Chapter 4
Jamie tapped the calendar icon on his tablet and perused what Monday”s schedule had in store. As usual, his morning was full.
Slugging down what remained in his large coffee mug, he set the cup down and swiped the back of his hand across his lips.
Stroking his cheeks and chin, he almost reconsidered his new habit of not shaving on the weekends. His beard grew so fast that ignoring the razor for a few days meant he had a full face of scruff.
He checked his watch—no time to rethink today”s grooming.
”Scruff it is, then,” he mumbled.
A rustic, wood console table—crafted by Draegyn St. John—sat along the wall next to the front door. The long horizontal surface held all the things—a small woven basket purchased at a craft fair in Tempe, his hat, a pair of ranch gloves, a water bottle, his sunglasses, and the lunch cooler he”d packed earlier.
Reaching into the basket for his keys, he pushed the gloves halfway into the back pocket of his jeans, put on the hat and sunglasses, jammed the water bottle under his arm, and gripped the cooler”s handle.
Moving from the house to his truck only took a moment. In the shade of the carport, he rolled the windows down and let the truck run while he got his bearings.
Jamie believed running away from the weather—specifically the realities of life in a hot, dry climate—was the ultimate recipe for misery. Because his job required a lot of outside time, he”d learned to acclimate to the temperatures as best he could. Relying on air conditioning 24/7 was plain stupid. He preferred fresh air anyway.
”Okay, Dr. Hunter. Let”s do this.”
Backing out of the carport, he turned around in the driveway and followed a winding lane to the main road. His first appointment this morning was at the kennel inside the Justice compound. With Brody Jensen on paternity leave, it fell to Jamie and Brody”s well-trained, competent staff to keep an eye on his canines.
Afterward, he”d stop at the clinic to see how Isaiah was doing on his first day.
Then, it was time to do the rounds at the Villa.
Would Rebecca be waiting for him, or would she run away and hide?
Every day was a crapshoot with her. Sometimes, she was in his face before he even exited his truck. Other times, she kept her distance. Recently she”d added disappearing to her repertoire of behaviors.
”Damn.”
The woman invaded his thoughts far too often. What concerned him most was the route his mental meanderings took.
Jamie wasn”t the guy he was ten years ago. He”d gone into the wilderness of his psyche, dug deep, and done the work. It had not been easy—or pretty. A complete emotional reset took serious effort.
But he”d done it and pulverized the cuckold cop to dust. The things he”d done since, the road his healing had taken, those things factored heavily into the man he was today.
A man who knew what the fuck he was doing—who understood the distinction between emotional attraction and sex.
Sex and lust were normal to humans—especially males, for whom sex was not tied to conditional emotions.
Knowing this, it would be one thing if all he felt for Rebecca Tate were a desire for sex—lust happened, he thought with a smirk.
But in Rebecca”s case, there was something else, and that”s what concerned him.
Did he want to dominate the fuck out of her in bed?
Guilty.
Did he also want to get inside her head, see the world through her eyes, understand what made her tick, and then break through her impressive defenses to reveal a side of herself she didn”t know existed?
Yeah.
And that”s why he had to be careful.
If he wanted sex, wanted an experienced submissive to play with, he could patronize a reputable, expensive, and very exclusive lounge in the foothills of L.A.
Before Stephanie Dane detoured his life, Jamie took all his downtime and vacation days in southern California.
Strange fact—he”d taken the money from the sale of his and Darlene”s marital home, every cent, and purchased a condo on the beach. And why had he done something so out of character? As a direct fuck you to his ex-wife, the police department that let him down, and life in general.
He”d worked ranches in Montana and Texas. He”d traveled the rodeo circuit. For a time, he played small-town vet. Wherever he was and whatever he was doing, when he needed to get away, he went to California because L.A. was one of those places where nobody gave a shit unless you were famous. He liked the anonymity of occasional visits and couldn”t care less about celebrity, so hanging out at the ocean”s edge worked for him—plus, the city was a vibrant sexual amusement park. Years ago, on the recommendation of a fellow Dom, he found a place that catered to his preferences and, after an introductory visit, accepted their invitation to join.
Just before his last rodeo, he”d done the L.A. rounds. Two indulgent weeks of sun, sand, shopping, eating, and fucking.
And then he met Rebecca Tate and hadn”t been back since. The housekeeper he hired to keep the condo in tip-top shape had an easy time of it.
This is where things got weird. He didn”t want sex. The idea was fine, but for reasons he didn”t quite understand, Jamie found himself thinking a slew oftouchy, feelystuff about the prickly female who clearly wanted nothing to do with him.
He didn”t do touchy-feely. Straightforward sex—adventurous and sometimes kinky—was all he knew, so why he suddenly wanted to get inside a woman”s head mystified him.
