CHAPTER FOUR
Amber
I stared at the entry in the ledger, trying to make sense of it.
A payment to a feed supply store dated a month ago, but there was no corresponding invoice. No delivery receipt. Nothing in the inventory logs to show what had been purchased.
It could have been an oversight or an entry error.
But it wasn’t. It was a pattern I’d already discovered. The previous accountant had been siphoning money through fake invoices. The question was for how long.
The King Ranch was prosperous. They ran cattle and bought and broke horses. Their money wasn’t tied up in one basket, which made it so much easier to do exactly what the accountant had been doing. Stealing, then using funds from the various accounts to cover his tracks.
I gave Dalton a report every evening—if he wasn’t avoiding me that day.
If I wasn’t so attracted to him, I would have found his behavior amusing.
But something about him had sent me spiraling.
Yes, he was handsome as sin and had a body to die for.
But it was the man behind that gruff exterior that got to me.
He paid a fortune for food for his hands and even had a live-in cook, but he didn’t have a housekeeper for himself and Cade.
Instead, he got up every morning and made breakfast for his brother, and now me.
He had a sweet tooth that he didn’t indulge and a temper when any animal on his ranch was mistreated.
He was careful with things that mattered, even if he pretended not to care.
I pulled out my phone to text him about the discrepancy, then stopped.
He’d been avoiding me even more the last two days. Ever since the incident with his hand.
He’d thanked me. Sort of. In that gruff, uncomfortable way of his. Then he’d practically run out of the kitchen like I was something dangerous instead of a woman who’d simply bandaged his hand.
Since then, he’d made sure we were never alone. He came in for meals only when Cade was there. He worked later than usual. He found excuses to be anywhere I wasn’t. The daily reports had become shorter and more clipped.
It shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did.
Because for those few minutes in the kitchen, when I’d been holding his hand and cleaning his wound, I’d felt the tension between us shift into something else. Something heated and aware.
And I’d wanted him to act on it.
God, I’d wanted it so badly I could barely breathe.
He’d made it abundantly clear that he and his brother were off limits.
But I still needed to ask him about this payment.
I could wait for him to come inside. Or catch him at dinner
Or I could go out to the barn.
The thought made my stomach flip and heat pool low in my belly.
The barn was his territory. His space. Going out there felt like crossing a line I wasn’t sure I should cross. It felt dangerous. Reckless.
But it was the middle of the afternoon and Cade or some of the other hands would be around. It wasn’t like we’d be alone.
And I had a legitimate work question.
I was overthinking this.
I left the office and grabbed my coat before I could change my mind. Outside, I pulled my coat tight around me and made my way across the yard to the barn, my heart beating faster with every step. The door was open and I stepped inside.
Then stopped.
Dalton was in the middle of the barn, working on a tractor. His back was to me, and he wore only a dark t-shirt that clung to his broad shoulders and the muscles of his back. The fabric stretched tight every time he moved, and I could see the flex and play of strength underneath.
I tried not to think about what he looked like under it.
And failed miserably.
I knew I should say something. Announce myself and stop standing there staring like a woman who hadn’t been properly touched in far too long.
“Dalton?”
He spun around, wrench in hand. His eyes went wide when he saw me, and something flashed across his face—surprise, then heat, then that careful blankness he’d been wearing for two days.
“Amber. What are you doing out here? Is something wrong?”
“No. have a question. About the books. But if you’re busy, I can come back.”
His eyes tracked over me. Slow. Deliberate.
“I’m done here. I can’t do anything else until a part comes in.” He grabbed a rag and wiped his hands before walking toward the sink in the corner.
He turned on the tap and started washing. I watched water run over tanned skin, over the corded muscles of his forearms, over those big hands that I’d been having entirely inappropriate dreams about.
I knew I should stay by the door. Simply ask my question and leave.
Instead, my feet carried me across the barn floor like I was being pulled by an invisible thread. I couldn’t have stopped if I’d wanted to.
