The Cowboy's Heart, page 3
“I should go,” she said, not moving.
“Mmm.” He stroked her hair.
She’d had it cut short in Kentucky, but when she came back and saw Kelly’s long strawberry-blonde hair, Janice had regretted it. But now with Nate running his fingers through it, she was glad not to have any snarls to break the moment.
Loud shotgun blasts startled her out of his arms. “That was damned closer than it should have been,” Janice said.
“Whitetails have been a pain in the ass lately.” Nate stepped back from her, and she wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold. The evenings were getting crisp and chilly. She should have worn a sweater, but she had wanted to look professional for Mr. Slapass.
“I’m going to give Donovan a piece of my mind,” Janice said, scowling off into the distance where the shots had come from. “If I had been on Synergy, he would have spooked.”
She didn’t mind the whitetail deer so much, although they drove her mother crazy when they ate her strawberries. The feral hogs, on the other hand, were getting bold. Still, she hated hearing gunshots so close to their houses…though it was better than being surprised by one of the nasty alpha boars. Her dogs would go crazy and confront the hog and it would end horribly because most of her dogs were all bark and no bite. The hogs on the other hand were crazy and mean, with vicious tusks. They moved faster than anything that size should be able to.
Nate rolled his eyes. “That horse is dangerous.”
“He is not,” she scoffed. “He’s just high-strung.”
“Both your horses are. Overbred, fancy, spoiled—”
She held up her palm. “Stop trying to start a fight. I’m going.”
“I wasn’t trying to kick you out,” he drawled with a slight flush to his high cheekbones.
Yes, he had been. But Janice wasn’t going to call him on it. She had something better in mind for him. It was time Nate got a taste of his own medicine when it came to kissing and running. “Anyway, I’ve got to get back. I promised Kelly I’d babysit Alissa so she and Trent could have a date night.”
Alissa was five, and Janice was teaching her how to play gin rummy so they could team up and beat MeMaw and PawPaw.
“Date night?” Nate rolled his eyes. “Why don’t they just wait until she’s in bed?”
This time she did slug him. “Because sometimes it’s fun to go out to dinner and see a movie. It’s called romance. You should try it some time.”
“I don’t have time for that. I’ve got to be up before dawn.”
“Sleep is overrated,” she said, and before she could lose her nerve, she stepped in and kissed him.
She had meant it to be just a quick smack on the lips, like the kisses he gave her on the infrequent times he felt the need. Except, his mouth was hot and tasted sweet. Janice melted against him and licked his lips until they parted for her tongue. Then all hell broke loose as he hauled her up tight and pressed her against the side of the cottage.
Damn.
Reason and good sense fled hand in hand. Janice gripped his shirt so tight, two buttons flew off. Nate turned her sweet and sassy kiss into an inferno and she could barely hold on to her intentions when he ran his hands all over her body.
The shotguns went off again and they jumped apart so fast, Janice almost fell. Nate caught her and dragged her back against him.
“What the hell was that about?” he growled, his voice uneven and his breath ragged.
“Seemed like the thing to do,” she said, licking her swollen lips. Janice already missed his mouth on hers.
“Don’t complicate things,” Nate said.
She pushed out of his arms. She was getting tired of hearing the same old shit.
It felt good to walk away from him for once.
Chapter Three
Janice Sullivan was trouble. Nate knew that from the moment he laid eyes on her ten years ago. She wasn’t the gorgeous rodeo queen that her middle sister was or the impishly cute devil their younger sister was. Janice Sullivan was a force of freaking nature. And she fascinated him to the point of obsession.
He had a ton of stuff to do today and none of it had to do with her or her retreat center. And he was so bone-weary tired, he could fall asleep in his saddle if he wasn’t careful. If he was smart, he’d nod politely at her and go about his business. He must be a dumb son of a bitch because all he could do was watch the sweet curve of her ass in those jeans. She turned toward him, catching him looking at her, and something in his eyes made her drop the half-full bag of feed she was carrying. Blushing, she then bent over to pick it up and he could see halfway down her blouse.
