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A wave of unexpected contentment flowing through her, she snuggled the sleepy Robby, breathing in his sweet baby scent. “Speaking of family, though, yours must be happy to have you back in Texas again.”
His expression darkened and the corners of his lips slanted downward. “They are.”
“Are you?” Curiosity won out over caution yet again.
“For the moment.”
Which meant what? He had one foot out the door? Was getting ready to bolt again?
Not that it was any of her business what his future plans were. Once the current mystery was solved, anyway. She knew what her future was—it was right here in Laramie County with Robby and Riot.
“So.” Bridgett forced herself to concentrate on their surroundings. She inclined her head toward the front two rooms of the thousand-square-foot first floor. The one on the right sported a wall of what appeared to be security monitors showing various areas of the ranch, while the other room was outfitted with a large, masculine mahogany desk, a comfortable chair, built in bookshelves and sleek computer equipment. Framed diplomas and awards adorned the whitewashed wood-paneled walls. “I gather this is where you do all the Western Cross ranch office work.”
“Yep. And there’s never any shortage of it.” He moved forward, leading the way past an iron-railed staircase to the living room in the rear, which also had an open layout. She paused to admire the rustic fireplace, a big comfy sofa and the state-of-the-art entertainment center.
After getting a cursory glimpse at the pristine eat-in kitchen, she followed him to a screened-in porch, complete with cushioned furniture and a chain-hung swing. It overlooked a stone patio and built-in barbecue grill as well as an impressive view of the ranch.
“This, I am guessing, is where you hang out when you’re not working.” She tried not to think about how intimate it would be, sharing such a cozy space, and failed. “And maybe entertain.” She pushed the words through the abrupt tightness of her throat.
He swung back to face her, looking as intrigued by her as she was by him. “Yes to the first. No to the latter.”
Good heavens, her pulse was pounding. She moved slightly away. Pretended to stare out the windows at the fields beyond.
She spun back to face him, pretending a tranquility she couldn’t begin to feel. “You don’t entertain?”
Gesturing for her to follow, he moved back inside toward the centrally located staircase. “I give tours of the ranch to business associates by request. That’s it.” He paused on the first stair. “Why? Is that a high priority for you?”
“Not really. I’ve been spending all my time these days working extra shifts so I could save up enough for the down payment on a house. Which I have finally done.”
Upstairs were three modestly decorated bedrooms, decked out in the same masculine gray-and-white color scheme as the rest of the home, and a full bath off the hall featuring a single pedestal sink, a private water closet and a tiled bathtub/shower combo big enough for a man of his size. “So, what do you think?” He shifted a restless Riot a little higher in his arms. “Will you-all be comfortable here tonight?”
In terms of creature comforts? Yes. In terms of having him sleeping just down the hall from her? Not so much. Yet what choice did she have? She had to make do until she had a better solution worked out.
“Absolutely. If you’re sure it’s going to be okay with you, too?”
He looked at her a long moment. A myriad of emotions came and went on his ruggedly handsome face. “We’ll make it work,” he said cryptically. And in that moment, as they headed back downstairs, she knew they would.
* * *
WHILE BRIDGETT CARRIED the baby and the diaper bag into the family room, Cullen headed outside with the puppy.
Thirty minutes later, she and Robby found them on the screened-in porch. The freshly bathed Riot was getting a rubdown with a towel and she smiled. “He has a lot more white fur than I realized.”
“Yeah, I thought he was mostly brown, too.” Laugh lines appeared at the corners of his eyes. “Guess a lot of it was mud. Robby okay?”
Trying not to think how easily she and Cullen meshed in the mom and dad roles, she nodded. “He took his bottle like a champ. Now all he has to do is burp a time or two, and I’ll be able to put him down again.”
Cullen brought two stainless steel bowls of food and water over and set them in front of where Riot was leashed to the railing.
The puppy stared at both.
“I know you have to be hungry,” Cullen said, kneeling down to pet the mutt’s head.
Riot still didn’t touch the food.
Cullen took some kibble into his hand and offered it that way.
Riot hesitated, then inched closer, nudging Cullen’s palm and finally eating a few small pieces. Cullen offered the bowl again, but when the pup once again refused, he was forced to go back to the hand-feeding method.
