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That was what she did now. It was how she played this game. She had perfected her polished exterior to the point that no one knew there was a little grit left beneath.
She did. Because it was the grit that kept her going.
“Why don’t we walk outside a bit?” he asked, his eyes connecting with hers and lighting her insides on fire.
Lord almighty.
“I want to show you some things,” he continued.
She squared her shoulders and followed after Wyatt, giving Grant and Bennett a small wave before heading outside.
“Something we need to do in person?”
“Yes. Otherwise I would have emailed you. I have your address.” His handsome face was a study in sincerity and she wanted to punch it.
She bit the inside of her cheek. “Right. Anyway.”
“I just wanted to talk a little bit about the Fourth of July shindig that we’re having.”
“Right. The shindig.” Grassroots would be providing wine, and they would also be serving Donnelly cheese. Plus, they would be touting the virtues of both Grassroots and Get Out of Dodge. It was an important event, one that they were heavily advertising for in surrounding communities.
“I was thinking we would do some rodeo demonstrations,” he said. “Over there in the main arena.” He gestured broadly across the way at a grand, covered area, with two sets of bleachers on either side. The bleachers were new.
It looked like Wyatt figured that if he wasn’t traveling with the rodeo he might as well bring it back here.
“Really?” she asked.
“Yes. I was wondering if Dane was going to be around?”
“I doubt it. Anyway, it’s not like you’re outfitted to do a bull ride here.” There were bleachers, but they were missing the heavy gates and fencing needed to keep people safe if they were going to bring those animals out.
“Not bulls,” he confirmed. “I figured we would do some roping. Not going to go crazy. You’re right. We don’t have the facility for it. But it would be damned cool if we did.”
“I’m not going to have my brother get himself injured doing a stunt to benefit your ranch, Dodge.”
“Your brother rides often enough. He can get injured anytime.”
“Right.” She pursed her lips. “But competing. Not messing around here.” Dane’s ability to earn a living was everything to him. His way of escaping their upbringing. He didn’t need to put it at risk messing around here. “Anyway. I’m pretty sure that Dane is solidly booked in competition for the next few months.”
“That’s a shame. I like him.”
Heavily implied in that sentence was the fact that he did not like her. But, that wasn’t her problem. It also wasn’t fair. Dane was different. His life was different. He got rewarded for being a good old boy. For being a reckless redneck.
She got no such rewards from life. She had to prove that she was capable. She was strong and smart. That she belonged in the world she’d married into, and divorced out of.
Dane got to be fun and dangerous and get rewarded for it. But then, that was her experience of all these rodeo idiots. Their life was a big party. They didn’t do responsible things like keep to their commitments or honor their vows. No. And her husband had jumped right into that.
But, that was beside the point.
“Sorry. He didn’t quit.”
“I retired,” he pointed out. “I didn’t quit. Midthirties is a rough time to still be flinging your body around like that. Other guys do it, but...not me. I’m done.” A smile tipped the corner of his mouth upward, and she noticed some lines crease his skin right by his eyes.
He had aged since they’d first met all those years ago but that didn’t make him less attractive. Instead, those weathered signs of aging, of years lived, only made him more attractive in a strange way. She had to wonder if it was some kind of weird female survival instinct. That this man who had taken all these risks was here, had made it well into his thirties in spite of those risks, was sending signals to her body that he was a good provider, or something.
But her body was terrible at correctly identifying men’s true natures. Even if it wasn’t, she didn’t want to know Wyatt or his...nature. So, she wasn’t even going to ponder it.
“Well. Whatever. So you’re thinking roping events?” She pushed the conversation back on track.
“Yes. I got all the approvals from insurance. As long as we don’t have any guests participating, or anything like that, we are cleared for it.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I was also thinking Jamie could lead a ride during the barbecue.”
She nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
“Will it be all right with you if we take the group over to the vineyard?”
“Should be fine.”
Their eyes caught for a moment, and for some reason it felt significant. More so than the moment before. He was not the kind of man she normally liked.
Granted, she’d been with one man. And in the end she hadn’t liked him very much at all. But still.
He nodded, then smiled. Slow and lazy. It licked through her like fire and she did her very best to ignore it. “Good.”
She cleared her throat. “Good.”
“So, just the brochures? Were there any emails that you needed me to read?”
She curled her hands into fists, irritation coursing through her, saving her from the heat. “Can’t you just...check your email?”
“Can’t you just...tell me what you need?” He smiled. Enigmatic. Infuriating.
“There’s nothing, but if I need anything else I’ll be sure to send you an email. And maybe I’ll add a follow-up phone call.”
“Sounds good. Could you arrange for 6:00 a.m.? A wake-up call? That would be pretty fancy. Haven’t had that since I was on the circuit.”
“You stayed at motels that gave you wake-up calls when you were riding on the circuit?”
“No. The women that spent the night usually woke me up early when they were sneaking out, though.”
He was such a jackass.
“Right. Well. I will not be giving you a wake-up call. Of any variety.” Her lips twitched, and heat flooded her cheeks.
“Noted.”
She turned away, her heart hammering hard. She had the inescapable feeling that she had made a deal with the devil in forging an alliance with Wyatt Dodge. But the devil was infinitely preferable to her ex-husband, and the devil currently had what she needed.
