Chapter 25
Boone took a slow breath and tried to remember how to behave like a reasonable man.
She was just a woman, he reminded himself. He knew women. Knew the rules, knew the patterns, knew their language.
But then there was Vivi, who didn't fit any pattern. She didn't come with rules or safety rails and he felt that low, tightening pull in his chest—the one that told him he was already past the point of playing this smart.
He watched her set out their lunch—cheese, little finger sandwiches, peach pie, a charcuterie board—organizing everything like it was an Instagram post. Every time she bent over to stack the sandwiches she went ass-up, and he couldn't help himself. The view was magnificent and he was only human.
Then there were those painted-on jeans—practically copyrighted by her curves—so tight he should've been able to trace the outline of her panties like a roadmap.
Except there wasn't a single damn line. Which left him with two equally deranged possibilities: A) she was wearing a G-string with less surface area than a shoelace, or B) she'd rolled out of bed and decided to go full commando in front of God and his rapidly deteriorating self-control.
Option A was a fantasy.
Option B was a prayer answered.
He needed to know. He needed both hands on her and a signed permission slip to keep going because the urge to slide his palms over the curve of her ass was hitting him like a moral crisis he had no intention of winning.
He finished casting the lines and stuck the poles in the dirt. "You ever stop to take a breath?"
She was still fussing with the setup like she was prepping for the governor's visit, instead of a dusty rancher. Smoothing the blanket, she nudged the basket a millimeter to the left, adjusting the forks like they were auditioning for a spread in a magazine.
She was nervous, he could tell. And he'd be lying if he said that didn't settle somewhere deep and stupidly satisfied in his chest.
He lowered himself onto the blanket—slowly stretching out, just to see if she'd look. She didn't but her nerves practically shimmered in the air between them.
Boone folded his arms behind his head. "Boots, you going to sit or are you planning to rearrange that corner into submission?"
"I'm just making sure everything's set."
"It's been set for five minutes," he said. "You're the only thing still moving."
She finally looked down at him—eyes sharp but soft, fragile in a way she probably hated. And it hit him—sudden and unwelcome and completely true—she wasn't trying to be perfect for the picnic. She was trying to be perfect because she didn't know how not to be.
That old familiar ache stirred in his chest. The one that wanted to take care of something he had no business touching.
He nodded toward the space beside him. "Come on. Blanket's not judging you."
He was.
Not in the way she feared—never that. He was judging the universe for handing him a woman who tightened every bolt inside him just by breathing. And maybe judging himself for how badly he wanted her to sit on his lap and kiss him.
"I just want today to be nice. I know how hard you've been working and part of that is my fault. The bunkhouse, remember?"
Boone wanted to brush it off the way he always did—redirected it to pretending her caring hadn't landed somewhere important. That was his default. People worrying about him usually felt like something to dodge before it got sticky.
But with Vivi, it hit different. Warm instead of heavy. Wanted instead of suffocating.
He felt this small, bright thing he didn't know what to do with settle under his ribs. She cared about him, and instead of raising the wall he always reached for, he let it lower.
"I work hard because that's who I am," he said roughly. "That's not on you."
Damn, it feels good that you care anyway.
"Now," he said. "Sit down and let's have one of these impractical little sandwiches."
"Impractical?"
"I can inhale the whole plate and still be hungry."
"That's why I brought homemade peach pie."
"Well." His eyes moved over her slowly. "I would do just about anything to get a taste of your peach."
Her eyes met his head-on. "Are you trying to embarrass me?"
"I'm trying to get you to smile." He let the silence sit for exactly one beat. "It's working."
It earned him a laugh—real and unguarded—and the sound was like his new favorite song.
She rolled her eyes. "Will you stop with the flirting?"
He sat up and turned toward her until they were face to face. "When I'm flirting, you'll know. This is just me being charming."
She gave him a look like she was trying to read something written in a language she was still learning. So intent that Boone felt a bead of sweat prick at his temple.
"Have you ever thought about just being you?" she asked.
The question hit him square in the chest. Most people never got past the surface, never noticed the quiet weight he carried, the way his parents' deaths and the end of his rodeo career had left him hollowed out in ways he couldn't explain.
A man who thrived on control and focus, now drifting in a riptide with no life vest.
"What you see is what you get," he said lowly.
"Who are you trying to convince?"
"You."
"Why?"
"If you have to ask that, again, I must be doing something wrong."
Vivi let out teasing laugh. "You think grunting something once is going to magically fix everything?
" She leaned a fraction closer—just enough that he could feel the warmth of her without closing the space completely.
"You're doing that thing you always do, Cowboy.
Assuming everyone knows what you mean when really you're just vague as hell. "
"I'm not vague."
"And I'm a rodeo champion in my spare time."
He looked down at the little sandwiches, the sparkling water, the neatly stacked plates, and shook his head. "You kidnapped me and dragged me to a picnic while I smell like sweat and sawdust. Could you have at least let me shower first?"
"Kidnapped is a bit dramatic. And this is about as close to a date as a colonoscopy."
"There's cheese and wine and cloth napkins. And you've been staring at my lips for the last ten minutes."
"A gentleman wouldn't point those things out."
"A gentleman also wouldn't point out that you're wearing the same panties I used to take care of myself with," he said—and she gasped. "You finally bent over far enough to make your jeans dip just low enough to confirm you like red as much as I do."
"Boone!"
"Do you deny it?"
"No," she said, flustered. "But you didn't have to say it out loud."
"Where's the fun in that?" He reached over and ran his thumb across her lower lip and watched her breath snagged.
"We said we weren't going there today."
"You said that. I didn't agree." He traced her upper lip, his fingertips whispering across the soft skin. "But if you want to cool things off, just say the word."
"I brought you here to relax," she whispered.
"I know a good way to relax."
She smacked his hand. "Not like that. I meant talking."
"Okay." He rose up on one elbow, letting his free hand settle on her hip like it belonged there. "Dirty talking or sweet talking?"
"Dirty talking," she said, shy and certain all at once, and that combination nearly broke him.
"Well, well, Miss Calder." His voice came out low and rough and not even close to casual.
"I wasn't honest about why I brought you here," she said.
"Tell me."
"I laid a sex trap."
"I heard." A slow smile spread across his face, the kind that started deep and meant it. "Last night at the bar."
"I was going to do it then," she murmured. "But I chickened out."
"I never took you for a chicken." His hand tightened at her hip—just enough to let her feel it.
She shifted, rolling him back with a fluid, deliberate motion. Her knees settled on either side of him and she leaned down, brushing her lips against his in a kiss that was all teasing warmth and just a hint of fire.
Pulling back slightly, her eyes glinted with mischief. "So? Is my little sex trap working?"
Boone's hands found her hips and held on like a man with nowhere else to be.
"Working?" His voice was low and rough because he was completely done pretending otherwise. "Boots, you didn't set a trap." He pulled her closer by one slow inch at a time. "You burned the whole field down." He held her gaze. "Now let me get a taste of that peach pie."