Your Ranch...Or Mine?

He supposed he could sell Taylor his half of the ranch, then look around for another property. But he rejected that idea immediately. Texas might be a huge state, but there weren’t that many ranches the size of the Lucky Ace up for sale. Nor were any of them located close enough that he would be able to see his brothers regularly or be there for them if they needed him. Besides, he had won his half of the ranch fair and square and no one was going to guilt him into selling it—not even a hot-as-hell redhead with the greenest eyes he’d ever seen and a figure that made him want to spend endless hours exploring it.

When his body stirred from just thinking about her, he stopped grooming the roan and cursed his neglected libido as he led the horse into its stall. That did it. When Lane started to find a woman who frustrated him to the brink of insanity attractive enough to incite a case of lust, it was time to do something about it. As soon as he took a quick shower and got ready, he was going to make a trip over to that little honky-tonk in Beaver Dam and see if he couldn’t find a warm, willing female to help him scratch this itch. Maybe then he would be able to forget how desirable Taylor Scott was and start thinking of her as he would think of any other business partner.

With a firm plan in place, he walked purposefully across the ranch yard and climbed the porch steps. “Taylor, I won’t be here for supper,” he said as he entered the kitchen. “I’m going over to—” He stopped short when she vigorously shook her head. “What’s wrong?” he asked, walking over to where she stood at the counter mixing something in a bowl.

She nodded toward the hall. “I can’t get rid of the cowboy you assigned to help me carry my things in from the car,” she whispered.

“I didn’t assign him to do anything,” Lane said, careful to keep his voice low. “When I mentioned you needed help, he volunteered.”

“Whatever. I can’t get him to leave,” she insisted. “We finished unloading the car over an hour ago, but he keeps coming up with excuses to stick around. I even gave up putting my clothes away because I wasn’t comfortable with him lurking in the doorway watching me.”

Standing so close to her, breathing in the light scent of her herbal shampoo and noticing the perfection of her coral lips, caused every nerve in Lane’s body to come to full alert. He took a step back, then another.

To distract himself from the temptation she posed, he asked, “Where’s he now and what is he doing?”

“He’s in the living room building a fire in the fireplace,” she answered.

“It’s May and the air conditioning is on. The last thing we need is to heat up the house with a fire,” Lane said, frowning. “Whose bright idea was that?”

“Mine.” She set the bowl aside and reached for some small white ceramic ramekins. “I had to think of something to keep him busy until you got back from wherever it was you went this morning.”

“I was out riding fence and repairing some of the windmills,” he answered defensively. He didn’t owe her an explanation of his whereabouts, so why did he feel compelled to give her one?

“It’s Sunday and after they tend to the livestock, even the hired men have the day off,” she said, her tone disapproving. “Couldn’t those chores have waited until tomorrow?”

It suddenly occurred to Lane that the impatience in Taylor’s voice stemmed from her uneasiness about being around the man in the other room, not because she was annoyed by his daylong absence from the house.

“I’ll get rid of him,” he said, turning toward the hall. When he walked into the living room he found Roy Lee Wilks kneeling beside the fireplace, failing miserably at building a fire in the stone firebox. “Don’t worry about the fire, Roy Lee. I don’t think we’ll be needing it. It’s well over eighty degrees outside.”

“Hey there, boss,” the young man said, sitting back on his heels. “I wondered why Ms. Scott wanted me to build a fire.” He removed his sweat-stained ball cap to run a hand through his shaggy blond hair. “I wasn’t having much luck at getting it started anyway.”

Lane checked his watch. “Marty should just about have supper ready over at the bunkhouse. It would probably be a good idea to get over there before Cletus eats his share and yours, too.”

Putting his cap back on, Roy Lee rose to his feet and nodded. “I’ll do that as soon as I check with Ms. Scott to see if she needs me to do anything else.”

Lane shook his head. “Thanks, but you’ve spent most of your day off helping her and I’m sure you’d like to rest up before you move that herd of heifers over to the north pasture tomorrow morning. If she wants something else done, I’ll take care of it.”

The man looked as though he might want to argue the point, but apparently he decided that crossing the boss might not be a wise choice. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning then,” he finally said, turning toward the hall.

Lane leaned one shoulder against the kitchen doorway and waited for Roy Lee to bid Taylor a good evening and leave before he walked over to where she stood at the counter finishing the dessert she was working on. “Now that your problem is solved with Roy Lee, I’m going to take a shower and drive over to Beaver Dam for the evening.”

“You won’t be here for dinner?” she asked, looking disappointed. “I’m making prime rib, twice-baked potatoes with herbs and cheese, asparagus spears with hollandaise sauce and cr?me br?lеe for dessert.”

