“Ooh,” Aubrey cooed. That thing he was doing with his fingers was…“Cash, no more. I can’t take…I want…please.”
He managed to shed his boots this time, and lose his pants in a quarter of a second flat. And when she thought she couldn’t wait any longer without jumping out of her skin, he was deep inside her, thrusting in and out until she thought she’d lose her mind.
How had she let this become more than it could be? She was falling for a single father who was currently unemployed. And just a few weeks ago, she was engaged to be married. This wasn’t supposed to be happening, but as much as Aubrey wanted to deny it, she was crazy about Cash. Crazy about his daughter. And pretty soon she’d have to leave them both, as well as the ranch, which she’d also grown crazy about, for a job. Because she certainly couldn’t work here.
She rolled on top of him, gripping his shoulders to stay up as she rocked back and forth. The way he filled her was so overwhelming, she thought she’d die from the sheer exquisiteness of it. He stared up at her, his blue eyes clouded with desire. Seeing him that way, knowing how much he wanted her, only heightened the experience. She didn’t think anyone had ever looked at her that way, like they wanted to protect and devour her both at the same time.
He reached up and brushed her hair away from her face, then fondled her breasts, holding each one in his large hands. She closed her eyes, letting the sensation of his touch wash over her. Leaning up, he kissed her over and over again, the warm pull of his mouth first on her lips, then her nipples. Cash sucked and laved until she couldn’t take it anymore. She let go in an earth-shattering crescendo and collapsed on his chest.
He rolled her over, spread her legs wide and thrust into her with such utter desperation that it made her realize how much control he must’ve exercised to maximize her pleasure.
She wanted to give him everything he’d given her and more. Hooking her ankles around his hips, she ran her hands up and down his back, pressing his butt, urging him to go deeper. He pumped into her three times before throwing his head back, the muscles in his neck taut, and shouting out her name.
For a minute, they lay there, absolutely still, except for the beat of their hearts. In that moment, she wondered if he had fallen for her as hard as she had for him.
“I should check on Ellie, see if she needs me to pick her up.”
“Okay.” But she wanted him to stay in bed with her.
He hovered over her mouth, swooped down and kissed her, long and passionately. Then he rolled off her and searched the floor for his jeans. In a soft voice, he said, “We didn’t use anything,” and slipped on his boxer shorts.
She shrugged. “I told you, I’m on the pill.”
He didn’t say anything, but she could tell he was silently chastising himself.
When Cash was completely dressed, he leaned over the bed and planted another kiss on her forehead. “I’ll pick you up for the party tomorrow.”
She took a handful of his shirt, pulled his face back down, and sat up to give him a real kiss. “See you tomorrow.”
When she heard the door click behind him, she got up and got dressed. It was only five and she thought about how she could spend the rest of the evening. Friday night and nowhere to go. Or, if she wanted to see her cup as half full, she could remind herself that it wasn’t even dark outside and she’d already gotten laid.
“That’s right, missy, and it was a US prime lay. Not your garden variety lay,” she said aloud and went into the kitchen to fix dinner, trying not to think about her upcoming interview 526 miles away.
* * * *
Cash walked to Jace’s.
Temperatures had cooled to a balmy eighty-five degrees. And the short hike would give him time to think.
He and Aubrey were getting involved deeper than he wanted to, and yet he couldn’t seem to stop it. He was forever looking for excuses to spend time with her when he should be dedicating all his energy to Ellie and to finding a job, like Aubrey had done.
Cash crossed through the trees, shunning the well-traveled trail that cut across the field from the cabin to Jace’s place. Even in July, the pine trees reminded him of Christmas. And the towering oaks, heavy with leaves, formed a thick canopy that kept the late afternoon sun from beating down on the brim of his hat. He interrupted two deer foraging for acorns. As soon as they felt his presence, they pounded past him, vaulting over a broken split-rail fence.
On the other side of the trees, he heard the rush of Dry Creek. The smell of wet soil, fish, and vegetation swamped him with so many boyhood memories that for a minute he was lost in time. The screech of a nighthawk pulled him back, and he quickened his pace.
He got to Jace’s just in time to help clean up the dessert dishes. Sawyer being Sawyer had brought artisan ice cream from a sweetshop in Nevada City.
“What’s the difference between artisan ice cream and the stuff they sell at Safeway? It all tastes the same to me.” Jace put the carton in the freezer.
“That’s because you’re a cretin and think Arby’s is haute cuisine.”
Sawyer was a snob, yet here he was, living in a barn on an old cattle ranch in Timbuktu.
“Don’t you have a book to write?” Jace shoulder-checked him.
“I’m taking a break and giving the creative juices time to catch up.”
“Is that a fancy way of saying you have writer’s block?” Cash tossed a dish towel at him so he could help dry the stuff that wasn’t dishwasher safe. Sawyer had a funny way of making himself scarce during KP duty. Cash chalked it up to the fact that he’d grown up with maids and cooks and chauffeurs and enough hired help to fill AT&T Park. But on the ranch they all pitched in. It was Grandpa Dalton’s rule.
“Let’s just say the words aren’t coming to me as fast and furious as I’d hoped.” Sawyer let out a hard breath. “At this rate, I’m pretty sure I won’t make the deadline.”
“Can you do that, miss the deadline?” Jace asked.
Sawyer lifted his shoulders in a half-hearted shrug. “There’s some time built in, but it’s better if I don’t. More than likely I’ll wait until the eleventh hour, tank up on a week’s worth of coffee, and write like a fiend.”
Cash lifted a brow, because it sounded insane to him, not to mention irresponsible. But that was Sawyer for you.
He stepped into the hallway to make sure he could hear the kids. They were in the family room, watching a movie. Ellie was laughing at something Grady said, and he smiled. He was still wearing the smile when he returned to the kitchen.
