Louella was not home when they arrived at her house.
Arabella had followed Jay in her car and when they walked in without even knocking, she could read his surprise when they found the place empty.
“Did she leave a note?” Her mother always left a note for her dad whenever she went out.
He glanced around, presumably at the obvious places. “Not that I can see.” He dropped the fat envelope filled with the cash they’d taken in at the market into a kitchen drawer and pushed it shut again before opening the refrigerator door.
“Jay!” She couldn’t help a protesting laugh. “We’re not really going to raid her fridge when she’s not even here, are we?”
He gave her a look as if she’d grown a second head. “You think she makes all of this because she wants to eat all of it herself?” He removed a platter wrapped in plastic wrap and set it on the counter. “Cold fried chicken.” He followed it up with another covered bowl. “Potato salad.” Then a tall glass pitcher. “Fresh lemonade.” He added it to the collection on the counter and then leaned over to open a lower cupboard. “She’s been trying to put meat on my skinny ass my entire life.”
“Please. You’re perfect.” The words escaped without thought and she flushed when he shot her a look over his shoulder, catching her right in the act of ogling his butt.
His smile turned wicked as he straightened with the wicker picnic basket he’d pulled out of the cupboard. “We could always compare yours and mine.”
She flushed even more and injected some bravado into her eye roll. “How suave you are.”
He chuckled soundlessly as he stacked the food inside the basket. Then he grabbed the lemonade pitcher and headed toward the rear door. “Come on.”
She hurried around him to open the door since his hands were full and they went outside. She half expected him to stop and set everything on the patio table that overlooked the garden, but he kept walking. Around the beds of strawberries, past the shed and around through the peach orchard.
She saw the big tub of his grandmother’s, nestled in a shaft of sunlight beaming through the trees, and her heart began skittering around inside her chest as they neared his stone barn and her feet dragged a little.
He noticed and gave her a curious look. “Something wrong?”
“Not...uh, not at all. I just, I just didn’t realize you had a water wheel,” she said quickly. Not entirely untruthfully. Because she hadn’t realized it until now. Hadn’t seen it, because she hadn’t gotten so close to the barn the last time she’d been there.
But there it was. Positioned closely against the far side of the stone barn, dipping into the stream and producing a soothing, distinctly rhythmic creak as it turned.
But her sudden shot of nerves was caused only because it had dawned on her that she was finally seeing his place. That they were alone.
That anything could happen.
She wasn’t a virgin. Before Tammy Jo had landed Ham, Arabella had been involved with him first. But that had still been a while ago. Was she really ready to take that step with Jay?
He was still waiting for her to catch up to him. “Barn used to be a flour mill.”
She blinked. “Seriously? I was only joking when I asked if your grandmother milled her own flour for her chocolate chip cookies.”
“She’s probably capable, but she couldn’t do it here. Not anymore. The mill was dismantled a long time ago. My grandfather was a farrier. He did a lot of his work here.” He aimed toward a rough-looking door positioned closer to the short side of the barn and she was surprised that he stopped to pull a key out of his pocket to unlock it.
“Get a lot of break-ins out here in the middle of nowhere?”
He pocketed the key again. “You’d be surprised.” He pushed open the door and waited for her to enter first.
She did, and what she saw inside made her jaw drop.
Whatever the stone building’s previous uses had been, the interior now was plainly meant as living quarters for humans. The stone walls on the outside were the same on the inside, but the floors were gleaming wood. A galley-style kitchen was located on one narrow end. At the other side of the room, a couple of rough-hewn posts anchored a staircase leading to a loft area that filled only a limited portion of the magnificent space soaring up to the crisscrossing barn rafters.
She assumed the bedroom was upstairs, because between kitchen and stairs, it was all living space downstairs. A small dining table that looked like it was made of the same kind of wood as the posts sat behind a long leather couch that anchored one end of a large rectangular rug woven in mottled shades of gray. Opposite the couch were a wooden trunk serving as a coffee table and two chairs. Most surprising of all, though, was a gleaming black grand piano that stood near the stairs. It ought to have looked out of place, but it didn’t.
