Chapter 7 #3
West’s watchful eye takes in the whole show from where he sits on the top of the railing with his arms crossed over his chest. Shaking his head, he picks out Jesse’s weaknesses, giving the kid the best advice he’ll hear anywhere as he climbs down and holds out a hand to pull the young rider out of the dirt.
“You really built this all by yourself?” Lanie absorbs the action and sweeps her gaze around the homestead with wide eyes.
It’s probably a lot compared to the sparse, end-of-day stuff she didn’t really get to see when she collected Sally a few days ago.
Paint-spotted cows aren’t really what Coyote Falls is about, but what she sees now…
the boys helping each other out, teaching Jesse what they know?
This is the heart of what makes Coyote Falls work.
She studies the house’s broad, exposed beams, the frosted glass laid into the tall double doors that depict the coyotes that visited me personally when I first found the stunning scene the property is named for deep in the forest. Maybe I’ll take her to the waterfalls later.
The stables and guest wing curve around the back of the big house in a u-shape that’s just visible from where we pull in.
Watching her take it all in from here, she looks kinda perfect in her jeans and fleece, her hair all wild and loose, cute moose tee peeking out. I’m glad I got her to follow me out. My chest aches at the thought of sending her home, but it’s too soon to be begging her for more.
Right?
“You really live here on your own?” Her soft voice brings me out of the fantasy I shouldn’t indulge in, at least not yet.
I shrug the vision away. “The boys keep me company while we work. Thought I might fill the place with a family someday.”
But I haven’t, not when everyone who mattered in my life left.
Winnie reached out a few years ago, and it’s good having her and Sally back in my life.
However much I want to have them live here with me, I know Winnie needs her independence.
But letting other people into my tiny piece of serenity at Coyote Falls is…
torture. Instead, I took the easier path and filled it with men I respect. Men I can work beside.
Until now.
Looking at the woman standing before me, maybe that dream isn’t so impossible after all.
I clear my throat that tightens with every breath. “Can I give you a real tour?”
She nods shyly as I lead her onto the veranda, away from the cowboys whose hooting I assume means Jesse has finally stayed on his bull for more than two seconds. They’d be louder if he made West’s eight-second bell.
Lanie steps beyond the threshold of the homestead, sliding off her boots in an unconscious gesture beside the door that I don’t try to stop, and her soft footfalls fill the hall.
I let her lead the way she already knows for this part, her cinnamon-and-sugar scent already permeating the place, cementing the ghost of her presence I experienced long after she left the first time.
“How long ago did you build it?” Lanie reaches out to touch the wall and hesitates.
When I say nothing, she trails her fingers along the rough-sawn timber. West and I chose to leave some of the details that way for character. Other sections have become smoother with handling over time.
“Nine years.” The number pops straight out of my mouth.
Dammit. I have been keeping count.
My gaze drifts back to Lanie, tracing the full lips she let me kiss earlier, lingering on her cheery dark halo. This woman is worth the risk I’ve never taken with anyone else. I know that. It’s why she’s here.
“Nine years is a long time.” Lanie hovers next to the kitchen island, an enormous slab of oak that took me, West, and another hand a full week to cut and lug in from the woodlands surrounding Coyote Falls to install.
“It goes fast when you’re busy,” I lie through my teeth.
She stands with her back to me at the bench, toying with the corner of a stack of rodeo flyers. “These are all over town.”
My hand covers hers. Lanie jolts, staring up at me, her lips parted on a whisper of a breath.
I stare down at her, letting my fingers curl around her hand until hers softens beneath mine.
“I set up a rodeo every year, in the pro bull riding off-peak season. It gives some of the veterans a chance to stretch their muscles in front of a specific audience, and I let a few wild card entries in to scout fresh local talent. Maybe try to push some of the boys out here into training. West used to ride, says he got too old. He’s damn good at it, though. ”
My other hand snakes out to tuck around her waist, pulling her back into me. Her squeak at the contact leaves me hard, promising myself I’ll earn more of those sounds from her soon.
“What about you?” she asks as I dip my head to graze my lips across the corner of her mouth and trail kisses along her throat.
A breath leaves her in a rush as she tilts her head against my shoulder, giving me access as my hands tighten on her waist. “Do—do you ride?” she asks, her voice straining, and husky.
“Not anymore.” My heart slams once in my chest at the admission. I turn her in my arms, holding her gaze so she can read my intent in my eyes, giving her a full second before I cover her mouth with mine.
None of the hesitation from before rises between us as I trace my tongue across her bottom lip. She opens for me, sliding her hands across my shoulders to knot behind my neck.
Christ, she tastes like Christmas morning.
A rumble builds in my chest, and I lose sense of everything else after that.
My hands graze over her hips to cup her ass and lift her onto the bench.
Warmth exudes from her as I step between her legs, pressing against the heat of her.
She doesn’t protest, molding her body to mine, like right here is where she needs to be, too.
I might be pushing her limits as well as my own, allowing her into my cloistered world, but somehow, Lanie fits. I come up for air when the front door bangs open.
“Rand?” West yells, his stomps shattering my newfound peace.
“Well, fuck,” I mutter against her mouth, earning myself the sweetest giggle.
I like that sound, so I kiss her until her giggles become something softer.
Sexier. Screw West. At least until he hollers again.
With a sigh I break the kiss, sliding Lanie a little closer, rubbing her body against mine.
“Kitchen,” I call back, and then I blow a breath out as I rest my chin on the top of her head, my hands still wrapped around her body.
She feels beyond perfect, pressed flush against me, and there’s no way in hell I’m moving anytime soon.
