Seducing the Bachelor (The Bachelor Auction Returns Book 3) (18 page)

“Hungry?” She quizzed, letting a drop of honey fall on her breast.

He made a strangled sound and put the puppy, which had fallen asleep while suckling, back in its bed and stalked over to her.

“Starved.”

She held up the bottle of honey looking at where she wanted to put it and said, “Me, too.”

T
alon slung her
tote over her shoulder and waved at Noah, who was talking on the phone. His office was small as most of his business was ranch calls. They had spent most the day at a horse training facility out towards Livingston with a dressage-trained horse that had been rehabilitating from an injury. She loved the work but more and more was wondering if she could really commit to entering the vet program.

The program at Washington State was strong and offered exactly what she was looking for, except it was in Pullman, Washington. Seven hours from Marietta. The first year of classes would be in Bozeman, but after that she’d have to move. The thought of uprooting herself again, meeting all new people again, having Parker change schools again only to come back three years later made her feel sick.

Lately, she’d been thinking about just trying to get a different degree so she could just assist Noah like she’d been doing, but he’d pushed back strongly, urging her to get off her butt and apply to the Washington State program because it focused on livestock vet practices and favored students looking to commit to rural areas of Montana. But Noah hadn’t grown up with her life, changing every six months, sometimes more.

She was so down in the dumps, feeling like she was going to disappoint him and herself, Talon barely noticed Tanner McTavish sitting on the hood of her car.

“Howdy, stranger.”

“Tanner!” Talon stared at her.

“C’mon, even my dad isn’t that unhappy to see me.” She smiled and tossed her bright red banner of a ponytail over her shoulder. “Dish, dish, dish about Colt. Is he as yummy as he looked? I saw him at Big Z’s yesterday all yack, yack with Paul. He’s got the tightest ass. Did you get to ride it?”

“Tanner!” Talon looked around guiltily but no one was near enough on the street to hear her.

“I thought we could go for a drink. It’s Saturday, so you’re not working tonight. You can tell me all about your experience or experiences. I heard he actually went to one of Parker’s games with you.”

“Ummmm, I really need to study,” Talon said.

She’d planned to have dinner with Parker and Colt. It was one of the few nights they could spend together. It was scary how quickly the last two weeks had passed and how easily Colt had fit into her life. She would drop Parker off at school and then meet him back at the house for a couple of hours together for amazing sex, which seemed to get more intense each time, before studying or meeting Noah for her internship work.

Colt had started picking Parker up from school after his baseball practice. They were working on the tree house, but weren’t allowing Talon to see it.

“Study, schmudy.” Tanner dismissed. “Have you had your Lady’s Choice date?”

And then some
.

“Say yes, say yes.” Tanner chanted. “I need some juicy news. I’m trying to buy some new breeding stock so the Triple T Ranch can be a stock contractor for the top tier bull riding events, but my dad’s being a shortsighted, misogynistic tight wad. It’s not like men are expert bull breeders just because they have a penis,” Tanner said. “I’m the one with the masters in genetics, not him. So…” Tanner looked Talon up and down. “I’d have to say that Colt is a fine specimen and you look totally blissed out. So no to the drink?”

Talon felt guilty. Tanner had made it possible for her to meet Colt, but she didn’t want to talk about her time with him. That was their time. Special. And when he left, she didn’t want to see the pitying looks and know that people were talking about her behind her back. She couldn’t explain their relationship. It went way beyond sex. He had become a huge part of her world in such a short time, and she wasn’t letting herself think about when he left.

But she wasn’t good at hiding her feelings. And Tanner had been a good friend. Fun and kind and welcoming, especially when Talon had arrived in town knowing no one.

“Tanner, can you keep a secret?”

Tanner’s green eyes rounded. “Yes, of course.”

“I really like him. He’s nice. He’s fun to hang around. He’s kind. He’s perfect.”

“Awesome.” Tanner popped off the roof of the car and fist pumped the air.

“The Lady’s Choice thing I chose was for him to help build a little tree house thing with Parker.”

Tanner stared at her, her mouth pursed in a question but, for once, she was speechless.

“That’s so you, Talon. Giving to a fault.”

“But you gave me the date. And I’ve had a great time, but he’s going to be leaving in a couple of weeks going back to the army so I thought since I had tonight off I’d make him dinner.”

Tanner gave in with good grace. She hugged Talon harder than usual. “Are you falling for him? Falling hard?”

Talon tried to say “no,” but she just froze in Tanner’s hug. Tanner pulled away and looked into Talon’s face. “But, Talon, that’s wonderful. If you’re that over the moon for him, he’ll feel the same. He’s from Marietta. He’ll be back after his manly army thing. Is he being deployed?”

She sighed. Colt didn’t tell her anything about his job. All she knew was that he was a Ranger and that was pretty badass. Although, she hadn’t researched it because if Colt wanted her to know, he would have told her. And he’d never said anything about coming back.

“So maybe after he’s left we can do something?”

“There’s that much to tell that you gotta wait two weeks?” Tanner quirked one eyebrow, her signature look.

“I can always hope,” Talon said lamely.

Tanner crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes. “Okay. You win. But afterwards”—Tanner hugged Talon hard again—“I want you in one piece, heart whole, you hear me?”

*

Colt shook Paul
Zabrinsky’s hand as he got out of his truck. “That’s a lot of reclaimed wood,” Colt said, walking around to the flat trailer.