She had apparently been too distracted by wanting to get rid of Roy Lee to have heard him tell her earlier that he was leaving for the evening. He shifted from one foot to the other as he stared into her crystalline green eyes. She was going to a lot of trouble making dinner and if the look on her pretty face was any indication, she was going to be extremely disappointed if he didn’t stick around to eat it. He decided right then and there that if he wanted to talk her into selling her share of the ranch to him, or at the very least convince her to go back to L.A., he was going to have to placate her. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting her to agree to anything.

“I thought you might not feel like making dinner after spending the day unpacking and arranging your things,” he lied.

She gave him a smile that caused a hitch in his breathing. “Cooking is one of the ways I relax.”

“Do I have time to take a quick shower before dinner?” he asked, unbuttoning the cuffs of his work shirt.

“Sure.” She placed the ceramic ramekins in a pan with water in the bottom, then began to fill them with the cr?me br?lеe mixture. “Everything should be ready by the time you come back downstairs.”

Nodding, Lane clenched his jaw as he walked out of the kitchen and headed upstairs. He wasn’t the least bit happy about the change in his plans for the evening. But there wasn’t anything he could do about it now. It was one of those damned if he did and damned if he didn’t situations where no matter what he chose to do, he’d be the one suffering the consequences.

Taylor would take it as a deliberate insult if he didn’t have dinner with her and insulting her would make it impossible to talk to her about the future of the ranch. And then there was the matter of the itch he needed to scratch. Just being in the same room with her seemed to charge the atmosphere with a tension that sent hormones racing through his veins at the speed of light, reminding him that he was a man with a man’s needs.

When his body tightened in response to that thought, he muttered a guttural curse and headed straight into the bathroom to turn on the cold water. Stripping off his dusty clothes, he stepped inside and hoped the icy spray would clear his head, as well as traumatize his body into submission.

As he stood there with his teeth chattering like a pair of cheap castanets, a plan began to take shape in his mind. If successful, it would settle things once and for all. And the sooner he got Taylor to agree to it, the better.

If he didn’t, he had a feeling one of two things would happen. She would either drive him completely insane or he would end up suffering frostbite on parts of his body that no man ever wanted to think about freezing.

Three

“Thank you for getting rid of Roy Lee for me,” Taylor said as she sat down in the chair Donaldson held for her. “I was so relieved to finally have him out of the house, I forgot to thank you earlier.”

He shrugged as he sat down at the head of the table. “I don’t think he meant any harm.”

“Probably not,” she admitted. “He’s just always seemed a little creepy to me, even as a teenager.”

“So you’ve known him a long time?”

She nodded. “He started working summers here before he got out of high school.” Pausing, she had to think back. “That would have been about twelve years ago.”

“Besides overstaying his welcome this afternoon, has Roy Lee ever said or done anything else that made you feel uncomfortable?” Donaldson asked, taking a sip of the cabernet she’d had him open and pour for them.

“Not really.” Pushing the asparagus spears around her plate with her fork, she tried to put into words how she felt whenever she was around the man. “I know it’s probably just my imagination, but he seems to watch every move I make.” Looking up, she added, “You know, like those paintings with eyes that follow you around the room.” She couldn’t keep from shuddering. “He’s that kind of creepy.”

“I’ll try to make sure he stays away from the house,” Donaldson said, taking a bite of his prime rib. Swallowing the tender beef, he smiled. “This is really good.”

“Thank you,” she answered, hoping her cooking worked its magic and put him in a good mood. “I’m glad you like it.”

They fell into an awkward silence for the rest of the meal and by the time they finished dessert, Taylor’s nerves felt ready to snap. Yesterday she had tried talking him into selling his share of the ranch to her and that hadn’t worked. Hopefully there was something to the old adage that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Only in this case, she was hoping to appeal to his sense of justice. The Lucky Ace had been in her family for years and her grandfather had known just how much the place meant to her. He’d always told her that one day he wanted it to be hers and not once had he mentioned that he intended for her to share it with someone else.

“After we get the kitchen cleaned up, I’d like to discuss something with you,” Donaldson said, interrupting her troubled thoughts.

“About the ranch?” she asked, afraid to hope that he had changed his mind and was going to be reasonable about it.

He nodded as he rose to his feet and reached for her empty ramekin. “It’s a nice evening. I thought we could go out on the front porch and watch the sun go down while we talk.”

Getting up from the table, she walked over and began rinsing their dishes to put into the dishwasher while he put the leftover prime rib in a plastic storage container and placed it in the refrigerator. As they worked side by side to clean the kitchen, Taylor’s nervousness increased tenfold, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with their upcoming discussion about the ranch.

Why did she have to notice how handsome Donaldson looked in his black shirt and jeans? And why did he have to smell so darned good? There was something about the combination of expensive leather and the scent of clean male skin that was just plain sexy.

Their fingers touched as he handed her their wineglasses and Taylor felt a streak of longing course straight through her. She came dangerously close to dropping one of the delicate crystal goblets.

“It won’t take me more than a few minutes to finish up here.” She cleared her throat and hoped her voice didn’t sound as husky to him as it did to her. “Why don’t you go on out to the porch?”