Have mercy.
She had rocked his world last night with that kiss that kept him up half the night thinking about it. Four a.m. had come early and even the thermos of black coffee at his side didn’t make any promises of keeping him from yawning in the saddle. He wasn’t sure why Janice was up so early. A part of him hoped she was riding out with them today. But Frank hadn’t mentioned it. All his daughters could rope an errant cow and hold their own out on the trail. The youngest, Emily, was training to take over the ranch from Frank one day. But only Janice distracted him while they were on the job.
Nate had expected to feel conflicted when Janice had come home to help her parents. But he wasn’t. Not at all. He wanted to make Janice Sullivan his.
Unfortunately, he’d promised her father he wouldn’t.
When Janice had announced her plans for her “boohoo club” as Frank called it, Frank took Nate aside for a little talk. Nate had been prepared to politely, but very firmly tell him to shove it up his ass if Frank tried to warn him away from his daughter again. They weren’t kids anymore and Nate had waited for her to find herself in Kentucky and then come to her damned senses and come back here where she belonged.
For years, it had seemed like that wasn’t going to happen, but when Frank sent out his distress call, Janice came home and was setting down roots.
About damned time.
That meant she was going to stay, and since he wasn’t going anywhere, it would be the perfect time for them to finally explore the chemistry or whatever the hell it was between them. Unfortunately, for the first time in his damned life, Frank had asked for something instead of demanding it.
It wasn’t any surprise that the old man was slowing down. The first heart attack was the beginning of the end of Frank’s career. Nate saw him every day and saw the pain that he was in. Pain made Frank meaner than usual because he was frustrated and worried sick about his daughters and his ranch. The second heart attack had almost killed him. And he still wasn’t one hundred percent back to normal. Nate wondered if this was Frank’s new normal and felt a stab of pity for the man who had always been larger than life.
“You know you’re the son I never had,” Frank had said, which right there had taken the legs out from under Nate. Because he had been the father that Nate wished he’d had instead of the hard-drinking, fist-swinging gambler who had orphaned him when he had been a kid.
“I don’t have a lot more years left in me.”
“Don’t talk crap,” Nate had growled at him, fear making him just as mean as Frank could be.
“We may have to sell the ranch. You need to prepare for that. Unless one of the girls marries smart. It’s not going to be Kelly. She’s got to marry a good daddy for Alissa. And it’s not going to be Emily because…” Frank had rolled his eyes. “She doesn’t have the temperament for settling down with a good match. Janice, though, as long as she has her animals, she’s happy. She’s the smart one.”
Nate thought his jaw would crack from clenching it so hard. All their lives, Frank had referred to Kelly as the pretty one, Janice as the smart one and Emily as the baby. For the most part, they hadn’t let that define them. But it still pissed him off to hear it. All the sisters were smart, pretty, hardworking and loyal to their family. “You underestimate them. You always have,” he had told Frank.
“Don’t tell me about my daughters,” Frank had snapped back with his usual snarl. But then he’d sagged, as if that little bit of anger had taken too much out of him. “I’m asking you to be a gentleman and step away from Janice. You’re a good friend to her and to me. But you can’t make her happy. You’re too much like me. Impatient and gruff. She needs someone more suited to her. She’s sensitive.”
About as sensitive as a rattlesnake after you stepped on it, but Nate had kept that to himself. “I think you should let her decide that,” he had said instead.
“I’ve got a better idea.” Frank had chuckled.
Frank wanted her to marry Pete Dickerson, their veterinarian. And while Nate knew that Janice would balk at any hint of an arranged marriage, he had to admit that her and Pete made a good couple. She certainly deserved a doctor for a husband rather than a ranch foreman, especially since Doc Pete was rich. As in filthy rich. As in he didn’t need to work. He just did it because he loved animals. Which made it difficult to hate the son of a bitch.
And for all the sisters’ good intentions, the only thing that could save the Three Sisters Ranch was the type of money Pete could bring to the table. Nate couldn’t compete. And he loved the Sullivan family too much to disrespect them by ruining this opportunity to save the ranch.
