Riding Hard (6 page)

He had to agree that she
was
babbling, and her breathing was quick and shallow, too. When she looked at him, she never quite met his gaze, and her color was high. Interesting. Was she nervous about serving him a meal? He didn’t think so. She’d served him a ton of meals at Spirits and Spurs. Then he thought of another potential reason for her behavior, and his pulse rate climbed.

She scooped up a spoonful of soup and immediately spit it back out. “Hot, hot!” She gulped some water. “Don’t try it yet. Let it cool.”

“Tracy? Are you okay?”

“Sure.” She drank more water. “Just burned my tongue. Should’ve waited. Silly of me. I’m the one who heated it up, so I should have realized that it was—”

“You’re babbling again.”

“I am.” She kept her gaze on her soup. Her cheeks turned even pinker.

“Why?”

“You...um...affect me when you’re this close, especially if I don’t have something else to think about, like pregnant mares and such.” Her attention remained on her soup. “I tried to convince myself I could handle it fine, but...apparently not. I’m sorry. I mean, we should be able to enjoy a nice meal, but then you helped me into my chair, and I... This is ridiculous.”

His heart beat faster and heat surged through his body to settle in his groin. Finally she was ready to admit she craved him as much as he craved her. Hallelujah. “What do you want me to do?” He knew what
he
wanted to do, but she had to make the call.

“Nothing. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. No guy has ever affected me this way. Just give me a minute.”

That threw a bucket of ice water on his libido. In spite of their recent conversation, she still seemed to think wanting him was wrong. He pushed back from the table. “I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable. I’ll take a walk down to the barn. I have my phone. When you’re finished eating, text me and I’ll come back and have some dinner.”

“Wait!”

He heard her chair scrape the floor, knew she’d left the table, but he kept walking. She felt desire for him but wanted nothing from him. He could take a hint. A two-by-four upside the head would be more subtle.

“Drake, I’m sorry!” Her footsteps sounded behind him. “It’s just that—”

“You’re not ready to trust me?” He turned when he reached the door. She was standing about five feet away, breathing hard. “Is that what you’re trying to say, Tracy? Because that’s what I’m hearing, and if that’s the way you feel, then I’ll make sure to keep my distance.”

“That’s not it!”

“I think it is. Text me when you’ve finished eating. I promise to stick around until Dottie has her foal, so don’t worry about that. This is a big place. We can avoid each other.” He walked out the door.

Damn it. Damn it to hell. He’d thought maybe he’d found someone who could help him shed the guilt he’d been carrying around for six months. Instead she’d only made things worse.

6

W
ELL
,
SHE
’
D
CERTAINLY
loused that up. Tracy stared at the screen door as Drake’s words played in a continuous loop in her head.
You’re not ready to trust me.

No one could blame him for coming to that soul-shattering conclusion. She’d admitted to wanting him desperately, and when he’d been ready to do something about it, she’d told him not to. She’d implied that given time, she’d rather squelch this unwelcome lust. No wonder he’d left.

Now she had a decision to make. If she really was scared to death of getting involved with him, all she had to do was leave things as they were. He’d keep far away from her now that she’d thoroughly insulted him and stomped all over his pride.

She paced the living room as she tried to sort through her thoughts. An armed truce sounded awful. Peaceful Kingdom was a happy place, and although she wasn’t as into the woo-woo stuff as Lily, she hated to pollute the environment with bad feelings.

Besides, she had a mare in the barn who was about to give birth. If she and Drake were barely speaking, the atmosphere during delivery would be strained. That couldn’t be good for any of them.

Something should be done, and she had to do it. She might not be able to repair the damage, but she had to try. That required working through what had happened at dinner so she could explain it to Drake.

She resumed her seat at the table. Maybe revisiting the scene of the crime would help her think. Chewing was supposed to stimulate the brain, so she picked up a piece of corn bread and took a bite.

Obviously she’d responded in a knee-jerk fashion. Until he’d scooted her chair in, she’d managed to keep her sexual response at the level of a low hum. But then he’d come close, very close, and the hum had turned into a rock concert.

When that powerful surge of desire caught her off guard, she’d gone into panic mode. That had resulted in the babbling, which of course he’d noticed. Normally she wasn’t prone to it, and he’d been around her enough to know that. He’d asked a direct question, and she’d responded with the truth. So far, not so bad.

But then he’d done the right thing, the gentlemanly thing, and asked if he could help. He’d behaved in the most admirable way possible in such a situation. He hadn’t pounced or leered, or any of a million obnoxious responses that other guys might have had to her confession. He’d quietly asked what she wanted him to do, implying that he was willing to do
just about anything.
How great was that?

She’d brushed him off. Why? Closing her eyes, she let her head drop back in despair. She’d brushed him off because she was a big, fat coward. She knew why, but that didn’t help a whole lot. She’d still done damage to a well-meaning guy.