In fact, everything looked magazine perfect in one of those modern-yet-rustic ways. Perfect, yet totally impersonal. There wasn’t a single personal item in sight.
She turned in a circle, taking it all in. “Your grandmother must have spent a fortune doing all of this.”
He set the pitcher and the picnic basket on the concrete kitchen island.
“Was she hoping to rent it out or something?” Arabella wandered nearer, stepping around the buttery-soft-looking couch. There were only a few narrow windows, but they spanned nearly the entire length of the space. Hung horizontally as they were, one above the other, they afforded a view of the horses and the pasture from every position within the barn.
“Or something.” Jay opened a cupboard and pulled out a sleeve of red cups that he tossed onto the island. He followed it up with a package of paper plates. “Nothing but the finest china here. Makes doing the dishes a breeze.”
She laughed as she undid the twist-tie and removed two plastic cups while he did the same with the plates. She filled them with ice from the dispenser in the door of the refrigerator.
The sound of the ice maker reminded her of the towel that Brady had found. “My brother knows I was in the fitness center the other night,” she admitted abruptly.
His eyebrows rose. “How? I know we weren’t caught on the security camera.”
She told him about the towel as she reached for the pitcher of lemonade and began pouring. “And he knows I wasn’t alone. Because not only was my towel there, but your tennis shoes were as well.”
“You told him they were mine?”
“Of course not, but he’s not an idiot. He knows I’m—” She took a long drink of the cold lemonade, swallowing it along with the rest of her sentence. “I mean he suspects there’s something...you know. Going on. Between you and me.” Why on earth couldn’t she seem to stop her tongue?
A small smile flirted around the edges of Jay’s lips. “Does that bother you?”
“No!”
“So then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that he knows we were there when we shouldn’t have been. We broke the rules. I never break the rules,” she muttered. “I should have known we’d get caught.”
He pulled off the plastic wrap from the plate of fried chicken and set it in front of her. “The hotel would have to fire me before they could fire you, so I wouldn’t sweat too much over it.”
“I don’t know how you can sound so calm.”
He uncovered the bowl of potato salad and stuck a big mixing spoon into it. “I’ve weathered worse.”
She wanted to ask him more, but instead, followed him to the table, where he set the food in the middle. Then, when he pulled out a chair for her, she forgot to be curious in favor of being quietly charmed. The only other time a man had done that had been with Ham.
Just once.
“What’s so funny?”
Arabella looked at Jay. “Sorry?”
“You were smiling to yourself.”
She chuckled. “It’s nothing. Just remembering the last time someone pulled out my chair.”
“A guy?” He eyed her over the rim of his red cup. “Do I need to be jealous?”
She’d always thought jealousy was an unattractive trait. Yet the notion that she could even inspire him to such an emotion was entirely novel. “You be the judge. He took me to the fanciest restaurant in town.”
“Any guy can do that. Now this?” He gestured with a fried chicken drumstick. “Raiding grandma’s fridge? Takes real thought. So what happened after the restaurant?”
She bit the inside of her lip, but there was no real way to keep her smile from growing. “He dumped me during the soup course.”
For once, she was pretty sure she was the one to surprise him. “Were the two of you serious?”
“I thought so at the time.” She picked a drumstick of her own and took a bite. Even cold, it was delicious. “He’s getting married soon. Well, actually, maybe it’s this weekend. Or last?” She shrugged. “I can’t remember. Far as I’m concerned, he and Tammy Jo deserve each other.” She took another bite. “Is everything your grandmother makes delicious?”
“Yeah. Tammy Jo the reason he ended things with you?”
“Is that the polite term for getting dumped?” She grinned. “And no. There were a few other girls before Tammy Jo. Knowing Ham, she’ll be lucky if there aren’t a few other girls once they’re married, too.”
“Doesn’t sound like he left you with a broken heart.”
“Mildly bruised.” Another bite and her drumstick was demolished. She set the bone on the side of her plate and scooped up some potato salad. “What about you?”
“Mildly bruised.”
If jealousy was unattractive, she was looking as pretty as a toad, right about now. “Long time ago?”
His dimple appeared and he lightly tapped the edge of his red cup against hers. “The present company I’m keeping makes it hard to remember.”
