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“Well, you’re done now. Your arm’s going to be sore.”
“But tomorrow I’ll be on a horse. I need to try it on a horse.”
“Ivy…”
“Noah…just a few times, so that I won’t be nervous tomorrow?”
“One or both of us will fall off the horse asleep tomorrow if we don’t finish up here soon,” he muttered, but he led her to Binny, a sweet little palomino. “She’s gentle and patient.”
Which was a good thing. Roping from horseback was more complicated than being on foot. Ivy didn’t really reach proficiency, but she was beginning to be afraid that Noah was right. They both had to work tomorrow, and…he had a child waiting. The thought made Ivy feel guilty. She sighed, turning in the saddle to apologize to Noah for keeping him out so late.
“You are tired,” he said, misinterpreting her sigh. “That’s enough, Ivy.” With that, he reached up and plucked her from Binny’s back, sliding her to the ground. “Bed,” he said.
She blinked. His hands were still around her waist. He was so close. She was still tingling from the contact, and the word bed hung between them.
Noah swore, and not beneath his breath this time. He let her go. “Don’t argue with me anymore today, Ivy. Just go.” He was obviously not any happier than she was at the arc of electricity that had passed between them.
Ivy’s breathing was still erratic. “Okay,” she said in a rush. “I’m done. Don’t worry.”
But she worried for a long time before she fell asleep. If she were smart, she’d give Noah a wide berth from now on…even if she couldn’t stop thinking about how his hands had felt on her.
Apparently Noah had been thinking the same thing, because the next day he worked mostly with Darrell and assigned her to Brody. The day passed and the one after that. She and Noah spoke very little other than basic greetings. Most of her orders came through Brody.
Still, whenever she saw Noah in the distance—working, riding, lifting his daughter onto his shoulders—something about him made her stop and look.
On the third day Ivy was gathering equipment to go help Darrell repair a windmill when she saw Noah heading toward the house. The door flew open, and Lily came tumbling out, running in that frantic, wobbly way that two-year-olds run.
“Da!” she squealed, raising her arms, confident that her daddy would pick her up.
“Hey, pumpkin, how’s my girl? Did you get away from Marta?” Noah scooped up the tiny child and swung her into his arms right against his chest.
Ivy couldn’t turn away. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t stop thinking about Bo’s toddler laughter that she had never heard. And yet that wasn’t this child’s or this man’s fault.
She stared, even though the pain cut right through her, razor sharp, leaving a trail of desolation she couldn’t control. It came upon her suddenly, tracking her down, forcing her to remember that she would never, ever get to hear Bo laugh. Never.
Tears slipped down her cheeks, and she swiped them away. She fought the keening wail that threatened to escape her. Then Noah began to turn.
Ivy ran. She stumbled into the toolshed, scrubbed her face with her hands and began rummaging through the tools, blindly looking for…something. She didn’t even know what she was looking for.
The shadow that fell over her told her that he was standing in the doorway. “Be right there,” she said, hoping that her voice didn’t sound too thick.
“Ivy.” He knew. He’d seen.
“I just have to get a few tools. Darrell and I are going to fix the windmill out on Jessup Flats. Darrell’s waiting.”
“Ivy, I’m sorry.”
She turned, pushing her chin high. “Don’t be. She’s a sweet little girl. She’s yours. The fact that I lost my son—that doesn’t mean you should apologize for having a daughter.”
“I’m not.” He came into the room.
No. Don’t, she thought. I’m not strong right now. I need to get my feisty back on so no one can see the cracks. Hiding the cracks was all that had gotten her through most of her life.
“Then there’s nothing to apologize for,” she said. “Don’t be silly.”
“I’m never silly.” He said the word as if he didn’t know the meaning. She had to admit that she had desperately pulled that one out of a hat, trying to change the tone in a wild stab at regaining her composure and her cool. Models didn’t show emotion unless directed to.
But I’m not a model anymore.
Maybe not, but she still lived by those rules. “It’s been a long time since I helped fix a windmill. Has the technology changed?” she asked, peering into the tool bin.
“Not around here.” He reached past her, scooped up a pipe wrench and handed it to her. When both their hands were on the tool, he didn’t let go. “I thought you were away from the house, with Brody. I’m sorry for your loss, Ivy.”
Okay, he was going to insist on being nice, on doing the polite thing. Maybe that would make it easier. All she had to do was be polite right back and he would go. She wouldn’t have to keep wishing that he would touch her. Noah—with his child when she could not be around children and with his ranch when she could not live on a ranch—was the worst man on earth for her. But…she knew how to politely talk her way out of a situation, didn’t she?
“Thank you. I appreciate that,” she said. “It helps.”
He uttered a curse word that she was pretty darn sure he never used around Lily. “It doesn’t help. Even a brute like me knows that, Ivy. So…has anything helped?”
Ah, there was her out. “Work. Work helps.”
