Worth the Trouble (7 page)

"
I won't...I promise," she assured him and stood.  Grabbing his arm she told him patiently, "Now, let's get you in that hot tub."

H
eat shot through her fingertips and traveled up her arm into her chest when her fingers curled around his bicep.  With a gasp she pulled her hand away, but he caught her wrist and his heated eyes met hers.  For a moment, he just stared into her eyes, then with a jerk to her arm he pulled her to him.  She fell awkwardly across his lap, before his arms closed around her.

Rocky
could get away if she wanted to, but she sat still. 

In slow motion, his mouth lowered toward hers and he
r breath caught in her throat.  For just a second his lips hesitated over hers, electricity buzzed between them, then light as a feather he rubbed his lips over hers.  Her hair stood on end and soft, liquid desire floated through her as he tasted her lips, before coaxing them open with a flick of his tongue over the seam.

"Mmm...you taste like cherries," he
groaned with a gentle nip to her lower lip.

"Chapstick
this time," she whispered hoarsely.

Tentatively, Rocky
leaned into him and slid her arm around his neck pressing her lips to his again.  A slow languorous fire unfurled inside of her as he fully engaged in kissing her back...and then some.  His fingers caressed her sides and inched upward toward her breasts ramping up the heat.

This kiss was on a whole different level than any she'd had
from him before, in a whole different universe.  It was hot as hell, but sweet too, patient and not hurried.  Slow and sexy, it made her want to sit here kissing him all night long. 

Five minutes of bliss was all she got though.  The sound of the spa door opening had her pushing against Ethan's chest.

"Oh...I, um," Terri stuttered in a shocked voice tinged with amusement.

Cool air brushed her lips a
fter Ethan dragged his lips away.  His arms tightened around her when she tried to squirm off of his lap, and he put his forehead to hers.

"Your timing sucks, sis.
  Guess I need to piss you off better next time," he told Terri, his voice a little husky.

T
he physical results of their make out session was pressed hard against her hip, and she figured out quickly why he wasn't letting her stand.  Rocky also discovered that her wiggling wasn't making the problem any better, so she stopped struggling.  Heat baked her face when her eyes met his laughter and desire filled gaze.

"I just wanted
to let Rocky know the vet was here, and to make sure you weren't giving her a hard time," Terri told them then added with her lips twitching, "Looks like ya'll are getting along well enough."

Rocky jumped up off of Ethan's lap and said quickly,
"Oh, thanks I need to go talk to him." Without making eye contact with Terri, she ran for the door.

"Make sure you come to dinner tonight, Penny is making meatloaf," Terri yelled and Rocky heard her
chuckle as she closed the door behind her. 

Needing to get herself together before she met with
Wes Jepson, Rocky leaned back against the wall and wiped one sweaty palm against her blue jeans, putting her other hand to her racing heart while she took deep breaths. 

One lousy
kiss and he had her all tangled up inside again. 

She shouldn't have let it happen, b
ut with Ethan's vulnerability in plain sight like it had been, her defenses had crashed down.  Seeing him like that had made him damned irresistible to her.

Grudgingly, she admitted h
e was always irresistible to her for some reason. 

Even when he had been an asshole to her, she had made excuses for him.  He's hurt, he's embarrassed, and although that was true, she was evidently a glutton for punishment too.  Because she knew opening herself up to this man again was leaving herself wide open to be hurt.

With a deep breath, Rocky pushed off of the wall, and headed for the barn and business.  Wes was waiting out there to talk about Chancey, the gelding a greenhorn guest had ridden through a cactus patch.  The horse had a cactus needle embedded in the frog of his hoof, and although she had removed the needle and dosed the horse with Bute, she wanted Wes to check him out and give him some antibiotics.

When she got to the barn, Chancey's stall door was open and Wes was inside
.  The top of his brown felt Stetson was visible just above the wall. 

"Wes?" she
called out as she walked down the aisle toward the stall.  He stepped out of the stall and gave her a wide smile in greeting and took off his hat to run the rim around his fingers.

"T
hat cactus got him good, huh?"

"Yeah, I took the
needle out and gave him some Bute, but I think he needs something stronger for pain and antibiotics," she informed returning his smile.

"I think we need to put a boot on him to keep it clean,
and soak it.  I'll leave some pills with you, and I gave him a shot for pain."

"Thanks, Wes...I'm sorry to call you all the way out here, but I was worried it would get infected," she told him and walked around him to go into the stall.  Chancey nudged her shoulder then sniffed the pocket of her jeans looking for a treat.  She rubbed his muzzle then scratched between his ears.