Ever since she’d hit puberty, her mother had warned her that wanting a man too much was dangerous. Following that advice, Tracy had made sure to date nice men who didn’t particularly turn her on. She’d had a lukewarm physical relationship with two of them. Both men had moved on, which hadn’t bothered her at all.

When Drake had first showed up at Spirits and Spurs, red hazard lights had flashed. The closer he’d come, the more she’d been convinced—this was the man her mother had warned her about. And a mother’s warning, issued early and often, wasn’t easily set aside.

Leaping up from the dinner table and hauling Drake into the bedroom would have felt reckless. It would have been the kind of impetuous behavior guaranteed to create the disaster her mother had predicted.

That was her reason for responding to Drake the way she had—not that she wasn’t willing to trust him, but that she needed time to think about the implications first, to assess and to regroup.

Now she’d taken that time, and several things had come to mind. First of all, the man who’d wronged her mother, aka Tracy’s father, had neglected to mention that he was married. Drake wasn’t married. Not even close. No wives or fiancées waited in the wings, because Regan would have known about them and told her.

And Regan brought up the second point. Drake had won Regan’s seal of approval, even though Regan easily could have told her to stay away from Drake. He hadn’t because, other than that one slip, Regan believed in the guy.

Last of all, the jerk who had inadvertently become Tracy’s father had claimed to have had a vasectomy so he could have unprotected sex with Tracy’s mother. Tracy couldn’t imagine Drake lying under those circumstances.

Maybe that was the bottom line for Drake Brewster. He had made a mistake, which meant he was human. It was a dilly of a mistake, but he obviously regretted it deeply. Other than his one false move, which from all indications had been a spur-of-the-moment bad decision, Drake was an honest man.

He was also hot, and she might have blown her chance to find out just how hot. That gave her a selfish motive for fixing what she’d broken. It wouldn’t be easy. If she managed to fix it, Drake could still break her heart, and because her feelings for him were intense, it would likely be a nasty break.

She picked up another piece of corn bread. Risking heartbreak was the kind of chance people had to take if they wanted to experience something besides lukewarm sex. Until meeting Drake, she’d wondered if lukewarm was all she was destined to feel.

He’d corrected that misunderstanding. Had he ever. But when given an opportunity to prove that she, too, could have a grand passion, she’d been afraid to let herself go. She was still afraid, but no longer quite so terrified as she had been after the holding-out-her-chair incident. She was nervously ready to suit up and get into the game.

First she needed to check on something, though. She’d already raided Regan’s toiletries once, so maybe taking one other item wouldn’t hurt. And she’d replace everything, of course. No doubt he’d taken a box to D.C., but Drake said Regan liked backup supplies, so logically another box should be tucked away somewhere.

She found the item in question under the sink. After opening the box, she carried it to the guest room and set it on the nightstand next to the queen-size bed. Looking at that bed and imagining what might take place there later gave her goose bumps. But she also had to be prepared for rejection. Drake had a perfect right to turn her down.

Back in the dining room, she wolfed down her soup, which was almost cool, before dumping Drake’s soup back in the pot and turning it on low. Then she wrapped the remaining corn bread in foil and put it in the oven on warm.

The clock was ticking. He must be wondering when he’d get to eat, but she had more to do before texting him. She located a pen, paper and an envelope and brought them to the table. The note took her longer than she would have liked, but it had to set the tone. Licking the envelope was the worst part of the job. So far no one had come up with envelope-flap glue that didn’t taste like motor oil laced with menthol.

She wrote his name on the outside of the envelope and propped it against his water glass
.
After dishing his soup, she put the corn bread back on the table and ducked into her bedroom. Finally she emerged in her red silk bathrobe with her hair loose, and texted him that she was finished eating.

Time to disappear. She made a beeline for the guest room, barely making it before she heard his booted footsteps on the wooden porch. The screen door creaked open. He must have been hungry.

She lay in his bed in the dark, because dark was how he’d left the room. A light on in there might have alerted him to a change in the situation. Sound carried perfectly in the still house, which allowed her to hear the chair scrape as he sat down at the table.

She held her breath. Paper ripped. He was reading her note, which she remembered in vivid detail.

Dear Drake,

My reaction to you was motivated by fear. I was taught from an early age not to trust men who made me feel as you do, because they would ruin my life. So I’ve dated only safe guys who didn’t arouse scary emotions. I realize now that’s a cowardly way to live.

I haven’t treated you well. I’d like a chance to do better, but if you still want to keep distance between us, I understand completely. Please let me know if Dottie goes into labor. Sleep well.

Yours, Tracy

How she would have loved to watch his expression as he’d read the note, but short of setting up a remote video feed, that would have been impossible. Thinking of the elaborate spy system she would have set up if she’d had time, she started to giggle and had to use a pillow to muffle the sound.

