Sunset Seduction

Getting Luke to see her as anything other than his buddy’s baby sister would involve a heck of a lot more work.

“I know we’ll be good together,” Luke had said, right before he’d walked out of the guest room.

Audrey sighed.

If he only knew how true that statement was.

* * *

As soon as Luke showed Audrey to her room, he went back into the office to give her application another glance. Audrey Faith Thomas, half sister to Casey—though nobody much mentioned the half part anymore—had had a rough upbringing. She’d lost her parents early on, and Casey had raised her. She’d been the tagalong little sis on the rodeo circuit. Luke thought that Audrey had gotten a raw deal in life. Casey had been overly strict with her. Luke figured her brother was overcompensating, being mother and father to her. Casey had tried hard, but a lot of the time, he didn’t know what the hell he was doing when it came to his little sister.

Audrey compensated, too. She took to the animals and the animals loved her in return. They were a good match. Audrey had a special fondness for the rodeo horses. There wasn’t a one that didn’t temper its wild mood when Audrey walked up.

According to her application, after college, she’d worked for a veterinarian clinic in Reno for a couple of years before deciding to apply to equine vet school. Luke also noted all the charity and volunteer work Audrey had done through the years. She had listed animal shelters and horse rescues, and was part of the Freedom for Wild Horses organization.

Luke picked up the phone and punched in Casey’s number. “Hey,” he said when his friend answered.

“Hey.”

Luke owed his friend a favor for letting him crash at his Tahoe cabin last month. Being with his buddy helped his recuperation move along more quickly. Well, at least it’d been less mentally painful. Luke thought he’d go stir-crazy, not being able to do a dang thing with his arm in a cast and three cracked ribs making it hard for him to breathe. Up at the cabin, it was okay to do nothing but while away the time. Casey made it easy and they’d had a few laughs.

But he would have hired Audrey even if he didn’t owe Casey a favor. She was qualified and a hard worker. Audrey was true blue and a nice kid.

“I’ve got your little sis here. She’s working for me now.”

There was silence on the other end. And finally “She didn’t tell me that.”

Uh-oh. Luke didn’t like getting in between the two of them. “Yeah, well, it just happened. You must’ve mentioned that I was shorthanded on the ranch. Anyway, she showed up looking for work, and I hired her as a wrangler for a few months.”

“Hell, Luke. I don’t recall mentioning any such thing to her. I must be getting old and forgetful.”

Luke laughed. Casey was only thirty-three. “Hell, yeah, you are. You see any problem with her working here?” Not that Luke was asking permission. Audrey was twenty-four and making her own decisions now. He’d called Casey for an entirely different reason.

Casey hesitated. “Not at all, buddy. It’s just that she’s been acting a little weird lately. You know, sort of wanting to be by herself and all. I thought she’d come up to the cabin to spend the summer with me. She had this loser boyfriend in Reno and she finally dumped him. The jerk was cheating on her. My little sis really took it hard. I don’t think she’s over it yet. It was all I could do to restrain myself from knocking his stupid self from here to Sunday. Jackass.”

“Jackass is right.”

“Damn straight.”

“Well, she’s here now,” Luke said. “She’s going to be staying at the main house. You don’t need to worry. I’ll look out for her.”

“Like you always do. I appreciate it, Luke. And I’ll count on you to make sure none of those ranch hands break her heart.”

“Hell, she’ll be breaking theirs.”

Casey chuckled. “That’s all right, then.”

“Yeah, I hear you. Don’t worry about Audrey. And you come up anytime you want to visit. Stay at the ranch.”

“What, and leave my cabin? I got me a keg of beer, my barbecue grill and gorgeous women to stare at by the lake all day long.”

Luke’s mind flashed an image of one gorgeous woman in particular—a blonde with long, slender legs and a dazzler of a smile—who had crashed the lakeshore party Casey had thrown on Luke’s last night at the cabin. She’d shown up at his farewell barbecue and had caught his eye the second she’d walked over to join the festivities. She’d been with a small group of people and Luke never did get the woman’s name amid the fifty or so partygoers that Casey had invited. She’d come late and left early, but not before giving Luke half a dozen suggestive looks. He’d been ready to approach her, but had gotten sidetracked by someone interested in hearing about his rodeo days.

“You ever find out who that blonde was?” Luke had good reason to ask.

