Just Once (5 page)

I splash cold water on my face, then hastily brush my teeth and will myself to calm down. I’m tired and jetlagged. It’s normal to feel out of sorts. I’m not myself. Older, wiser Kate knows this.

I march back to my room and screech to an abrupt halt. Shane’s standing on the stepladder, arms extended overhead, biceps bulging as he fixes the fan in place. His stance on the ladder puts his prominent package directly at eye level.

Oh God. My face burns, and I squeeze past before he sees me looking. I drop the toiletries bag on the dresser and stand in front of the window to cool off. Again. “When is this heat wave supposed to end?” I ask.

“Couple more days.”

I groan inwardly. “Great.”

Finally he steps down from the ladder and surveys his work. “Give it a shot,” he orders.

I flip the switch next to the door, and the fan begins to turn, a blissful, slow spin that sounds like heaven. I sigh and reach up to tug the string that speeds it up. The fan turns faster. I pull it again and it reaches max speed, sending cool air churning throughout the room.

“Thank God,” I sigh. I look at Shane in time to see his eyes lift from my chest.

“Need anything else?” he asks. A muscle in his jaw ticks.

I can think of a few things, and while my former self might have given voice to her dirty thoughts, this Kate steadfastly refuses. “No,” I say. “Thank you.”

He shrugs, smiling faintly. “Suit yourself.”

Chapter Three

“O
H
G
OD
,” I W
HISPER
, not sure this is happening, not sure I should let it. I’m definitely going to let it.

I’m lying on my back on top of the blanket, T-shirt and panties discarded, and Shane’s kneeling at the foot of the bed. He hooks his big hands around my ankles and tugs me down, down, until my legs are spread wide and my knees dangle over his shoulders.

My body is a live wire. Every part of me is on fire. I press the backs of my hands against my cheeks—I’m burning up. A trickle of sweat makes its way along my hairline and down my neck.

Shane’s calloused palms stroke up and down my thighs, stopping occasionally to press his thumbs into the soft skin behind my knees, making me arch my back and thrust my throbbing sex close to his face. His laugh is low and warm, and on one such thrust he catches my ass and holds me there, suspended in space for an eternity. When my muscles are shivering from exertion and I’m sure I’ll collapse, I feel his teeth on my inner thigh, biting lightly.

I cry out. And I’m not really a crier when it comes to sex. I don’t moan or scream names, and I don’t care for guys who do either. It feels forced and pornographic, and I prefer finesse and choreography.

Shane’s moves are not choreographed. I don’t know what comes next. I know what I’m hoping for, but still, when it happens, I’m not prepared for it. He fastens his open mouth over my drenched folds, and pulls me into his mouth, hard. My body gives out and I fall back onto the bed, his hands anchoring my knees to his shoulders, keeping my thighs firmly spread.

I writhe in a mixture of agony and ecstasy—wanting to escape his searching tongue but also desperately wanting it to find…that…spot. And just like that, my weakened muscles spark to life again, tensing dangerously around his neck. He chuckles, deep and hot against my flaming, swollen lips, and everything tightens low in my belly and prepares to—

The shrieking alarm clock jolts me upright. I look around frantically in the dark room, expecting—hoping—to see Shane kneeling on the floor, mouth damp, ready to finish what my subconscious has started. But he’s not there. It’s five twenty-five in the morning, and I’m alone, my T-shirt and panties sadly in place. The only carryover from the dream is my heated skin and the unbearable ache between my legs.

I reach over to turn off the alarm and groan in frustration. I can barely remember my last orgasm. In Bali, I believe. Last fall. With Stefan, a Swedish scuba instructor. He was hot. Sleek and sexy. I remember the first time I saw him, leading a group of tourists in a dry run with their scuba equipment. I was on the beach, reading a book, not absorbing a word.

But now, thinking about Stefan, seeing his blond hair and clear blue eyes, I can’t remember what it was about him that drew me. Dark hair, brooding eyes, and a mass of muscles—that’s the cause of this twinge between my thighs. And the reason for my imminent cold shower.

I’m on the first shift on Mondays, so at six o’clock I flip on the lights in the dark dining room, yawning and blinking as I set up the buffet. I’ve had the same dream twice in a row now, and I’m not sure how much longer I can take it. Yesterday was Sunday, aka changeover day, which means the kitchen/cabin staff was swamped with work. I haven’t seen Shane since he hung the fan, so my reasoning that he’d been in my dream because he was the last person I saw before bed on Saturday went right out the window when I woke up hot and bothered again this morning. He was in my dream because something about him and his awfulness has gotten under my skin. What does older, wiser Kate have to say about that?

Chef Alec is working alone this morning, and he’s quiet and focused on his tasks. I’m grateful for the silence, as it lets me stew in peace.

The wranglers show up first for breakfast, surprisingly rowdy for a group that was out drinking until just a few hours ago. When they leave, the girls show up on time for their seven o’clock start and guest breakfast begins.

A little while later I’m making more coffee when Alec asks, “Who’s taking this over?”

The girls groan, and I turn to see a row of four plates, heaping with more food than a small family could eat, lined up on the counter. Alec covers each one with a room service lid and stacks them on top of each other.

“Not me,” Lisa whimpers.

“Not me,” Janie and Becca echo.

Hailey looks at me.

“What’s going on?” I demand.

Apparently the ranch hands—Shane, Brandon, and two others—get their meals delivered out to the barn. They bring the dirty dishes back themselves, something we’re evidently supposed to be grateful for, but three times a day someone’s required to schlep a mountain of hot food out to them.