By the time she settled down again, she could hear the rhythmic sound of his spoon dipping in and out of his soup bowl. That noise stopped and paper crinkled, as if he’d wadded up the note. Then it crinkled again, as if he might be smoothing it out. He sighed.

She’d wanted to give him time to think, time when she wasn’t around, just as she’d had when he’d left for the barn. What if he decided she wasn’t worth the trouble? Finding her in his bed would not be a pleasant surprise then, would it? He might order her out of his room. At least she’d brought the robe to put on in case that happened.

No matter where she was now or what his decision might be, they couldn’t have avoided an awkward moment whenever they’d come face-to-face again. So she’d chosen to create a meeting that was shocking and quick. It might be painful, like ripping off a bandage, or bracing, like cannonballing into a cold swimming hole. Either way, it wouldn’t be boring.

If he sent her away, that would be a reasonable payback for how she’d treated him. But because he was seeking forgiveness, she hoped he’d be in a forgiving mood, too. She’d know soon enough. She could hear him loading the dishwasher.

He took some time in the kitchen, which probably meant he was putting away the leftovers and wiping down the counters, exactly as she would have done. And all the while he had to be thinking.

When he left the kitchen, she expected to hear steps coming down the hall toward where she lay trembling, torn between excitement and anxiety. That didn’t happen. He walked somewhere else, and she wasn’t sure where until the screen door squeaked again. The ornery man was going back down to the barn!

She groaned in frustration. For all she knew he’d sleep down there. It was a warm night. There were saddle blankets he could use if necessary. Because he was an equine vet, he’d probably spent his share of nights in a barn.

After waiting another few minutes to see if he’d come back, she realized her plan wasn’t going to work the way she’d envisioned it. So she’d have to come up with a new plan. He’d had his thinking time, and now it was action time. She could still take him by surprise.

A few minutes later she headed out to the barn wearing her red silk robe and her boots. She had a condom tucked in her pocket and a blanket in her arms. If he told her to leave, she’d give him the blanket so he could be more comfortable in his self-imposed exile.

The crescent moon didn’t give her much light, but the barn doors were open and the glow from the floor lights saved her from tripping. She’d hate to fall and rip her bathrobe, which had set her back a tidy sum when she’d bought it at a trendy lingerie shop in Jackson.

The robe should have signaled to her that she was ready for a change of attitude. She’d bought it a few months ago when she couldn’t stand her old, ratty terry-cloth robe for another second. She’d meant to get a snuggly fake fur to keep her warm on cold winter nights, and instead she’d walked out of the store with this. It made her think of forbidden fantasies, and here she was, walking toward a barn that contained a man who knew all about those.

The closer she got to the open door, the faster her heart raced. She had never propositioned a man. She wasn’t even sure if she could carry it off, but she’d walked all the way down here in semidarkness without tripping. Maybe a little adventure suited her, after all.

She ran through some potential greetings.
What’s a cowboy like you doing in a barn like this? I’m researching the effects of a roll in the hay. Wanna help? Thought I’d save a horse and ride a cowboy tonight.
The last one was far too specific. She was becoming braver, but not that brave.

As she approached the door, she saw Drake walking down the barn aisle toward her. His face was in shadow. “I thought I heard someone out there.”

“Just me.” Faced with the actual Drake Brewster coming toward her, she forgot all the suggestive things she’d meant to say. Instead she totally wimped out. “I brought you a blanket.” Worse yet, she held it in front of her like a shield. “How’s Dottie?”

“No change.” He stopped about five feet away from her. “Interesting outfit.”

“Yes, well...I was in bed, and I heard you go outside again, so I figured you’d decided to sleep in the barn. And you might need a blanket.” Wow, was she a temptress or what? Seduction City.

“Thoughtful of you.”

“
Are
you planning to sleep in the barn?”

“Not really. I just decided to do one last check before going to bed. But I appreciate the effort.”

“Oh.” Shitfire! She could have stayed in his bed and everything would have gone as planned. Instead she was out here wearing boots and a bathrobe with a condom in her pocket. If they walked back to the house together, which now seemed likely, he’d go into his room and discover someone had been sleeping in his bed, and it sure as hell hadn’t been Goldilocks.

“Did you
want
me to sleep in the barn?”

“Of course not, especially if there’s no change with Dottie. That would be silly.”

His gaze traveled over her. “Tracy, what’s going on? Why are you out here wearing a red silk bathrobe?”

“How do you know it’s silk?” As if that mattered, but she was surprised he’d guessed correctly.

“Silk has a distinctive way of draping a woman’s body, especially when she’s naked under it.”

“You don’t know that I’m naked!”

“Yes, I do.”

Her cheeks grew hot. “Okay, so I’m naked. So I have a condom in my pocket and I came down here to seduce you. So what?”