Seducing the Bachelor (The Bachelor Auction Returns Book 3) (6 page)

“Colt.” Her voice was an ache and her hand clenched convulsively on his arm. “This is your home. I want to explain.”

He took a step back. “Never my home. Lived here, but not by choice.”

He didn’t really have a home. Wherever he was at the time.

He hated talking about this. He didn’t have to explain. He owed her something, but not his whole sordid past, dragged across the scratched, grimy floor, which, when he looked down, he noted almost in dismay, wasn’t dirty or scratched anymore. Instead, the wood looked darker and gleamed. It was like a different house. Home. Talon or Meizner? He couldn’t imagine that man redecorating.

“Please.” She placed her palms lightly on his chest. “Let me tell you how I came, what I’ve done, and then you’ll be able to decide.”

The only decision he was going to make was to get the hell out of here as soon as possible. He hated how the memories kept crashing in on him. Hated how she was getting under his skin. Making him think. Question.

“You’re not going to run out are you?”

“No.”

She relaxed a little.

“We’ve haven’t had sex yet.”

She rolled her eyes and pushed off the door. “Note to self”—she held up one finger—“Colt Ewing is not funny.”

“But I am hungry.”

Her smile warmed him through.

Ten minutes later, Colt was sitting at the kitchen table that was not the table from his childhood. Instead, it was round and hand painted a cheery yellow with linked black diamonds. He had coffee and a bowl of delicious stew. He was in heaven in the midst of hell, appreciating the irony of his situation.

“Ghosts are all gone,” she said.

She knew. That should have upset him. Instead, he dug into his meal that included one of his favorites—corn bread with honey. And she promised Ryan had packed dessert.

It was weird to feel comfortable in a place where he’d vowed to never step foot in again. And the last thing he’d wanted after three plane flights back to Texas, a four-day debrief and then another flight to Bozeman where he then had to sit in a car with Nick and hear all about how Coach Downey wanted to see them all, just a quick get together.

Sucker
.

He’d ended up as eye candy for a bunch of women and was now playing true confessions with a woman who made him as hot as hell and just as uncomfortable. He liked willing, quick, and uncomplicated. Talon was a yes on one, possibly on the second, and then huge, flashing all caps no.

She turned a chair around, straddled it facing him. Like he was going to be able to eat now. Concentrate now.

She took a deep breath. “The first time I came to Marietta, I was seventeen and was with Jenna, who had been here once before. I fell in love with the town. It seemed like a fantasy. Like a place I had always dreamed of living and having a house and raising a family. I felt like anything was possible here.”

He ate his stew. How could she trust him with this information? Let him in like this. He wanted to warn her. Protect her.

“I haven’t finished school yet, but I was tired of always waiting, putting everything off until one day that always got further and further away. I wanted Parker to have a hometown now when he was a kid.” She ducked her head. “And I wanted to have a home. So I drove here, and the first day I was at the feed store looking for a job, to see if any farms had a bunkhouse or something in return for work because I wanted to work with animals, I met your uncle. In return for a cabin, I took care of all his errands in town and the goats.”

“Goats!”

She smiled. “Parker loved them. We milked them morning and evening. Sometimes Mr. Meizner would sit in the barn and watch and tell Parker about…well it doesn’t matter. But with the milk, we made cheese. Sold it at the farmer’s market. I felt like a pioneer.”

Her face glowed. “But he got sicker and it didn’t make sense anymore so he sold them. All that’s left is a free range, aloof emu, and a stray dog I can’t catch, but Parker and I sometimes see on our walks.”

He stared at her. The ranch sounded like something out of a children’s book. And his uncle sounded almost benevolent.

“When he was really sick, he talked a lot about how his son would come home. Live here. Make the ranch run again. He had to sell off some land to keep up with taxes, but still had enough to turn it into a working ranch again.”

“This sounds like a really bad cable movie.” Colt interrupted. “He had no son, Talon. And he didn’t treat me like one. I don’t know how I ended up here. He never told me, and my memory is scrambled from before that time, but I can tell you, no one’s coming back.”