They had lucked out when Kelly hooked up with PBR star Trent Campbell. His purse winnings saved them from immediate bankruptcy. But Emily was looking to spend money before she made any, using part of the ranch as a wind farm. Trent had given her a loan to get her started, but the wind turbines were expensive, and she could only buy a few of them. It would be a while before they were up and running and then a year or two, at least, before they were profitable. As far as her marrying rich, her fiancé Donovan was scraping by just like the rest of them.
So that left Janice and rich Doc Pete. If Janice wanted Pete, Nate would step aside. It would kill him to do it, but he would.
Nate shook his head and whistled for Daisy, his Australian shepherd. He wasn’t expecting a pack of mutts thundering over to him. “No,” he said. “Shoo.”
But Daisy brought her six friends, Janice’s dogs that she had rescued from a kill shelter in Kentucky. Knowing Janice, he supposed he should be happy it was only six. Daisy was a cow dog through and through, and took great pleasure in herding. Cows. People. Other dogs. Didn’t matter. She’d tried herding the barn kittens once and gotten her nose smacked for her trouble by the mama kitty.
“Janice,” he hollered. The last thing he had wanted was to be up close and personal with her this morning, especially since her father would be riding the range with them today. Nate swore that man had a second sense about Nate and Janice being alone together. Fortunately, Frank no longer tried to be in the saddle. He used the truck and oversaw moving the cattle to the new pasture from the comfort of his ancient Ford F-150. But if he saw them standing close, Nate wouldn’t hear the end of it.
“Stop yelling,” she said, coming over. “I’m right here.” Her voice was loud in the predawn and she wrapped her sweater around her tighter.
“Where’s your jacket?”
“In the small barn. A few of the horses have ringworm and we’ve isolated them.”
“We?” Nate said as Daisy and her pack circled around him and Janice.
“Pete is coming back later, but I wanted to make sure the horses were comfortable. I’m going back to bed.” She stifled a yawn.
Nate’s gut clenched. Good ole Doc Pete. He wondered if she had thought about their kiss at all or if she and Pete had been too busy. “Good,” he forced himself to say. “Take these idjits with you before they get stomped on.”
“Daisy wouldn’t let that happen.” Janice crouched down and was immediately assaulted by ecstatic tail-wagging dogs. And Nate could see down her damned shirt again. He was fascinated by the sprinkle of freckles over her cleavage. A few years ago, he couldn’t get out of the pond after seeing them peeking out of her bathing suit. He had been rock hard with no chance of it going down until the water got chilly.
“Do me a favor anyway, and keep them with you.” Nate forced himself to look at the mutts instead of the curve of her breasts. “I might have use for the shepherd mix if he can be trained. But not today. I’m short men and I can’t take the time to watch him.”
“Why are you short staffed?”
“We had to let ten guys go. Can’t afford to pay them.”
Janice closed her eyes and shook her head. “Damn. Right before Christmas.”
“I know. We gave them a bonus. What little we could.”
“Was it because we sold a hundred heads at auction last month?”
“Partly. We just need to run leaner than we have been.”
Biting her lip, Janice ruffled a husky mix behind the ears. Nate couldn’t keep all their names straight. Although the beagle carrying a mangled slipper was Bowser—or goddammit Bowser as Frank liked to call him. “I could ride out if you needed a hand.”
Nate was tempted, but last night’s kiss and the feel of her against him were forefront in his mind. “No, stay with the sick horses.”
“Doc Pete can handle them,” she said. “He’s got a way with animals.”
Doc Pete could kiss his ass.
“You want to help? Keep your dogs from following us.” Nate turned on his heel and walked back to large barn, where his horse, Jonas, was waiting for him and Daisy to lead the team out. He knew he had been abrupt, but the longer he stood there talking with her, the more he would want to ask her to ride out with them. He loved riding with her—when she took a sensible trail horse instead of one of her two prima donnas.
