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The feel of him against her, chest to chest, thigh to thigh, sucked all the remaining air from her lungs.
“What are you doing?” she gasped, wishing he didn’t feel so very, very good.
Wishing he hadn’t just reminded her of all that had been missing from her life.
He threaded his hand through her hair, let it settle tenderly on the nape of her neck. “What any alpha male would do in this situation.” Grinning, he bent his head toward hers.
Hope tingled all over. Lower still, there was a kindling warmth. Cursing the forbidden excitement welling within her, she whispered, “Garrett...for pity’s sake...you can’t... I can’t...!”
He laughed again, even more wickedly. His lips hovered above hers, so close their breaths were meeting as sensually and irrevocably as the rest of them.
“Kiss you and see if you kiss me back?” he taunted softly, stroking the pad of his thumb along the curve of her lips—top, then bottom. “Oh, yes, Hope Winslow, I sure as hell can.”
Not only can, Hope thought, as an avalanche of excitement roared through her. Did.
His lips fit over hers, coaxingly at first, then with more and more insistence. She told herself to resist. Tried to resist. But her treacherous body refused to listen to her heart, which had been wounded, and her mind, which absolutely knew better.
She had been alone for so long.
Had needed to be touched, held, for months now.
She hadn’t expected to be cherished as if she were the most wonderful woman on Earth. But that was exactly what he was doing, as he stroked his hand through her hair and, with his other palm flattened against her spine, guided her closer until her breasts were pressed against the unyielding hardness of his chest. Lower still, she felt the heat in his thighs and the building desire. And knew her life had just begun to get hopelessly complicated...
* * *
GARRETT HADN’T COME out to the ranch thinking they would be alone for one single second. Hadn’t figured he would ever act on the need that had consumed him since the second her bottom landed square on his lap, the softness of her breasts pushing into his face.
Oh, he’d known he wanted her from the instant he had seen her checking him out in the DC airport. She was just so gorgeous, so haughty and unreachable in that all-business way of hers.
Seeing she had an infant whom she cared deeply for, knowing she was irrevocably wedded to life in Texas while he was not, had added yet another reason he should keep his hands off.
He might have managed it, too, if she hadn’t been working so hard to curtail the attraction she so obviously felt.
Because Hope was right about one thing. Her denial had brought out the alpha male in him. Made him want to pursue her like she had never been pursued before.
That pursuit, in turn, had kindled his own raging desire. And then she had kissed him back, her tongue entwined with his in a way that could bring him to his knees and one day, hopefully, land them both in bed.
Luckily for the two of them she came to her senses and pushed him away. Breathing raggedly, she stepped back, a gut-wrenching turmoil in her low tone he hadn’t expected. “I can’t do this.”
Pressing her hand to her kiss-swollen lips, she shook her head. “I can’t lose everything because of one reckless moment. Not again.”
* * *
SILENCE FELL BETWEEN THEM, as awful and wrenching as her voice. Mortified, Hope yanked open her car door and climbed behind the wheel.
Garrett walked to the passenger side and pulled himself in beside her. “When did that happen?”
Hope concentrated on starting the engine. Driving, the normalcy of it, would help. She looked behind her, then backed up until she reached the gravel road that led to the barns. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“And I shouldn’t have kissed you,” Garrett admitted gruffly, his big body filling up the passenger compartment the way no one else ever had. “But now that I did, and you kissed me back...”
He shrugged like a soldier on leave.
As if the fact that he had just returned from a war zone entitled him to something. Namely, a woman willing to have a fling.
She had found out the hard way, however, through her ill-advised liaison with Max’s daddy, that woman was not her.
“That shouldn’t have happened, either,” she said stiffly, as the SUV wound past the damaged wooden fence to the lone building a distance away from everything.
She didn’t have to guess what it was.
A sign next to the door of the cedar-sided, tin-roofed building said Circle H Ranch Bunkhouse.
A bright red welcome mat stood in front of the heavy wooden door. Pots of flowers, a couple of small tables and some rough-hewn Adirondack chairs decorated the front porch. Lamps, emitting a soft yellow glow on either side of the entry had been turned on.