“Better be careful,” she warned with a lightness she didn’t exactly feel. “Saying things like that, I might start to believe you.”
His gaze held hers. “Would that be so bad?”
Her throat suddenly felt too tight for words. She pressed her lips together and shook her head.
He set down his cup and rose from his chair enough to lean across the table. “Come here.”
She swallowed hard and just like he had, set down her cup. She rose and leaned toward him over the chicken and the salad until they were mere inches apart.
His voice was low. “Can I call you Bella yet?”
The sweet heat that had slid into her veins slipped into her heart. “Yes.”
He leaned two inches closer.
So did she.
Then his lips touched hers and the knowledge was suddenly just there.
Filling her.
I could love this man.
Not just a crush. Not just infatuation.
Seriously love him. As in good times and bad. As in now and forever.
He pulled back slightly then. His eyes searched hers.
Even though she’d been certain she hadn’t said the words aloud, she felt her cheeks warm. “What?”
“I’m really glad your battery died that day.”
She smiled. “So am I.”
“But—” His gaze dropped. “You’re smashing the grub.”
She looked down, too, then and realized she’d planted her hand right in the middle of the bowl of potato salad. “Oh, for crying out loud!”
He gave a bark of laughter and kissed her again. “Bathroom’s upstairs.”
Even though she had mayonnaise and bits of potato stuck beneath her fingernails, she was pretty sure she floated up the stairs.
The bathroom was as lovely as the rest of the place, with a separate tub and shower that both looked out over the top of the water wheel. She washed her hands and controlled the urge to peek into the medicine cabinet behind the mirror. Her dress had a gold zipper from the top of its scooped neckline to the hem that hit her midthigh. Feeling breathless, she lowered the zip a few inches. Then looked at her raccoon-reflection and yanked it back up where it belonged and left the room.
The wide bed occupying most of the loft was covered in a deep blue spread. A chest of drawers was situated beneath another one of the horizontal-style windows. A pair of cowboy boots lay haphazardly on a rug similar to the one downstairs and a guitar was propped in a corner with a couple shirts tossed carelessly across it.
At least there were signs of his occupancy. As well as the fact that he didn’t put his clothes away any better than she did.
She was still smiling when she went back downstairs.
He’d cleared the table. “Honey, I did the dishes.”
She laughed. “What a hero.”
“I try.” His eyes crinkled. “What do you want to do now?”
Muss up your neatly made bed?
The words only sounded inside her head, though. “Show me the horses?”
He smiled slowly. “As much as I appreciate the outfit, you’re not exactly dressed for riding.”
“That’s okay. I don’t know how to ride, anyway.”
He pressed his palm to his chest. “You’re killing me. You’re in Texas, sweetheart. That’s something we’ll have to rectify as soon as possible.”
Any reason to spend time with him was okay with her. “That doesn’t mean we can’t go look at them now, does it?”
In answer, he took her hand in his and he led her back outside where it was even more hot and humid thanks to the clouds that had rolled in. They crossed the short bridge that arched over the stream and ducked between the rails of the white fence to cross the pasture toward the three light brown horses standing still on the far side of the field. They would have looked identical if not for the white markings on their faces.
Jay gave a soft whistle and the one with the smallest mark flicked its dark tail jauntily and trotted toward them, not stopping until it butted his head against Jay’s upraised palm. “This is Loretta. Looking good for a thirty-year-old lady.”
“Thirty!”
“Year older ’n me. I learned to ride on her. Almost before I could walk.” He tugged Arabella closer and guided her fingers to the white mark. “She likes her star rubbed. Right there.”
Arabella rubbed her fingertips against the smooth white hair and Loretta’s liquid brown eyes turned in her direction. She felt strangely moved knowing that the old horse had borne a small, young Jay on her back. “I didn’t realize horses lived so long.”
“Some do.” Jay ran his hand down the horse’s gleaming shoulder. “She’s pampered and healthy. Hopefully she’s got a lot more years left in her.”
As if in answer, Loretta butted her nose against his shoulder.
He laughed and stuck his hand in the pocket of his shirt and pulled out a peppermint. He barely managed to unwrap it before the horse nipped it out of his fingers.
