Chapter Two
Blaze
"Put me down right now!" the pretty little blonde with hay in her hair squeals, pounding on my back hard enough to make my dick throb. She flails her legs, trying to kick me, but I've been wrangling cattle for years. Containing this pretty little thing is a breeze in comparison.
"No can do, Calamity Jane," I rumble, striding out of the barn with her still kicking up a fuss.
Wade Jessup is filling buckets near the corral and glances up, his brows furrowed. "What the fuck?" he calls. "I thought you were going to saddle Jon."
"Something came up," I mutter, striding toward the cabin I share with Bishop, my hand planted on her perfect, plump ass. "Can you send your brother, Flint, and Gunner to my place?"
"Uh…yeah," he says, staring at me like he doesn't know what the fuck is going on.
Frankly, that makes two of us. The last thing I expected to find in the barn this morning was a goddess with hay in her blonde hair, dust on her porcelain cheeks, and the kind of round little body a man like me could happily drown in.
She's fucking beautiful, so much so that I can't even think about that right now.
If I do, I'll think about the way her plush curves feel beneath my hands, about how soft and round she is in all the right places, and about how fucking sweet she smells, even with the scents of the barn clinging to her.
Goddammit.
"This is kidnapping!" she cries, slapping me in the back of the head as I stride toward my place on the far side of the ranch. "It's illegal! Help! I've been kidnapped!"
"You snuck onto our property and slept in our barn," I remind her, grinning like a madman.
Whoever this chick is, she's a wild one.
That probably shouldn't have me hard enough to pound nails, but if my cock gets any harder, I'll be walking funny.
"If I go to jail for kidnapping, you're going too, Calamity. "
"That's not my name," she huffs.
Maybe not, but I can already tell that it suits her to a fucking tee. And since she won't tell me who she is, it's just going to have to do for now.
Her teeth sink into my shoulder.
My dick throbs so hard, the fucker is in danger of breaking in half.
"Did you just bite me?"
"Yes," she growls. "And I'll do it again if you don't put me down right now!"
I flip her upright, not because I don't want her to bite me again—I actually do—but because I want to see her face. It's red, her eyes wild as she slaps hair out of her face. Her glare is too goddamn cute.
It doesn't quite hide the terror in her gaze, though. She's scared of something, real fucking scared. Of going to jail? Maybe.
Jesus. Who is she?
I'm mad as hell that she spent the last two nights in the barn. No one should be forced to sleep with Jon, especially not a girl like her. She belongs in my bed.
Wait. No, that's not what I…
Ah, goddammit.
That's exactly what I meant.
I don't want her hiding out in the barn. I want her in my bed. And I want to know what the fuck she's so afraid of, so I can handle it for her. If she's running, I want her running to me.
I'm so fucked.
"I need better dreams," she mutters, crossing her arms. The pout on her face is too damn cute. "This one sucks."
"It's not a dream, Calamity."
"Concussion hallucination, then."
"Do I feel like a hallucination to you?" I ask, one brow arched.
Her brows furrow like she's seriously considering the question. "Yes," she finally decides. "Because not even cowboys just manhandle women in reality."
"But they do in your hallucinations and your dreams?" I can't help but grin at her. "Sounds dirty, baby."
She squeezes her eyes closed. "One. Two."
"What are you doing?"
"Counting my way back to reality."
"Yeah? How's that going for you?"
One blue eye pops open as I climb the steps to my cabin. "Not well," she sniffs. "You're still here."
I just chuckle and carry her inside. I briefly consider setting her on the sofa, but after taking a look at her face, I decide against it.
If I let her go, I'll be chasing her pretty little ass down in point five seconds when she tries to bolt.
Better to keep her in my arms until Gunner gets here to confirm she does not, in fact, have a concussion.
Once we get that out of the way and she accepts that I'm her new reality, we can deal with the important shit—like figuring out who I need to kill, why, and how to get my ring on her finger.
Walker and Flint arrive before Gunner, strolling in without waiting for an answer to their knock.