“Then I guess I’d better let you go.” But he didn’t let go of the wrench.
“Noah?”
“What?”
Her mind was a jumble. He was so close. She was so…darn, he was so close. She glanced down at their fingers, only inches away from each other. His gaze followed hers. “I don’t like this…this physical stuff messing with my job,” she said, tugging on the wrench. “So why don’t you just kiss me so we can get it over with?”
Ivy’s suggestion shocked even her. Well, she wasn’t exactly thinking straight right now. And why not kiss the man? Everyone in town seemed to think she had come to Tallula on a mission to collect men anyway. Why not live up to their expectations, spit in their eyes the way she always had? Her city-bred parents had been snooty to the people of Tallula, and Ivy had always been an outsider, long before she’d left and become an actual outsider. She’d learned to tough it out, act the part. Slipping back into that persona would probably be easy enough.
“Or better yet, I’ll kiss you,” she said. She rose on her toes, grasped Noah’s shirt and planted one quick kiss on his lips.
Simple. Easy. No. Not either of those. At all. Noah’s lips were warm; his masculine scent surrounded her; his big body made her want to curl closer.
Panic ensued, and Ivy rushed toward the door before she could do something stupid…like let Noah see how that kiss had affected her. “Now,” she said as nonchalantly as she could, “we’ve got that behind us, so we can totally forget this ever happened and get on with our lives. And don’t ever apologize to me again for loving your daughter.”
She fled, her lips burning, her cheeks on fire. And, she soon realized, she had left without a single tool. What on earth would she tell Darrell?
She didn’t know…or care. She had kissed Noah Ballenger. Was she totally insane?
“Yes,” she whispered. “But at least he isn’t pitying me right now.”
He was probably getting ready to fire her butt.
Chapter Four
NOAH FELT LIKE a restless lion who’d been prowling solo for months and had just realized that there was a female in the vicinity.
Ivy would probably hate that comparison. That rigid backbone, determined chin and all that sass were hard evidence that she had a boatload of pride. And she was doing her damnedest to hang on to it. She liked to play tough, to keep people off guard so that they couldn’t see the pain she was carrying. Even someone like him who was a heck of a lot better with horses than with women could see that. That was why she’d kissed him, wasn’t it? To distract him from feeling sorry for her.
Well, it had certainly worked. For a few minutes his entire body had flamed. His brain cells had fried. Every nerve ending on his body had reacted. That mouth, that silky, soft mouth that tasted of peppermint and some indefinable sweetness that was hers alone had left him wanting to chase her down, pull her against his body and plunder that mouth again.
That would have been incredibly dumb. She had been right. The sparks had been flying between them from the first, but they needed to get that out of the way, because there could be nothing between them.
She couldn’t even look at Lily. And he would never allow Lily to be hurt again. He would never get tangled up with anyone who would desert his child.
Ivy and her luscious lips were off-limits. And he would just have to suck it up and take it. And consider himself lucky that he had gotten one taste.
“I saw you kiss Ivy.” Brody’s voice came from behind him.
Oh, hell, Noah thought. He couldn’t even defend himself. He didn’t want Brody to know that it was Ivy who had done the kissing, especially since she’d kissed him only to get rid of him. Hadn’t the woman been hurt enough?
“You didn’t see anything,” Noah said. “It was nothing.”
“Nothing sure looked hot.”
“Nothing is ever going to happen again,” Noah reiterated. But he wondered if he was trying to convince Brody or himself.
Well, she had certainly done it, Ivy thought. Kissing Noah had seemed like a good idea at the time. She’d been sizzling every time he got near and she had thought that kissing him would kill two birds with one stone. It would get him to stop pitying her for losing her child while he still had his, and it would release the physical tension that had been building between them.
“Wrong on at least one count,” she whispered. Now that she’d felt Noah’s mouth beneath hers, she wanted to kiss him again. She wanted him to kiss her, and she wanted…she looked down at her hands. She wanted to touch him.
“Argh!” she said, rubbing a cloth over the kitchen counter of the crew house. She had moved out of her old home that was filled with ghosts and bad memories. The spartan little cottage suited her. There were no memories here. Under other circumstances and on any other day, it would have been perfect.
Today this house and the ranch simply reminded her of Noah, the last person she needed to be thinking about. He couldn’t be in her plans; she couldn’t be in his.
She needed to get away, and her parents’ house wasn’t a good choice. Where could she go?
Well, she did need to pick up a few things, and playing “bad Ivy” with the townspeople would at least take her mind off Noah. There would be tension, but the tension in Tallula would be the kind she could handle.
Borrowing the old ranch pickup that Brody had told her she could use, she headed for Tallula, parked and walked into a small department store. As she entered, several people turned toward her.
