A Real Cowboy Knows How to Kiss (6 page)

"Yeah, that too." He was restless and antsy, and he wanted nothing less than to go into that ranch house and sit around a table with Chase and his pregnant fiancée, like they were some happy little family. "Tell Chase I'm sorry I missed dinner." He was just turning to head back to the bunkhouse when the screen door opened and Chase walked out.

"You got him out here." Chase's cowboy boots clunked on the deck as he walked over to them. He'd cleaned up, and was wearing dark blue jeans and a collared shirt, like a respectable cowboy. He walked up to Mira and draped his arm over her shoulder to pull her against him. She beamed up at him, and he grinned at her, a moment of intimacy that made Steen look away.

He couldn't do this. He couldn't be around them. This was so not his world. "Listen," he said, risking a quick glance at his brother. "Can I borrow some car keys? I'm going to go into town."

Chase frowned. "I made dinner."

"Yeah, I know." Steen shook his head. "I need some space. I need to look around. Maybe get a job." Doing what? Pumping gas? Because that was what he'd been doing when the shit had gone down. Pumping gas. No, he wasn't doing that again. There was no way he was going back to that life. There had to be something more. Something else. But what? He felt like he was drowning.

Chase shook his head. "No way, man. This is your first night home. Dinner's on me. It's real food, bro. You've forgotten how good it tastes."

Steen thought of the thick stew that he used to love. He could still smell the rich aroma of it simmering, that mouthwatering smell of fresh baked bread for dipping... "Bread, too?"

"Yep. You in?"

Steen shrugged, his stomach rumbling despite his reluctance. How good would a home-cooked meal taste? Even if Chase totally messed it up, it would still be damn good. It had been forever.

"And you can't get a job," Chase added. "We need you on the ranch while Mira and I—"

"I know. Road trip." Steen glanced longingly down the long, dirt driveway. He wanted so badly to get on his old bike and drive, just drive until the world didn't exist. "Can't one of the other guys do it?" They had brothers. A lot of them. Too many. All of them who were closer with Chase than he was.

Chase shook his head. "They have other stuff." He set his hand on Steen's shoulder. "I need to do this for Mira, Steen," he said, his voice low. "She needs to go back, and I want to be there for her. Help me out. This place is yours as much as mine, if you ever want it. There's ten acres on the south side that's yours. It's got a great site for a house."

"Live here?" Resistance flooded Steen. "This isn't my world."

"It could be."

Steen met his brother's gaze, and shook his head once. He didn't want to make a scene in front of Mira, and he didn't want to be an ungrateful shit. "I appreciate it," he said finally. "I appreciate that you and Mira and the others pulled me back from the edge." Well, he wasn't so sure he appreciated that, to be honest. "I appreciate that you tried, and I'm sorry you got sucked into my crap."

"Yeah, you should be. You owe me." Chase grinned, looking entirely too happy. "The only way to pay me back is to eat my dinner, and then watch the ranch. If you still want to leave when I get back, I'll give you your old bike and you can go. Deal?"

Steen jerked his gaze to his brother. "You have my bike?"

"Yeah, I salvaged it for you." He held up a cell phone. "I also have one of these for you. It’s not charity. It's necessary while you're managing the ranch, so don't argue."

Steen ignored the phone. "Where's my bike?" His fingers curled, as if he could feel the handlebars beneath his fingers.

But Chase shook his head and waggled the phone at him. "Dinner and ranch-sitting first."

Shit. He had no money to buy another one, and Chase knew it. His brother had him by the balls. He glanced down at Mira, who was watching him with a soft expression. He was surprised by the look in her eyes. She wasn't judging him, despite the fact he was being an ungrateful sod to the man she was going to marry.

Suddenly, he felt like a shit. Just because he'd failed at his life didn't mean Chase and Mira had to suffer. He took a breath, and managed a smile. He didn't want to be the guy everyone thought he was anymore. He had a chance to start over, and he wanted to take it. Dinner and ranch sitting for the brother who had saved his life seemed like a decent step in the right direction. With a scowl, he grabbed the phone out of his brother's hand and shoved it in his back pocket. "Yeah, okay. Dinner and I'll watch the ranch, but I'm not moving into your house."

