Chapter 2
GARRETT
It started out as a simple hook for a guest's hat rack, a commission I could do in my sleep with one hand tied behind my back. Now I'm thirty minutes in before I look down and realize I've flattened the scroll completely wrong on one side.
Ugly wrong. First-year-apprentice wrong. A mistake that should make me feel bad for a week, but I can't feel anything else at the moment besides the hum riding under my skin.
Her hum. Lark.
Her name comes up in my head like a struck bell, resonating with a long trail that never seems to end. I have to close my eyes and set the hammer down before I lose it.
She was just standing in my doorway. That's all. In her worn-in boots, soft jeans, and a tight T-shirt that clung to her mouthwatering tits.
She asked me about smithing as if she'd spent her whole life in a forge, and then she walked backwards out with a smile that said she'd seen every filthy thing that crossed my mind.
And a lot crossed my mind.
I open my eyes and drop the hook in the scrap bin with a clang that spooks a barn swallow out of the rafters. My hands are shaking a little. Enough that I notice. That hasn't happened since I was twenty-two and had my first real fight behind a bar in Austin.
I have not wanted a woman this fast since—hell—I don't know that I ever have. Not like this. Not the way you want a cold drink when you've been in the sun too long, not the way you want a meal when you’re riding the range and haven't eaten since breakfast.
I've wanted women. I've had women. But none of them ever made me ruin a piece of work. None of them walked out of my forge and left me standing there hard in my jeans over a conversation about metal and fire.
She's only here for six days.
That fact sits in my chest like a rock while I bank the coals, wipe down the anvil, and hang the hammer.
She's a guest on vacation from whatever real life she has, and by next Sunday she'll be somewhere else with her sweet mouth and that copper in her hair. And she won’t remember a blacksmith who made her friend's belt buckle.
Why would she?
This is just a forty-year-old man's body waking up out of a long nap and getting confused about how it’s supposed to act in front of a sexy as sin cowgirl.
That's all it is.
I lock the forge and walk back to my cabin, awkwardly, because my jeans are still tight.
The cabin is small, but a nice home. It’s got one room, a sleeping loft, and a kitchen I barely use.
It’s tucked into a stand of live oaks the ranch lets grow however they please.
I've lived here nine years. I know which board on the porch creaks.
I know which cabinet door won't stay shut.
I know the way the light hits the floor at four-thirty in the afternoon and how the quiet at three a.m. weighs different than the quiet at sundown.
I know this life down to the nails.
It's supposed to be enough.
Until this afternoon, I'd have told you it was.
I slide off my bandana and dunk my head under the kitchen faucet since the shower's going to take five minutes to heat up and I need to cool down now.
Cold Hill Country water runs down my neck and under my collar and I stand there gripping the edge of the counter with both hands, dripping on my boots, and still the only thing behind my eyes is that pretty mouth.
A full bottom lip with that little dip in the top one. The way it moved when she spoke…and smiled at me.
I want to know what that mouth tastes like.
I want to know what every inch of her tastes like.
Fuck.
I straighten up and catch my reflection in the small mirror with a chip in one corner, near my window.
On a good day I don't love what it shows me.
Today it shows me a man with wet hair dripping into his eyes, a beard gone past scruffy, and an expression I haven't seen on my own face in so long it takes me a second to name it.
Hunger.
That's the word.
I look hungry.
And not for Cook’s smoked ribs.
"Don't be stupid, Ashby," I say to my reflection.
The reflection isn't buying it.
I’m still staring it down when Carl's voice calls up from my porch.
"Son, you decent?"
"Sometimes."
I hear him laugh through the screen door. "Well, come out here a minute."
I wipe my face on a dish towel and go. Carl is leaning on my porch rail with his hat tipped back and his toothy grin cranked up, and I know what he's going to say before he opens his mouth.
"Six o'clock at the Shed. Welcome mixer."
"Carl."
"Don't you Carl me. You know the rules."
"I went last week."
“You’re supposed to go every week." He squints at me. "You all right, Ashby? You look a little—"
"I'm fine."
"Mmhm." The grin gets wider. He's a man who enjoys his job way too much. "Wear a clean shirt, son. And do something about that face. Trim it or shave it, I don't care which."
