Fortune's Hero

“Are you hungry?”

Her cheerful, I-am-never-denied-anything tone made him want to shake his fists at the sky. Instead he shook his head. “I need a shower.”

“I’ll wait. Thank you,” she said seriously.

He bit his lip. She’d gotten her way, and she knew it. “We’ll eat here on the porch,” he said.

“Afraid if I come inside your house, I’ll slip behind the shower curtain with you?” Her eyes took on some shine, not so much in humor this time but provocation, as if daring him.

She had it backward. He was afraid he’d invite her in. Not only would lunch not get eaten, but maybe dinner and perhaps breakfast, too. He wouldn’t mind a good, long time in the sack with her.

“I won’t be long,” he said, then escaped into his house.

“I’ll be right here,” Victoria called after him then drew a calming breath. Keeping her hands off him had been torture.

She pulled the cooler from her trunk and set out lunch on a small, rough-hewn table between two unpadded rocking chairs. She couldn’t picture him in a rocker at the end of the day, except maybe if he had an ice-cold beer while watching the sunset for a few minutes. Maybe. She would’ve said he wasn’t a sentimental man, except that the way he treated animals said differently.

She wondered if he really deserved his reputation. He’d been gentlemanly with her—unfortunately. She smiled at that, then she loosened a button on her blouse, sat on a rocker with her knees up and waited patiently for him to join her.

Beyond the way her body felt around him, she liked him. He wasn’t like anyone else she knew, sure of himself but not in an arrogant way. The way he touched his animals said a lot, too. He knew how to be tender. She figured he was also very strong. Men who worked ranches and farms generally were. She didn’t know anyone else who worked physically for a living.

And he seemed comfortable in his own skin, a very good trait.

The screen door creaked open. Pete stood right away then tracked Garrett to the second rocker, sitting next to his master.

“Is Pete one of your rescued dogs?” she asked.

“We sort of rescued each other. The food looks good.” His easy change of subject was marked with a tone indicating it wasn’t going to be reopened. He grabbed a wrapped sandwich and dug in.

They didn’t talk, and that was amazingly okay with her. She was a curious person, one who asked lots of questions, wanted to know the how and why of things, but this time she just ate and listened to the land, the wind swirling dirt across the property, horses neighing in the corral, dogs yipping now and then. How different were the night sounds?

After they finished eating, she put the empty containers in the cooler, which he carried to her car.

“Have a safe trip home to Atlanta,” he said, blocking her from moving beyond the car.

She forced herself to smile. “I’m not leaving Red Rock yet.”

“Your choice, Victoria Scarlett, but don’t come out here again.” His eyes seemed filled with both desire and regret.

Something roared through her—loss, a sense of abandonment and even more, a feeling her future had just zagged onto another path. “How’d you know my middle name?”

“You’re splashed all over the internet, the adored daughter of Atlanta.”

“I want you,” she said impulsively, probably foolishly but honestly.

“Which is exactly why you need to go now and not come back.” Tension coated his words. He fastened the button she’d undone, his fingers grazing her hot skin, making her draw a shaky breath. “You can’t be with a man like me, Victoria.”

“Why? What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m too old for you. I like my quiet life. I don’t want bright lights and big cities.”

“What makes you think I want more than to sleep with you?” She saw that her words surprised him. Maybe he even saw she was lying. She did want to sleep with him, but perhaps he could see more deeply into her and know that she felt something more than that. She shouldn’t. It was ridiculous, given their short history. But she wanted more. Her dreams had been full of him. She’d been wanting him for months.

“Princess, you’ve got a little fantasy going based on me saving your life, and maybe because there’s an attraction between us. We won’t be acting on it. That’s that.” He walked straight into his house and shut the door.

Pete had followed him, but Abel let her give him a hug, one she really needed.

Rejected. Emily had been right. Victoria wasn’t used to it, and it stung a whole lot. Mattered a whole lot.

“Take good care of him, okay?” she said to the dog. “I think he needs someone to love him.”

She had to leave him alone, as he wanted. If she pursued him, pushed him, he would only get angrier, and she’d rather he remember her fondly.

Victoria got into her car, then a half hour later she walked into Estelle’s diner, cooler in hand, having lost her good spirits. The noon rush was over, only a few customers sat at the counter, sipping coffee. The redheaded, fiftyish Estelle was leaning her elbows on the counter and gabbing with an older man.

“Everything was wonderful,” Victoria said to her. “I’ll set this by the kitchen door, Estelle.”

“That’d be fine, thanks. Oh, Lenny was here for lunch. Said he met you.”

“Yup,” Victoria answered, drawing a laugh. She would be as tight-lipped as necessary. Garrett would appreciate her discretion, she was sure. “Garrett was kind enough to show me his rescue operation. He’s doing good work.”

“Rescue operation? I thought he just took in stray animals.”

“He also trains them so that they’re ready to be good pets for people.” Victoria assumed an allbusiness mode. She owed it to Garrett to protect him from gossip—and maybe to improve his reputation a little. “That’s a nice little enterprise he has going. Well, thanks again, Estelle.”

“Sure thing, honey.”

Instead of getting in her car, Victoria walked to a park a couple of blocks away. She didn’t want to face Wendy and Emily yet, afraid the disappointment of being dismissed by Garrett would be visible on her face. That defeat hurt more than she’d expected and was deepening each minute. She was torn between staying away, as she’d first thought she could, and making a bigger effort to tear down his walls of resistance. Could she accomplish that? Maybe if she had more time …

Caught between the challenge of winning him over and her usual don’t-make-waves stance, Victoria sat on a park bench to think. A young mother pushed her toddler in a swing across the way, but otherwise it was a school day and therefore devoid of older, noisier children, giving her the quiet she needed.

He was right about some things—fourteen years was a big difference in age. Wendy had told her he’d moved away a couple of times. What had he done during those exiles? What kind of life experience did he have that she didn’t? She was accustomed to the men of her social circle. Similar backgrounds helped smooth the path to an easier getting-to-know-you time in a relationship.