"You know I never mind coming out here to see you," Wes said with a curious little smile.  There was something different in the vet's tone today, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was. 

Her eyes met his and his smile widened causing
little laugh lines to crinkle beside his warm gold-flecked hazel eyes.  Funny how she'd never noticed how good looking the vet was before now.  Tall and leanly muscled with a square jaw, and short-cropped sandy brown hair which was usually covered in a cowboy hat, he was not quite classically handsome, but damned close. 

That wasn't
something she wanted to notice though, Wes was just her friend. She definitely didn't want to ruin that either.

She knew that Wes was divorced
and she had met his ten-year-old son, Trey.  From what she'd heard through the grapevine, his wife had left him and their son to go find herself in California.  What that meant, Rocky had no idea, but the cowboys she worked with seemed to think it meant she didn't like country life, because she had been a converted city girl who fancied herself an actress.  Those guys gossiped worse than old women sometimes.

Taking
another circuit around the brim of his hat with his fingers, Rocky would swear Wes was scuffing the toe of his boot in the dust at their feet too.  He cast his hazel eyes downward shyly, and she wanted to laugh.  He was usually so forthright and confident, but right now he looked damned uncomfortable. 

Finally he raised his eyes to meet hers
again and asked quickly as if he couldn't get the words out fast enough, "Rocky would you go to dinner with me tonight?"

"Dinner?" she repeated stupidly as if it were a foreign term.

"Yeah, you know food, conversation...company," he said with a chuckle.  "There's a new steak house in town I want to try out, and I'm tired of eating alone.  I also have a proposition to talk over with you."  His face looked unsure as he waited for her to answer.

Maybe it was because Ethan had stirred up her hormones earlier, maybe it was a full moon, she had no idea what was causing it, but for some reason Rocky was thinking every man in her vicinity was hitting on her, which was ridiculous. 
Like he said, Wes was probably just lonely and wanted to talk.  They talked all the time when he came out to the ranch, so this wasn't any different.

With a nervous laugh she edged around him and walked back out in
to the aisle.  The stall had become entirely too small to hold both of them and the twelve hundred pound horse.

Wes really was a nice man, and it had been a long time since she'd been to town. 
And he said he just wanted to talk.  Rocky was damned curious what he could want to talk about, and what his proposition would be.  This was a business dinner, not a date.

What would it hurt? 

She could use some friendly company too.  It would also give her a reason to avoid facing Ethan at dinner.  That was the man she needed to avoid so she could get her head together.

The path of lesser evil, is what Wes represented right
now, and as cowardly as that was, she was going to take it.  "Sure, that sounds good.  Let me go get cleaned up.  I'll be back in a few minutes."

CHAPTER
THREE

Finishing reps in the gym never came up again.  When Terri helped Ethan out of the hot tub, she didn't mention it and neither had he.  After wheeling himself to his room, he grabbed clothes and showered in the master bathroom, on his own, using the shower chair and bars Terri had installed.  He even managed to shave, since Terri's mirror was lower than his mother's had been. 

Ethan
was sore, and grumpy, but had to admit he felt better than he had in months.

Coming here had been a good idea
, he was feeling stronger and for some reason the dark cloud he'd been living under was parting just a little.  It wasn't full blown optimism he was feeling, but it was a helluva lot more than he'd felt since the accident.

His stomach growled and he put a hand over it and chuckled. 

Hunger wasn't something he'd been plagued by either since the accident, but all the working out had definitely changed that too.  Ethan towel dried his hair, then tossed the towel into the basket in the corner, before wheeling himself out of the door and down the hall toward the kitchen. 

Penny the cook had probably already served dinner, and he was late.  She wouldn't be happy.  The
ranch hands weren't around, they were out on the trail with the guests, so the only ones at dinner would be family, and probably Roxanne. 

Anticipation of seeing her again tickled in his chest.
  He hadn't wanted to see her again in the condition he was in, but Terri had forced his hand and he was glad now.

Thinking of her
, that night in the hayloft, and the hot kiss they'd shared in the spa had him getting hard again and he grinned.  Everything definitely still worked.  After dinner, maybe he could get her to go on a 'walk' with him and he could taste her again.  Even after the shower, her cherry taste teased him.

With a smile on his face, he wheeled himself into the dining room. 
When he saw only his sister and Joel at the big table, his smile fell. 

"Where's Roxanne?" he asked nonchalantly
and wheeled himself up to the table.  The smell of the meatloaf on the platter in the center of the table teased him and his stomach growled again.

"You hungry, little brother?"  Terri asked with a chuckle and took a sip of her sweet tea.

