12-Alarm Cowboys (18 page)

Sunny left Carrolton that day, and swore that Jason could rot in hell for all she cared. He would never hear from her again, or influence her child.

I wish I could’ve met him
.

No you don’t kid. He’s not worth a minute of your time, and I do not want you having that for an example of what a man should be. If he let me down in the worst way, he’ll let you down too. You’ll be just as devastated as I was when you finally see how he really is.

But it was obvious to her that she wasn’t doing a good job of being both mother and father to her son. He was latching onto and clinging to every man who wandered into his orbit. Her uncle, Rand—and Austin McBride.

Mommy, I want you to give Austin permission to kiss you
.

Good God, what in the hell was she going to do? Find a man who wasn’t an adrenaline-soaked cowboy or a fireman to provide her son with a good example. But that meant kissing and sleeping with that boring man eventually, and just the thought of curling up with a white-skinned, milk toast accountant sounded as distasteful to her as that kind of job sounded to her son.

But kissing Austin McBride again didn’t sound like such a bad idea at all.

The tingling in her legs came back tenfold to zip up her legs and converge at the top of her thighs. Especially if he wasn’t a fireman. Cowboys, who weren’t bull riders, were good, dependable men, and he seemed stable. Maybe this could work after all, she thought, with a wobbly smile. Her son liked him, and grudgingly, now that it didn’t look like he would be competition for the Chief’s job, Sunny liked him much better too. Too much.

Standing, Sunny shut the truck door and walked toward the barn. Her steps slowed, because the nearer she got to the barn the stronger the smell of manure and horse became. Rand and Austin McBride could have it. Give her soot and smoldering ashes any day over this, she thought, as she walked inside and looked around for Austin.

A high-pitched squeal split the air, and a horse snorted. Sunny headed that way, because she knew that squeal. Billy was evidently inside of one of the stalls on the far side of the barn with either Rand or Austin. The last stall door was open, so Sunny stepped around it and what she saw inside made her heart dance. A very young foal was suckling it’s mother with Austin’s help. He looked up at her and smiled. “Look what came while I was partying with you at that fire,” he said with a laugh. “Our first bucking stock colt.” The pride in his voice, and the ownership in his words were not lost on Sunny. Regardless of what he said, Austin McBride was a cowboy at heart. He loved being a cowboy, and that made her very, very happy.

The shiny black foal seemed to know what Austin said, because he nose-butted his mother’s underside and she grunted. Austin leaned aside then fell on his butt, just avoiding the sharp little back hooves that shot out toward his shoulder.

Laughter curled in Sunny’s stomach then burst from her lips, and Austin grinned. “I think we’re gonna call this one Cowboy’s Nightmare, since he’s already showing signs of being prized bucking stock.”

Billy’s head appeared under the mare’s neck. “No—it’s Black Beauty, remember?”

Fear stopped her heart—that mare was huge and could crush Billy against the wall of the stall if she had a mind to do that. “Billy, you need to come from back there,” Sunny said calmly, holding the mare’s eye to try to gauge her level of agitation.

“I’m back here with him,” Rand announced, his head appearing over the mare’s back. “Chill out, sis—he’s fine.”

Chill out
? Sunny opened her mouth to blast her brother, to tell him to get her son the hell out of the stall, but her eyes met Austin’s and they reassured her. When he added a slow wink, and a half-smile that mule kicked her heart, Sunny huffed a breath and nodded.

After the three guys finished supervising the foal’s feeding, Austin stood and brushed his hands on his jeans. “Let’s get the golf cart and go cut some wood,” he said with a wink at Billy.

“I want to ride a horse like you,” Billy said petulantly, as he scuffed the loose straw in the stall with the toe of his shoe. “Don’t want to ride in a golf cart.”

“I’ll let you drive,” Rand coerced, nudging Billy’s shoulder and he looked up and smiled. Sunny opened her mouth, but Austin was there again, his eyes telling her to just let things be. Easy for him to say, he didn’t have to pay her son’s hospital bills. But Sunny let it go, as Rand led Billy out of the barn leaving her standing there with Austin.