Frank would catch up with them in the truck in about an hour. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Nate hoped he’d take it easy and rest, but easy wasn’t in Frank’s wheelhouse. Hell, it wasn’t in Nate’s either. And if he was lucky, Doc Pete would be gone by the time they got back. If he was even luckier, Pete would do something to piss Janice off.
“The boys all pitched in. We’ve got about three hundred dollars to buy toys for the firefighters’ toy drive,” Esteban, his assistant foreman, said to him as they rode out in the predawn light. It was a beautiful morning and Nate hoped that the weather held. They had a lot of things to do and rain would just slow them down.
“I’ll ask Donovan and Trent if either of them is interested in matching that. Then we’ll be in good shape.” Nate might be able to scrape some more together, too.
“Hell, if Donovan returns all the empties from his old hunting parties, that should bring in a few more bucks.”
Nate smirked. Those hunters had drunk more than they hunted, but as long as they paid for the experience, who was he to judge?
“You got plans for Christmas?”
“Nah.” Nate didn’t have any family. If it wasn’t for the Sullivans, he would have just gone from ranch to ranch working wherever they needed an extra hand.
“You?”
“Yeah, going to go see my mom and brothers. They’re traveling up here to Last Stand. They’ve heard so much about it from me blabbering on, they wanted to see it.”
“Bring ’em by. We’ll give them the dollar tour.”
Esteban reminded Nate a lot of himself when he was young. They both had shitty fathers. They’d both grown up having shitty Christmases. And this ranch had helped save them both.
Nate had wound up at the Three Sisters Ranch after his father’s death. A vicious drunk who liked to use his fists, Nate’s father was bound to die young. He had died after his horse threw him. He had been drinking and was too rough on the horse. It bucked him off, and he slammed his head on a rock. They said he died instantly, which was a better end than the son of a bitch deserved.
Nate had been sixteen and after wandering around taking the odd ranch job here and there, he’d seen a flyer that the Three Sisters Ranch was hiring. Frank Sullivan had made him go to high school and get his diploma, but allowed him to live in the bunkhouse with the ranch hands. Nate worked on the ranch before and after school, and had felt damned lucky for the privilege.
And his Christmases had gotten much better, too. The ranch hands always did secret Santa gifts and the Sullivan family catered a big spread for them on Christmas Eve. After Nate graduated high school and was working on the ranch full-time, they’d invite Nate over for Christmas Day and it was almost like having a family, especially when he could have a few moments alone with Janice. Sometimes, he wondered when they were going to wake up and realize he wasn’t family. He was just the foreman and maybe one day they wouldn’t need him anymore. Hell, one day he might take a bad toss from a horse like his old man did. Of course, with his luck, Nate would live and then what would he do? Where would he go? Nate sighed. He hated this time of the year. His mind always asked stupid-ass questions like that during the holidays. Best to just ignore them and get on with work.
“I heard that the Daughters of Last Stand were going to put up an angel tree in the library with requests from the kids as ornaments. We should take a ride next week and see if we can get something for the older kids, the teenagers.”
He and Esteban exchanged a grim look, but didn’t say anything further on the subject. That’s what he liked about the younger man. He didn’t fill up silence with stuff that didn’t need to be said.
“My two brothers are looking for work. Any chance there might be some openings in the new year?”
Nate shook his head regretfully. “I don’t think so.”
Esteban nodded. “Yeah, I figured. But maybe there’ll be a Christmas miracle or something.”
And that was the difference between Esteban and him. Esteban still believed in shit like that.
“Christmas is just another day.”
“Whatever you say, Ebenezer Scrooge.”
“Bah humbug. Quit jabbering at me and go catch that calf.” Nate jerked his chin at a longhorn baby making a run for it.
Chapter Four
Janice’s father pulled up in his truck and rolled down the window. “You want a ride?”
Frank Sullivan looked tired, but determined. Janice wished he’d let Nate and the boys take care of things. She’d much rather have her father tooling around the ranch on the Gator and doing chores closer to the ranch house.
