Cassie's Cowboy Daddy

“Damn,” he muttered when he tried to get out of the tub.

The stiff muscles in his back protested his every move and his leg had gone numb from hanging over the side of the tub. Every time he attempted to stand, he slid back into a sitting position. Ignoring the pins-and-needles sensation in his leg, he finally managed to get the limb to support him and splashed out of the water with a muttered curse.

Knotting a towel around his hips, Logan took off in the direction the woman had fled. He chuckled as he limped down the stairs. He hadn’t meant to scare her, but he’d bet a steak dinner the little lady thought twice before she wandered into another house unannounced.

Of course, that wasn’t to say he found her presence offensive. On the contrary. A man would have to be out of his mind to object to a woman like this one keeping him company while he took a bath. Shoot, he wouldn’t even have minded having her join him.

Although she was shorter than the women he usually found attractive, she for damn sure had all the right curves in all the right places. And that strawberry-blond hair of hers made his hands itch to touch it, to pull off that puffy little pink thing holding it in a ponytail and see if it felt as soft and silky as it looked.

“What’s your name, sugar?” he asked, catching up to her in the kitchen.

When she spun around to face him, a rosy pink colored her cheeks and anger sparkled in her green eyes. “It doesn’t matter who I am. Who are you?”

Logan propped his hands on his hips, anchoring the towel in place. Smiling, he shook his head and took a step forward. “I asked first.”

She held one hand in front of her as if that would stop him. He almost laughed. She sure had her share of spunk. He liked that in a woman.

“Stay right there,” she ordered. “Don’t you dare come any closer.”

She tried to step away from him, but the cabinets stopped her retreat. Never taking her eyes from him, she put her hand behind her back and Logan heard her rummaging around in one of the drawers. Now, what in hell did she think she’d find in there?

“Don’t take another step,” she ordered, jerking her hand from behind her.

He frowned at her defensive stance and the pancake turner she brandished. He was in his own home and, even though she had to be the best-looking intruder he’d ever laid eyes on, she was still trespassing. And, he decided, staring at the flimsy utensil under his nose, a bit unstable.

“Look, lady, I don’t know what your problem is or where you came from, but around these parts, barging in when a man’s taking a bath could only be considered one of two things—an invasion of privacy or an open invitation.”

He reached out to take her weapon, but let out a yelp when she used it like a flyswatter to smack him right square on his bare chest.

Logan quickly took hold of her upper arms before she had a chance to take aim at something a lot more sensitive than his chest. His gaze locking with hers, he drew her to him.

The pancake turner clattered to the hardwood floor. They both ignored it.

“You weren’t supposed to do that,” she said, her voice shaky and her expressive green eyes as wide as half dollars. “You were supposed to jump back so I could escape.”

“But I didn’t,” Logan whispered close to her ear.

He heard her suck in a sharp breath a moment before she went perfectly still. Then with renewed vigor she started squirming like a worm on a hot sidewalk. “Turn me loose.”

“Not until you calm down, sugar,” Logan drawled. He stared down at her perfectly shaped lips. Lips just made for a man’s kiss.

Lord help him, but she felt good pressed against him. She was small, delicate and soft. Really soft. He inhaled deeply, and the sweet scent of her made his body feel as if his skin had suddenly grown way too tight. Where had he smelled that exotic scent before?

He didn’t have long to ponder the matter because suddenly everything seemed to be happening at once. Her fidgeting caused the knot to come loose. Gravity pulled at his towel. And his foreman, Hank Waverly, and a tall blonde woman chose that very moment to come crashing through the back door.

Logan barely managed to maintain his hold on the woman and grab the towel before anyone’s sensibilities were offended. “You’d better stand still. That was too close for comfort, sugar.”

“Stop calling me that,” she retorted. “And please let me go.”

“Why on earth did you scr—” The blonde with Hank stopped short and stood there staring as if she’d never seen a man in danger of losing his towel.

The woman Logan held struggled to free herself. “Throw this exhibitionist off the property, Hank.”

“Dammit, lady, if you don’t stand still, there’ll be an exhibition we’ll all remember for some time to come,” Logan growled.

“Oh, pul-lease,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I wouldn’t say your attributes are that memorable.”

She increased her attempts to free herself, sending pain shooting through his knotted muscles as he struggled to hold her and the towel. His curses could have blistered paint, but he didn’t care.

For a minute there, when he’d gazed into her sparkling eyes and felt her soft body pressed to his, he’d forgotten all about his sore back. And he’d come damned close to kissing her, he thought incredulously, trying his best to hold both the woman and the towel.

Taking advantage of his predicament, she jerked free and stepped well out of his reach. He caught the terry cloth just in time to keep it from exposing his nether regions.

“Does Logan Murdock know you use his bathtub when he’s away?” she demanded.

Hank threw back his head and laughed like a hyena. “Oh, this is good. Real good.”

Logan barely suppressed his own grin. He’d been wrong. She wasn’t “a bit unstable.” She was downright loco. Securing the towel before it revealed more than he cared to show, he raised a brow. “You and Murdock close, are you?”

“Close enough,” she replied.

“Do tell.” It took everything he had to keep a straight face at her confident expression. She really was a few steers shy of a full herd.

“From now on, you can bathe in the bunkhouse with the rest of the men.” She pointed toward the hall. “Now, get your clothes and get out of my house.”

“Your house!” All traces of amusement gone, Logan shot a suspicious glare at Hank when the man doubled over and slapped his knee. “Just where the hell did you come up with a harebrained idea like that?”

“My lawyer.”

Apprehension plucked at the hair on the back of his neck and he narrowed his eyes. “Just who are you, lady?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m Logan Murdock’s business partner, Cassie Wellington. I own half of the Lazy Ace.”

“You’re the Widow Wellington?” Logan shook his head. He wasn’t buying a word of it. “You can come up with a better story than that, sugar.”

Barely able to speak, Hank said cheerfully, “Welcome home, Logan.”

A keening wail suddenly sliced through the tense silence. A second cry soon joined in.

Goose bumps rose along Logan’s arms and a tight knot formed in the pit of his belly. “What the hell is that?” he demanded, afraid he already knew.

Cassie’s world came to a screeching halt. Logan? Hank had called the man Logan.

Studying him, she felt the color drain from her face. His black hair didn’t have so much as one strand of white, and the only wrinkles he had were the tiny ones at the corners of his deep blue eyes.

Instead of the frail, elderly gentleman she had envisioned, Logan Murdock was drop-dead handsome and only a few years older than herself. Her gaze traveled to his wide bare chest. His physique for darned sure wasn’t that of a man in his golden years, either.

No bags. No sags. Just warm, incredibly firm muscle.