“They remind me of us when we were kids,” Jace said.
Yep, except there were four of them with Angie.
Cash pulled out a kitchen chair and straddled it. “Mitch came to see Aubrey today. During the course of their meeting, Aubrey saw a map in his truck. She says it was plans for a development on Beals Ranch.”
Two blank expressions stared back at him, then Jace’s became mottled with anger.
“What do you mean, a development?” he asked in a raised voice.
“A housing development, like a planned community.”
“That’s impossible.” Jace stood up and started pacing the floor. “No way the city signs off on that without getting input from the neighbors. Hell, I’m not even sure the land is zoned for a housing division.”
“Could Aubrey be wrong about what she thought she saw?” Sawyer was the voice of reason in the family. Cash suspected it was because he was a journalist and was very analytical and methodical in his thinking. “Was this something that looked official or was it drawn on the back of a napkin?”
“Nope, she’s pretty emphatic that what she saw was a plat, like a blueprint. It could just be that Mitch is delusional. Maybe he thinks that after the Bealses’ recent bad luck, they’ll sell.” Cash looked at Jace, who knew their neighbors better than he and Sawyer did.
Jace shook his head. “The Bealses said nothing to me about selling, and Mitch is an asshole, but he’s anything but delusional. If he went to the trouble and expense of having formal plans drawn up, there’s something going on. And if Aubrey says she saw plans, she saw plans. She lived and worked with the guy. She knows Mitch’s business and how he operates.”
The reminder that Aubrey had come close to walking down the aisle with him made Cash’s stomach pitch. He didn’t want to think about her being with another guy, let alone being engaged to him. And what did that say about him? It said he was screwed, that’s what it said.
Jace went to the mudroom and grabbed his hat. “You guys stay with the kids while I go over to the Bealses’. If they’re selling, we have a right to know, goddamn it.”
Both Cash and Sawyer jumped up at the same time.
“Slow down, cowboy.” Sawyer moved in front of Jace to block him from leaving. “Not a good idea. It would be better if Cash or I did it, not the sheriff. Get my drift?”
“No, I don’t.” He pushed Sawyer out of the way.
But this time Cash blocked him. “Sawyer’s right. Now’s not a good time, not when you’re up to your eyeballs investigating something that happened on their property.”
“I’m going over there as a neighbor, not as the sheriff.”
“Don’t you see, Jace, you can’t separate the two. If they are selling and they know you’re angry about it, they’ll accuse you of shortchanging the investigation out of spite. It’s a classic conflict of interest.” Cash stood his ground, even though he could see Jace was fuming. They all loved Dry Creek Ranch, but for Jace, the place had been his home all his life, and a haven after his parents and little brother died. He took anything that threatened the ranch and their grandfather’s legacy as a personal affront. “Let Sawyer go. He’s the most diplomatic of the three of us, and he has no conflicts of interest.”
Sawyer would handle the situation without letting emotions enter into the equation. He’d been raised by parents who dealt with controversy for a living.
“I don’t want to be diplomatic. A housing development…do you know what that’ll be like? It’ll be like living in the goddamn city. Next thing you know, the new neighbors will be complaining about the horse and cow shit and the tractor noise, and fighting over water rights. I don’t want to be diplomatic, Cash. I don’t want them ruining our way of life. The life Grandpa gave us.”
“I don’t see how you can stop them from selling if that’s what they want to do.” Cash had proposed the same thing. “But you…we…could fight the development.” He didn’t know what good it would do. He suspected Mitch knew city and county zoning better than they did. But the Dalton name did hold weight in this county, or at least it used to.
“Let me go, Jace. Let me see what I can do,” Sawyer said. “There’s a chance this is all a big mistake.”
Cash had a more cynical take on it, but he’d save that information until he had more facts in evidence. Again, he didn’t believe in coincidences. And the timing of the Bealses losing hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of cattle and Mitch’s plans for a planned community raised a million warning bells in Cash’s head.
Jace threw up his arms in defeat. “Fine, you go. But I want a word-for-word account of what Beals says.”
“It’s suppertime,” Sawyer said. “Why don’t I go tomorrow?”
Jace shook his head. “They’ll be at Jill’s birthday party tomorrow. Go now, or else I will. I don’t need a goddamn sleepless night. I get plenty of those being sheriff.”
Sawyer tacitly agreed and Cash followed him to the front door.
“Don’t bring up the cattle-theft investigation,” he told Sawyer. “If they bring it up, act like you only know what you’ve heard through the grapevine.”
“I won’t have to act,” Sawyer said and grabbed his hat off the hall tree. “All I know is what Jimmy Ray and Laney told me. Pretty wild, huh? Cattle rustling.” His lips curved up in amusement. “Thought that only happened in old Westerns.”
“It happens more than you think. Sheep and goats too. Anything worth money.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Sawyer nudged his head toward the kitchen. “Between the Aubrey rumor and him going ballistic over Beals Ranch, he’s going to screw himself in the upcoming election.”
“Let’s take it one step at a time.”
“Okay, but you know I’m right.”
“What I know is that people have short memories. Let’s hope for Jace’s sake that by the time the primary rolls around, all this will be old news.”
But if the Bealses were truly selling and a housing division was in the works, Cash knew Jace would go to war. And Cash and Sawyer would be loyalty bound to go with him.
Life was already too complicated. Next week, he had to sell the agency he’d given his life to down the river. He had a daughter who didn’t want anything to do with him. He had no job and no prospects for one. He had a ranch he loved but no way to pay the taxes or the upkeep on it. He had a next-door neighbor he couldn’t get out of his mind when all he should be doing was focusing on fixing his broken life.
And tomorrow, he had to pretend to be her boyfriend.