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“Gigi, she just said she didn’t think it was a smart idea.”
“Nonsense. Sam, hop on down from there. Clint can take care of Red.”
“But, I—”
“Best do as she asks,” Clint advised. “Once she gets an idea in her head, you’re not going to get it out.”
“Are you sure?” she asked Gigi.
“I’m sure, honey. Now hop on down from there.”
“But I can untack him.” Sam slipped out of the saddle.
“Excellent idea,” Clint said with his own bright smile—though his was false. Okay, maybe not false, more like wolfish. He’d spotted the blush on Samantha’s face, the one that had flared at his “I’d love to have you” comment. “Maybe we can both do it together.”
“Clinton,” his grandmother snapped in warning. “Quit teasing her. You’re making her uncomfortable.”
Obviously, his grandmother had spotted the blush on Samantha’s face, too. He looked at Gigi in question. He hadn’t seen her so protective in…well, he couldn’t remember when she’d taken someone under her wing so thoroughly, and in such a short amount of time. She must like Samantha Davies a lot. Then again, he supposed that was to be expected. He and Gigi had been through more than their fair share of grief. First his parents, then her own husband five years ago to a heart attack. His grandmother had deeded the ranch to him, she’d been so stricken by grief. For a time there, Clint wasn’t sure she’d make it through. But she’d managed to recover. And now she had that light back in her eyes.
“I’m sure Sam’s tired from her drive. You can take care of the horse.”
“That’s okay, Mrs. Baer, I can do it myself—”
“Gigi,” his grandmother said. “Everyone calls me that.”
Everyone? The only person to call her that was him.
“Gigi, I’d really like to untack and brush him myself.”
“She could untack and brush me,” Clint said under his breath.
His grandmother shot him a look and muttered out of the side of her mouth, “What you’re after is a piece of ass, and don’t think I don’t know it.”
“Gigi!” Clint said, pretending to be horrified. He opened the gate for Sam and smiled up at her. “Seriously,” he said to Samantha, “I’ll help you out.”
Maybe he could scare her into going away.
SHE COULD UNTACK AND BRUSH ME.
Had he been flirting with her when he’d said that? Somehow she doubted it. And why didn’t he want her to know who he was? Earlier, when she’d been talking to his grandmother, it’d been clear that he’d wanted Eugenia to introduce him as a simple ranch hand…and not as his grandson.
Why?
“Clint,” she said. “I, uh…I know you’re Eugenia’s grandson.”
He stopped so suddenly Red tossed his head. “You do?”
She nodded.
“Did Gigi tell you?”
She shook her head. “I knew from the first moment I met you.”
“Oh,” he said. She could tell he was trying to hide his surprise from her.
Moisture still hung heavy in the air. A breeze played with her short hair and it blew the scent of him toward her.
He smelled like a man.
And she was attracted to that scent. It made her recall—perfectly—what he’d looked like with his shirt open. Those cords of muscle, the tan hue of his skin, the way she’d caught him looking at her earlier, as if he’d like to—
Sam!
“She’s really a special lady,” she said through a throat gone dry with—okay, she should just admit it—lust. She hadn’t been with a man since the Mesozoic era.
“Yes, she is.”
But she wasn’t the type to indulge in an affair although if there was one time in her life when it might be okay to do something impulsive, that was now. Sex with him would be something to remember for a lifetime, and since she was going blind…
Blind.
She couldn’t breathe for a moment, forced her lungs to pump air to her heart. The sad truth was that she couldn’t imagine it. She could only try her best to prepare for it. She’d been left behind for some reason. She had to believe that reason would present itself at some point in the future.
Maybe it was the Baer Mountain Mustangs.
“Tell me about them,” she said, their entrance into the barn giving Sam a second or two of panic when her vision dimmed. But it was only her eyes adjusting to the sudden darkness.
“Tell you about what?”
She led Red to the cross-ties. “The mustangs.”
He didn’t say anything. She swiveled around and grabbed Red’s halter from the hook Clint had hung it on.
“Yeah,” he said. “About the mustangs.”
She slipped the bridle from Red’s head, before turning back to him. The horse spat the bit out as if he was aiming for a spittoon.
“What about them?”
“Gigi can be too trusting sometimes. Gullible. Naive.”
“So can we all,” she said, remembering a time when she’d thought life would never change. It had only been last December. She was too young—just barely twenty-six. Her parents had still been young, too, and healthy. They’d had years ahead of them. Or so she’d thought, four months ago.
“She likes you,” he said. “But the jury’s still out as far as I’m concerned.”