A song he grew to love while on a Montana ranch came on the satellite radio—John Prine”s ”Long Monday.”
Turning up the volume, he sang along and motored into the compound, taking the turn leading to the Justice Canine zone.
* * *
Becca retiedthe huge bow cinching the cellophane wrap securing a large baby basket filled with diapers. She”d found the elaborate gift sitting on her desk when she got to work, along with a note from the local 4-H club congratulating Stephanie, Calder, and young Wolfie on the arrival of a new baby in their family.
Her right-hand man on the ranch, Sammy Santiago, rapped on her door. ”Hey, boss, do you have time to look at this schedule?”
”Schedule?”
”Yeah. With the heat, I had to make some changes. Our rancheros need more break time at the water trough.”
Half smiling, she took the paper he held out and glanced at the new schedule.
”I have an idea about that,”she told him matter-of-factly.
”The heat or the water trough?”Sammy asked.
”Both. What would you say to a pavilion—open air with a heavy-duty circulating ceiling fan? Big enough for a couple of picnic tables and some of those killer firepit chairs to kick back in that Draegyn St. John”s Bum Fuzzle project is churning out. I picture the spot next to the ironwood trees where running a water line with a hose spigot will be easy.”
Sammy nodded—his face registering surprise and pleasure. ”You”ve given this some thought.”
”The ranch has grown. We”re busier than ever. It”s fucking hot. Taking care of our people is the same priority as caring for animals. Stephanie set the bar on this issue. She expects everyone—animals and humans—to be cared for. The rancheros need a place to take a break. Someplace shaded that”s just for them. I think a pavilion is the way to go.”
”You do realize that a pavilion will lead to a grill area and a basketball hoop, right?”
”I”m okay with that.”
”Where do you land on a hot tub or a pool?”
She laughed. ”You get an A-plus for having the balls to ask, Santiago, but no. I”m afraid not.
”Let the record reflect that I asked, okay?”He snickered. ”It”ll make my crew happy that I tried.”
”Noted,”Becca drawled. She pointed to the bow-topped basket and asked, ”Can you find somebody to run this out to the Danes?I”mswamped.”
”Sure. No problem.”Sammy lifted the heavy basket. ”Damn, that”s a lot of diapers!”
Eyeballing the stacks of newborn diapers, she quickly calculated and said, ”Week at most.”
He grinned. ”I remember when our first came along, and it seemed like I was at the big box store stocking up practically every other day.”
”Cha-ching,”she joked.
”No joke. Kids are expensive.”
”All of a sudden, the word college is part of Kori”s vocabulary.”
Sammy shuddered dramatically. ”Teenagers.”
Bustling out of the cramped office, he went about his day, whistling a happy tune.
One of the many reasons she got on so well with Sammy was his lack of neediness. Talkativeness was not his jam. He said what needed saying—maybe tossed in some friendly banter, as he had just done—but that was it. And he didn”t carry a surly chip on his shoulder because the boss was a woman.
She found him easy to be around.
Not unexpectedly, the hard part of the morning moved like molasses stuck to a cold spoon—typical for a Monday.
Doing her job and Stephanie”s gave Becca a chance to shine. When the obstetrician put her pregnant fifty-something-year-old boss on bed rest, it fell to her to step up and take the reins. It was a challenge at first, but as the saying goes, this wasn”t her first rodeo. Managing people, systems, supply chains and things was what she did.
She got help from one of the girls who worked for Betty in the Justice business office when needed.
Today, however, Becca was driving solo. An hour before lunch, she hit the wall. Throwing down her pen, she rose from the desk chair and stretched to alleviate the many kinks and muscle aches in her body.
What she needed was a period of activity. Without pondering what to do for more than a heartbeat, she grabbed her straw hat and sunglasses on her way out the door.
Walking along the practical end of the Marquez stable where the human, business side of things happened, she pulled a door shut leading to a storage room. She noted an overflowing trash can that needed immediate attention.
In the barn, her eyes scanned every stall—checking on the animals. Workers were everywhere. The barn staff were grooming several of the quarter horses. Becca knew if she looked around hard enough, she”d probably find Jamie Hunter lurking, but now wasn”t the time—she had a project on her mind.
Marching to the far end of the horse barn, she stepped into the bright sunlight and headed for the stand of ironwood trees that stretched from the big barn back to a smaller barn where the miscellaneous animals lived.
Upon visual inspection, the spot she envisioned for the pavilion—halfway between the two barns—was perfect.
Lowering to a crouch, she pushed on the brim of her hat to keep it in place and surveyed the area.
She”d have to walk it off, but it looked like a reasonably good-sized pavilion—something rectangular and long would fit.
Her eyes swung to the nearest outdoor hose tap. It was close enough to run a second line for a faucet on the pavilion”s corner.
”Winning,”she chuckled to herself.