Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
RED
F ive hours into the most tedious fit testing I’ve done in twenty years, the tech pack bursts at the seams with new suggestions, and Rowdy’s design team looks haggard and nervous. To my surprise, though, the cowboy learns quickly, and I can confidently say he and I are on the same page. Hell, he even breaks into a conservative smile several times, nodding his head and telling me he knew something was off but didn’t know how to describe the remedy.
“Now, that’s how you do a fit testing,” I say, clapping my hands together. Natalie frowns, rubbing her eyes, and Shelley shoots me a dirty look. It doesn’t surprise me. I spent much of the last few hours poking holes in her original assessments and lack of thorough inspection. It’s inexcusable. “Next time, we’ll hopefully get an earlier start. But prepare for occasional late nights. My team in the City knows this, and the same rules apply here.”
All eyes look questioningly towards Rowdy, and my stomach drops, ready for the next fight. Instead, he says firmly, “Ms. Cash is correct—new protocols for a better brand. Now, I don’t know how they do things in the Big Apple, but the least I can offer is dinner and drinks for the crew. Does pizza and beer from Stuckey’s work?”
Eyes drop to the ground, and shoulders hunch. One employee after another explains why they better get home until Rowdy and I are the last ones standing. He eyes me, his face unreadable and his jaw muscle jumping.
Natalie says in a quiet voice, “Don’t let us keep you two lovebirds…”
“I could use a beer…or two,” Rowdy replies grimly.
“Can we go home now?” Shelley asks, motioning towards the door to the conference room.
I need to have a serious talk with her tomorrow because I’m less than impressed by Shelley’s lack of dedication to quality. But I need to hash things out with Rowdy first, which requires patience—a quality I’ve never nurtured.
“In that case, we’ll take a raincheck. Consider tomorrow’s lunch fully covered. Good work, everyone. Drive safely.”
Rowdy draws closer to me as the team mills out, whispering, “We’ve got a lot to sort out still. How about we grab a pizza and head back to my place?”
My cheeks flush despite my best attempts at remaining emotionless. His eyes narrow, and the corners of his mouth turn up ever so slightly. I fear he can read me like a book. If that’s the case, then he already knows my body wants to stage a wanton mutiny and wrap itself around him.
“That is unless you’d feel more comfortable wherever you’re staying?”
Neither option will forestall the inevitable. But with each passing moment around this man, I become less convinced I want to do that. “No, your place is fine. And yes, we’ve got a lot to sort out.”
After bidding goodbye to everyone, locking up the facility, and following Rowdy’s silver GMC dually to Stuckey’s and then out into the middle of Alpha Ridge Creek’s boondocks, I park my challenger in the massive white gravel driveway next to his truck, getting out and savoring the crisp air. I may hate everything about being back in my hometown, but the lack of smog is refreshing. So are the untamed views.
The verdant ranch sprawls infinitely, no matter where I look, and the ranch house steals my breath. Instead of some hokey, old-fashioned Victorian as I imagined, the place is stunningly contemporary with low-pitched rooflines, extended eaves, and vast windows and sliding glass doors that create an airy, contemporary curb appeal. Wood with black-painted accents and beige stonework combine effortlessly with the surrounding forest, exuding a pristine, harmonious esthetic.
Rowdy catches me drooling. “You like it, city girl?”
I could answer and tell him the truth. But it feels too much like getting along and giving in, which are the last two things I ever plan on doing around this dipshit. Better to pick a fight instead.
Pointing towards the pickup hitch on the back of Rowdy’s truck, I say, “This has redneck written all over it. I’m surprised you don’t have a pair of fake testicles hanging from the back.”
His face relaxes, and he chuckles. “Who needs a fake pair when the real deal’s?—”
“Seriously? I don’t need to know anything about your…stuff.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure? I think it’s customary for a fiancée to have a look at the goods before the wedding night. Even take it for a test drive or two. Unless we’re going to play this shit show off as an Amish affair or something.”
I shake my head. “I can’t believe you just said that.
“The part about the test drive or the part about the Amish?” The cowboy counters grumpily.
My heart pounds against my chest, my breath comes faster, and my cheeks burn.
Rowdy leans back on his heels, holding the pizza box in one hand and scrutinizing me. “Are you having trouble breathing there, Red?”
“No,” I pant, feeling like a fool. “It’s the elevation. That’s all.”
He rolls his eyes. “Of course, it is.” Nodding towards the entryway to his house, he turns on his heels, striding up to the porch. In growly tones, he mutters, “Might want to figure out how to stop blushing so much in front of me. Don’t you think acting this embarrassed around your significant other is a little weird?”
Thankfully, he walks away without seeing how his question makes my skin sizzle. I never could hide my feelings. It’s the worst part of being a ginger. “At least reporters will mistake my blushing for actual affection. As for your mannerisms, do you even know how to treat a fiancée?”
He stops in his tracks without looking back. “Don’t tempt me, Red.”
“What does that mean?” I manage breathlessly, gulping for air.
He doesn’t answer, opening the door and nodding for me to enter. Lights come on automatically as I walk in, circling to get a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the place. It has light wood floors and accents, ivory walls, and chic furnishings with minimalist lines. Lush emerald-colored plants provide lavish pops of color, drawing some of the green from outside indoors, and the massive windows and sliders make the living room look like an extension of the forested grounds, stretching toward the horizon where splashy layers of periwinkle, lavender, hot pink, and gold announce sunset.
He asks again, “I take it you like the place?”
Despite my innate desire to never compliment this man in any way, I can’t help myself. “It’s breathtaking. I had no idea you had taste like this, Rowdy.”
“A lot’s changed about me since childhood, just like I imagine a lot’s changed about you. That’s why we need to get caught up, figure this shit out before reporters start peppering us with questions.”
