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Her first impulse had been to settle into the booth with him and spend the evening catching up on the past, but she knew that she fell in love too easily and she’d learned that lesson the hard way. She felt almost proud of the way she resisted that urge.
She waved good-night to the cook and left before she gave in and returned to the corner booth where Seth sat. Keep walking, Lynn. The night air bit into her clothes and she shivered in her leather coat. It had been her grandfather’s and would keep her warm once she buttoned it.
The employee parking area was well lit, and Lynn approached her truck with no trepidation. But the stenciling on the side gave her pause. The McCoy Ranch—Home Of The Best Beef In Montana.
For how much longer? She had barely one hundred head left because that was all she could work on her own and still make ends meet. Tears burned the back of her eyes at her own stupidity. Trusting too easily had been her biggest weakness. Though she’d never be able to look at the world with a truly cynical eye, a part of her had been forever changed when Ronnie had taken her money and left her.
The highway ran behind the fence and she listened to the cars flying past. She’d never understood the obsession everyone had with getting out of Sagebrush. She’d loved her hometown and had never ventured farther than the airport in Billings to pick up friends.
Suddenly her entire world was in danger of falling apart and she was at the end of the line. She’d tried everything she could. She’d sold all the horses except for Thor, her gelding, leased part of the grazing pasture, boarded horses for the folks in town and taken this job. But there still was more debt than she could cover.
What was she going to do? Her plan, which had seemed so brilliant in the middle of the night, seemed a little weak today. She’d worked double shifts at the diner, and as she waited on tables, her mind had puzzled over the options.
There seemed damn few. Then the past had to walk in the front door like the precursor to a bad storm and look at her as if she was…what? A woman. It had been a long time since any man had looked at her like that. Ronnie had taken more with him than she’d realized. He’d taken part of her femininity with him, leaving her vulnerable and unsure in the one area she’d always been confident.
“Lynn?” Seth’s voice brushed over her like a warm wind, but she knew better than to believe what it promised. A man’s silky voice at night had never brought her anything but pain.
Damn. Instead of a clean getaway, now she was going to have to face him again. She pivoted toward him. He was cast half in shadows by the lamplight. His features were sharp and bold and for a minute he looked more comfortable than she’d ever seen him.
That disturbed her, but she shook it off. She needed to get home and get a good night’s sleep so she’d be prepared for her meeting tomorrow.
“Yes, Seth?”
“Why are you working here?”
“I like the change of pace.”
She’d never been able to look anyone in the eye while she lied to him. And it had gotten her into hot water more than once.
“You look tired,” he said.
She felt the fatigue as if for the first time. She glanced up and met his gaze. He compelled her to tell him the truth and she did. Just a little bit, a sop for her conscience. “I am.”
“Why are you really working here?”
“I don’t know. The people, I guess.”
“Really?”
“Yes, it’s too quiet at the ranch.” That was the truth. With the hands gone and the big old house to herself, she needed some conversation to distract her.
“If you ever need anything, Lynn, let me know. I owe your family.” She’d never seen him so earnest before. She’d seen him tough and ready to take on three older boys in a fight. She’d seen him eager to learn how to rope and brand cattle. She’d seen him with his dreams in his eyes as he’d looked at the night sky and told Matt about the solar system.
“You don’t owe us anything. You worked those summers you spent here.” And he’d given her brother someone to imitate. Someone to bond with and look up to. Especially after Daddy had died. She thought maybe the McCoys owed Seth more than he’d ever know.
A red tinge colored his neck. “Well, I tried to do my part.”
She realized then that Seth wasn’t all that comfortable with praise, and it made him seem a little more human. “I’ve got to go.”
“Will you give Matt this note when he comes home?” he asked, holding out a sheet of legal paper that had been folded neatly into thirds. Matt’s name was printed in large block letters. There was nothing timid about Seth, she thought.
“Sure,” she said, trying to convince herself that whatever she’d felt for Seth Connelly had died a long time ago. But somehow her hormones didn’t get that message. Her skin tingled when their fingers brushed. Her breath seemed harder to come by and her heart beat a bit faster. Chills spread up her arm. Her nipples tightened and her breasts felt heavy. For some reason her feet seemed planted to the ground.
She recognized the symptoms. Lust. Not now, she thought. Not again. The last time she’d followed her impulses around Seth she’d ended up brokenhearted. She’d learned too much and come too far from that sixteen-year-old girl to behave that way again. Or at least as a thirty year old she’d like to hope she did.
