Chance Meeting (24 page)

Thoroughly flustered by the fact that even the slightest contact of his skin against hers set her pulse racing and her body trembling, Steve’s question left Ty completely at a loss. “I beg your pardon?”

“For the ground,” he explained. “How about sowing some sweet hay so it grows over the grave?”

“Oh, of course. I can already picture it in the summertime. It’ll be a lovely spot.”

“Thanks to you.” Their eyes met and held. Then, with an abrupt sigh, Steve raked a hand roughly through his closely cropped hair. “Look, I’d like to apologize. I’ve been acting like an ass.”

He paused, giving her the chance to flay him alive, yet a quick glance at Ty’s face told him she wasn’t going to take it. Still, he knew he had to apologize. “I assume from your silence that’s your polite way of agreeing with me,” he observed wryly, startling a laugh from her.

“Hmm, I guess you could say that,” she said.

“Look, I don’t want you as a partner—we both know that. But I’ve said some things that were out of line, like that crack last night I made about you not understanding anything about losing something you love. I’ve been feeling really bad about that. It was uncalled for, and I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about you . . .” As he spoke, Steve glanced over at Ty to gauge the effect of his words, breaking off abruptly, concern etching his brow. “Hey, you’re trembling.” He stepped closer, taking in her pale face and shadowed eyes.

“It’s nothing,” Ty mumbled, refusing to look at him, suddenly feeling too close to the edge emotionally to withstand his scrutiny. It must be the stress, the nerves, the fatigue. “I’m just cold all of a sudden.”

The force was magnetic, drawing him to her, thoughts careening inside his head, blaring commands for his body to follow.
Touch her. Hold her. Kiss her.

His movements were slow, unhurried, but thrillingly certain nonetheless. And so right. Fiery excitement coursed through his veins as he grasped her delicate shoulders and brought their bodies into perfect, sweet alignment. Steve’s head dipped, his chiseled profile a baby’s breath away from her own. Blue and gray eyes met. Intense longing mixed with apprehension were mirrored in them both. For Steve, the desire he’d felt building inside him these past days won out, conquering all.

“I’d really like to kiss you,” he whispered, and took her faint indrawn breath for a yes. Firm lips descended, brushing a gossamer kiss against her softly parted ones. Withdrawing only to return, their lips met in a second, clinging caress, and Steve felt a jolt of recognition race through him. The taste of Ty was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He needed more. A heart-stopping smile spread across his face as he took in the helpless trembling of her lips, her shoulders. She was shaking like a leaf. Steve leaned into her, the warmth from his body enveloping her.

“Still cold?” he asked in a husky voice. “Let’s see whether together we can’t warm you up.”

This time his lips swooped down to claim. And Ty never even considered resisting. A golden, honeyed languor seemed to fill her. Her senses caressed and heightened, she gave herself over to the wonder of Steve’s embrace.

It was nothing like her dreams of him—those youthful, romantic fantasies, so pale and tepid. How could she have imagined the wild, blasting heat of him? How his touch would have her melting? How she’d lose herself in his passion-fired eyes, in his drugging kisses, in his hands learning the curves of her flushed body? And the brilliant sparks, dazzlingly radiant, the colors of fireworks on a sultry summer’s night that he ignited inside her? No, she could never have imagined something like this. Ty swayed closer, loving the hard, dangerous heat of him, the way he responded immediately, arms tightening, bands of warm steel, mouth fusing against hers, stoking her need until it became a wildfire, searing them both.

Never could Ty have imagined such glorious passion. Nor could she ever have imagined that they would be interrupted at a time like this.

By a man, leaning against the pasture’s wooden fence, yelling Steve’s name, making the two of them jump the proverbial mile apart—as if, instead of heated flesh, they had grasped live wires. After the sweet inferno of Steve’s embrace, the air around Ty seemed arctic, slicing through flesh right to the bone. Too shaken by the intensity of their kiss and her response, it took her several seconds before she realized that one of the reasons she felt the cold so acutely was that Steve had made quick work of the buttons on her sweater. She was standing in a pasture, her sweater hanging from her elbows. Cheeks flaming, Ty tucked her chin, her fingers fumbling with the bone buttons on her cardigan, her eyes darting nervously between her fingers’ clumsy effort and the stranger who approached, eating up the distance from the barn to the grave with a long-legged stride.

