Bucking the Rules(35)

But this time, he didn’t have to worry. Jo throbbed around him, clenching uncontrollably and he knew she was close, so close….

“I’m coming, cowboy,” she whispered.

“Name.” He needed to hear her say it again as she went over the edge.

“Trace,” she said easily, then again louder as she climaxed and buried her face in the crook of his neck.

He surged up one last time, holding onto her slender hips and driving into her until he collapsed back on the bed, spent. Content to hold a boneless Jo over his chest as long as she wanted.





“Morning.” Trace walked into the kitchen after dumping his boots by the front door and headed straight for Seth in his high chair. “Hey, little man. Were you good for your Aunt Peyton and Miss Emma?”

“Wild one, that Seth.” Emma set a platter of hash browns on the table. “Had to stop all the crazy parties he was trying to throw.”

“That’s my boy.” He rubbed over Seth’s still bald head and gave him a quick kiss on the top of his fuzz before sitting down next to him.

Peyton watched him for a minute. “You feeling okay?”

“Yeah, good. Great.” Trace scooped some hash browns onto his plate and grabbed the ketchup to squirt a little red river over them. As he grabbed his fork and picked up a bite, he caught his sister’s look. “What?”

Peyton shrugged. “I just thought you would be back later. If you stayed somewhere overnight, then—”

“I made it most of the way.” He shoveled in a bite of food as an excuse to quit talking.

“Where’d you bunk down?”

Trace mumbled around his breakfast and ignored the look Emma shot him for his rude table manners. “Seth, did you learn to walk while I was gone?”

“He’s running a five K next week. Where’d you stay?”

“Why does it matter? I’m sorry I didn’t make it home last night.”

“I don’t care about that. He’s sleeping through the night, and it’s no big deal. I’m just curious—”

“In town.” There. “I stayed in town. Okay? Is that a problem?”

Peyton eyed him for a minute, then shrugged like she hadn’t just brought the Spanish Inquisition down on his head and went back to her own breakfast.

Women. Trace rolled his eyes and finished his own food. “I’m gonna run up and change Seth and myself before the day gets started.” He picked up his son, who wailed at leaving two stray Cheerios behind on his tray.

“Welcome to the world, son. Disappointments abound.”

Bea floated in, looking … different. “Hey, Bea.” “Hello, brother.” She reached around Seth and gave him a kiss, then a quick pat on the kid’s back before walking into the kitchen.

Trace looked over his shoulder at Peyton. “Was there something different about her?”

Peyton nodded slowly. “She was wearing jeans.”

“Like, denim ones?”

“Yeah. And blue, too. Not that stupid pair of white jeans she wore last month and insisted they were practical.” Peyton’s look of astonishment grew. “Oh, my God, you don’t think she’s got plans to go into the stables, do you? Because that’s all I need, is her going in there and trying to distract the hands.”

“Like I would be caught dead in that pigpen.” Bea sniffed as she settled down with her half a grapefruit. Emma, it seems, had caved and was keeping the kitchen stocked with Bea Food. “It smells like animals.”

Peyton rolled her eyes.

“Besides, these are Dior. They are not for tromping in mud.”

“They’re denim! If you can’t go out to the barn in them, they’re not real jeans!” Peyton yelled to the ceiling. “What’s the point of jeans if you can’t get them dirty with work?”

“If you have to ask, you’re clearly not going to understand,” Bea shot at her. “They are for looking exquisitely casual.”

“An oxymoron if ever I heard one,” Peyton shot back.

A knock sounded at the door and then it opened. Morgan Browning, the ranch’s vet, popped in. “Hey all.”

Emma waved him in. “Have you eaten yet, Morgan?”

Toeing his boots off, Morgan nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I have. My mama does a mean breakfast.”

“That’s right, she does. You sit down and eat something anyway. Always too much food around, since that one doesn’t eat anything.” She pointed a spatula at Bea, then huffed back to the kitchen.

“I told you months ago to stop making me a share of grease and you’d be fine!”

A clatter of pans was the only answer Bea got.