As Rowdy talks in resigned tones, he uses his hands. The swollen, purple knuckles of one hand wrest my attention, causing me to gasp. “What did you do to yourself?”
Glancing at his left hand, he frowns, excusing, “It’s nothing.”
“No, it’s not nothing,” I counter, stepping forward and feeling suddenly like the bossy older sister who has to keep everyone in line and uninjured. Grabbing his hand, electricity arcs between our hands. His nostrils flare, and his eyes dilate.
Keep it together, Red. You patched this man up countless times as a kid. You can do this .
But something massive has changed since his childhood and my teen years. I can barely think, let alone breathe, as my fingertips graze carefully over the angry flesh of his wounded hand, every touch sizzling and sparking with undeniable need. By the way his breathing picks up, he feels it, too.
Keep your fucking cool. You’re a forty-year-old woman!
I examine his knuckles gently, desire gripping me with each innocent sweep of flesh against flesh. I swallow hard, trying to remain unaffected by the simmering, unspoken alchemical reaction. It doesn’t work. “You need ice for this and to tell me how you did it…”
He scowls, clearing his throat. “Just punched a table while talking to your pain in the ass brother the other day. It’s nothing.” His voice sounds raw and bothered.
“Stop saying that. Ignoring it won’t make it go away, and the least you can do is ice it,” I say more forcefully.
“Since when do you care about my injuries, Red?”
I lean back on my heels, shaking my head. “Since when? Maybe you’ve forgotten, Ronald, but I’ve patched you up plenty of times. Your knees…your elbows…your forehead,” I say, tipping back his hat and running my finger along the scar still visible on his temple to a hail of more sparks. I inhale sharply, and his eyes darken. “That’s from when you fell into the corner of the brick fireplace at my parents’ ranch house. And here,” I say, fingering another scar on the inside of his right wrist where his pulse pounds. “From baking cookies with me for the school carnival…”
He frowns, his eyes settling unrepentantly on my lips. “Don’t go getting all sentimental now.”
I arch my eyebrows, my gaze fixing on his lips in return, my breath sounding in shallow pants…
His voice breaks the spell. “But if it makes you feel better, you can ice my goddamn knuckles. I was planning on doing it with a beer bottle anyway.”
“Wrong side, dipshit,” I grumble, as if sharp words will dispel the thick tension in the room. Padding into his kitchen, which is easy to find thanks to the open floor plan, I open the freezer and search for an ice pack.
I can feel Rowdy behind me, searing me with his hungry gaze. “You’re serious about the ice, huh?”
“Of course I am. But where are your ice packs?”
He shrugs.
“Seriously? You don’t keep ice packs on hand? I find that strange for someone as accident-prone as you,” I say more to myself than him.
“Accident-prone? Maybe as a kid but not now. Red, I’m a PRCA World Champion. Didn’t you ever watch your brother and I compete? If I were accident prone, I’d be maimed or dead by now.”
“Fair enough,” I reply, my eyes wandering to his muscular shoulders and chest. “I guess we’ve both done plenty of growing up.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, his eyes drifting to my tits again. If that’s how we’re going to play this game, that’s how we’ll play this game. I let my eyes drop to his package, which his tight-fitting Wrangler’s do a nice job of objectifying.
Clearing his throat loudly, Rowdy suggests, “Use a ziplock bag.”
“A ziplock bag? What?”
“For the ice pack.” He says it slowly and darkly, like an audiobook narrator reads a sexy scene. “You know, fill it with some ice, and I’ll put it on my damn hand. Cause what we’re doing right now will only end one way, Red. I don’t know who you think you’re fooling.”
Putting his head down, he strides back into the living room, leaving me red-faced and mortified. What in the hell am I doing? I take a deep breath, willing myself to pull it the fuck together. Then, I search the drawers of his ample light-colored wood cabinetry until I find a bag and load it with ice. New rule. No touching or staring… under any circumstances . Re-entering the living room, I throw the ice-filled bag harder than I need to in his direction. He catches it effortlessly.
“You should’ve thrown like that in high school, Red. They’d have let you be more than the softball team’s benchwarmer.”
There’s nothing worse than your sworn enemy knowing everything about you. But two can play at this game. “That’s a rich comment for the first baseman who lost us state.”
Rowdy shakes his head, licking his lips. “I wasn’t the only one who flubbed it that day.”
“Yeah, but you were the last one to flub it, and that’s what counts,” I declare, sitting across from him on the floor with the coffee table between us, holding the pizza and beers. I grab a bottle, using the bottom of my sweater to untwist it. The only way I’m getting through this night is with alcohol.
“You better watch it there, Red. You’re at elevation now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I hiss, taking a long swig.
“It takes less beer to get you buzzed,” he warns, pressing his lips together in a knowing frown.
“I know how to hold my alcohol, dumbass,” I reply, rolling my eyes. “Unlike you at senior prom.” I point my beer bottle at him, winking. “You’re supposed to fuck your high school sweetheart, not puke in her lap.”
“Did I really invite you over here?” Rowdy growls, looking around as if security’s going to pop out of nowhere and escort me out again. “This is going to be a long-ass night, so take it easy with those beers. The last thing I need is your drunken ass getting stuck here.”
“I’d rather walk!” I exclaim with a humph.
“Not an option. This place is teeming with wolves, bull moose, and grizzlies…” He looks at me, a malicious glint lighting his eyes. “Wait, a second, that’s not a half-bad idea. I fully support you getting drunk off your ass and walking out of here.”
I shake my head.
“You ever see The Revenant? ”
“I’d like to see a bear come at me. I’ll send that motherfucker packing straight back to hell,” I promise with a wink, drinking some more beer.
Rowdy shakes his head, laughing despite himself. “I don’t doubt that for one minute.”