If the inviting exterior was any indication of the inside of the domicile, then Lucille had been right, they would be comfortable here.
Hope cut the engine and got out of the car. Quietly, she opened the rear passenger door, unfastened Max’s safety seat from the base of the restraint and lifted him out. To her relief, her sweet little boy slept blissfully on.
Garrett grabbed the diaper bag and went on ahead, to find the key that had been left beneath the mat. “Is all this because you’re working for my mother?” He reached inside and switched the interior lights on.
“Believe it or not—” Hope squared her shoulders as she passed “—working for your mother doesn’t include making out with you.”
* * *
GARRETT WAS PRETTY sure Hope hadn’t meant to say that. Any more than she’d meant to do anything she had the last fifteen minutes or so. Nevertheless, he was pleased to see her letting down her guard. He wanted to get to know the real Hope Winslow, not the sophisticated facade she showed the world.
He watched as she set the carrier holding her sleeping infant down. “I won’t interfere with that. Well, no more than I would have, anyway.”
She smiled at him as if they hadn’t just brought each other’s bodies roaring back to life. “Good to know, Captain.”
Together, they took a quick tour of the newly renovated bunkhouse.
The central part of the structure included an open-concept kitchen with a breakfast bar that looked out onto the great room, complete with a TV and U-shaped sofa and a large plank table with a dozen chairs plus an arm chair on each end. On each side of it was a hallway that led to three bedrooms. All six bedrooms were outfitted identically, with a queen-sized bed, desk, dresser and private bath. His mom had been right, Garrett noted. They all could be very comfortable here.
Except for the awareness simmering between Hope and him...
“I don’t understand why you think it would matter if we did become...closer. I’m not the one employing you—my mother is.”
Hope sighed, apparently appreciating his use of the least offensive word he could think of. “It would still look bad.”
“And that concerns you, how things look?”
“Yes.” Stepping closer, she slid him a surprised glance. “Doesn’t it concern you?”
He exhaled his exasperation. “Not really. Something is either right or it’s wrong. What we just experienced felt very right.”
Hope turned away as if they hadn’t just shared an embrace that had rocked his world. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, as if to a four-year-old. “Scandal management is all about appearances.”
Ah, appearances. The bane of his youth.
He moved close enough to see the frustration glimmering in her eyes.
Her elegant features tinged an emotional pink, she said, “I just started my own firm. Your mother’s scandal is the first crisis I’m handling, solo. It has to go well.”
Of course business came first with her.
“Or?”
She sighed, completely vulnerable now as she met his gaze, seeming on the verge of tears. “Or my reputation really will be ruined.”
That was almost as hard to believe as the way he was suddenly feeling about her, as if she might just be worth sticking around for. He moved closer yet. Seeing it was a tear trembling just beneath her lower lash, he lifted a thumb, gently brushed it away. “Over one job?” And one very long, satisfying kiss that had led him to want so much more?
She swallowed, stepped back. The tenderness he felt for her doubled.
“I made a mistake when I was working for my previous employer.”
He couldn’t imagine it being as calamitous as she was making it out to be. It was all he could do not to take her back in his arms. “What happened?”
For a second he thought she wouldn’t answer, then she apparently thought better of it—maybe because she knew in this day and age almost anything could be researched on the internet.
Hope turned and walked back out to her SUV. She lifted out the pack-n-play, handed it off to him, then pulled out a box of diapers and a bag of baby necessities. “I got involved with a British journalist reporting on a scandal involving the American ambassador’s son. Nothing happened between us during the crisis. But there was a flirtation that later turned into a love affair.”
He grabbed her suitcase and headed up the steps alongside her. No wonder she’d reacted the way she had when his mother accused them of flirting. “I’m guessing it ended badly?”
Hope set her things down in the bedroom farthest from the living area. She opened up the pack-n-play, erecting it quickly. “I wanted marriage and a family. Lyle didn’t. So we broke up. A few weeks later, he was killed in a motorcycle accident while on vacation with another woman. A couple of weeks after that, I discovered I was pregnant with Max.”
Although he felt bad for all she’d been through, he realized he liked her better like this, showing her more vulnerable side.