Chase laughed and slammed his hand down on Steen's shoulder. "I'm almost a married man, buddy. I'm not going to complain about having you sleeping far enough away to give me a little privacy with my woman. The bunk house is all yours."

Mira's cheeks flamed red, and she poked Chase in the chest, much like she'd done with Steen. "You're such a pig, Chase. You're sleeping on the couch tonight just for that remark." She rolled her eyes at both men, and then marched inside. Steen thought he heard her giggle just before the door slammed.

Chase grinned as he pulled the door open and held it for Steen. "She never makes me sleep on the couch," he said with a wink. "But I like earning my way back into the bed."

"Shit, man." Steen grimaced. "I don't need to hear about stuff like that." Women? Dating? Romance? Stuff like that made his stomach turn, and all his alarms start ringing.

He'd learned his lesson, and he'd learned it well.

He might be willing to sit through dinner with his brother, and he could be coerced into watching over the ranch, but women? That was one road that had burned him badly enough that he was never going down it again. Ever. It didn't matter what Mira had said to him. It really didn't.

But as he followed his brother into the kitchen, Erin's face flashed through his mind. Had there been pain in her eyes when she'd looked at him? Was she the one who needed to be saved? Because if it was her…well…she was different.

Shit. He couldn't do that. Not even for Erin.
Not even for her.

Five days later, Steen was pretty sure he'd made a colossal mistake in agreeing to watch over the ranch while his brother was gone. Chase and Mira had been gone less than two days, and Steen was convinced the job was going to kill him. He'd already gone the "almost dead" route, and now that he'd reclaimed his place in the land of the living, he wasn't sure he was ready to go down that road again. He wasn't ruling it out indefinitely, just not at the moment, and he really didn't want to die shoveling horse manure.

He set down the hay bale and leaned over, bracing his gloved hands on the hay as he tried to steady himself. His mind was spinning, and his back was drenched with sweat from the effort of fighting off the pain in his side. When had he become such a lame ass that he couldn't do basic physical labor? Yeah, true, he'd been feeling a lot stronger this morning than he had a few days ago, but he'd pushed it too hard and now he was paying for it. He hadn't even done that much. Shit. He was pathetic.

He bowed his head, struggling to catch his breath. A few minutes of rest, and he'd be fine. Just a minute—

"Hello? Is anyone here?"

Steen jerked upright the moment he heard Erin's voice echo through the stables. He moved so fast that everything spun, and he had to grip the wall of the stable to keep from staggering. Swearing, he closed his eyes and wiped the sweat off his brow, hoping that Erin would just disappear and not walk down his aisle—

"Steen! What's wrong with you?"

He swore and turned to face Erin as she jogged down the aisle toward him. Her dark hair was in a loose ponytail, with the wavy ends pulled forward over her shoulder. Her jeans fit her just right, and her muddy tee shirt was much too snug over her breasts for his comfort. What did him in, however, was the look of concern on her face. She looked so damn worried about him that he felt the tension in his chest ease, and he was able to stand taller.

"Nothing. I'm fine." He made himself release the bars, and was pleased to discover he was perfectly capable of maintaining his balance unassisted. Score one for a quick recovery. "What's up? Why are you here?" The moment he asked the question, he winced. He sounded rude and obnoxious, which he generally was, but he didn't want to be that way with Erin. "I mean, yeah, good to see you again."

A small smile curved the corner of her mouth as she stopped in front of him. "Is it now? Delightful, in fact? Is that what you were trying to say?"

He watched the way the sunlight from the open barn door made the auburn highlights glisten in her hair. "Yeah, kinda. Delightful sort of works." Delightful wasn't a word he'd ever used in his life, but it seemed to fit the moment. He kind of liked it, actually. Delightful.
Delightful.
Erin the Delightful. Erin with hair that looked delightfully tempting, like it was begging for him to run his fingers through it. Yeah, delightful worked in a whole lot of ways when it came to Erin.

Her smile became wary, and she put her hands on her hips. "So, I'm here because Josie had the ranch on her schedule for a deworming treatment today. All the horses."