"Wade said you needed us," Walker growls, not commenting on the pissed-off woman currently trying to pry my arms from around her gorgeous body. I see the curiosity in his brown eyes, though, and I have no fucking clue what to tell him.
It's not like goddesses materialize out of thin air every day around here.
Flint just shakes his head, fighting a grin.
"This is Calamity Jane. I found her sleeping in the barn," I say, nodding at her. "Baby, this is Walker Jessup and Flint Stockton. They help manage the cowboys around here."
"My name isn't Calamity Jane," she mutters, scowling daggers at me. "It's Elizabeth."
"It's Morgan Elizabeth Lott," Flint says, his eyes on her. "You're Darius Lott's kid."
She blinks wide eyes at him, her face paling. "You knew my dad?"
"Yeah, sweetheart," Flint murmurs. "I did. We worked together for a while. I was damn sorry to hear it when he passed."
"Your dad died, baby?" I ask, my whole goddamn body going soft for her. Is that why she's been sleeping in the barn? Poor baby.
Unfortunately, hers does not go soft for me. She just sniffs at me, scowling as if she'd prefer to set me on fire, then turns her face away as if she can ignore me if she can't see me.
I chuckle in response. She has no idea how fucking cute she is when she's pissed, like a grumpy little kitten just dying to be coddled.
"You were sleeping in the barn?" Flint asks her, his expression darkening.
"I…" She huffs again and then nods, guilt written all over her round face.
"I promised to leave and not to do it again, but this big bully wouldn't listen.
He dragged me here against my will. You should probably fire him.
Cowboys who kidnap women aren't a very good look for your ranch, Mr. Stockton. "
Flint looks to me for confirmation, amusement in his gaze.
"She fell off the stall door trying to climb over it. Figured I should get her checked out." My lips quirk. "She swears I'm a concussion hallucination because I look like sex on legs and have a horse named Jon Bon Pony."
"I did not say that," she lies.
"It'd solve so many of my problems if you were a hallucination," Walker mutters, fighting a grin.
I just flip him off. He fucking loves me, and he knows it.
"A concussion hallucination?" Flint scrubs a hand through his hair, chuckling. "First time I've heard that."
"Gunner is on his way to look at her."
"I don't need to be looked at," she grumbles, scowling at me again. "I guess you're real."
"Yeah?" I smile at her. "What finally gave it away?"
She pointedly ignores me again, and I want to turn her face back to me, just to keep those eyes on me. I like it a lot better when she's looking at me.
"When did you last eat anything, Morgan?" Walker asks, his voice soft in a way it only is when he's talking to a frightened animal or his wife, Letty.
"Um…" Her gaze darts to me and then away. "I may have borrowed an apple from the barn last night. I don't have any money to pay you back for it right now, but I will, I promise."
"It's okay," I murmur, tugging her a little closer. "You aren't in trouble."
"Says the jerk who threatened to call the sheriff on me," she sniffs.
Flint arches a brow at me.
"She wouldn't tell me her name," I mutter by way of explanation. "I wasn't actually going to call him." I'm not that big of an asshole. If someone is willing to bed down with a horse just to stay warm, that isn't a crime. It's a goddamn tragedy.
"I want to call him," she mutters under her breath. "I've been kidnapped by the devil."
Walker hears her and chuckles, making her startle in my arms. Her gaze flies to his, her cheeks turning pink. "How about we make you a deal? You let Gunner take a look at you," he negotiates. "I'll have my wife make you something to eat. And then you can get a shower and wash the barn off you."
"What do I have to do?" she asks, her tone leery.
"Let Blaze keep an eye on you, just to make sure you're okay," he says.
"Blaze?" She blinks at him and then groans, tipping her head up to look at the ceiling. "Great. Of course he has a ridiculously hot cowboy name to go with his stupid-hot smirk."
Flint chuckles again, but I just grin at her like a fucking idiot. A motherfucker could get used to this girl calling him hot.
"What do you say?" Walker asks after a moment.
"Fine," she says, then narrows her eyes at me. "But only if you make him put me down."
My hands automatically tighten on her. And that's about the time I realize that I am so fucking done for. I don't want to let her go. Like…at all.
Fuck my life.