“Do you ride?” he asked with a wide smile before he shut the stall door and latched it. “I have a couple of mares who need exercise.”

“Um…I’ve never been around a horse in my life. That’s my brother’s specialty, and he can have it. If you’re thinking about putting me on a bucking horse, on
any
horse, think again.”

“It’s relaxing and fun to ride. Lord knows you could use some relaxation. Anyone ever told you you’re wrapped a little too tight?” Austin asked with a little chuckle, as he walked past her toward the back door of the barn.

Sunny just stood there, her feet feeling glued to the dirt floor. When Austin evidently realized she wasn’t following, he turned and his mouth ticked up. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Sunshine?” he asked, his gray eyes and lifted dark brow challenging. “Are you a big, bad firefighter-lady, or a chicken? Only chickens stay in the barn.”

Chicken
. The only word that Austin McBride could’ve used to incite her to action. The word her brother had used to get her into all kinds of trouble as a kid—to get her to go along with his hair-brained ideas.

“Saddle up, cowboy. Let a
real
firefighter show you how it’s done. But I swear if you put me on a bucking horse, when I get out of the hospital you’re a dead man.”

‡

T
wo hours later,
Sunny couldn’t figure out why she’d always been so scared to ride a horse. Austin was right, their ride out to the tree line in the far pasture had been relaxing. She also couldn’t figure out why they’d ridden all the way out here so the guys could chop wood.

It was damned hot out, the middle of summer in Texas, there was no reason for them to need firewood. But they were chopping.

Well, Austin was. Without a shirt.

When his shirt became soaked to his skin with sweat, he had no qualms about yanking it over his head and tossing it over a tree limb to dry. Sunny was not going to complain. The view from her perch on a log about twenty feet away from the tree Austin was dissecting was spectacular. She’d offered to help Rand and Billy move the logs to the bin attached to the golf cart and gather smaller limbs for kindling, but Austin told her today was her day off. He put her on this log and told her all she was going to do today was sit on this log and relax.

Austin McBride was good at giving orders, and Sunny had no idea why she didn’t balk, other than she was exhausted from their call last night. So now all she had to do was sit like a bump on this log and watch him work, watch the ripple of his tightly packed muscles in his chest and arms work under his sweat-slicked skin as he wielded the axe.

Watching him was enflaming, exciting—deliciously naughty, but hardly relaxing.

Sunny felt like a voyeur as she considered the fluidity of his body movements, the ripple of his muscles, the confidence of his actions and the intense concentration on his handsome face to wonder if that same intensity would transfer to other tasks.

Like having sex. With her. Right now out here in the woods.

She imagined her hands gliding over his slick, hard body, tasting the saltiness on his skin as those muscles flexed under her touch, and his big hands wandered over her body. Biting back a moan, Sunny stretched her legs out in front of her to cross them at the ankles. She pinched her knees together against the damned throb her musings caused at the top of her thighs.

Austin stopped, studied her a second, then breathing hard, he shoved his hat back to swipe his forearm over his forehead. Sunny’s eyes followed a sweat bead as it tracked down his chest, glided between his pecs then ping-ponged off his tight abs until it disappeared under the waistband of his jeans.

“Sunshine, you keep looking at me like that and we might need to make a trip out to the line shack on the other side of the woods.”

“Like what?” she squeaked, her eyes streaking back up his big body to meet his heated gaze. He couldn’t know that she’d been fantasizing about him, but blood crept up her throat to her cheeks anyway.

Giving her a knowing grin, he leaned his weight on the axe handle and fisted his other hand on his hip. “Like I’m the tallest and sweetest glass of iced tea you’ve ever seen and you are dying of thirst,” he replied with a wink.

Oh,
God
—he
did
know! Sunny’s heart skipped a few beats as she shot to her feet and turned away to brush the dirt and bark from her butt, taking an extra second to find her composure.

