Emma.
Jesus. Every other goddamn thought.
I dismounted, grabbed my gear, and set about starting a fire. I brought enough whiskey to forget about her for the night. I hoped. But as I stared into the flames, all I could see was her face, her smiles, the way her eyes clouded over with pleasure, the way her nose crinkled when she laughed.
I’m so fucked.
***
I stayed away from the house for two days, hoping distance would help me get a handle on myself, but it did nothing except make it worse. I missed her. I wasn’t too proud to admit it. The old Ford would’ve dug out his little black book and called up one of the women altogether too willing to come over on short notice for the kind of pleasure I had to offer. But I couldn’t muster any appetite for that, or hell—for anything. Even my prize, grass-fed beef tasted like shit. And that discovery clued me in to the fact that I had a big fucking problem. Well, that, and me wanting to pull the shotgun out of my saddle holster and pop a few shells off at Mac and TJ, as they stood drooling over Emma in shorts that might have even made Daisy Duke blush. I didn’t need to point out that my cock approved whole-heartedly.
“What the fuck is she doing now?” I muttered to myself, dismounting and hooking Richter’s reins on a post by the barn. “Don’t you two have work to do?” I yelled at my ranch hands. Mac and TJ both spun away from the fence.
“Sorry, boss,” Mac said. “We were just watching to see if Ms. Emma needed any help with her gardening.”
Emma was on her knees—another position my dick liked and remembered all too well—pulling weeds out of the flowerbeds along the front of the house. She reached toward the back, her ass up in the air, and those fucking shorts left nothing to the goddamn imagination. I wanted to walk over there, kneel down, and turn her cheeks red for showing anyone else what belonged to me. Except, she didn’t belong to me. She’d made that perfectly fucking clear.
“Watching to see if she needed help from a hundred feet away? Right. Get back to fucking work,” I barked at them.
Mac turned and headed for the barn, but TJ stayed beside me. “I apologize if you think we’re just out here talking shit about your stepsister. It ain’t like that. She’s one helluva woman. You know I’m hoping to settle down, and she’s exactly what I’m looking for. I think she and I could have something real.”
Every possessive instinct in me flared to life, and I wanted nothing more than to grab him by the throat and tell him that there’s no fucking chance for him because she was already mine.
But I couldn’t.
TJ kept going. “Earlier today, she wanted to go for a ride and tried to tack up Delilah all by herself. It was cute as hell. She didn’t know a bit from a bridle. Had everything all ass-backwards, but Delilah, sweet thing that she is, just stood and let Emma fuss over her. And the cutest damn part? Emma kept asking the horse, ‘now where does this thing go?’ like Delilah might actually answer.” TJ shook his head. “Of course, being the gentleman cowboy I am, I stepped in to offer my assistance.”
I gritted my teeth to keep from telling him to keep the rest of the story to himself. I didn’t want to hear it, but then again, because it was about Emma … part of me did. I turned and headed for the barn, hoping both that he would and wouldn’t follow me. But of course, TJ did—and he kept fucking talking.
“I showed her the ropes, and we got to chatting, and she told me all about the job she’s got lined up helping inner city kids. She’s got such passion for what she wants to do. It practically shines right out of her. I ended up taking her for a trail ride so she wouldn’t get lost, and man, I could talk to that woman for the rest of my goddamn life. Emma is the kind of girl you find and get a ring on her finger as fast as you can and never let her go.”
Stepping inside the cool barn, my fist clenched reflexively, the urge to put it through the wall thrummed through me. If TJ said another word, I’d lose it, and everything that Emma was so desperate to pretend had never happened would be blown wide open.
Fuck.
My salvation came from an unlikely source. “TJ, Mac’s going to practice cutting some calves from the herd. You’re up. I’m too old to be teaching anyone that shit anymore,” Griff said, shuffling into the barn. The old man made his way to the straw bales the hands used for a break area and eased his bony frame onto one. Pulling a tin of chew from his pocket, he snapped his wrist several times, packing it against one side of the tin. Once he was satisfied, he flipped off the lid, thumbed out a dip, and settled it behind his lip.