And so, a deal with the devil it was.
* * *
WYATT WATCHED LINDY’S figure as she retreated, the wiggle in her hips transmitting her irritation while also sending some signals to his body that he could do without, thanks.
He let out the breath that he felt like he had been holding for the past fifteen minutes, feeling the tension ease out of his body, down along his spine. That woman got under his skin, no denying it.
Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t deny it. He would have just had her by now. But there were complications to that. Big ones. Like the fact that she was the ex-wife of a man he had once considered a good friend.
Like the fact that she hated him.
Oh, and the fact that he had wanted her from the moment he’d met her, when she had still been hitched to the aforementioned friend.
The fact that he hadn’t made a move on her was a relief only in that it indicated he had learned to think with something other than his cock since he was sixteen years old.
Lindy Parker was a particular kind of thorn in his flesh.
He remembered the moment he’d met her with a distressing amount of clarity. He had been in a bar after one of the events, and she had walked in looking prim and uncertain, her hands clasped in front of her, holding on to her handbag, her blond hair swirling around her as she took stock of the rabble and ruffians in the room.
And he had...he had felt the floor of that bar fall out from underneath his feet.
He had wanted her, immediately. Viscerally. It had been an instantaneous and deep desire unlike anything he had ever felt before.
Then, he had seen the diamond ring sparkling on her left hand. It had only loomed larger in his vision as she had walked over to where he was sitting. He’d had all those seconds, those long moments of watching her make her way across the room to decide he didn’t give a damn who had given her that ring or what it meant. He wanted her. And if she was going to let him have her...well, then he wasn’t going to waste a thought on the poor bastard who’d given her the diamond.
He’d thought that right up until she’d walked up and kissed his friend right on the mouth.
She was Damien’s wife. Of course.
Because the first woman to make him feel like he couldn’t breathe in longer than he could remember was obviously going to be married to a friend of his.
Even if she hadn’t been married to Damien...they were not meant to be. She had been unfriendly to him from the beginning. It wasn’t even her divorce from Damien that had triggered the unfriendliness.
He still wanted her. Dammit.
And he didn’t do that stuff. He didn’t want and not have. Sex, as far as he was concerned was a recreational activity. People didn’t need to make such a big deal out of it. But, he also preferred to like the women he banged. And he preferred it if they didn’t want to decapitate him.
Lindy fell into that category.
The divorce...
Yeah, that was complicated, but it had a little bit more to do with her not liking him rather than him being concerned about preserving a relationship with Damien.
As far as he was concerned Damien was a dickhead. Cheating on Lindy had been an asshole thing to do. There was no defending it. Wyatt wouldn’t even try. Some men shouldn’t get married. Wyatt was one of them. But, he hadn’t gotten married. Damien had. And he had owed it to his wife to be faithful to her. The damned man hadn’t even tried as far as Wyatt could tell.
It had all come out later, when Damien had drunkenly slurred over a beer about the end of his marriage that he had cheated on Lindy multiple times over the years. Being on the road with all that temptation around was too much for him, he’d said. When the buckle bunnies couldn’t find a cowboy to get laid with they would always take him.
And it was all Wyatt could do not to ask him if he was screwed in the head. Because what the hell man would want another woman when he had that one in his bed? Wyatt sure as hell wouldn’t.
Of course, he had never tried monogamy, so he supposed he couldn’t actually judge. But he did.
Still, the fact that he didn’t exactly want his friend to know that he had illicit fantasies about the other guy’s wife was one reason he had held back on lecturing him too much. The other being that he just wasn’t the right man for that job.
A shiftless manslut who had never had a committed relationship in his life was the last person on earth who should hand out lectures on marriage.
“She does not like you.”
Wyatt turned around and saw his brother Grant standing there, looking amused with the situation.
He supposed he should be happy to see Grant looking amused at all, since his brother rarely did. But, he wasn’t. Not when it was at his expense.
Wyatt had never claimed not to be a selfish bastard.
“She doesn’t,” Wyatt agreed.
“And you want her.”
“She’s a shrew,” Wyatt said, by way of answer, crossing his arms, watching as that little red car of hers drove away.
“A hot one,” Grant pointed out.
“You sleep with her then. I don’t want to have to dig her fingernails out from under my skin after.”
“It’s my understanding you end up with fingernails embedded in your skin when it goes well,” Grant said, his tone dry.
“Unless she does it because she wants to mortally wound you.”
“From where I’m at right now, I’m not sure I see a drawback either way.”
“Go.” Wyatt made a shooing motion with his hand. “Get some. Refresh your memory.”
Grant lifted a brow, the lines on his forehead deepening. “Not likely.”
Wyatt locked eyes with his brother. “Get out of town. Find a woman who doesn’t know you and your entire life story.”
“You know,” Grant said. “I tried that once. She remembered me. From the news.”
“Damn.”
His brother’s marriage had ended up famous.
An eighteen-year-old who married his high school sweetheart even knowing she wouldn’t live long had been a tragic and wonderful gesture, as far as the world was concerned.
As far as poor Grant was concerned, it had just been life and love. In the end, he had suffered a hell of a lot. But that’s what he was famous for. Being true-blue to a woman who was long gone.
No one had asked if he wanted to get famous, of course. It had been one of the last things Grant wanted. Second only to his wife dying.
