So Not a Cowgirl (12 page)

Too tired to even think straight, he shoved to his feet and stumbled off toward his bed. Tomorrow. He’d sort through everything tomorrow. He’d take his sorry ass out to Tanya’s little house and try to mend fences that he’d trampled down. He wouldn’t re-hire her. No, that situation was really for the best. But he’d like to at least be friends.
Friends
? His body wanted to be so much more than just
friends
. Not going to happen! No, no, no. Dammit.

The sun wasn’t even seriously thinking about rising when Tanya tossed her suitcase into the back seat of Greg’s double-cab pickup. She blinked back tears and faced the man who was reluctantly loaning her his truck in the middle of the night. “Thanks so much.”

Even in the dim porch light she could see tension tightening his face. He was helping her, but he clearly felt like he was betraying his boss, his friend, at the same time. “I wish you would wait until mornin’ to talk to…”

She shook her head and the ponytail she’d pulled her long hair up into bounced around her shoulders. Her heart hurt. Her eyes, too, from crying so much. She was tired of crying, tired of thinking about the man who had fired her for no good reason, and then basically stranded her in town. Eventually Annie had brought her back to the ranch. Then she’d waited for Drew to come see her, which he hadn’t. Sure, she could have gone to talk to him—as Annie had told her to do—but she was upset with his unfairness. Making nice was up to him this time.

“
Maybe we’ll talk in a day or so. Maybe not. I’m not interested in staying here any longer when I’m not wanted…
never
was wanted.”

“
Needed, though. You were most definitely needed.” Greg sighed as he closed the door when she climbed into the truck. “We’re gonna miss you around here.”

“
I didn’t belong here and you all know it.” She gave him a shaky smile. “I’ll be staying with Annie and Bert for a few days.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure after that.”

He looked as if he wanted to say something else, but then the porch light on the main house flipped on. They both glanced in that direction and saw Drew in the doorway. Immediately Greg stepped away from the truck.

Tanya felt Drew watching her. Her heart raced. When he made absolutely no effort to come to her, she drove out of the ranch yard, tears trickling down her cheeks. And she’d thought they’d been making progress during all those discussions lately about his foundation business! Evidently not.

It took two weeks for Tanya to finally stop suffering from an occasional bout of crying and for her to fully embrace her anger with Drew. He clearly didn’t need her services. Well, she didn’t need him either! She’d found this perfect-sized office space on Wyatt Earp Boulevard, close to shopping and the Boot Hill Museum. It had been so different from anywhere else she’d ever worked, but she’d fallen in love with the office and the location. This had been a big step for her, but one that felt more right than anything else she’d done related to her work. She’d had to call her parents for help with the finances to start her first solo practice—and that had been nerve-wracking. To her surprise, her father hadn’t balked for even a second.

She glanced out her big front window, noted the bright, sunny day, and heavy foot-traffic in the area because of all the nearby stores. Yes, she felt good about this venture. And, thanks to Annie, she already had two clients. It was a start. Still, she missed that big, stubborn cowboy.

Getting back to what she was supposed to be doing, she took another whack at the nail to hang her diploma and pounded her thumb instead. “Dammit!”

Mandy looked up from where she’d been connecting the computer on Tanya’s new desk. “Just picture that nail as Drew’s head. I bet you won’t miss hitting the nail then.”

Good idea. Two perfect whacks later, Tanya set down the hammer and smiled. “I should have thought of that sooner. Thanks.”

“
Are you ready to tackle laying into the man himself? Ready to stop hiding out here in Dodge City?”

Tanya carefully hung her diploma next to her AICPA certificate and then turned to study the full effect of the few decorative touches she’d made to her small office. Western. She’d gone totally with a Western style, which was really bizarre considering her usual tastes were quite contemporary. It fit the location and her mood, though. She particularly liked the large weathered wood framed print of a cowboy riding across range land that looked a lot like the Weatherford Ranch. The cowboy sat tall and proud in the saddle, like Drew. Maybe she’d been an idiot to buy something that would be a constant reminder of the man who’d won her heart but didn’t want it. But she’d had to buy it.