Panicked at the thought that he’d be upon them with her sweater half undone, Ty gave a strangled sound of distress. Then Steve was there, standing before her, screening the man’s approach.

“Here, let me help,” he offered, covering her hands with his own. She could hear the smile in his voice. As if of their own volition, Ty’s hands dropped away, and her eyes lifted, locking with his. Calmly, deftly, Steve restored the sweater to rights.

“You’re awfully good at this.” A touch resentful that he appeared so unaffected by their kiss, so unfazed by the fact someone was practically upon them. Though, of course, it wasn’t
he
who was half undressed.

“You should be grateful I inherited my pop’s hands. Best hands in the country,” Steve boasted with a grin that would have caused an eighty-year-old granny to blush. Ty was no less unaffected.

“It’s too bad Bubba couldn’t have timed his visit a little-better,” Steve murmured as his mouth dropped to nuzzle the soft, subtly perfumed flesh just below her ear. “Things were just getting interesting.” He moved his lips down, pressing against the thin silver chain around her neck, enjoying the contrasting textures of metal and warm skin, wanting nothing more than to resume his previous exploration. Undo all those buttons, one by one, slip his hands beneath that provocative camisole Ty was wearing, and treat himself to what he’d find underneath. Breasts gently rounded. And braless. Just thinking about it nearly destroying him.

When he heard Bubba call out, “Yo, Shepp, you still running a horse farm?” far too near to where he and Ty were standing, Steve groaned softly, forced to settle for one last chaste kiss on Ty’s brow. Reluctantly, he stepped back, creating a respectable, wholly unwelcome, distance between Ty and himself.

“Bubba, great to see you.”
Only wish you could have shown up an hour later.

“Shepp, looking good, man.” A huge grin split his dark complexion, and his eyes moved back and forth between Steve and Ty. Steve couldn’t blame Bubba for being curious. He and Steve went way back, and Steve previously had always been the soul of discretion when it came to women.

“You weren’t BS-ing me, were you, Shepp, when you said my old job was waiting?”

“Hell, no, Bubba. Damn, I’m glad you decided to come back!” Steve extended his hand and shook the other man’s heartily, his left one clasping Bubba’s muscular shoulder. Steve turned to Ty. A flush still colored her cheeks, and her eyes were so large, Steve could discern the fine black ring at the edge of her irises, encircling paler, light-flecked gray, reminding him of a storm-tossed ocean at dusk. Turbulent and wild. The traces of passion lingering on Ty’s face made a vivid contrast to the sweater once more demurely buttoned, hiding skin he knew was smooth as silk. Steve fought the impulse to get rid of Bubba fast and drag Ty off somewhere they could be blessedly alone once more. No, he decided regretfully, this thing between them would have to wait. Bubba was key, absolutely essential to Southwind’s smooth operation. There were few men Steve trusted as he did Bubba around his horses. He was the best.

“Ty, meet Bubba Rollins, my newly rehired stable manager. Took a thirty-percent raise, six games of pool, and an unlimited supply of Rolling Rock during the negotiations to get him to come back to Southwind. I even sweetened the deal a bit and let him win the last two games,” Steve said, grinning at Bubba’s immediate and noisy protest. “Bubba, this is Ty Stannard. My new partner, your new boss.”

Ty’s hand disappeared into the huge grip of the man standing before her. His size dwarfed her, too, easily topping six foot four. Bubba’s head was shaved, revealing a dark, shiny dome, emphasizing the strong bone structure of his face. A small gold hoop pierced his right ear. A black denim jacket covered his wide shoulders; underneath that a dark green hooded sweatshirt. Blue jeans and big (Ty would guess size fourteen), well-worn workboots accompanied the attire.