“I’ll stick it in the next letter I mail him,” she said.
“Thank you.”
She tugged her hand out from under his. “You’re welcome.”
She didn’t like the way he made her feel. Didn’t like that for the first time since Ronnie had taken her money and her heart, she was interested in a man. Especially didn’t like that the man was Seth.
Resolutely, she marched toward her truck and unlocked the door.
“Uh, Lynn?” When she turned to look at him, his eyes held the maturity of age and she knew that whatever she remembered of him she’d always liked him. Which was dangerous to her. Because he looked as if he needed a shoulder to cry on.
“Yes?”
He rubbed the bridge of his nose and then stepped closer to her. “It occurs to me that I owe you an apology.”
Oh, God. “I can’t imagine why.”
He moved another step closer. So close she could smell the coffee he’d drunk with dinner. “For that kiss I stole when you were sixteen.”
She didn’t want to have this conversation with Seth now. Never sounded like a good time to chat about it.
“You didn’t steal it.”
“I felt like I did after I walked away without a word.”
“Hey, I’m a mature woman now. I barely remember an embrace that long ago.”
“Really?”
No, but she’d rather give away the ranch than admit it. She shrugged.
“It haunts me,” he said simply. He started to walk away, his shoulders set and his stride bold.
His words cut through the protective layers she’d wrapped around herself. “Seth?”
He stopped, glancing over his shoulder at her. A light snow began to fall and it dusted his head and black trench coat.
“I…”
He nodded. She wasn’t sure he understood what she’d been trying to say.
“Me too,” she said finally and opened the door to her truck. She climbed in quickly and drove away, watching Seth standing there in the lightly falling snow.
For the first time in months she didn’t dream about the ranch or the diner. Instead, a pair of silver eyes plagued her dreams.
Two
It was well after midnight when Seth gave up trying to find a motel and turned down the familiar road that led to the McCoy ranch. He consoled himself with the thought that he could sleep in the bunkhouse with the ranch hands but he knew Lynn’s bed was where he really wanted to spend the night. A light flickered over the porch as the house came into view. A sole pickup was parked next to the kitchen entrance.
He pulled his Jag to a stop and went to the bunkhouse. It was deserted and locked up tight. Questions formed quicker than he could answer them. But he was tired and would seek those answers in the morning.
It was cold outside and he doubted he’d survive the night if he slept in the car. His options were limited. He’d have to disturb Lynn.
Only fair, his raging hormones agreed, since she’d been disturbing him all evening.
In the old days a spare key had been kept under the potted planter on the front porch. He was glad to see at least that hadn’t changed. He unlocked the door, replacing the key before he entered quietly. That was the one good thing to be said for a misspent youth; he knew how to move so silently that no one could hear him.
He turned left off the entryway toward the living room. As he made his way to the couch, he slammed into an ottoman that hadn’t been there in his memory and cursed under his breath. His shins ached and he heard footsteps upstairs.
“Matt, is that you?” Lynn’s voice was sleepy and husky.
Awareness tingled down his spine and stirred the flesh between his legs. He walked to the foyer and flipped on the hallway light. “No, it’s Seth.”
She descended the stairs before taking time to get a robe. The silk long johns she wore did little to mask her body, instead it seemed to frame it in a way meant to tease a man. But her clothes, imprinted with cartoon characters, clearly weren’t articles of seduction. She should have looked sweet and innocent instead of seductive. “Seth, what are you doing in my house?”
“There’s no place to stay in town.”
She stopped a few feet from him. He hadn’t realized earlier how much taller than she he was. She barely cleared his breastbone. His libido supplied him with the image of the two of them naked in a bed where she’d fit very comfortably into his arms.
She’s my best friend’s little sister, he reminded himself.
“Where are you headed?” she asked.
Straight to hell, he thought. He cleared his throat. “This is my destination.”
“Oh.”
“I thought I’d bunk with the men,” he said so that she wouldn’t suspect that he wanted her.
“No, you can’t. You’d better stay up here.” She wouldn’t look him in the eye, and he knew it was because she was planning on making up some story about where the cowpokes were who used to live there.
“I’ve been to the bunkhouse, Lynn. What happened?”