And I didn’t want to.
He went still when I stopped beside him. I could feel the heat radiating off his body, could smell soap and leather and the faint scent of grease and honest work.
Before I could stop myself, I reached out and took his hand.
His skin was warm and slightly damp from the water. Rough calluses scraped against my palm. I traced my fingers over the thin red line where his injury had healed, and my touch was gentle. Reverent.
“This is going to scar,” I murmured.
“Yeah. It won’t be the last one I get.” His voice had dropped an octave, gone rough and dark.
He didn’t pull his hand away. When I looked up, he was staring at me with an intensity that stole my breath. His eyes had gone dark, the green almost swallowed by black pupils.
His free hand came up slowly, giving me time to pull away.
I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
He cupped my jaw, and the touch sent want and need racing through my entire body. His palm was warm and rough against my skin. His eyes dropped to my mouth and I stopped breathing.
He leaned in. Just an inch. Then another. His thumb traced my bottom lip, the pad of it rough and deliberate, and I felt the touch everywhere—in my breasts, between my legs, in the sudden racing of my heart.
My lips parted on a shaky exhale.
His breathing changed. Rougher. Faster. I watched his chest rise and fall, watched the muscle in his jaw tick as he fought for control.
The hand I was still holding tightened around mine, his fingers threading through mine. He was close now. So close I could feel his breath ghosting across my lips. Close enough that if I tilted my head up just slightly, our mouths would touch.
I wanted it. Wanted it so badly I was trembling with it.
Kiss me, I thought desperately. Please just kiss me.
His gaze dropped to my mouth again, and I saw the war happening behind his eyes. Want versus control. Need versus fear.
I shifted closer, letting my body brush against him, and felt him go rigid. Everywhere.
“Amber.” My name was a warning. For him? For me?
A truck horn blared outside.
Dalton’s jaw clenched. His hand fell away from my face, but he didn’t step back. We stood there frozen, both breathing too hard, both wanting what we couldn’t have.
The horn blared again.
“That’s Cade with the tractor part,” he murmured.
“Yeah.”
But still, neither of us moved.
His eyes were still on my mouth. His hand was still gripping mine like he was afraid to let go. I could see the rapid pulse beating at the base of his throat, could feel the tension coiling through his entire body.
The horn blared a third time, followed by Cade’s voice. “Hey bro. I could use a hand here.”
The spell broke.
Dalton released my hand and took a step back. Then another. Creating distance between us even though everything about his body language said he didn’t want to. “I need to help Cade.” He stopped. Swallowed hard.
“Yeah.” I turned and walked toward the door on shaking legs, my entire body still humming with unfulfilled want.
“Amber.”
I stopped. Looked back.
He was standing exactly where I’d left him, hands clenched into fists at his sides. For a moment, I thought he was going to say something. Ask me to stay. Pull me back into his arms. Kiss me the way I was desperate for him to kiss me.
Instead, he just shook his head. “Nothing.”
The word felt like a lie.
I walked out into the cold, my skin still burning where he’d touched me, my lips tingling from the ghost of a kiss that hadn’t happened.
This was bad.
This was so bad.
Because I wasn’t just attracted to him anymore. I wasn’t just noticing the way he looked or the way he moved.
I was falling for him.
For a man who’d made it perfectly clear he didn’t want to let anyone in. Who pushed me away every time we got close.
A man who was going to break my heart if I wasn’t careful.
I looked back at the barn. Dalton was standing in the doorway, watching me.
Even from this distance, I could see the tension in his shoulders, the rigid set of his jaw, the way his hands were still clenched.
Our eyes met across the yard. The air between us felt charged.
Electric. Like one spark would set the whole world on fire.
Then he turned and went back inside, and I was left standing there in the cold, aching and wanting and wondering what the hell I was going to do about the cold-hearted cowboy who was making me feel things I’d sworn I wouldn’t feel again.
Did he realize he wasn’t the only one who had a huge dislike of Valentine’s Day and all it stood for?