“Yes, sir,” I say, with a solemn nod.
He tips his hat and ambles back down the path whistling, and I stand on my porch with the dish towel still in my hand. I consider, seriously, not going. Carl isn't going to fire me and Lucinda will just pout for about a whole minute then feed me a cookie.
I should skip it. Because she’ll be there. Lark.
But I really don’t want to piss these good people off.
So I take the hottest shower the tank will give me, and stand under it a good while longer than I need to, thinking about things I shouldn’t be.
After, I trim the beard, I put on the blue button-down Lucinda gave me for my birthday. She said it matched my eyes and made my broad shoulders stand out.
I roll the sleeves to the elbow and scrub my hands with the heavy pumice grit I use when the forge black won't come out—and when I'm done, my hands are the cleanest they've been in six months. I stand there staring at them.
Who are you trying to impress, Ashby?
I glance up at the mirror. The reflection meets my eyes with a resounding duh.
"Goddammit."
I put on my good hat and stomp out.
The sun's gone down behind the hills and left a red smear above them, and the string lights on the Shed come into view through the oaks before the building does—a long glow strung across the grass.
I can hear the band tuning. Fiddle. Bass. Somebody testing a mic. My clothes suddenly seem too tight and I feel like a kid walking into his first dance.
The Shed smells of brisket and sawdust and a dozen different perfumes, and it's packed. Low chatter filters through the space, while boots scuff along the polished concrete floor.
Lucinda’s in the middle of the crowd in a checkered dress, hugging people. Carl’s behind the bar clapping Jed, the bartender, on the back. The band on the little stage eases into the first song of the night, a twangy Texas two-step.
The line for the BBQ is too long, so I get a beer and find my spot, the corner post at the back wall. I lean on it with one boot hooked behind the other, and I tell myself that after forty-five minutes I've done my civic duty and I can split.
Then I see her.
The room does something weird. Maybe it tilts. Maybe the volume drops. Maybe I just forget how to breathe for a beat. I can't say for certain, because Lark is standing across the room in a sundress and nothing else matters.
It's yellow…or cream with little yellow flowers on it. I can't tell from here and it doesn’t make a lick of difference. It’s short, the straps are thin, and her shoulders are bare.
Her shoulders. I’ve never given a woman's shoulders any serious thought, but I can’t look away from their slope, and the sun-kissed skin that covers them.
Her hair is loose down her back, longer than I realized, the copper in it glinting in the lights. She's in her same beat-up boots.
She walked out of her cabin knowing exactly what she was doing. She had to have known how tempting she’d be to any hot-blooded cowboy.
She's laughing at something her friend said, one hand playing with her shoulder strap.
I take a long pull of my beer and tell myself to look somewhere else…the band, the brisket line. Anywhere but her.
But I can’t make myself do it.
And then her eyes come up.
Straight across the room, they find mine as if she was scanning for them and finally hit the right coordinates.
Then she smiles.
The same slow smile from the forge. The one that tells me she knows what I’m thinking.
A surge goes through me like a wire pulled tight—down the back of my neck, down my spine, all the way down to my groin. I feel the blood rush down to my dick, my grip on the beer bottle a little worrisome.
She says something to her friends without breaking eye contact with me. The tall one with the braid laughs and gives her a shove. Lark laughs and pushes her hair back, then heads to the bar.
Jed hands her two bottles of beer, and she’s walking straight toward me.
Oh, son.
When she reaches me, she just plops the drink on the the nearest high-top, and then stands next to me, shoulder brushing my arm.
Flowers and fruit forward shampoo hit me and now I’m imagining her washing her hair…the suds sliding down her wet, naked body…
"You clean up nice, cowboy."
Her sultry voice snaps me out of my daydream.
"Thanks." My own voice sounds like it's been run through a grinder. I clear my throat. "You too."
She grins.
"Didn't peg you for a mixer guy."
"I'm not."
"But here you are."
"It’s mandatory for staff."
“Ah, I see.” I watch her mouth. I can’t seem to not watch her mouth. "That's a shame. I was starting to think you came ‘cause you wanted to."
"Didn't say I didn't."