Her eyes met his, and he felt that look flash burn his knee jerk response and expose him like an upended bug in a collection.

“You must wonder why I stayed on after he passed.”

He shifted restlessly. Grabbed another slice of the corn bread and avoided meeting her eyes.

“I was hoping that when Mr. Meizner’s son…when you came that we could strike a deal.”

He looked up startled.

“Parker and I could rent the cabin that’s been refurbished, where we first lived before Mr. Meizner needed more help. Or stay at the house as caretakers until he, you, sold the ranch or moved back or leased it.”

He put down his fork, appetite gone. She wanted to stay. Here.

“Your plans have nothing to do with me.”

“But they do.” She ran her fingers through her hair and he found himself watching the graceful motion, the way her curls sprang back from her face. “You are his only heir, or so I think from Mia Zabrinsky, the attorney he went to. Obviously she didn’t tell me that, but Mr. Meizner said…”

Colt stood up so quickly his chair tipped back, and he caught it, righted it.

“Town’s easier to live in,” he said gruffly. “With a kid.”

She looked around the room, her eyes lingering on things, the open shelves instead of cabinets, painted red and an earthy kind of green, the art work on the fridge. Totally different from when he’d lived here with his uncle. His stomach twisted. He so was not good at this. At any of it. The messiness of life.

“Colt, I know it’s late and you’ve traveled a long way. But I can’t get us all packed out in a night.”

“Why the hell would you do that? I’m not staying.”

“But this is your…”

“Don’t even say that word.” He held out his hand. “I’d rather cut off my balls with a broken beer bottle than sleep in this house again.”

“But it’s yours.”

“I wouldn’t want it if you gift wrapped it. I gotta get out of here.” He quickly rinsed his cup and bowl and put them in the sink.

Talon hovered, but he refused to meet her worried look. He’d cave for sure. He didn’t know what it was with this woman. She unbalanced him from the tight rope he walked. Each day. One foot in front of the other. Colt bolted out the front door.

“C
olt, wait. Stop.”

He was out the door, and she’d long ago kicked off her cowboy boots after two waitressing shifts and then chasing those with a special event at Grey’s Saloon.
Whatever
. She rolled her eyes. Barefoot, she ran out.

“Wait! Ouch! Ow!”

Halfway to his truck he paused and looked at her, incredulous.

“What are you doing?” He demanded, in the same tone many men and, in a spirit of full disclosure, many women had asked her during much of her life.

“Just hold on a sec. Ouch.” She bit back a more colorful word that since she had inadvertently become a mom she tried never to use, but it was hard tonight because pain shot from her foot all the way to her thigh.

“Eeeewakedywak!”

And he was there, his hands on her shoulders. “Stay still,” he murmured. “You have no shoes on.”

“Oh, is that it?”

And she thought she saw a hint of a smile and her stomach spun and flipped as spectacularly as pizza dough in the hands of a show-offy pizza chef. She didn’t know him, but she was starting to like him. His tenseness. His stillness. And then the hint of warmth as if he couldn’t quite help himself. It made her feel special.

“You are crazy,” he said conversationally as he tucked one arm under her knees and the other around her shoulders and lifted.

She stifled a scream and tried not to clutch at him. “And you are crazy strong. You’ll hurt yourself.”

He laughed. Not a full on laugh, but a definite quick musical “ha” or “huh” for all her efforts. “Do you have any idea how much gear I lug around daily?”

“Prince Charming. My heart is pounding. It’s every woman’s dream to be lugged and compared to gear.”

He shouldered back through the partially opened door and into the house and carried her to the kitchen, settling her on the counter and swinging her feet into the sink.

“I’m bleeding,” she said, surprised.

“Let me look.”

She bit back another ouch as he carefully rinsed her foot.

“First aid kit?”

“It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It’s a foot and very dirty. When was your last tetanus shot?”

“I’m a terrible patient,” she said. “Which is awkward because I’m going to be a vet.”

“Well, unless you have a lot of hair I can’t see or howl at a full moon, I think you should stick to getting the shot from a doctor.”

