Chapter 12
EMMA LAY IN Cade’s bed and watched him, still wet from the shower, as he pulled clothes out of the dresser. He was aware she watched him and acted with absolutely zero inhibitions. It made her want to pinch his—very fine—butt. She refrained. Barely.
Dressed, he sat on the edge of the bed and smiled when she couldn’t stop a jaw-cracking yawn. “You should get a little more rest, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. He’d called her that last night. She was still grinning, may have never stopped. “You’re just trying to keep me from going to the cabin.”
“Maybe.” He traced his thumb over her kiss-swollen lips. “I like seeing you here, pale skin barely covered by sheets I’m partially responsible for rumpling, lips red and a little swollen from my kisses, the faint flush of annoyance creeping up your neck, your hair sticking out like a hedgehog’s.”
A surprised laugh escaped. “You had me right up to the ‘hedgehog’ comment.”
Cade waggled his brows. “Maybe I have a thing for hedgehogs. Stranger things have happened to folks stranded out here in the wilderness.”
“Still, a hedgehog?” she said, reaching up to run her fingers through the lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead.
Cupping her face, he leaned forward and kissed her with a tenderness she wasn’t prepared for.
His tongue teased her lips and, when she opened to him on a sigh, a deep sound of contentment echoed in his chest. He stroked her jaw, the smoothness of her skin so different from the rough pad of his thumb.
That difference represented just one of the multitude of differences between them, differences that, even in morning’s early light, failed to matter to her.
What mattered was this moment, this man and the fact he’d broken through walls she’d believed impenetrable.
He was the one to end the kiss, resting on his knees and scrutinizing her. Then his eyes flared and something akin to both terror and marvel passed over his face.
She propped herself on one elbow. “What?”
He shook his head and continued to stare.
“Stubborn man. What just went through your mind?”
Cade rubbed his lips carefully, seeming to weigh his words.
She waited.
He dropped his gaze before speaking. “My dad worshipped the ground my mother walked on. I don’t remember much about their marriage because, honestly, that kind of love was just normal. It was all I knew. Then he lost her.”
Emma took his hand and twined their fingers together, resting them against the sheets. “You all lost her, not just your dad.”
“It was different for him. He considered his loss somehow greater than ours.” He shrugged.
“It was the first anniversary of her passing that he got stinkin’ drunk, raged about how he wished he’d never loved her, wished he hadn’t given his heart to her and let her take it to the grave when she left him.
He cursed her that night, screaming at the night sky. I was just a boy.”
She squeezed his hand. “Who was never allowed to grieve.”
“Point is, all I heard was that love would screw you if it got the chance. Owe it a dime and it’d take your dollar without bothering to make change. You’d always lose more than you invested—you’d always come up short.”
Her heart skipped a beat.
He looked up, those just-blue eyes meeting hers, piercing her straight to the very center of who she was and compelling her to answer.
“My parents didn’t teach me anything about love.
Everything I learned came from friends’ families and things I overheard.
It confused me as a kid.” She tried to smile to soften the hard truth, but her lips only twitched.
“I developed a much more universal concept of love as I grew up and watched friends fall in love, compared that to Hollywood’s version and snuck the occasional romance novel into the house.
” Her chin lifted a fraction so she could face him head-on.
He still sat quietly. Staring at her.
Her heart skipped another beat.
“Funny,” he said softly, “that two people with such screwed-up ideas about love should end up here.”
“Could be.” The words carried on a breath.
“If we’re being honest?”
She nodded carefully, her eyes never leaving his.
He hesitated.
Her heart almost stopped.
“I believe I’ve fallen for you, Ms. Graystone, and it scares the ever-loving hell out of me.
It goes against everything I was raised to believe, punches every panic button I have and should make me want to hop on my horse and head for the hills.
” His gaze dropped to their hands. That thumb, roughened by hard labor, stroked hers. “I don’t want to run.”
Forcing herself to sit up, she retrieved her hand so she could take his face and turn that beautiful gaze her way.
“Ironic, isn’t it, that I was raised to believe business was more important than people?
Then I met you. Everything I thought I knew was flipped on its ear.
My business is on the verge of collapse.