“
Tanya, are you listening to me?”

“
I think maybe I
am
ready to go back to the ranch. I’ve got a few more boxes of stuff in the house I was using.” She met her friend’s concerned eyes. “And I need to pick up my check from Drew. Stubborn man won’t mail it for some reason.”

Mandy hit the button to turn on the new computer, looking relieved when the system started up with no problems. “I can’t believe my brother hasn’t come into town to see you.”

Although it hurt to say the words, Tanya said, “I’m glad he didn’t.”

“
I still think you acted pretty quickly in leaving the ranch. He would have come to his senses the next day. I know he didn’t mean it—“

“
When he fired me for no good reason,” Tanya finished. She, again, saw the jealous anger on Drew’s face instead of the monitor she was looking at. “We’d just started getting along pretty well, but then he’d been out of town. We didn’t get along quite so well when we were actually together.” Except for the sparks between them.

“
You wanted each other, and we both know it.”

The sparks. “There was a strong attraction, yes, but…” She respected him, got annoyed with him, and she had started to fall in love with him. As crazy as that was. “But I’m not the kind of woman he needs.”

Mandy snorted. “You’re
exactly
the woman he needs!” She pushed back the chair and stood, and then looked at Tanya eye-to-eye. “He doesn’t need a woman who spends her days working the ranch with him, that’s what he has hired help for. He doesn’t need a woman who agrees with every lame thing that comes out of his mouth.”

Tanya had to smile at that. “We did butt heads a lot.” She well remembered getting spanked when she’d decided to thwart some “wrong” decision of his. He was a man of action. Normally. Apparently not now, when he should have either been apologizing for being an idiot and firing her or coming to drag her back to the ranch…and spanking her for having left so abruptly. Not that she wanted to feel his big, hard hand on her bottom. But she did hate this sort of limbo they were in at the moment.

“
He’s a very stubborn man. Very stubborn.” She seemed to be using or thinking that descriptive word a lot this morning.

“
Says the pot calling the kettle black.” Mandy nodded toward the shiny red Mustang sitting outside the front window. “Go get in that fancy new car of yours and drive out to the Weatherford.”

“
Maybe later.” Tanya felt butterflies circling in her stomach. She wanted to see him, yet she didn’t. “I need to get the office finished up and I need to get started working on my new clients.”

“
What about your
old
client? What about Drew?”

“
He wasn’t my client. I worked for him, something that he never actually wanted me to do.”

Mandy rolled her eyes. “He needed you and he needs you even more now. Not that he’ll flat out admit it. Oh, no, the cowboy has the biggest damn ego around. Thinks he can handle everything himself. Well, he can’t!”

Tanya felt defensive and raised her chin. “He’s not as incompetent as you seem to think.”

“
He’s totally tactless, though. Especially when he’s feeling pissy, which he is now…and has been ever since you left the ranch.”

Tanya couldn’t deny the
tactless
issue.

“
Did I mention that he really got on the wrong side of the IRS agent the other day? Said something stupid; I’m not sure what. But whatever it was, she now wants to add more penalties. He just can’t seem to play nice with anyone these days.” She scowled and grudgingly added, “Including me.”

Her friend had told her about Drew spanking her the other day. She’d sympathized, but Tanya hadn’t wanted to get into the specifics. She still didn’t, so instead she said, “They
can’t
add more penalties. There shouldn’t be
any
penalties to begin with. The IRS is wrong about the whole thing.”

Mandy smiled. “Pushed your buttons, huh? Good. Now, go help Drew before he winds up in jail by saying something even more stupid.”