“Are all puppies that fussy?” she asked, walking back and forth, gently patting Robby on the back.
“I wouldn’t know. I only had the one when I was a kid.”
Bridgett caught the low note of emotion in his voice. “What happened to him?”
“He died at age nine. Cancer.”
Clearly, Cullen still missed him. “You never got another?”
Another shake of his head. “Initially, I wasn’t in a position where I could get another dog. After that—” he shrugged “—I was too busy ranching.”
Robby gazed over at Cullen, mesmerized by the low timbre of his voice. As was she. “Too busy?” she asked lightly, inclining her head at Riot. “Or too leery of giving your heart away to another little cutie like this?”
Cullen’s head came up. As he exhaled, his broad shoulders tensed, then relaxed. “Too busy fixing up ranches, adding to my herd and moving from place to place.”
“How big a spread do you want?” she asked, edging closer.
Cullen set the empty bowl aside, then led the still-leashed Riot over to the grass. “Minimum, ten thousand acres and a couple thousand head of cattle.”
“Maximum?”
He shrugged. “Frank has fifty thousand acres on the Bar M.”
“You’d like to equal your family’s ranch?”
He nodded, solemn now. “Yeah, I would.”
There was something oddly sentimental about following in his father’s footsteps that way. Especially coming from such an unsentimental man. She looked out at the fenced acres, all of them spring-green and lush after plentiful March rains. “How many acres do you have here?”
Noting Riot had finished his business, Cullen praised him and patted him on the head. “Four thousand.”
“So you have a way to go.” She watched the puppy and man amble back onto the patio.
“I’ll get there,” he said confidently.
She’d bet he would.
In fact, she’d bet he would get just about anything he wanted. Good thing it wasn’t her.
* * *
BRIDGETT AND CULLEN had dinner together and got the baby and puppy settled, then Cullen excused himself to go check on one of his prize bulls. Bridgett used the momentary quiet to hit the shower and change into a pair of light gray yoga pants and a long-sleeved light blue T-shirt.
That done, she settled on her bed and began making a to-do list for the following day, including all the notifications she had to take care of that very evening. Two and a half hours later, she was still working on the last and most important one. Aware Robby would be waking again soon, and would need to be fed when he did, she headed back down to the kitchen.
Cullen was seated at the kitchen table, laptop in front of him and what appeared to be business materials all around him. To her surprise, he appeared to have had a shower, too. But he had put on jeans and a black body-hugging T-shirt that let her know just how taut and muscular his body was. Clearly, he didn’t sleep in jeans. Those were for her benefit, just like her yoga pants, instead of pj bottoms, were for his. She wondered if he slept in that shirt or went bare chested. Not that she should be conjuring up a mental image of him in boxers or briefs in the first place.
Her pulse kicking up a notch, Bridgett remained in the portal. Her face bare of all makeup, her freshly shampooed hair spilling about her shoulders in damp waves, she felt oddly defenseless. The situation suddenly way too intimate.
“Okay if I come in long enough to warm up a bottle?” she asked lightly.
He glanced up from the laptop in front of him, his gaze raking lightly over her from head to toe. Sensual lips curved into a ghost of a smile, he encouraged her to come in with a tilt of his handsome head. “Mi casa is you-all’s casa...”
Temporarily, Bridgett reminded herself. Very temporarily.
She could not share close quarters with a man she found this attractive. Not for long, anyway. Not without something ridiculously sexy and impulsive happening.
“Not for much longer if the solution I have been working on all evening comes to fruition.”
Was that disappointment she saw etched on his handsome face?
He got up, suddenly. Went to the fridge, got a bottle of water, then held the door open for her so she could help herself, too. “How are things going up there?” His voice was low, polite.
She moved past to retrieve a premade bottle of formula, being careful not to touch him. She inhaled the clean, soapy scent of him. The minty smell of toothpaste. He hadn’t shaved and the evening beard shadowing his face gave him an even more ruggedly masculine air.
Aware she hadn’t answered his question yet, she smiled. “Both little fellas are still sleeping, but Robby should be waking up soon for another feeding, so I figured I would get ahead of the game and warm the bottle.”
He tilted his head, his gaze drifting over her lazily, creating little sparks of awareness. “Before all hell breaks loose,” he guessed.
