very, very good.

Wishing he hadn’t just reminded her of all that had been missing from her life.

He threaded his hand through her hair, let it settle tenderly on the nape of her neck. “What any alpha male would do in this situation.” Grinning, he bent his head toward hers.

Hope tingled all over. Lower still, there was a kindling warmth. Cursing the forbidden excitement welling within her, she whispered, “Garrett...for pity’s sake...you can’t... I can’t...!”

He laughed again, even more wickedly. His lips hovered above hers, so close their breaths were meeting as sensually and irrevocably as the rest of them.

“Kiss you and see if you kiss me back?” he taunted softly, stroking the pad of his thumb along the curve of her lips—top, then bottom. “Oh, yes, Hope Winslow, I sure as hell can.”

Not only can, Hope thought, as an avalanche of excitement roared through her. Did.

His lips fit over hers, coaxingly at first, then with more and more insistence. She told herself to resist. Tried to resist. But her treacherous body refused to listen to her heart, which had been wounded, and her mind, which absolutely knew better.

She had been alone for so long.

Had needed to be touched, held, for months now.

She hadn’t expected to be cherished as if she were the most wonderful woman on Earth. But that was exactly what he was doing, as he stroked his hand through her hair and, with his other palm flattened against her spine, guided her closer until her breasts were pressed against the unyielding hardness of his chest. Lower still, she felt the heat in his thighs and the building desire. And knew her life had just begun to get hopelessly complicated...

* * *

GARRETT HADN’T COME out to the ranch thinking they would be alone for one single second. Hadn’t figured he would ever act on the need that had consumed him since the second her bottom landed square on his lap, the softness of her breasts pushing into his face.

Oh, he’d known he wanted her from the instant he had seen her checking him out in the DC airport. She was just so gorgeous, so haughty and unreachable in that all-business way of hers.

Seeing she had an infant whom she cared deeply for, knowing she was irrevocably wedded to life in Texas while he was not, had added yet another reason he should keep his hands off.

He might have managed it, too, if she hadn’t been working so hard to curtail the attraction she so obviously felt.

Because Hope was right about one thing. Her denial had brought out the alpha male in him. Made him want to pursue her like she had never been pursued before.

That pursuit, in turn, had kindled his own raging desire. And then she had kissed him back, her tongue entwined with his in a way that could bring him to his knees and one day, hopefully, land them both in bed.

Luckily for the two of them she came to her senses and pushed him away. Breathing raggedly, she stepped back, a gut-wrenching turmoil in her low tone he hadn’t expected. “I can’t do this.”

Pressing her hand to her kiss-swollen lips, she shook her head. “I can’t lose everything because of one reckless moment. Not again.”

* * *

SILENCE FELL BETWEEN THEM, as awful and wrenching as her voice. Mortified, Hope yanked open her car door and climbed behind the wheel.

Garrett walked to the passenger side and pulled himself in beside her. “When did that happen?”

Hope concentrated on starting the engine. Driving, the normalcy of it, would help. She looked behind her, then backed up until she reached the gravel road that led to the barns. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“And I shouldn’t have kissed you,” Garrett admitted gruffly, his big body filling up the passenger compartment the way no one else ever had. “But now that I did, and you kissed me back...”

He shrugged like a soldier on leave.

As if the fact that he had just returned from a war zone entitled him to something. Namely, a woman willing to have a fling.

She had found out the hard way, however, through her ill-advised liaison with Max’s daddy, that woman was not her.

“That shouldn’t have happened, either,” she said stiffly, as the SUV wound past the damaged wooden fence to the lone building a distance away from everything.

She didn’t have to guess what it was.

A sign next to the door of the cedar-sided, tin-roofed building said Circle H Ranch Bunkhouse.

A bright red welcome mat stood in front of the heavy wooden door. Pots of flowers, a couple of small tables and some rough-hewn Adirondack chairs decorated the front porch. Lamps, emitting a soft yellow glow on either side of the entry had been turned on.

If the inviting exterior was any indication of the inside of the domicile, then Lucille had been right, they would be comfortable here.

Hope cut the engine and got out of the car. Quietly, she opened the rear passenger door, unfastened Max’s safety seat from the base of the restraint and lifted him out. To her relief, her sweet little boy slept blissfully on.

Garrett grabbed the diaper bag and went on ahead, to find the key that had been left beneath the mat. “Is all this because you’re working for my mother?” He reached inside and switched the interior lights on.

“Believe it or not—” Hope squared her shoulders as she passed “—working for your mother doesn’t include making out with you.”

* * *

GARRETT WAS PRETTY sure Hope hadn’t meant to say that. Any more than she’d meant to do anything she had the last fifteen minutes or so. Nevertheless, he was pleased to see her letting down her guard. He wanted to get to know the real Hope Winslow, not the sophisticated facade she showed the world.

He watched as she set the carrier holding her sleeping infant down. “I won’t interfere with that. Well, no more than I would have, anyway.”

She smiled at him as if they hadn’t just brought each other’s bodies roaring back to life. “Good to know, Captain.”

Together, they took a quick tour of the newly renovated bunkhouse.

The central part of the structure included an open-concept kitchen with a breakfast bar that looked out onto the great room, complete with a TV and U-shaped sofa and a large plank table with a dozen chairs plus an arm chair on each end. On each side of it was a hallway that led to three bedrooms. All six bedrooms were outfitted identically, with a queen-sized bed, desk, dresser and private bath. His mom had been right, Garrett noted. They all could be very comfortable here.

Except for the awareness simmering between Hope and him...

“I don’t understand why you think it would matter if we did become...closer. I’m not the one employing you—my mother is.”

Hope sighed, apparently appreciating his use of the least offensive word he could think of. “It would still look bad.”

“And that concerns you, how things look?”

“Yes.” Stepping closer, she slid him a surprised glance. “Doesn’t it concern you?”

He exhaled his exasperation. “Not really. Something is either right or it’s wrong. What we just experienced felt very right.”

Hope turned away as if they hadn’t just shared an embrace that had rocked his world. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, as if to a four-year-old. “Scandal management is all about appearances.”