"All of them?" Steen dragged his attention from her hair and refocused on her face. He noticed that there were circles under her eyes, and she looked tired. He narrowed his eyes. "Late night?"

"What?" She frowned. "No, of course not. Do you have the horses ready?"

He glanced down the aisle at the empty stalls. "Not so much." There were at least thirty horses on the grounds right now, more if he counted the two small herds that were roaming the high plains. Almost all of them were turned out in the assorted fields on the ranch at the moment.

"Not so much?" She looked around, as if noticing the silence of the aisle for the first time. She sighed, giving him the kind of impatient look that made him want to grin. "Josie's notes said that Chase always brings them in so I'd be able to go right through them."

"Yeah, well, you didn't get Chase today. You got me." Steen tipped back his hat and wiped his forearm over his brow. "He's out of town for a few days, and he didn't mention it. I didn't see that on the schedule. We'll have to reschedule." A part of him wanted to ask her to stay until he could round them up, just so that he could be around her, but he wasn't that much of a fool. The longer she stayed, the more of him she'd see, and the less of himself he'd be able to hide from her. "See ya."

He turned away and gripped the hay bale, but when he lifted it, the pain was so great that he had to set it down again. Shit. He'd totally pushed it too hard today. He leaned on the bale, trying to catch his breath, grimacing when he heard Erin striding along toward him.

He didn't look up, hoping she'd get the point, but instead, she crouched down next to the hay bale and peered up at him, her brown eyes steady. "Guess what, Steen."

Damn, she smelled good. What was that smell? Lavender? It was so faint he almost couldn't catch it. Not perfume. Maybe just the soap she'd used in her shower. "What?"

"Did you know vets go to medical school? Did you know that we can tell when someone is in extreme physical distress? It's a handy talent sometimes, you know?"

He narrowed his eyes, and gave up the pretense. He eased down to his knees and braced his forearms on the hay, taking the strain off his body. "I'm recovering from an injury. I just need a sec. I tweaked something."

"An injury?" Her eyebrows went up, and he was annoyed to discover that he thought she was even sexier when she was looking stubborn and mutinous. The hero-worship thing she'd had going on in high school had had its own appeal, but her "don't mess with me" attitude was awesome. "And what would that injury be?" she asked dryly.

A stab wound in prison that nearly killed me, a surgery that saved my life but left a mile long scar down my body, and then a second surgery to clean up the shit from the first time around.
The truth sounded so crappy he'd never say it aloud, not to her. So, he shrugged. "I got cut."

Her gaze flicked to his right side, where his most recent incision was, her intuition apparently not failing her at all. "I want to look at it."

His entire body went molten at the idea of her hands on his skin. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Why not? Because my image of your manly prowess will be shattered when I see that you actually bleed like everyone else?" She made her way over to his left side and knelt beside him.

"No," he gritted out. "Because I'm afraid you won't be able to contain yourself when you see my incredible physique. You know, since you have such a crush on me and everything. I'm not in a dating mode right now, so I'd have to turn you down, and it could get awkward." Total lie. There was no chance he'd turn her down. It was the opposite problem entirely.

She laughed, breaking his tension. "I'll take my chances, hot stuff. I'll do my best to refrain from throwing myself at your feet and begging you to rip my clothes off and do lots of naughty things to me."

Naughty things? His imagination surged into overdrive as a dozen naughty ideas raced through his mind. Suddenly, his side didn't hurt anymore. All his blood had gone straight south, and was accumulating way too fast for a guy of his discipline.

She tugged lightly at his shirt. "You want me to disrobe you, or do you prefer to manage these things yourself?"

He looked over at her, trying to think about baseball and not the erection that he was starting to get. "Can't you go away?" Yeah, he was being completely rude, but he couldn't help it. He needed to get rid of her now, before she started seeing things about him that he didn't want her to know.

She grinned, entirely undaunted by his surliness, which, if he'd had to guess, he should have predicted. She'd never seemed intimidated by him, even when she was a gangly fourteen-year-old and he was being an arrogant jerk with his friends. That was one of the reasons he'd always been fascinated by her. He sensed that she saw right through his bullshit, which was intriguing as a general rule, but right now, it was decidedly inconvenient.