West storms away down the hall with all the grace of a foreman who’s unused to company. “We’ve got an issue. More of the old setup is missing like I—”
His footsteps halt. I stare at a point on the stainless steel backsplash that Levi keeps pristine and squeeze Lanie’s waist, pressing her tighter to my chest. Her fingers flex around my neck and withdraw.
Her sudden absence slices at my heart and I take a step back, breaking contact with her, cursing West’s timing in my head as I turn to face him.
It takes me a moment to form words, the taste of her still heady in my mouth.
“Lanie, this is West. Coyote Fall’s foreman and my previous good friend.” I send West a tight attempt at a throwaway smile. “Lanie is my sister’s roommate.”
West nods a greeting, but his expression never shifts, animosity exuding from his pores.
I frown, my mind playing catch-up. “You said what’s missing? Order whatever you need. What? It’s all I’ve got this close to the event date.”
“You can’t just order replacements when shit goes missing, Rand. Either someone’s been on the property, took what they wanted without anyone seeing it, or you’ve got a thief on staff.”
“Or shit got lost last year and never made it back here. Maybe it’s stashed somewhere, and we’ve forgotten what the hell we did with it. Those last few days at the tail end of the rodeo are crazy,” I counter, meeting his hard gaze, even though I know he’s right.
“The whole damn thing is crazy.” West fixes his hard gaze pointedly on Lanie. “When you have time, I need a hand.”
I raise both eyebrows at his clear show of hostility. “Get Billy or Tripp to help you. Hell, we have a platoon of ranch hands out there to do jobs you’re supposed to set them.” As foreman. I don’t say that last part; it feels petty on the back of my tongue.
West and I are no stranger to bitch fights. But with Lanie present… it’s different. I don’t want to be that man in front of her.
“Jesse and Levi are off with the white heifer. She’s calving, late, which you’d know if you were out on your own goddamn land more often than locked away in your princess tower.
The other boys are hunting down your bits and bobs because we’re both incompetent this year.
Billy and Tripp are off doing jobs for your neighbor, and we’re in here arguing while he’s busy poaching your staff from under you. ”
“He’s what?” I would have thought Billy had better taste than to go running to Jed, but maybe if enough cash was waved in his face…
Fuck. I scrub a hand over my jaw, conscious of Lanie waiting quietly next to me.
“I’ll fix it for you. Stay in here and don’t get your hands dirty.”
My mouth opens, ready with a rebuke, but West pivots on his heel and strides out of the house before I can argue my point.
“I’m sorry.” I blink, a little stunned in West’s wake. “He’s not usually like that.”
“It’s okay.” Lanie squeezes my arm. “I understand.”
My heart slams in my chest cavity at the fresh contact. “You do?” I bark a short laugh, raking my fingers over my short hair as I slide my other hand along her knee, savoring the warmth of her. “Because I sure as hell don’t.”
“Me being here changes things, like your pack structure.” Lanie offers me a shy smile.
“You didn’t walk away from me when he came in…
” She trails off, tracing her hands along my arms. “It leaves him in a place where he’s not sure where he fits in now that I’m here.
Just like a newcomer in a wolf pack finding their place. ”
Her touch is soft and sweet. I’m a bare inch from picking her up, taking her back to my room, and finding out what she feels like raw beneath me.
But… she’s right.
“Having you here changes the status quo,” I murmur.
“He’s not sure where he stands.” I kiss her again.
I can’t argue with her reasoning, but I’m sure about her when she doesn’t push me away for West’s shitty faux pas.
“For a woman who says she doesn’t do people, you sure know a hell of a lot about them. ”
“I’ve spent a lot of time studying family life and social niceties. Just not human ones.”
“We’re not wolves, Lanie,” I mutter, but then shake myself, taking a step back. West’s appearance has rattled me more than I want to admit. “Sorry.”
“Aren’t you?” she asks softly, sliding from the bench, and I’m not sure which question she’s answering, or if it’s a question at all. “I should go. You have a lot to do for your invitation thing.”
I hold her gaze for a moment but then jerk my head. The moment is broken and I don’t know how to bring it back. Her hand in mine, Lanie leads me back to her car, turning to kiss me in front of anyone left in the yard.
Including West.
I huff a laugh against her sassy-as-hell mouth as her arms slide around my neck, drawing me closer, while I stifle a deep groan.
The boys who weren’t around when I needed them before seem to have reappeared.
Billy won’t face me, but Tripp and Jesse cheer from somewhere beyond us.
I should care about the boys being present, but I’m too wrapped up in Lanie to care right now.
I’ll deal with the fallout later. Instead, I ignore the ribald catcalls, my jeans tightening past the point of uncomfortable as she presses her body against mine in an obvious show of possession.
It’s the best fuck you a girl can give my best friend while also providing me time to fix my shit.
Damn if I’m not head over spurs for her already.
“If you’d kissed me like that in the house, you’d be in my bed right now,” I grate against her hot little mouth, unwilling to let her leave.
“That’s why I’m doing it out here.” Lanie gifts me a single kiss that sears its brand soul-deep.
My arms fold across my chest as dusk’s first tinge deepens the periwinkle sky over Coyote Falls.
I watch her car until it disappears onto the main road beyond the front fields amid small puffs of dust. A body hits the dirt somewhere behind me in a familiar rhythm, and I know without turning that Jesse has fallen off his bull again. That boy needs proper training.
But first, I gotta have a hard word with my foreman about a pretty biologist who’s going to be around Coyote Falls a whole lot more.