Silver River Romeo (Western Cowboy Romance) (Rancher Romance Series #1) (7 page)

              When he saw her lead her horses to it without a break in her stride, commanding obedience, his heart felt tight in his chest. She
could
do this. He was sure of it. Now, if he could just get her to stop scowling at him, it might be all right. However, it didn’t happen that week.

The next week, she stopped frowning at him but she still didn’t stop for much chatting. They were all haying like crazy and there wasn’t much time for a nice talk anyway. Cole was exhausted because he and his brothers were doing twice as much. Silver River’s fields had never looked bigger and Cole’s back hadn’t been this sore since he first learned to ride. He found himself more and more annoyed by Emma’s silence. The least she could do was give him the same thank you she gave Marshall and Darrell.

              One morning, after the McKenna’s had been helping for over two weeks, Emma rubbed her eyes and sat down at the table to wait for her coffee pot to perk. She felt a little groggy that morning and she wasn’t sure why. She’d gotten to bed pretty early because she was so tired from all the physical and mental labor of the past two weeks.  The guys kept reassuring her that a ranch wasn’t as hard to maintain as it was to start up and she really, really hoped that was true. If it wasn’t, she really might not be cut out for this job at all.

There was something else bothering her though. Something beyond the usual aches and pains. Gradually, it came to her. She’d had a dream. As she thought it over while frying up her eggs, she could almost remember what it was, but when she got close the memory of it slipped through her fingers.

              A few sips of coffee cleared out the cobwebs and she gasped so suddenly, she almost choked. The dream had been about Cole McKenna! It came back in brutal detail now. It had started in the barn...

             
“What are you doing here?” Emma asked in surprise when she saw Cole.

              “Just trying to help you out,” he answered, stepping into one of the sunny areas of the barn. “Remember I was telling you that you needed to oil your riding tack so the leather doesn’t crack?”

              “Yes,” she said in distraction. He’d taken his shirt off as he usually did to work, and all she could focus on was the ripple of muscle under his deeply tanned skin. She saw the dark impression of his tattoo on his right pec, but she couldn’t see it clearly.

              “Well, that’s what I was doing, Miss Emma,” he said with a smile, seemingly aware of exactly where her gaze was locked. “Like what you see?”

              He held up the saddle just as she started to stammer out a reply.

              “The saddle!” she said in relief. “Yes, yes, that looks...amazing.”

             
Emma’s face flushed now as she recalled the dream, even though there was no one in the kitchen but her. Damn Cole for walking around with his shirt off! She reasoned that it was only anger at him that dragged her mind back to the dream. It couldn’t be because she was desperate for the details.

             
“You look pretty good yourself,” he said, putting the saddle down and giving her a thorough once over. It should have made her angry with him, but it didn’t. It sent her blood pounding through her veins and an echoing rush of sensation seemed to pulse briefly but powerfully between her thighs.

              “These aren’t the most fashionable clothes,” she said, tugging at the white cotton tee shirt she was wearing underneath her denim overshirt.

              “Well, maybe not where you’re from,” he answered easily as he leaned against the door of the empty stall. “But around here, you’re just about the most stylish cowgirl I’ve ever seen.”

              Emma gave him a half smile and as if pulled by a magnet, stepped closer to him. He didn’t move, but his dark brown eyes seemed to draw her in closer and closer. She only stopped just shy of her breasts grazing his firm chest and when she did, he reached out and gripped her upper arms with his strong hands.

              “I can’t stop thinking about you, Emma,” he admitted roughly. “I want to be here more than I want to be at Silver River.”

              “Really?” she gasped out, trying desperately to keep track of the conversation and not focus on his sun warmed skin against her. He was pouring his heart out and she was thinking about his body. And she had accused him of being a chauvinist! “I want you to be here too, Cole,” she answered softly.

              His eyes seemed to swallow her up with the intensity of his gaze. No one had ever looked at her that way before. There was pride in that look. More than that though, there was hope and love there as well and Emma just couldn’t stand it anymore. She launched herself at him, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his warm, broad shoulders and settling around his neck before she kissed him. His hands slid slowly down her back, leaving tingles of electric arousal all the way, until he could cup her pretty little ass and rock her forward against him.

             
Emma moaned against his lips as her own hands explored his upper body. His back, his chest, his flat and muscular stomach, she was hungry for all of him, and if he hadn’t pulled her closer, she would have worked her hips against him just as roughly anyway.

              “I need you,” she whispered. “God, Cole, I need you so much!”

              “And you’re gonna have me,” he promised as he scraped his teeth over her full lower lip. “There’s nothing in this world I’d rather give you, sweetheart.”

              The next thing she knew, she had been dropped into a haystack and Cole was undressing her. She was wearing a lot more clothes than he was, but she didn’t want to wait. She yanked down his jeans and gasped out loud as his big—

             
“That’s how you know it’s a dream, Emma,” she muttered to herself. “And that your imagination is in serious overdrive.” She forced her mind away from the dream, even though memories of making love with Cole in that haystack tried their best to come back to the surface. She seemed to remember that he’d been inventive in her dream.