“Oh, we don’t have such a great need for overnight staff anymore.” Her hair fell to the middle of her back in tousled waves and the light reflected in it. He’d always loved her hair. Even as a tomboy teenager she’d had miles of hair. After she turned sixteen it had played into more than one of his fantasies while he’d slept under this roof.
“Why not?” he asked, trying to focus on anything but her body.
She sighed. “It’s the middle of the night and you must be tired.”
Seth knew the gentlemanly thing to do would be to get in his car and drive back down the highway until he found a place to stay, but he was tired.
“Can I stay here tonight? I’ll head back to Chicago in the morning.” He’d been turned out of better places and for less reason than Lynn had.
She touched his arm, and though he knew it was impossible, he seemed to feel her heat through the layers of his jacket and shirt. “Of course you can. I didn’t mean you should leave.”
“Thank you. I’ll grab my overnight bag and bunk down here,” he said. She’d tilted her head back to look him in the eye now that they were standing so close, and he realized she had a long, graceful neck. Her skin looked as pale as the moonbeams, and he wondered if it would taste as sweet as it looked.
“Do you really want to sleep on the sofa?”
“No. But I don’t want to disturb you.”
“You won’t. I didn’t even hear you enter the house.”
“I can be very quiet.”
“And then really noisy. What happened?”
“The ottoman.”
She chuckled. “Are you okay? I’ve hit that thing a time or two myself.”
The piece was old and heavy, made of solid oak with a pretty, embroidered covering that he knew Mrs. McCoy had made during her first year of marriage. It was a tradition in the McCoy family that the newlyweds made a piece of furniture for their new life together.
“Go get your bag. You can sleep in Matt’s room. I’ll change the sheets for you.”
“Thanks, Lynn.”
“No problem, Seth.”
The way she said his name made him wonder if she wasn’t remembering what it had been like to kiss him. And though he knew that would be a big mistake, it was all he could think of as he retrieved his overnight bag from the car. Think of her as your own sister, he cautioned himself. He tried to imagine one of his half sisters in those long johns waiting upstairs for him. But as he entered the house and climbed the stairs, he knew it wasn’t Alexandra, Tara or Maggie up there.
Even an image of Matt’s glowering face couldn’t keep his blood from flowing heavier or his loins from tightening. The only one who could do that was he. And the one thing Seth had always been able to do was keep his cool and his control. Why, then, did it feel as if he was barely hanging on?
Lynn turned off the shower at nine the next morning. She’d been up since dawn feeding Thor and the other horses that she boarded for the townsfolk. She’d slept better last night than she’d expected to. The security of knowing she wasn’t alone on the ranch should have been enough to ensure she didn’t spend the night twisting and turning in her bed. But Seth’s icy gaze and warm touch had haunted her dreams.
She’d hurried out of bed and refused to dwell on those thoughts. Seth was nothing more to her than an old family friend, and she didn’t have too many of them left. Most had died or moved on, leaving her alone for almost five years. Longer than she’d ever expected. Perhaps that loneliness was why she was so willing to latch on to Seth.
She had an appointment at the bank this morning and needed to get dressed. Her closet was a fashion nightmare, dominated by faded jeans and western shirts. In the back, in a plastic dry-cleaning bag, was her one suit, some designer label that she’d bought to wear to her mother’s funeral.
She dressed in it quickly but with care. If she had a chance of persuading Mr. Cochran at the bank to extend the loan, she needed to exude success. But how did success look? Seth would know, she thought.
It was too bad she couldn’t tell him the truth, because she could use his advice. He knew about making money. Heck, he came from one of the wealthiest families in Chicago. But he’d tell Matt and she wasn’t going to ask her big brother to bail her out of another mess.
She twisted her long hair into a chignon and applied the light makeup that she wore to church. The suit was cut with classic lines that flattered her lean frame. For a minute she glimpsed who she might have been if her family had lived in a city instead of this small rural town.
She didn’t hear any signs of life from Matt’s room as she walked down the stairs. Maybe she could sneak out before Seth woke. He’d be gone when she returned and she wouldn’t have to see him again.
The smell of coffee warned her that her luck was running par. She entered the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. At the breakfast table Seth had set up a laptop computer attached to her phone jack.
He made a few keystrokes on the computer and then turned to smile at her. For a minute she forgot why she thought she couldn’t trust him.
“Good morning.” His voice was low and husky, masculine in the early morning. She wasn’t used to a man’s voice and it startled her. Seth had obviously taken a shower before coming downstairs and was dressed again in casual elegance.
