7. Stetson
SEVEN
Stetson
I was a damned fool.
I’d watched my cousins fall in love one by one under the strangest circumstances…
watched Gage fall in love with the woman he’d agreed to have a baby with, Wyatt with the girl who’d been in love with him for years, Sawyer with a movie star.
Hell, Forrest had fallen for the last women we’d found trespassing on our property, under very different circumstances.
When I’d brought Bryn back to the house, my Aunt Peggy had dropped more than a few suspicious comments that maybe it was my turn.
I was certain it wasn’t.
Then I ended up kissing Bryn in the creek, and it was…yeah, it was over.
We got back to the horses without incident, even though Copper was a little spooked from Bryn running around like a lunatic when she’d first heard the frogs.
Much to my relief, she also wasn’t injured from flinging herself off the horse—and she was walking just fine, proving the stitches were already healing.
I’d need to check her over, but…it could wait.
First, we had to make camp.
Maybe deal with what had just happened.
I’d thought we would ride a bit longer, try to get closer to the aquifer…
but she wanted to stay, monitor the frogs.
That meant a lot more time together with nothing to do but listen and…
talk, maybe. Maybe other things. I had no business doing anything with this woman, not when she was still hurt from what had happened with her ex, not when we’d just met, not with the at least ten years that had to be between us, but that was up to her.
We ended up crossing the creek with the horses so we could camp closer to that little pool—hugging the north side of the property now, the fence line no more than a quarter mile away.
There was a clearing close enough to the pool that she could camp there, listen, observe.
I got things ready while she just looked out at the water, sitting on a boulder with Buck beside her.
My dog had decided she was his new person, and she clearly had a job for him to do: watching the water, though I was sure he had no clue what they were even looking for.
She idly scratched his ears while I did the hard work, my jeans still wet from wading in the water.
“You gonna help at all?” I asked.
Bryn didn’t even look back at me. “I’m supervising.”
I huffed a laugh. “So that’s what you call it…”
“Buck is helping,” she said, finally taking a look back.
Buck waggged his tail.
I finished building the fire and dug through my pack for something dry. Found the shirt I kept for sleeping, soft from wear, and a fresh pair of boxers.
“You should get up and change before you catch something,” I told her. “Don’t want you getting all clammy when you’ve got those fresh stitches.”
“I’m fine.”
“You do keep telling me that.”
“Really, Stetson. I’m used to being wet. Frog specialist, remember?”
I took the liberty of going over to her pack and riffling through it until I found something for her to change into—a fresh t-shirt, some sleep shorts. I surprised myself with how hot my face got at pulling out some underwear for her, even though they were plain and threadbare.
I thrust the clothes into her hands before I could chicken out.
“Change,” I ordered.
She rolled her eyes toward me. “Bossy.”
“Somebody has to be responsible here.”
She laughed and stood, then ducked behind a tree instead of into the tent. I changed by the fire, suddenly self-conscious about the fact I only had boxers on.
Good lord…I didn’t get like this.
Not with women. Not with anyone.
Bryn came back in the t-shirt and shorts, hair pulled loose around her shoulders, bare feet on the warm rock beside the pool.
“Better?” I asked.
“Dry, at least.” She sat back down on the boulder, facing me this time. “I really was fine.”
“How’s your ankle?”
She turned it to show me. It was red, but…she was okay. Looked good. She cast her eyes around the clearing, a smile tilting her lips.
“Mm…I love this time of night. Mosquitoes aren’t great, but they mean fireflies. It’s my favorite part of living in the States.”
“Don’t have fireflies in…wherever you’re from?”
She shook her head. “Dublin—and no. No fireflies in Ireland.”
“That’s a damn shame.”
“I thought so too. First time I saw one I screamed. Thought the yard was on fire.”
I let out a short laugh. “You did not.”
“You caught me,” she laughed too. “But wouldn’t it be funny if I did?”
“You’re too smart for that.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe I was trying to make myself approachable.”
I looked up at her from where I was crouched by the fire. “You want me to approach you?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Didn’t think you were wearing your skivvies so you could stay all the way over there.”
I stood.
Closed the distance between us.
She didn’t move, just watched me come, firelight catching on her face. Dusk lit up the sky above the treeline in deep blue and indigo, the fireflies all around us, hovering over the water while the frogs sang and crickets chirped.
I knelt between her legs. “Smart girl.”
She let out this breathy moan. “Keep talking dirty to me like that and I’ll show you just how smart I can be.”
“You think that was dirty talk?”
“Sexy to me when a man likes my brain.”
My hands found her thighs, my fingers splaying out as I slid them up to rest just under her shorts.
She hadn’t put the underwear on.
“I did kiss you after you laid a bunch of frog facts on me,” I said.
“I thought I kissed you.”
“Kissed each other.”
She bit her lip.
This time, I didn’t wait for her to move first.
I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers…my fingers curling right at the crease of her hips, brushing soft curls. She moaned against my mouth, reaching up to fist her hands in my shirt.
Didn’t let it get deeper. Pulled back, a question in my eyes.
“Are we doing this or do you need more frog facts first?” she asked.
I let my hands move further into her shorts…up toward her abdomen. She’d said she needed some kinda treatment those few months ago—I wanted to make sure.
“You said you’d had surgery or somethin’,” I murmured. “All healed up?”
“All healed up with one less ovary.”
She was so straightforward it almost tripped me up, but I couldn’t let that ruin this.
“All right,” I said.
Then I pulled my hands away from her…moved them to tug off my own shirt. She wasn’t shy at all as she let her eyes roam over me, down to where my boxers had already tented.
“Well hi there, cowboy,” she said.
And right then, I knew I was in for trouble.
But it was the kind of trouble I liked.