“You told me to sit here and relax. That’s all I’m doing.”
And not doing it very well, because of you.
Sunny needed to get the hell away from this man. The way she was drawn to him scared the hell out of her. “It’s about time for us to head home anyway.” She turned and tried to brush past him, but Austin caught her arm.

“I kind of wanted y’all to stay for a bonfire tonight, so Rand and Billy can meet the guys. That’s why I’ve been cutting this damned wood.”

“You assume a lot, McBride,” Sunny replied, shooting him a glare. “I didn’t even want to come out to this ranch, but you roped me into it by manipulating my mother and brother. I didn’t want to ride a damned horse, but you bullied me into that too. And now you’re just taking it for granted that I’ll go along with staying longer, because you want us to stay?” Jerking her arm from his grasp, Sunny stepped back. “I have a long drive home, and I don’t want to do that after dark.”

“What if I told you I want y’all to spend the night?”

A high-pitched squeal echoed through the woods and Billy ran out of the trees behind Sunny. Smiling from ear-to-ear he stopped beside Austin. “We get to spend the
night
!?!” he said in awe, looking up at Austin like he’d just given him a shiny new bicycle. “I can be a
real
cowboy tonight and sleep by a campfire?”

Austin looked down at him and grinned exposing that dimple in his lightly stubbled cheek. “You’ll have to talk to your mother about that, kiddo. She’s a city girl and doesn’t look like much of a camper to me.”

City girl
? Images of Jolie floated through her mind with her high heels and tight skirts. Sunny was a tomboy, always had been, but she’d never been camping and wasn’t much on the great outdoors or the creatures that prowled there at night.

“It’s hot, Billy, and the mosquitoes are bad this time of year. Besides, we’re not staying. It’s time for us to head home.” Sunny reached for Billy’s hand, but he jerked it away and stumbled back to shoot darts at her with his blue eyes.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m
never
going home! I’m staying here with Austin and Uncle Rand to be a
cowboy
!”

Frustration boiled her insides, but Sunny tried to keep it from her tone. She pointed toward the golf cart. “You’re going to get yourself in that golf car—”

“I told him he could spend the night,” Rand said, cutting her off as he limped out of the woods with his arms loaded down with sticks. “Stop being a hardass, Sunny Jane.”

“How
dare
you!” Sunny said, spinning to glare at her brother.

“I
dare
because I want to meet the guys tonight to see if we click. Austin offered me a job, and if you want to get rid of me, you’ll just stay and quit your bitching.”

Sunny ground her teeth as she digested Rand’s words. He might have a job here, which meant if he got it, he’d be gone from her mother’s house. That would give her more time to save money to move out herself.

“
Fine
,” she spat, folding her arms over her chest. “But I’m not sleeping outside.”

“Don’t have to,” Austin said calmly. “There’s plenty of room up at the big house, and it’s a lot more comfortable than the bunkhouse where the
cowboys
will be sleeping.”

“I wanna sleep outside!” Billy whined.

“You can sleep out in the bunkhouse with me and the guys,” Rand offered, and Billy squealed as he danced circles, pumping his fists in victory.

“What the hell, Rand?” Sunny asked in exasperation. “I’m here and
I’m
his mother. It’s my decision whether he can sleep in the bunkhouse
not
yours!”

“She’s right,” Austin seconded, then looked at Billy intently. “Billy, you were rude to your mother, so I wouldn’t blame her for not letting you do what you want to do. Cowboys are never mean to women,
especially
their mothers. Try apologizing and asking her
politely
.”

Billy’s eyes fell to the toe of his tennis shoes as he ground it into the dirt. “Mommy, I’m sorry. May I plee
eease
sleep in the bunkhouse with the cowboys tonight?”

Cowboys are never mean to women
. A strange liquid sensation floated through her body all the way to her toes. Sunny had never been around cowboys other than her brother before, and he was no example of respect, but then he was her brother and they didn’t hold punches with each other. If Austin McBride was an example of a real cowboy, confident and in control, but supportive, then maybe she needed more of them in her life.