His hands were gentle as he washed her foot, examined it, dabbed it with an antibacterial wipe, and then put on a gauze pad with tea tree oil and then wrapped it with tape.

“I’ll drive you to the doctor tomorrow. Or a clinic since it will be Sunday.”

She stared at the top of his head. She’d thought his hair was just dark brown, but it was so many shades of gold with some red and then several shades of brown from chestnut to coffee. And the tight crop couldn’t quite hide definite waves. If he were hers, she’d want him to grow out his hair so she could run her fingers through it. What would it be like to be able to do that? To make him smile? Make his eyes light up. She’d never made anyone’s eyes light up. Thinking thoughts like that made it hard to breathe, and she stuffed them back in the drawer in her brain where she tried to keep all her longing so she didn’t scare anyone, especially herself.

“Why did you come after me?” he asked.

“I wanted you to stay,” she said.

He straightened up like she’d poked him. His pupils dilated and this close up, his irises were the most beautiful shade of honey. She’d shocked him. Definitely. She hadn’t meant it that way, as a sexual invitation, but deep down she knew it was. Or would be. No. No. No, she told herself. She couldn’t go there. He was so temporary in town he hadn’t even booked a room or made plans to stay with friends.

“There’s a cabin on the property,” she said quickly. “You could stay there. It’s on the septic system.”

He took a step back; his lips pressed tightly together, his eyes glittering.

“You seemed to have no place to go.” She interjected into his silence. “And it is yours.”

“And it’s on the septic.”

“Are you laughing at me?”

“A little.”

She relaxed. “I’ll show you.”

She hopped down from the counter even though he didn’t seem to approve and fetched a thick pair of socks from the laundry room, she quickly put them on as well as her boots and grabbed a flashlight.

He stilled her hand.

“I know where it is,” he said softly and then took a step back from her.

She wished he hadn’t taken his hand away. Why did she want to keep him here? It was insane. She didn’t know him, but she felt like she did. He was alone like she was. Only she had Parker now and he had no one. No family. He was here with her instead of with his friends. And what did that say about his life? Something inside of her wanted to reach out and grab hold of him.

Not let him go. She swallowed hard.

It was dangerous, she knew. She’d start to care. Notice things like the way his hair grew in a whorl on top, and his widow’s peak that made his intense stare that much sexier, and also the curl of his dark lashes, or the way her hand tingled from when he’d touched it. She was lonely. She could admit that because she’d been lonely almost all her life and had tried to stave it off in the usual way by making lots of friends. Letting boys chase and catch her. She still felt lonely down to her bones, when she let herself stop and think and be quiet and to feel and maybe it was that. She could tell that he too was lonely to his bones. He too might be able to fathom the deep, empty ache she felt.

“It may have septic, but it was falling down ten years ago.”

She smiled and held out her hand.

For a moment, she thought he’d refuse, but he took her hand, looked at in in his much larger one and Talon felt enveloped. Safe in a way she’d never felt before. Then he followed her out into the night. He had strong hands. Warm. Rough. With long fingers and squared off fingers with short clipped, very clean nails.

“You have nice hands,” she said, unable to bite back the compliment. “They look like hands that build things.”

“You’re wrong about that.” His voice was flat in the night as she clicked on the flashlight and hurried down the trail.

“Foot okay.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry if I’ve made coming back here awkward.”

They walked past the barn and along a trail that led to a couple of empty bunkhouses and a larger cabin. She wondered what the ranch had been like when it had been full scale. Busy.

“You haven’t made it awkward.” He finally said. “You’ve made it bearable.”

At the door of the cabin, she stopped short, shifted her weight back and forth nervously. “I have something I think is yours,” she said. “Parker and I found it when we refinished the floors. We saved it, knowing someday you’d come. Only we didn’t know it would be you.”

She fished around in her parka and pulled out a small wood cube that had a metal inlay with a fused glass heart in the center. “It’s beautiful. And unique. I think it’s a puzzle cube.” She held it out to him. “Is it yours? We found it under a floor board in the in the bedroom where I put Parker after we moved to the main house in the last months of Mr. Meizner’s life.”

*