By then, the other two horses had plodded forward, too. “Waylon,” Jay said as he pointed out the one with a long narrow stripe down his nose, “and Willie.” He dropped another candy in Arabella’s hand. “Unwrap it and hold it flat in your palm.”
She did as instructed and Willie’s velvety lips rubbed against her palm as he took the peppermint. She giggled and scrubbed her palm down her side. “Tickles.”
Jay chuckled. “Here.” He unwrapped the third peppermint and handed it to her. “Waylon isn’t quite as polite as Willie,” he warned.
She eagerly presented her palm with the candy in the center and Waylon butted against Willie to get to it, and left a slobbery smear behind once he did.
“Definitely not as polite.” Arabella wrinkled her nose, laughing. “Your grandmother must really like country music. Considering their names, I mean.”
Jay pulled out his shirttail and wiped her hand dry. “She’s more of a Sinatra fan. My grandfather was the one who named them. They got Willie and Waylon as foals not long before he died.” He patted his empty pocket for the benefit of the horses. “All gone, my friends.”
Waylon and Willie bobbed their heads and plodded away.
Loretta remained, though, seeming content with the brush of Jay’s hand on her back.
Arabella slowly stroked the horse’s back, her hand following Jay’s. “It’s no wonder your grandmother doesn’t want to give them up.”
“She never will as long as I have something to say about it.”
Her heart squeezed. “You’re a good grandson.”
His lips twisted slightly. “Not as good as I should have been.” He looked over her head toward the barn but Arabella had the sense he was focused elsewhere.
She held her hand still on Loretta’s back, knowing his hand would bump into hers. “Why?”
She wasn’t sure he’d answer at first. But then his gaze shifted to her face. “I was so focused on my own life I couldn’t even make time to get back to celebrate holidays. Birthdays. Then when everything went to hell—” He glanced up when thunder rumbled softly overhead.
She slid her fingers through his, keeping his hand on Loretta’s back when he would have pulled away. “What went to hell?”
He frowned. “Arabella.”
She winced, wishing for Bella again. “Does it have to do with Detective Teas?”
“Teas?” He frowned even more and his lips thinned. “He thinks I had something to do with the balcony collapse at the hotel.”
It took a moment for his abrupt words to sink in. To make sense. “That’s ridiculous!”
“I know it is, but why do you think so?”
She turned toward him and settled her palms on his chest. Even through his shirt, she could feel the solid warmth of him. “Because I know you.”
He gathered her hands beneath his. His eyes searched hers with a sudden urgency that pulled at her. “What do you know?”
“I know you put your family first.”
He started to shake his head and she curled her fingertips into his chest. Even Loretta cooperated, conveniently shifting her considerable size behind him so that he couldn’t back away from Arabella. “Maybe you didn’t always, but you do now. And now is what I know. I know you’re a hard worker. You’re loyal to the hotel.” She took a step closer until their hands were caught between their bodies. “And I know how you make me feel.”
Something else entered his green eyes. Something warm. Something heady. “And how is that?”
She stood on her toes and pulled his head down close enough to press her mouth to his. She put everything she had into that kiss. All of her emotion. All of her yearning. And when she finally went down off her toes again, her heart was hammering so hard inside her chest he couldn’t fail to feel it. “Like that,” she whispered huskily.
He drew a finger down her cheek. “You’re too good for me.”
She shook her head. Reached up and kissed him a second time. Went back down on her heels and had to hold on to him just to keep her legs from collapsing beneath her. “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.”
His jaw flexed. She knew he wanted her, too. She could feel it. Not just in the hardness of his body but in the heat of his eyes. In the tension of his hands as they roved down her back.
But still, he was holding back and her frustration rose in her throat.
She went up on her toes a third time. She stopped shy of kissing him, though. Need was a hot hollow cramping inside her. “Do I need to strip off my dress right here, Jay? I’m on the Pill. Perfectly safe, I promise you.”
He groaned slightly. “Bella.”
“I will,” she warned—promised—huskily. “One zip is all it takes.” To prove it, she reached between them to tug at the zipper.
“No.” His hand caught hers, stopping her.