Everyone votes, and they nominate me unanimously as the best candidate for the job. Hailey helps me collect the heavy plates, and I balance them against my chest, tilting backward a bit before maneuvering my way through the kitchen and out the back door, past the Dumpster, and around the front of the lodge to the barn.

It’s still foggy this early, and the trip is a treacherous one. Twice I nearly stumble, cursing furiously when bacon grease burns me through my shirt. I’m in a bad mood when I reach my destination and spot four men sitting at the desks. Only Brandon offers to help as I struggle to set down the precarious stack, then step back to wipe my slippery hands on my jeans.

“You didn’t tell me you were Eight-Shot Kate of O’Malley’s fame,” Brandon accuses, shooting me a smile as he doles out the dishes. “We probably could’ve found you a fan a lot faster.”

“Those days are behind me,” I say primly, earning a laugh from two of the other men. Shane sits silently, staring at me. I do a double take when I spot a small bruise on his cheekbone. Well, good. He deserves it. I have bruises of my own. “And I did get a ceiling fan,” I add.

“Did it help you cool off?” Shane asks, leaning back in his seat. His fingers are linked over his stomach, and his shoulders are broad enough to completely obscure his chair. Just like that, the dream comes back to me and I feel a flush rising up my chest, threatening to show on my face.

“It was fine,” I say, turning on my heel to hurry away.

“Thanks for breakfast,” Brandon calls.

“You’re welcome,” I return over my shoulder. “Brandon.”

Back at the lodge we finish breakfast and I offer to sweep the dining room so the girls can get a head start on their cabins. When I checked their work yesterday, it became woefully obvious that while Hailey was okay, the other three were not. The cabins are supposed to be in pristine condition when the new guests arrive, but at four o’clock I was still finding unmade beds, forgotten towels, and even a pair of dirty underwear stuck under a couch cushion.

Today I pop into the cabins sporadically to check their work, which has improved somewhat, though I have to give Lisa a second lesson on how to use a vacuum cleaner.

It’s quarter to twelve when I return to the main lodge to start setting up for lunch, and the sun is bright and hot overhead. I transfer the “teaching vacuum,” as Lisa called it, to my non-achy shoulder and shield my eyes from the light as I look over at the pool with longing. I’ve been yearning to go swimming since I got here, but there just hasn’t been time. And after the combination of the stepladder fall and lugging ranch-hand food to the barn, my shoulder has started to hurt.

“Howdy.” The deep voice interrupts my thoughts, and I stop in my tracks to spot the source. It’s Shane, rounding the side of the shack that houses the hot tub.

“Howdy,” I reply, the word sounding ridiculous. As a matter of fact, it sounds ridiculous coming from Shane, who—clad as ever in cargo pants and a T-shirt—looks no more countrified than me.

He approaches, sunglasses covering his eyes so I can do no more than take his cocked eyebrow as a signal of his current emotional state: doubtful/amused. “Did you write this?” he asks, thrusting a slip of paper into my free hand. I rest the vacuum on the ground and look at the requisition slip I filed an hour earlier with Pete, the twenty-year-old handyman.

“Yes,” I say.

“What does it say?”

I read from the paper: “Please remove bat from cabin nine.”

“Bat?”

“Yes.”

“As in bat-bat, not baseball bat? Not hat?”

“Bat-bat,” I confirm. “Like vampire, like fangs.”

Shane shakes his head. “Couldn’t find it.”

“The guests mentioned it at breakfast,” I tell him. “And Lisa says she saw it too.”

“Where?”

“In one of the bedrooms.”

“Who’s Lisa?”

“The blonde with the hang over.”

“Any chance she just saw spots, not a bat?”

“What about the guests saying they saw it?”

“People come up here expecting to see wildlife. Sometimes they see it when it’s not even there.” This is said with more than a little disdain.

“City people are not especially known for imagining things.”

“Well, I couldn’t find it,” he says, taking the slip from my hand and putting it in his pocket. “If you see it personally, let me know.”

I roll my eyes. “Will do.” I pick up the vacuum and leave him standing there. As if bat hunting is part of my job description.

I meet the other kitchen/cabin girls in the dining room, and we prepare for lunch service. Soon we’re so busy that I manage to completely forget about the bat until Lisa corners me.

“Can you have someone look for the bat?” she begs. Seems the guests from cabin nine returned from horseback riding and found said bat still in its position. “They’re getting angry.”

“Where is it, exactly?” I ask.

“In the window of the master bedroom,” she says. “Top…right. No, left. No, right.”

I sigh and glance out at the barn. I’m not writing another requisition slip and enduring another inquisition without reason. “Okay, I’ll go take a look.”

“You’re going to do it yourself?” she gasps. “What if it’s…poisonous?”

“It’s not poisonous,” I say, hoping this is true as I slip out of the lodge and back around to the cabins.

I knock as a formality, though of course there’s no one inside cabin nine. The doors don’t lock, so I let myself in and enter the small master bedroom, which, like everything at the ranch, adheres to an “upscale backwoods” design scheme. The walls are wood planks, the ceiling has exposed rafters, and the bed is covered in a handmade quilt in the tribal design pattern of the local Native Americans.

None of the cabins have televisions or telephones, and there’s Internet access only in our main office. When guests come to Ponderosa Pines, they’re meant to “rough it”—in the five-star-dining sense.

There’s only one window in the room, so I approach tentatively, pretending my steps don’t falter as I get near. I’ve seen bats before, but never right up close, and I don’t know how this one will react. The curtains are open but still obscure the top corners of the window, and the bat is, of course, not visible. I reach tentatively for the curtain, then pull my hand back and scurry outdoors. Surely it will be easier to spot the bat through the glass from the outside. Once outside, however, I realize the window is too high to really get a good look, though I think I see a small dark blur in the upper left corner.