“One of my crews is doing a big remodel out toward Livingston,” Paul said. “It’s a family of horse trainers and they are expanding their equestrian facilities so they wanted the old barn pulled down, and I thought of your request for reclaimed wood.”

“Thanks,” Colt said, shifting Dude in his arms so he could examine some of the wood while Parker looked at it as well. “It’s beautiful.”

“Is it what you were looking for? Do you think it will work?”

“What do you think, P?”

“Awesome,” Parker said. “Our tree house is going to be the best in Montana.”

“Tree house, huh?” Paul asked.

“Come see,” Parker tugged Paul toward the stand of oaks.

They stared up at the work in progress. Paul whistled. “I was thinking fort, but you were thinking Swiss Family Robinson.”

Colt looked at the platform that now had a deck with a tire swing below and a hammock. The roof had two skylights and it was almost finished, and two of the walls had two cut outs for windows and one for a door. The stairs were complete as was the railing, which was made from fallen branches on the property.

“Can I go up?”

Parker led the way. A second room was started in another tree, and cable had been drilled in so that there would be a suspension bridge.

Paul looked at everything. The way the house blended into the tree and conformed to the shape of it. Parker showed off shelves that had been built and other details. “You do construction in the army?” He asked Colt.

“No.”

“We used You Tube and the internet to design plans. I helped,” Parker said proudly.

“Wow. Just wow.” Paul walked around, checked the corners, the roof. “Beautiful work Colt and Parker.”

Colt felt himself tense as Paul looked some more at the roofline and other aspects of the build.

“Hey, Parker, can you show me where the fireman’s pole will go?” Paul asked. “It hasn’t come in yet.”

Parker dashed off and ran to the other tree house room that wasn’t yet finished.

“I don’t know what your plans are,” Paul said. “But if you ever decide to leave the service, there’d be a job for you at Big Z’s, if you were ever interested or looking for something to get started. I know transitioning isn’t always easy. You are very skilled at carpentry, and the construction end of our business is growing. The town’s growing.”

“I don’t know my plans yet,” Colt said. “Still got six months active. And I’m not sure if I’ll reenlist or not.” He felt stunned by the offer.

“I just wanted you to know that there will always be a place for you in Marietta if you want to come home,” Paul said. “You could even set up your own specialty construction business if you wanted, building tree houses and such and work with us on the side to supplement your income as you get started.”

Colt stared at Paul. “That’s a bit of a stretch from one project to a business.”

“Have you thought of other careers?” Paul asked curiously.

“No,” Colt said slowly. He hadn’t even tried to speculate. “It would have to be physical. Outside a lot, but…”

The rest was left hanging as Parker bounced back in again. He showed Paul the blueprints, talked about changes they’d made. Colt let Parker tell the story. He should be irritated that someone he barely knew was offering him a job without very much information on him. He didn’t need charity. He didn’t need people trying to suck him back to Marietta, back to the ranch. Only he wasn’t as bothered as he would have expected.

Spending time with Talon had banished so many of the bad memories from his childhood. He tried to tell himself it was just the intense and frequent sex, but it had become so much more than that from the beginning. She had a strength and sense of fun and tenderness that he had never been exposed to, and he soaked it up.

He’d always lived his life moment by moment, keeping it tight. But now, he’d started planning ahead. He had to—ordering building materials, picking up Parker from baseball practice, feeding Dude, making dinner with Parker. He was getting into a different routine and, for the first time in his life, he felt almost normal. He would have thought hanging out with a kid would have been far beyond his skill set, but Parker made it easy. He was wide open, easy to read, natural. And he forced Colt to socialize. He’d even met some of the parents of other kids on Parker’s team.

Unimaginable a few weeks ago. And the clock was running out. His watch beeped.

“Hey, Parker, I got a quick meeting in town. Let’s roll. Thanks for the wood, Paul. Invoice me.”

“On the house,” Paul said. “No one else wanted it. Besides, I’m considering it an investment.”

Colt swung himself down to the ground, Dude tucked into his side.

“You really ought to get a baby sling for that beast,” Paul said, hopping down beside him. Parker ran ahead.

Colt could just imagine Nick’s reaction to him carrying around the runt puppy, which was not so runty anymore, in a baby sling. They’d all think he’d lost his mind. And considering how he’d been living these past few weeks, so would his team. But it was a good crazy.

*

“I don’t really
understand what this means.” Colt stared at the neat pile of papers in the dark blue folder.

Mia Zabrinsky sat next to him at the oval conference table.

“Your original adoption papers are sealed by the court,” she said. “Mr. Meizner and his wife were the second couple to adopt you. They had lost their son. But she left him, taking you with her, and then she brought you back to the ranch after a few years and she left on her own sometime later. We could try to get the first set of documents unsealed if you wanted to pursue that with the intention of finding your birth mother and father, but…”

Mia’s words were lost in his churning thoughts. Why the hell would he want to know who his birth parents were? They’d given him up to a couple who’d then adopted him to the Meizners. And then Mrs. Meizner left. Everyone had had their reasons. He’d had no control over it and he was who he was. Mia had given him a handwritten letter from Meizner, which he hadn’t opened. And probably wouldn’t. Water under the bridge. And as he sat there facing Mia, he realized he wasn’t angry anymore. And that it was time he stopped acting like an angry, hurt boy.