              She shook her head hard and stood up, pouring what was left of her, now tepid, coffee down the sink. It didn’t matter how attractive she found him, and she certainly did find him attractive. The six pack that flexed when he had to stop and catch his breath. The smooth way his back muscles slid under his golden tanned skin. His grin as he joked with his brothers. He was good enough to eat. That was why she couldn’t talk to him. Her mind tended to go blank when she was faced with all of that right off the pages of a dirty calendar cowboy.

It didn’t matter how fulfilling dream sex with him was, and oh...it had been good in her dreams. What mattered was Cole hadn’t been exactly nice to her. His brothers kept telling her he was a good guy, but so far she’d seen only condescension and a desire to give orders. He could hardly be called a willing helper and that was what she wanted in a relationship this time around. She wanted a partnership.

              The fact was, being attracted to him was classic, textbook Emma Carson. She was irresistibly drawn to the bad boy. To the overconfident jerk. To the guy who paid for the first date and then asked her to get the second “to keep things even”. Guys who kept score. She was tired of hurting and wondering and wishing to be loved for who she was!

              “So,” she said firmly. “No more Cole McKenna. No matter how sexy he is when he’s half dressed.” It was about time she grew up and started looking after her own heart. No one had done it in the past and look where that had gotten her. A broken heart, an empty wallet, and several nights she really didn’t want to remember. Her grandpa had trusted her with this ranch and that was what she was going to worry about. At least things would be straightened out soon and she would have to worry about Cole hanging around the ranch.

              One more day of haying. Surely she could get through one more little day of haying and then let Cole McKenna go about taking care of his own ranch. Maybe she could get him to oil up some of her tack. She grinned before she even fully realized it and then forced the grin away with a heavy sigh as she headed into her bedroom to get dressed for the long day ahead.

              She was just buttoning her red plaid over shirt when she heard a knock at the back door.

              “Marshall?” she called.

              “Sorry,” Cole’s deep voice called back. “Go younger.”

              “Come in,” she said. “I left some coffee on, you guys can all get a cup.”

              She hoped he wouldn't answer her. His voice had sent shivers of remembrance down her spine. How could a dream be so damn realistic?

              “Sorry,” he called again as he poured a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter. “It’s just us today. You and me, that is.”

              The response was so much like something that would have happened in her dream last night, Emma was forced to pinch herself. It hurt enough to convince her she was awake. Fully awake. Her body was betraying her, her skin heating up and her heart rate increasing. She took a deep breath and walked out of the bedroom. She was not going to make a fool of herself today!

              “Hey there,” Cole said when she stepped into the large kitchen. “Are you having some coffee too?”

              “I already did,” she said, aware that her voice sounded stiff and unnatural. “I think I’m going to go on out.”

              “Where do you want to start today?” he asked.

              “Um.” Emma realized that she didn’t know. Marshall usually decided what was best to start with and she followed his lead, learning his routine. “I guess feeding the horses.”

              Cole nodded.

              “There,” she said triumphantly. “I knew something after all”

              He raised an eyebrow at her and said, “I knew it. I just wanted to make sure you did.”

              The slamming of the screen door was his only answer and he sighed. Why did everything he said to her make her mad? He hadn’t meant for her to think that he thought she didn’t know what she was doing. He’d just wanted her to make the decision herself. It was one thing to be able to ranch the way Marshall did, but it wouldn’t help her make her own decisions about her own ranch if she wanted to change things down the road. He quickly drank the rest of his coffee and then followed her out.

              They worked in silence for most of the day and it got under his skin more than it probably should have. Over the past two weeks, he’d seen her talk with his brothers as they had worked together. She always had a million questions for Marshall, but she didn’t even bother to ask him anything. He’d even seen her joking around with Darrell, but she didn’t send so much as a smirk his way the whole time.

              When it became clear she wasn’t going to invite him in for lunch, Cole decided to go home to do his own share of the work at Silver River. It turned out to be a bad idea, and it only made his mood worse. The cows were resistant when he tried to move them and Pete, the cattle dog, wasn’t much help. It was only his quick reflexes that stopped him from getting his foot crushed by one of the dumber cows when he dismounted to pick up his wallet. He wasn’t even sure how it had worked its way free of his pocket, but that was just how his day seemed to be going. He didn’t even have time to eat before he had to head back to Raven Branch.

              He managed to work hard enough to keep his mind off of his hunger and it was late in the day when Cole wiped the sweat off of his forehead and stepped into the barn to get out of the sun. Emma must have had the same idea because she was leaning tiredly against one of the empty stalls.

              “I see you didn’t take my advice about the tack,” he said as he sat down and rubbed a new scuff out of his boot as best he could.

              “What?” she asked, blushing suddenly. “The tack? No, I’m not really worried about it right now.”

              “Yeah, I guess it’s because it was me who said it. I’m pretty sure if Marshall had mentioned it you would have made time.”

              “What? What does Marshall have to do with any of this?” Emma asked in confusion. She’d never heard Cole’s voice sound that way. It was heated and abrupt. She’d always assumed that he was mad at her when he was ordering her around, but now she wasn’t so sure. If this was mad, then he couldn’t have been mad before. She kind of wished for the old, superior tone.