Immediately a salesclerk rushed up. “Ms. Seacrest, may I help you? That is…we don’t carry too many fancy things…”
“Nothing a model would wear,” another woman said, her tone judgmental. Ivy recognized the woman. She’d been a pretty girl, but the boy she’d liked had been fixated on Ivy. Now, remembering the ache she felt every time she witnessed the closeness between Noah and his daughter, closeness that had been torn away from her, Ivy felt a twinge of responsibility toward the woman and dismissed her snooty remarks. Maybe she was married and the marriage wasn’t going well. Maybe she and her husband had fought this morning. Maybe she was worried that Ivy would overshadow her again and steal her happiness.
So even though her first reaction as a teenager would have been to put up her chin and say something smart, or to act cool and unmoved, Ivy decided to take a different tack, to try to be nice in the face of nastiness.
“It’s okay. I’m sure you have exactly what I need,” she said. “I’ll look around until I find what I want.”
Silence settled in. Ivy’s heart thudded. She reminded herself that she had always been an outsider here and always would be. And why should she care, when she wasn’t staying?
She drifted over to a rack of cotton work shirts, then found some inexpensive but pretty scarves, looking up to see the belligerent woman still staring at her. What had the woman’s name been? Oh, yes, Sandra. The other women had nodded curtly at Ivy’s speech, and one or two had even smiled a little, but not this one. Clearly, Ivy’s speech hadn’t mollified Sandra.
Ivy soon found out why. There was a small coffee shop in the store, and a few of the women wandered over there. Whispering ensued. A few looks were cast Ivy’s way.
Finally one woman separated from the rest and approached Ivy. “I know we haven’t met. I didn’t live here back when you did. I married into Tallula,” the woman said. “I’m Alicia Kendall.” She held out her hand.
Ivy blinked and shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Alicia.”
“Ask her about Noah,” a woman called.
Ivy’s heart started thudding. The women of the town had decided that she was here to mine men. Did they think she was trying to seduce Noah?
“What do you want to know?” she asked, raising her chin defensively and looking directly at the woman who had asked the question.
For half a second the woman looked embarrassed, but then she shrugged. “What’s he up to? He almost never comes to town. You can’t blame a single woman for being interested in what a good-looking single man is doing. I mean…can you? Don’t you think he’s handsome?”
Ivy hesitated. “Is this a test?” she finally asked.
The woman blinked, and Ivy gave her a slow smile. “Sorry. Bad habit,” Ivy said. “I guess I was a bit of a smart mouth when I lived here, wasn’t I?”
“More standoffish, I’d say,” another woman said, looking down her nose a bit. “Since you asked.”
Was this the strangest conversation? Ivy wondered. She’d been here for several days before being hired, and no one had wanted anything to do with her. She had wanted nothing to do with them. There was friction in the air. So…why was she half enjoying this exchange?
But she knew. When she’d lived here, she’d always felt trapped, a fish out of water…or maybe a fish frantically swimming in circles in a teacup. Then, when she returned and had been trying to find work, she’d been scared. But now that Noah had hired her…well, she knew she wasn’t staying. She had a job; she wasn’t trapped. She could relax a bit, she decided. Interact.
“Fair enough,” she agreed. “I was standoffish.” She’d never been good at the up-close-and-personal stuff, because her home hadn’t been that way. “But I’m afraid I can’t tell you much about Noah. I just work for him. I hang with the hands.”
That seemed to satisfy most of the women. But they didn’t drop the topic of Noah. “It’s a shame he never brings Lily to town,” one woman said.
“A child should have contact with other children.”
“A man shouldn’t be alone,” Sandra said. “Noah deserves a good woman, his own kind.” She looked at Ivy, and Ivy was tempted to hold up her hands as if to say This has nothing to do with me. But she remembered that kiss. She just couldn’t forget that kiss.
Another woman laughed. “As if he couldn’t have one if he wanted. Give it up, Sandra. He’ll marry when he wants to. Lily, now, she’s another story. She’s growing up alone on a ranch with no other kid contact. That’s wrong.”
“Are you going to tell Noah that?” Alicia asked.
“Tell Noah how to raise his daughter? I’d sooner tell the devil that he should have air-conditioning in hell. Some things you just don’t do if you don’t want to have your head bitten off.”
“I think he should bring her to town,” Sandra suddenly said.
“You just want Noah here so you can slobber over him.”
Someone else laughed. “It would be nice to have the chance to gaze on Noah now and then. Someday he might get over Pamala, but if he doesn’t come to town, he won’t even think about one of us. And we can’t just make up some excuse to go see him, either. He’d see right through that.”
There was a sudden silence, and Ivy looked up to see several speculative glances on her. What was that about? Were they looking at her scars? Had they finally noticed the obvious?
Ivy didn’t know, but she once again felt like an outsider. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter, she reminded herself. She’d be gone soon enough.
For now, she just wanted to escape. She quickly paid for her things and headed for the door.
“Goodbye, Ivy,” someone called out, to her surprise.
Ivy turned and saw Alicia’s encouraging smile. Several more women called goodbye, albeit with less enthusiasm.