The sun was riding low in the sky by the time Drew urged his mount into a slow gallop and headed back to the ranch house. He’d ended up spending most of the day riding along fence lines, checking for breaks. He was weary; his horse was tired. Not that his day was over with, of course. There were invoices to read over, bills to sort through, checks to write, Greg needed a list of supplies to go buy tomorrow. And, oh joy, he needed to find the latest bit of tax information the IRS auditor was insisting he come up with. This was one of those moments when he really missed Tanya. She had been efficient with the whole accounting mess, and she’d understood all the tax papers that were near Greek to him.

His mood, already dark, darkened even more just thinking about that sassy accountant he was at odds with. Fact was he still owed her a paycheck. Why the hell hadn’t he mailed it to her at Annie’s house? Or dropped it by the diner?

Riding around the corner of the stable, he heard his men laughing…heard a familiar soft, feminine laugh as well. His stomach clenched. Tanya was here. For just an instant he considered taking the coward’s way out and high-tailing it back out onto the range. Then Greg looked in his direction, a clear challenge in his expression, and Drew knew he couldn’t leave..

With a sigh of resignation, Drew rode toward the small group of men gathered around a fancy red car parked at the end of his driveway. Sleek and sporty, just like the shapely blonde woman in painted-on-tight black jeans and a v-necked hot red sweater that showed way too much cleavage to his men. They weren’t drooling, but damn close. Hell, he was close to drooling. What was she thinking? Dressing like that to come out to a ranch full of horny men? Not that a one of them would step out of line with her. He’d rip them a new one if they did, and then he’d fire the man’s sorry ass.

“
What do you want?” he snarled, wincing at the harshness in his tone.

Greg gave him a blistering look and a couple of the other men clearly weren’t happy with his attitude either. But Tanya was the one to take him on. “My paycheck. Give that to me and you won’t have to ever see me again.”

He slid from the saddle and stiffened.
Never see her again
? That’s not what he wanted. Yes, it was. No! It wasn’t! He just didn’t want her working here where he was so damn tempted to make yet another enormous mistake in his life: make love to her.

After a second, he turned and handed the reins to Greg, meeting Tanya’s gaze. “Come with me to the house then.”

“
You could bring it to me out here,” she countered. Her small chin was set in that familiar stubborn line.

“
We need to talk.” He wasn’t budging on that; they
did
need to talk. He wanted to clear the air, maybe apologize…no, definitely apologize. He needed to make her understand that her working here just couldn’t continue, for his sake.

She glanced at her watch, which annoyed him. “I don’t have much time right now, but I needed my check. Since you can’t seem to put it in the mail to me, I came to get it.”

He hated that she was in an obvious hurry to leave, even though that was the best for both of them. Still he found himself snapping, “Hot date?”

“
As a matter of fact, yes.”

Did he catch a twinkle of amusement in Greg’s eye? Had one of the men snorted in satisfaction?

Drew curled his hands into fists. An instant later he snagged her wrist, intending to tug her with him into his house. But he couldn’t seem to move. The mere touch had sent all manner of sensations flying through him; instantaneous lust being the main one.

Greg dropped the reins and dared to touch his upper arm.

As Drew faced his concerned friend, he said grimly, “She’ll be fine. I just want to talk to her.” Lie. He wanted much more.

“
It’s okay,” Tanya added, giving Greg a reassuring smile.

To his relief, Greg and the others moved away. He should let her go. He should make her wait out here while he went in to fetch her check. For sure, his damn dick should stop trying to lure him into dangerous territory. But he couldn’t release her arm, couldn’t even manage to speak. Every fiber in his being ached with a powerful need for this woman. He figured he might just explode if he didn’t do something about it.

“
It’s been inevitable from the first day,” Tanya said quietly. Her eyes flashed with heat. He could almost smell her desire, and that was enough to nearly do him in.

When he didn’t respond, didn’t move, she said, “I’m sure if we get this over with, we’ll both be able to return to the world of sanity. I’m not the woman for you. You’re not the man for me. But…”

She was right, so right. They made a horrible match. It was just lust torturing him now, torturing his every waking moment. His restless dreams as well. He led her into his house. “This will clear the air between us. That’s all.”