“You mean the stunner?” Casey asked. “I was drunk, but not too drunk to see how fine she was.”

“So you know who I’m talking about.”

“I found out her name is Desiree.”

“And?”

“She’s an acquaintance of one of my neighbors. She lives on the East Coast somewhere. She’s gone. That’s all I know, man. You missed your chance.”

Luke wasn’t going to divulge what had happened with the blonde to Casey. Luke kept his private life private. But since he’d been accepting his friend’s hospitality and living at his cabin for a few weeks, a surge of guilt washed over him for not being completely truthful with Casey. Though having a one-night stand with a stranger, no matter how beautiful, wasn’t exactly something to brag about. Not in this day and age. He wasn’t eighteen anymore. He was old enough to know better. His only excuse was that he’d been in a haze. Drugged up on pain meds.

Vague memories of that night continually plagued him.

At least now he knew who the mysterious woman was. She’d taken the reins that night, which suited him fine since his injuries prohibited much mobility, and his mind was pretty fogged up. At times he’d thought he’d dreamed the whole thing except that he did remember small details, like her fresh-flower scent, her long flowing blond hair caressing his cheek and his completely sated body and good mood when he’d woken up that morning.

“Well, the mystery is solved,” Luke said, thinking it for the best that she lived so far away. One-night stands weren’t his thing but neither were complicated affairs. Luke had yet to meet a woman who held his interest for too long. Most of his relationships lasted less than six months before one of them realized that something was missing. Luke never felt the need to explore what that something was. If it wasn’t right there, pounding in his heart and making him silly crazy, what was the point of forcing it? He’d done that once with a girl in high school, trying hard to hang on, to convince her it was working, and in the end, he’d been the one who’d gotten his heart shattered.

Usually when he entered into a relationship with a woman, if the flow wasn’t smooth and easy from the get-go, Luke was the first one to bail.

“Too bad, though,” Casey said. “She was smokin’ hot.”

Yep, she was. There was no arguing that point. From what he could remember, she’d been a hellcat in bed. But he let the comment drop and turned the conversation to a new venture Casey was thinking about going into since he’d been forced into retirement with his back injury.

After a few minutes, Casey ended the phone call with a last parting remark. “Thanks for helping my little sis out, Luke. You’re her second brother. I know you’ll look out for her.”

“You got my promise on that, Case. I won’t let you down.”

Two

Audrey grabbed her canvas overnight tote from her truck. She didn’t know what to expect when she arrived here without an invitation—certainly not to be hired on Sunset Ranch—but she’d brought a few essentials and a change of clothes with her, just in case things worked out with Luke. A girl could be optimistic, couldn’t she? At the very least, she assumed that Luke would’ve remembered making love to her. It was a given, or so she’d thought. There had been two people on that bed, sighing and groaning with pleasure, for the better part of an hour.

Now that she was staying on the ranch as an employee for a couple of months, she’d have to do some shopping in town to get a few more changes of clothes. She’d placed a call to Susanna Hart half an hour ago. Her next-door neighbor and good friend back in Reno had the key to her house—technically, Casey’s house—where she’d grown up, at least when she wasn’t traveling from town to town on the rodeo circuit. Casey hadn’t allowed her to stay home by herself much when she was in high school. Susanna’s mother would watch out for her when she had a big test at school or something; otherwise, she tagged along with her brother.

Her high school experience had been grim, and she’d struggled to get good grades and keep up with events that were important to her. Senior year had been hard, and though she’d dreamed of Luke taking her to the prom, she’d settled on going with a nice boy who’d also been somewhat of an outcast.

Susanna had offered to pack up her clothes, her laptop, a few photos and Jewel’s favorite cat bowl and send them on. Audrey hadn’t gone into detail about her situation other than to tell her friend that she’d be working on Sunset Ranch with the horses for the summer.

As she gazed at Jewel snoring lightly on the bed, Audrey wished she could be as oblivious to the world around her as her feline buddy. The bed looked inviting, and she wasn’t supposed to officially start her job until tomorrow. But it was the middle of the day and she wasn’t much of a napper.

She walked into the bathroom to splash water on her face and then gasped when she looked in the mirror. She gave the image staring back at her a frown. She looked like hell. Her eyes were rimmed with red from lack of sleep last night and her hair, which was badly in need of a trim, was sticking out in three places from under the hat. “Goodness, Audrey, you look a sight.”

She worked on her appearance in haste.