Because she had no bottle warmer—yet—she filled a bowl with hot water and set the bottle in it. “I haven’t noticed anything being out of control this evening.” She adapted a militant stance. “If you discount the tiff with my landlord.”
He flashed a teasing grin. “That’s because, for the most part, there’s been two of us and two of them.”
It was so true she didn’t want to think—or was it worry?—about that. Adopting the confident, cheerful air she usually used to tackle the problems in life, she asked, “What time do you usually get up and out of here in the morning?”
“Before dawn, usually, but tomorrow I’m planning to hang around here and do office work, at least initially.” Seeing her unease, he murmured, “I also usually grab breakfast with the guys at the bunkhouse, but I could cook you breakfast.” He shrugged. “If that will help you out.”
There was a limit to how far she wanted his gallant involvement to extend. The vibe between them was far too personal already. “Or we could each cook our own,” she said pleasantly. Another spark of tension flickered between them, and she felt her breath catch in her throat.
“Independent, hmm?”
She swallowed hard, then shot back firmly, “Like you’re not.”
He chuckled, a deep rumbling low in his throat. Then he slowly ravished her with his gaze, as if he found her completely irresistible. “Is that why you wanted to adopt a baby on your own?”
Trying not to think how physically attracted she was to him, too, Bridgett checked the formula on the inside of her wrist. Still cool. She added more hot water to the bowl and set the bottle back inside.
“I never said that solo adopting was my first choice.”
Intimacy shimmered between them as he took up a station opposite her. The brooding look was back on his face. “But you’re doing it?”
She leaned back against the counter, her hands braced on either side of her, not sure why his opinion mattered so much.
She sighed, figuring it wouldn’t hurt to confide this much. “Only because I stupidly gave up the one shot I had at a happy family life.”
His brow quirked and he shifted closer.
Which didn’t mean she had to explain further. But, for reasons she couldn’t understand, she wanted him to know. “I was in love with a fourth-year medical student while I was in nursing school. He was headed back to Utah, where he was from, to do his residency, and he wanted us to get married before he left, start having kids right away. I still had another two semesters to go and I wasn’t ready. But Aaron saw no reason to wait if we loved each other. So he gave me an ultimatum.” Refusing the crazy urge to take refuge in Cullen’s strong arms and rest her head against his broad chest, she continued. “Thinking he would become more reasonable over time, I refused.”
Dark gaze skimming hers intently, he moved closer still. “Didn’t work out?”
Her heartbeat quickened at the unexpected compassion in his low tone. “He married someone else within a few months of our breakup.”
“Still married?”
Bridgett nodded. “Happily. They have six kids and another on the way.” Six kids who could have been hers.
His brow knotted. “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
Silence fell between them.
“Still wishing it was you?”
Not the way he thought.
“Not really,” she replied honestly. “I wouldn’t want to leave my family, be that far away from Texas.” She locked eyes with Cullen, not ashamed to admit it. “But I do regret giving up my one shot at marriage, especially knowing it might never come again.”
His expression guarded, he said, “You’re selling yourself short.”
Finding his low, grumbling voice a bit too determined—and too full of sexual promise for comfort—she returned, “How do you know?” Who was he to give her advice on her love life or lack thereof? “Especially since you’re not known to be the most sentimental guy around!”
Ooh, she should not have said that. But he was goading her. Making her feel foolish in the way he kept looking at her.
He came close and, if she was not mistaken, looked very much like he wanted to make love with her then and there. A wicked grin deepened the crinkles around his navy eyes.
She felt as if she’d just waved a red flag in front of a bull.
“You think not?” he prodded.
Bridgett huffed. “I do.” Knowing it was a dangerous proposition to have him that close to her—because she did desire him more than anyone who had come before—she moved away. Feeling hot color flush her cheeks, she enunciated as clearly as possible, “I also know that, unlike you, I believe very strongly in destiny or fate or whatever you want to call it. And that destiny brought Riot and Robby—”
He prowled toward her. “And me.”
Ignoring the fierce sense that he was about to put the moves on her, she stubbornly finished her sentence. “Into my life. So if this is what’s meant to be for me, I’ll take it.”
In one smooth motion, he took her all the way into his arms. Pressed her against him in a way that left her reeling and lowered his lips to hers. “So will I,” he said.