Her eyes cut sideways up at me. The light blue goes a shade darker. She takes a slow pull off her beer, her lush lips sliding over the neck of the bottle, and I nearly groan. I have no business feeling this way in the middle of a public building with hoards of people.
The band transitions out of the two-step and into something slower…a lazy waltz.
Lark moves to set her beer down on the high-top. "Dance with me."
"No." It’s flat. Automatic. I’ve been saying it at these mixers for nine years.
She tips her head and her hair falls over one bare shoulder. I want to put my mouth on that spot.
"Come on, Garrett."
"I don't dance."
"I know you don't dance." Her smile goes flirty now. “But a man built like you can sway.”
I should say no again. Why am I not saying no?
I set down my beer and hold out my hand. “Fine.”
She bites her lower lip and I take in a breath as she puts her small, warm hand in mine.
I lead her onto the floor and let my palm settle at the dip of her back, low enough I can feel the hollow of her spine through thin cotton and high enough that I won’t get slapped.
She slides her free hand up and leaves it on my chest, because she can’t reach my shoulder properly.
It lays over my heart.
Where she can, if she's paying the slightest attention—and I suspect this woman pays attention to every goddamn thing—feel how hard that heart is beating.
She fits under my chin as if somebody built her to fit there. One deep breath and I'd have my nose in her hair, inhaling her sweetness.
And the bulge in my jeans is a serious situation once again.
We sway slowly, and my body is aware of everything about her.
"Where'd you grow up?" she asks, looking up at me.
The rafter lights put sparkles in her eyes.
"Not far from here." I force myself to use words. "Forty miles south. Little town."
"You always been a blacksmith?"
"Not always. Did a lot of things before."
"Like what?"
"Ranch work. Roofing, one summer. Worked in a feed store out of high school."
"Mm." She nods. Her hand on my chest shifts a half-inch and I feel that touch everywhere. "What do you love about the smithing?"
Nobody asks me that. Guests ask how hot the forge gets. They ask if it's hard work. Nobody asks what I love about it.
"The fire does what it does." The answer comes out of me before I've decided to give it. "Can't argue with it. You listen or it burns you. Metal's the same way. But it tells you what it wants, if you're paying attention."
She's quiet…and watching my mouth.
I thought I noticed a quick glance at the forge this afternoon, but I chalked it up to wishful thinking. Now, however, she’s definitely eyeing it, and I don't know how much longer I can take it.
"That's beautiful," she says.
It takes me a second to realize she’s talking about what I just said. "It's just the job."
"No, it's not." Her brow furrows. “It’s your passion.”
I gaze down at her. The distance between my mouth and hers isn’t too much.
I've spent most of my adult life being reasonable and cautious, but right now I want to kiss her so badly it hurts. I want to lean down and take that mouth right here on the dance floor. I want to keep taking it until her knees give out and I have to carry her out of this building and down the path to my cabin. Then I’ll find out what my name sounds like as she screams it, my face buried between her thighs, her fists in my hair.
But I just sway.
Turns out I am very, very good at swaying.
The song ends, the last note hanging in the rafters.
Lark doesn't step back from me right away. She lingers, her hand still on my chest, her body close.
Then some kid in a cheap straw hat materializes at her elbow with a grin I want to knock off his face.
"Could I have this dance, ma’am?"
He's maybe in his early twenties. Good-looking, I guess. How would I know?
Lark flicks those lights blue eyes up at me.
I step back and give her a nod, since we’re done here.
"Sure," she says to the kid.
I walk back to my corner post like a man moving through water, pick up one of the beers I abandoned and pretend to watch the band.
But, of course, I watch her.
The kid's got two left feet and too much hand. His palm is where my palm was and something dark and possessive runs through me. I set my jaw so hard I'll feel it tomorrow.
He spins her, then grabs her waist.
I see red…and all I can think is, that's mine.
Which is insane—she's not mine, she's a guest that walked into my forge a few hours ago and has no idea what she's done to me.
Her eyes find me again.
She’s letting that kid dance with her and she’s watching me burn for it, and I am burning, like a goddamn forest fire.
I down both of my beers in seconds, then toss the bottles in the bin on the way out.
I need to get out of here before I break something….or someone.