“Sounds rough. But you were happy about the pregnancy?”
Hope smiled softly, glowing a little at the memory. “I was over the moon.”
He could see that. And it was easy to understand why. She had a great kid.
Hope stroked a hand through her honey-gold hair. “My bosses, however, were not anywhere near as ecstatic.”
Hope went back to put a soft cotton sheet over the crib mattress. She bent over, tucking in the elastic edges, while he stood by, watching, knowing she had no idea just how beautiful she was, never mind what she could do to a man, just by being, breathing...
She straightened, her green eyes serious, as she looked up at him. “My superiors worried, even though I had already arranged for a nanny from a topflight agency to assist me, that a baby would interfere with my ability to manage crises.”
Her teeth raked her plump lower lip, reminding him just how passionately she kissed. “Plus, they were upset about the rumors started by some of my rivals that hinted I’d leaked confidential information to Lyle Loddington, prior to our affair. It wasn’t true. I never disclosed even a smidgen of confidential information about anything to him. But you know how people think, where there’s love, there is pillow talk...”
Pillow talk with her would have to be amazing. Not to mention everything that came before it.
With effort, he forced his mind back to the conversation. “So your employer fired you?”
“I was asked to resign.”
It was easy to see that still stung. He got angry on her behalf. “You could have fought it.”
He followed her back outside to the rear of her SUV. Together, they carried what was left of their luggage inside. “Yes,” she agreed, “but if I had I would have done even more damage to my reputation in the process.” He shut the door quietly behind them. “So I decided to use what I had learned and start my own firm—which would allow me to control the timing and length of my maternity leave—and go back to work when Max was six months old.”
“Which would have been three months from now.”
“Right. And I’m happy with that decision, even though I was persuaded to return to work a little earlier than I had planned. I like the way my life is shaping up, Garrett.”
Able to see she didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that, he took her hand. “I’m sorry you had such a tough time.” Crazy as it sounded, he wished he had been there to support and protect her. To help her though whatever upheaval she’d had to face. It’s not something anyone should have to go through alone.
Her expression grew stony with resolve. “It was my fault. I was reckless. But I’m not going to be reckless again.”
Chapter Four (#ufbc312c9-65ce-53b9-835a-4154de038578)
“You’re not planning to go back to work now, are you?” Garrett asked, a short while later. He opened up the fridge that had been stocked by the bunkhouse caretaker in advance of their arrival, brought out a big stack of deli meats and cheeses and laid them out on the concrete kitchen countertop, next to an assortment of bakery goods.
Hope set her laptop and phone down on the breakfast bar just long enough to grab a small bunch of green grapes and pour herself a tall glass of milk.
“No choice.” Ignoring his look of concern, she settled on a tall stool opposite him. Ten thirty at night or not, she had business to conduct. And she needed to do it while her son was sound asleep. “I have to check the message boards for the news outlets reporting on the scandal, to see how the news thus far is being received.”
Garrett spread both sides of a multigrain roll with spicy brown mustard, then layered on lettuce, tomato, ham, turkey and cheddar cheese. “There’s nothing you can do about the way people think.”
“Au contraire, Captain Lockhart.”
He grinned.
Too late, she realized that flip remark had been a mistake.
He thought she was flirting with him again. And she definitely. Was. Not.
Hope turned her attention back to the task at hand. Her mood flatlined.
“That bad?”
Hope grimaced. “Worse than I expected and I expected it to be...bad.”
“Hit me with the highlights,” he said, twisting the cap off a beer.
Clearing her throat, she read, “‘Those Lockharts should all be put in jail—’”
“We have not done anything illegal.”
But someone might have, Hope knew. “‘The whole foundation should be shut down...’” she continued.
Flicking a glance her way, Garrett crossed his arms over his chest. Fresh out of the shower, in a pair of gray running shorts and T-shirt stamped Army, he looked relaxed. And sexy as hell. “An overreaction.”
Hitching in a quavering breath, Hope turned back to the article and recited, “‘Why do the rich always feel the need to steal from the poor?’”
A ghost of a smile crossed his mouth. “I’m detecting a theme.”