She slipped the halter over Red’s head. “That’s not what it seemed like earlier,” she said as she buckled the crown piece. Though she was losing more and more of her peripheral vision, she’d been having trouble focusing up close, too. She worried about what that might mean, then shook her head. What did she have to fear? That she was going blind? She already knew that for sure.
Enjoy every day.
Her doctor’s words echoed in her ears. She would enjoy every day. That was going to be her motto from here on out. So when she finished, she faced Clint with more bravado than she truly felt. Maybe it was the gut-wrenching realization that she would be unable to see him in the not-too-distant future. Maybe it boiled down to good, old-fashioned lust—God, she’d never forget what he looked like tapping that pole into the ground—but for some reason, she felt like playing with him.
“You mean you can take me to the mustangs, but then you’ll have to kill me?”
“I, well, I—” He frowned. “No. Of course not. I’m just not taking you anywhere until your background checks out.”
“So you’re going to do a background check on me?” she said, closing the distance between them. He seemed to lean away from her. Or maybe he didn’t. But his pupils flared, his chin lifting a bit when she got too close. Like a horse about to turn and run, Clint’s muscles tensed. She could see the cords of his neck pop out, watched as his eyes narrowed.
She would never forget his luminescent blue eyes.
And hungry.
He was attracted to her.
“You could be a reporter for all I know,” he said.
“I’m not.”
“Just what are you then?” He scooted closer to her, turning the tables.
He leaned into her. Sam couldn’t breathe. And then she sucked in a breath…and got a mouthful of musky-smelling Clinton McAlister.
“Who are you, Samantha Davies?”
Chapter Six
One of the horses snorted in the stall behind Sam. He saw her jump. She was on edge. Excellent. So was he.
“What do you do for a living?” he asked, staring into her big, green eyes. “So far all I know is that you ride horses.” He smirked. “English.”
“And that should reassure you,” she said, lifting her chin. “I’m a horse person, and so I can’t be half-bad.” She patted Red.
He moved even closer, smiling when he saw her swallow. Hard.
“Yeah,” he said softly, “but what do you do for a living?” he asked again. The question wasn’t that hard. He must have her rattled.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” he repeated, and he could swear he felt heat emanating from her all of a sudden. Her cheeks grew rosy, and then the color spread to her neck.
“I’m a geologist.”
That caught him off guard. “A geologist?”
She shoved a strand of hair away from her eyes. The wind had mussed it up. “I put myself through school, found myself a high paying job. I used to work for one of the chemical companies.”
“Used to? What happened? You get fired?” He wasn’t thinking right. Under normal circumstances he would never ask such a rude question.
She must have him rattled.
“I had to quit. They gave me three months off to heal, longer if I needed it, but I’m still sort of recovering from my injuries. Plus, I started having issues at work, couldn’t focus…so I quit.”
“Quit and came here.”
She nodded.
“But you said you have a horse. One that you used to show.”
“I do have a horse, but he’s for sale down in Texas.”
“You don’t strike me as the type that would want to sell her horse.”
She shrugged. “My medical bills, the portion that the insurance company didn’t cover. It was expensive. My horse is worth a lot of money. I have to do what I can to pay the bills.”
So she was selling her horse. The only thing she owned, if he didn’t miss his guess.
The whole story kind of made him sick. And what injuries was she still recovering from? She looked fine to him.
“You should probably get going before Gigi comes out here and tans my hide for keeping you too long.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she said, hooking the left stirrup over the horn of the saddle so she could undo the girth.
“I thought you didn’t know how to ride western?” he asked, resting a hand on Red’s neck.
“I said I didn’t ride in a western saddle, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how the saddles work.”
Despite himself, his gaze drifted downward to her rear. The memory of how it’d felt to have her be the aggressor, however briefly, made his body react in a way that made him uncomfortable given that he’d just met her.
She glanced at him—and caught him still staring at her behind.
A smile slowly lifted the edges of her mouth. “Do I have dirt on me?” she asked.
He knew she knew exactly what he’d been doing: checking her out. But that didn’t seem to bother her, and for the first time he found himself thinking that it might not be a bad thing that she was staying in the house.
“Your rear looks great to me,” he said, throwing caution to the wind.
“So does yours.”
“You sure you don’t want to bunk down in the room next to me?”
He’d pushed too far. He could tell by the way the back of her neck turned red and she suddenly devoted all her attention to Red. “No thanks,” she said as she pulled the heavy leather saddle toward her.
But a western saddle was not an English saddle and she began to tip backward under the weight of it.
“Careful,” he called, reaching out to help her. He pushed the saddle back on Red’s back just in time, and when he turned to steady her, they were belly-to-belly, Clint’s hands clutching her upper arms.
“Uh…thanks,” she said. “I, uh…I lost my balance.”
Let her go.