"Famished," he admitted then dished himself up a plate and dug in. 

"Where's Roxanne?" he asked again when he took a break to sip his tea.
  He couldn't quite manage nonchalant the second time he asked.

Terri dragged her eyes away from his and stared at her plate.  Joel cleared his throat and then told him, "She went to supper with the vet."

The bite of biscuit Ethan had taken lodged in his throat.  After swallowing a couple of times he managed to wash it down with some tea. 

"She what?" Ethan
asked as evenly as he could manage.  Jealousy wasn't a familiar emotion to him, but he could recognize that is exactly what he was feeling.

"I saw her out at the barn and she told me she was having dinner with Wes Jepson, the vet
, so she wouldn't be up to the house tonight."

"She date much?" Ethan asked
with his fork hovering above his dinner.

"Not that I know o
f...I was kind of surprised too," Joel replied with a shrug then took another bite of his meal.

"They're just friends," Terri
blurted finally meeting his eyes.  Hers held sympathy that he didn't want to acknowledge.  That was the last thing he wanted to see there.  He was damned tired of people feeling sorry for him.

He wondered if that's why
Roxanne had kissed him earlier, she felt sorry for him.  Telling her all that shit about where he was mentally probably made him seem pathetic and needy.  Ethan really didn't know why the hell he'd spilled his guts to her.  All he knew was he damned well regretted doing it now.

Now that he thought about it, i
t was awfully strange for her to kiss him at all.  Considering the cruel things he had said to her, on top of refusing to see her since he'd been here, after their night in the barn, it was a damned miracle. 

As hard as he
had tried to make her angry so she would leave him alone, she hadn't even gotten pissed, and he knew she had a temper.

She
definitely felt sorry for him, that is why she was acting so out of character from what he knew of her, and
that
is why she'd kissed him.  The thought made the food he had ingested dance around in his stomach.  He felt even more of a pathetic loser than he had before.

Well, if that was her angle, he was going to set her straight real quick.  He didn't want or need her
help or her pity.  If it took all night for her to get home, another thought that made him feel a little sick, Ethan was going to be out at that bunkhouse waiting to tell her that.

"
I'm not doing equine therapy, I'll just stick with the weight program," Ethan told Terri gruffly then started eating again, although the food tasted like sawdust in his mouth. 

"But Ethan
--" Terri started and he held up his hand to stop her.

"I
don't ride and I have enough on my plate trying to learn to
walk
," he told her grinding his teeth.  "I don't want her help."

Terri huffed out a breath then told him, "
Ethan she's not out on that kind of date with Wes--"

"
Just leave it!" Ethan grated then wiped his mouth then threw his napkin on his plate.  "I'm a big boy, Terri, stop treating me like a child and planning out my life for me."

"Stop acting like one," she volleyed and Ethan's heart squeezed.  "Just because you kissed her doesn't mean you own her,
" Terri told him and folded her arms over her chest.

He'd done a helluva lot more than kiss Roxanne at Terri's wedding, but his sister didn't know th
at, and he wasn't telling her.  Now he was nothing more than a sympathy fuck. 

E
mbarrassment flowed through him and he threw his fork down on the plate with a loud clatter, wiped his mouth and angrily tossed his napkin on top of it.  Shoving back from the table, he rolled out of the room and to the front door.  His eyes tracked to the corner by the front door where he'd put the walker Terri had given him.   Grabbing it, Ethan balanced it on his lap, then jerked open the door and wheeled outside. 

Ethan
hadn't used the walker yet, but he was damned tired of being restricted by the confining wheelchair.  It had been over three months since his accident, he figured now was as good a time as any to see if he was recovered enough to use it. 

He wanted to be standing when he confronted
Roxanne.

It was tough going, but he managed to muscle the cha
ir over the uneven ground to the golf cart at the back of the house.  He threw the walker into the back of the cart and locked the brakes on the wheelchair then hefted himself into the driver's seat. 

Since his legs didn't work,
not well at least, the best he could hope for was to put his foot on the pedal to get the thing moving.  Stopping was going to be the trick.  If he moved his foot off the gas far enough in advance, he figured he could coast to a stop. 

At least he hoped he could.

Getting away from his sister and out of the house was the goal.  He didn't care where he wound up.  Being stuck in there with only brief trips between the house and the gym was driving him crazy.  Ethan was used to wide open spaces, and he was finally able to breathe when he started across the yard toward the barn. 