” He inhaled sharply, making his cheeks move beneath her hands.
She tightened her grip, wouldn’t let him look away.
“And I’ve never been happier.” His eyes widened as she moved in, her lips brushing his.
“It seems inevitable, Mr. Covington, that I’ve fallen for you, too. ”
He closed his eyes, their lips still touching. “Say it. Truly say it.”
“I love you, Cade Covington.”
He brushed a whisper-soft kiss over her lips. “Then I suppose I can get on with the day’s chores.”
“Not before your reciprocate.”
“You have my heart, Ms. Graystone, and have branded my soul. If that’s not love, I have no idea what is.” Brushing her hair aside, he kissed her forehead.
Emma was almost afraid to ask, but the way her organized mind worked, she had to know. “Where do we go from here?”
“Wherever we want, I suppose.” He opened his eyes and stared at her from only a few inches away. “Wherever you want.”
She started, pulling away and breaking contact. “You’d never be happy in New York.”
“I’m not sure you’d be happy here.” Calm and stoic, that was Cade.
“True.”
“‘Wherever we want’ doesn’t require an immediate answer, baby.” He pressed her shoulders to the bed, following her down and caging her in his arms. “We’ll decide together. Right now? I have to get my butt to work or I’m going to do something I’ve never done before.”
“And that is?”
“Spend a lazy morning in bed with a woman, my woman, and work up a sweat.”
“Doesn’t sound terribly lazy,” she said, her eyes fluttering closed.
“I’d take a while to make you sweat.”
Heat bloomed between her legs and she grinned. “I doubt it.”
A quick kiss and he stood. “Then I’d best get going. There’s a ton to accomplish today, but you can afford a couple more hours of sleep before you have to get up. Rest. I’ll come get you before ten.”
She watched him go, his masculine swagger tempered by a lighter step than any she’d ever seen him exhibit. “I love you,” she said so softly he shouldn’t have heard her.
Still, he paused at the door and glanced over his shoulder. “Damn right you do.”
Then he was gone, leaving her laughing in his wake as she snuggled under the covers. The last thing she’d expected to find in New Mexico had been the first thing she’d encountered.
Love.
With all its complications, every single risk and the very real chance she’d face personal fallout from her business partner, Emma was certain she’d found love.
WHEN SHE WAKENED AGAIN, the clock read 10:57 a.m. Obviously Cade hadn’t returned for her as promised. The first twinge of doubt made her shoulders tighten uncomfortably.
“It’s nothing,” she said, repeating the two inadequate words of solace over and over as she showered and redressed.
But as reality set in, she started to appreciate how much she’d set herself up for heartbreak.
She was leaving in a few days. His place was here, and hers was in New York.
Her business—a business she was about to lose if she wasn’t careful, if she didn’t maximize every contact that had been invited to the ranch’s inaugural event—had been the center of her life for so long.
She might love Cade, but she’d still have to leave him, still have to go back to the life she’d created.
Heartbreaking as it was, love wouldn’t pay the bills.
She headed upstairs to search out Reagan.
The other woman was in the office fussing over her billing program and cussing a blue streak as she fought with the ranch’s miserable internet connection.
“Hey. Mind if I come in?”
Reagan looked up. “If you would do that thing you did last week where you laid your hands on the computer, put your cell phone on the freaking desk, created your own hot spot and sent my inventory orders, I’d declare you a saint and set up a shrine to you in that corner,” she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder.
Emma laughed. “Glad to if you promise you’ll help me figure out what to wear tonight.” Butterflies fluttered behind her belly button with incredible fervor for such delicate creatures.
The taller woman swiveled her chair left and right, considering. Then she nodded. “I can definitely help. He’ll take you to dinner before you head to Bits ’n Spurs for some dancing. If you don’t dress down, you’re going to look out of place.”
“I am out of place. That’s not enough to keep me from going tonight, though.
” Emma realized what she had in Cade, realized that he was an amazing man.
He was just a bit rough around the edges.
But that was a huge part of his appeal—his body, his voice, his eyes, his laugh, the way his hands could touch her and make her believe she was the only woman in the world, the way he could sing a few notes and steal her heart...