Ty’s eyes lifted to find his had been inspecting her equally closely. Her shoulder blades snapped back as she met Bubba’s gaze, painfully aware of how she must look: covered from head to toe in a thick layer of dirt, hair falling in straggly strands about her face. Unlike Bubba Rollins, not terribly impressive.

“I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Rollins.”

“Bubba,” he corrected her with an easy smile. “We don’t stand on formality here, do we, Shepp?” He hadn’t missed the deep blush coloring her high cheekbones nor her swollen lips, stained a darker rose. Yes sir, Ty Stannard had just been well and truly kissed. And from the glaze of shock darkening those gray eyes, Bubba guessed it wasn’t something that happened frequently. Had to be a story behind that one, he thought. She was too fine-looking a woman not to have men buzzing about her, bees on honeysuckle.

“So, Shepp; so, Ty,” Bubba added deliberately, waiting the space of several heartbeats for her to protest, waiting to see if she was one of those stuck-up ones, another Allegra Palmer perhaps. Pleased when Ty didn’t object to a black man from the wrong side of the tracks calling her by her first name. That was ten points in her favor right there.

They didn’t need the likes of Allegra Palmer around here anymore. She’d always thought a mite too much of herself, insisting Bubba address her as “Ms. Palmer” when everyone else at Southwind was on a first-name basis. What a spoiled thirty-year-old brat she’d been.

In Bubba’s opinion, the only good thing that had come out of the tragedy of Fancy Free’s death was that Allegra Palmer and her family had left the barn, her parents too blind, too hypocritical, to admit that Allegra’s antics, her messing around with Jason Belmar, had been one of the key factors that caused the whole stinking mess.

“Well, now, you two planning on getting this stable up and running so I got more to do than twiddle my thumbs?”

“Yeah, we’re working on it,” Steve replied, not needing to look over at Ty to know her expression would be one of comical disbelief.

Okay, so they hadn’t exactly been working on it
together,
but that could change. Steve was willing to admit that his belligerent attitude of the past few days was as clever, and useful, as shooting himself in the foot. Ty was too strong a woman to be put off either by hostility or by hard work. And he’d begun to like her too damn much to continue being the jerk of the millennium.

If he wanted to regain control of Southwind, he’d have to come up with a better game plan. Right now, however, they might as well see just what they could accomplish working together instead of against each other. Steve steadfastly ignored how much the white-hot passion with which Ty had responded to his kisses influenced this sudden change of heart.

Well, wasn’t this an interesting piece of news? So now she and Steve were a team, working together. Of course, had that truly been the case, then she undoubtedly would have been aware of Steve’s decision to rehire Bubba Rollins—not that Ty didn’t approve wholeheartedly. Southwind needed a stable manager, as well as at least a half dozen grooms, to ensure smooth operation once the barn was again filled to capacity. Wealthy owners expected nothing less than the best for their horses: pristine grounds, immaculate stalls, gleaming tack, horses cared for like pampered royalty. For Southwind to offer that kind of deluxe environment, capable and responsible manpower was required. If Bubba Rollins represented the first step, then great.

But to believe Steve’s smooth talk, that he might truly be prepared to work productively with Ty, well, she’d reserve judgment on that. She needed further proof of just how much Steve was willing to share with her.

Sharing.
She would
not
think about the kiss. Not now. Its intensity had rocked Ty profoundly. In its wake, she was left unsettled and confused. Not knowing how to act, how to think, not fully comfortable with or even trusting Steve’s abrupt change of attitude.

She needed to get away, regroup and regain her sense of balance, her sense of self. “I’m sure you and Bubba need time to discuss ‘our’ plans,” Ty offered, stressing the last. Steve wasn’t going to get the satisfaction of thinking his kisses had turned her head to total mush— though they had. She bent down, intending to grab the handles of the wheelbarrow, but Steve intercepted her. “Here, I’ll

get that,” he said, gently but firmly moving her aside. “You’ve got a real thing about shouldering responsibilities, don’t you? Bubba, you’ll have to watch her on that.”