Full and bright, the moon lit the path
as he guided the cart as carefully as he could across the potholed ground.  With each jostle of the cart, his butt bounced on the seat and several times his foot came off of the gas pedal.  Pain shot up his back and down his legs, but he ignored it.  He was determined to get to the bunkhouse to wait for Roxanne to get back home.

As he near
ed the bunkhouse, one end of the porch was dark due to a burned out bulb, but the other was lit in an eerie yellow glow.  Something moved at the far end of the porch.  Squinting he saw a blonde woman sitting in a rocker on the porch.  The chair was moving in short agitated strokes and she had her arms crossed over her chest. 

F
or a minute he thought it was Rocky, but as he drew closer, he saw she was wearing a short, blue business-type suit.  Definitely not the irritating female ranch hand's style.

Roxanne Baker wouldn't be caught dead in a
suit.  The candy pink dress she'd worn to the wedding had been something he was sure she wouldn't have worn without being hog-tied first, or unless her best friend had begged, which he was sure his sister had done.

The chair stopped rocking and the woman stood, evidently noticing his approach. He looked closer at her as he drew near and the light got better, and decided that although the woman was shorter, she had to be related to Roxanne, because they looked a lot alike. 
This woman was just softer and rounder, maybe a little younger.

Ethan suddenly realized he was right up on the porch and his foot was still on the gas
.  Quickly, he shoved his foot off of the pedal, but he knew the cart wasn't going to coast to a stop.  He was going too fast and braced for the impact he knew was coming.

The nose of the cart slammed into the bushes surrounding the porch, then hit the rail and he felt himself flying through the air.  Half in and half out of the cart
, his upper body in the bushes when he got his senses back, Ethan dragged his legs the rest of the way out then pulled up on the crossbar of the cart to stand.

A feminine gasp sounded then a
cultured southern belle voice asked, "Are you okay, sugar?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, I just couldn't stop quick enough," he
said gruffly, his face scorching from embarrassment.

"Oh, shoo,
shoo
!" the woman shrieked and he saw her waving her hands and backing down the long porch.  "Go away!" she yelled and kept backing away. 

For a minute, Ethan thought she was talking to him, then he saw a huge mama skunk and two babies
on the porch.  He must've scared them out of the bushes when he crashed the cart.  The furry black and white mama had her tail lifted and she was hissing at the woman.

There was no way he could get over there to help her, so all he could do was watch as the skunk moved forward then suddenly reversed direction and sprayed a huge stream of musk in her direction. 

A shrill scream split the night air and Ethan flinched.  The surprised skunks scurried off of the porch and hustled across the yard, but the woman was still screaming and sputtering. 

Good God, that woman's scream could shatter glass, or his ear drums, he thought and jerked the walker off of the ground where it had landed.  Flicking open the contraption, he locked each side then started slowly toward the porch and the hysterical woman.

The closer he got the stronger the aroma became, until the meatloaf in his stomach started seesawing and he had to stop and cover his nose.  "Whew, ma'am you got sprayed good," he said and held back the laughter that was bubbling inside of him.

"Damned polecat," she sputtered and kicked off her high-heeled shoes,
before she started shedding clothes.  Ethan swallowed the burst of laughter that about choked him and leaned on the walker to watch the show.

"I have an interview in two days and I can't smell like this," she whined.

"Tomato juice," Ethan informed.

"Do what?" she asked
, her fingers stopping at the button on the side of her skirt.

"You need to take a bath in tomato juice and it'll get rid of the smell.  I got sprayed at a fire one time and it took me a week to get the stink off.
  One of the guys told me to do that and it helped."

Her lip trembled and she was close enough to the light that he saw her blue eyes fill with tears.  "I have an appointment for a job interview in
Amarillo day after tomorrow," she told him.

"You better buy a case of juice then," he told her with a chuckle.
  "It took me a week to get rid of it."

Her voice raised a few octaves as she said,
"I don't have any money."

Ethan knew
women, and he knew she was winding up for a full blown fit.  All he needed was a hysterical woman on his hands, so he knew he'd better try and help her.

"You have a car?" he asked
, but that was a moot point, because he didn't have any money either to help her.

"Yes, it's around back.  I just came here to see Annie and hang out until my interview."

Ethan lifted a brow, "Annie?"  Maybe she wasn't kin to Roxanne after all.  As far as he knew, there wasn't anyone named Annie out here at the ranch.

"My sister, Roxanne," she clarified then unbuttoned and unzipped her skirt.  When it dropped to the porch, she was standing there in a thin white silk shell and her
pink thong underwear.  Ethan swallowed a couple of times and for some reason compared her shorter legs to those of her long-legged sister.  There was no comparison, Rocky had better legs.