Her dismay never had a chance to get off the ground, though, because he suddenly reversed their positions until it was her back pressed against Loretta’s stalwart side.
“I want to do it,” he said gruffly. His fingers brushed against hers as he took over.
Her breath came hard in her chest as she stared up at him. Every nerve ending she possessed stood at high alert, sending frenzied little charges in accompaniment to her pounding heartbeat as he lowered the zipper tab with excruciating slowness. Her dress loosened tooth-by-tooth and she sucked in an aching breath when he took a step back and lowered to one knee as he continued pulling down the zipper. Right to the very bottom of her hem. Then he tugged one last time and the zipper separated altogether.
He exhaled audibly and his hands slid under the denim, settling first on her waist for a long moment before slowly sliding behind her back, drawing her toward him again.
She shuddered, drowning in desire. When he rested his forehead against her belly, she ran her fingers through his thick, dark hair. In that moment, there was something intimate and impossibly vulnerable about him. The slightly sunburned skin at the nape of his neck below his short hair. The long sweep of his spine, just visible beneath the gape of his shirt collar.
Loretta shifted then, pushing so hard against Arabella that she lost her balance and fell forward against Jay, taking him right with her down to the tall, sweet grass.
He caught Arabella against him, his eyes glinting. “Good old Loretta. Always has my back.”
Arabella laughed softly as she tried to sit up, but Jay just caught her hips in his hands to keep her in place, sitting right there on top of him.
Then he pressed hard against her and her laughter died. Her dress had slipped down one arm and was barely hanging on to her other shoulder. And even though she’d been the one threatening to strip, now that she was all but nude in front of him, she was acutely aware of how she must look. No bra. A pair of white bikini panties with pink sunglasses printed all over them.
She started to pull the dress together but he shook his head. “Don’t.” In fact, he curled his fingers in the dress fabric as if to make sure she couldn’t.
Her skin tingled. She didn’t think her nipples could get any tighter, but they did. Inside, however, she was simply liquefying.
“Undo your hair.”
She moistened her lips and tried not to reveal how shaky she suddenly felt as she raised her hands to her ponytail and worked the thin band free. Her hair fell down around her shoulders.
“Do you know how many times I’ve thought about you?” His fingers flexed against her hips and his voice deepened even more. “Dreamed about you?”
Thunder murmured again but it didn’t matter since she was suddenly incapable of speech, anyway.
“Months.” His eyes were almost as green as the grass surrounding him. “And more months. And then there you were. In Rambling Rose. At the police station.”
It dawned on her then. She pressed her palm flat against his abdomen and felt his muscles bunch. “Was that why you were so unfriendly? Were you there because of the balcony collapse?”
“I warned you that you’re too good for me.”
She was shaking her head even before he finished speaking. “I’m perfect for you and you know it.”
His dimple appeared suddenly. “Now who’s confident?”
She could only attribute her sudden wealth of self-assurance to him. Particularly when she slowly rocked her hips against his. “Does that feel perfect?”
His eyes darkened and the edge of his white teeth showed as he inhaled audibly. “Getting close to it.” He deftly slid his hand between them, fingers curling unerringly beneath her panties to find her.
Then she was the one to catch her breath.
“Even closer,” he murmured.
And then she couldn’t think anything at all. All she could do was feel. His fingers on her. In her. Driving her right to the edge of insanity only to pull back and taunt her even more until she was so desperate that she mindlessly caught his hand in hers, pressing his fingers against her until finally, finally, the pressure inside her escaped.
His exultant groan worked through her as she collapsed in a heap against his chest. But even then there was little rest because he rolled until it was her back cradled in the lush grass. Her eyes staring up at the clouds overhead. He kissed her again. And again. On her lips. On her breasts. On her navel and her big toe and every point in between.
She wasn’t even sure how he’d gotten rid of her panties, much less his own clothes, but it didn’t matter because he was there, pressing inside her, filling her more perfectly than she could have ever imagined.
She wrapped her legs around him. Her arms around him. Took him into every cell of her soul, and when the ecstasy was almost more than she could withstand, his eyes met hers.
“Now.” His voice was breathless. Raw. Beautiful. “Now, we’re perfect.”
She threw back her head, and together, they flew.