Can the bad boy of Copper Ridge, Oregon, make good—and win the rodeo girl of his dreams?

Kate Garrett keeps life simple—working hard, riding her beloved horses, playing cards with her brothers. Lately, though, she feels a bit restless, especially when family friend Jack Monaghan is around. Sexy and shameless, Jack is the kind of trouble you don’t tangle with unless you want your heart broken. Still, Kate could always use his help in learning how to lasso someone a little less high risk…

Jack can’t pinpoint the moment the Garrett brothers’ little sister suddenly stopped seeming so…little. Now here he is, giving flirting tips to the one woman who needs zero help turning him on. Love’s a game he’s never wanted to play. But he’ll have to hurry up and learn how before the best thing that ever entered his life rides right back out again…

Bad News Cowboy

Shoulda Been a Cowboy

Maisey Yates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

Bad News Cowboy

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

EPILOGUE

Shoulda Been a Cowboy

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

Bad News Cowboy

Maisey Yates

CHAPTER ONE

KATE GARRETT HAD never much belonged to anyone. And that was how she liked it.

She didn’t have the time or desire to deal with anyone telling her what to do or how to act or how to sit. If she wanted to ride across the field like a bat out of hell and let her hair tangle in the wind, gathering snarls and bugs and Lord knew what else, she’d do that.

It was the perk of independence. Compensation from life since it hadn’t seen fit to give her a mother who was around to tuck her in at night. The consolation prize that came for living with a father whose every word was scented with whiskey, who moved around her as if she existed in a different space. As if she wasn’t even there.

But who needed warm milk and itchy tights and whatever the hell else came with being hovered over for your entire childhood? She’d rather have freedom and the pounding of a horse’s hooves on arena dirt.

Or on the soft soil of the Garrett family ranch, which was what she had today. Which meant it was a damn good day. She had to be at the Farm and Garden for work in a couple of hours, so she would have to cut the ride shorter than she’d like. But any ride was better than none, even if she’d rather keep going until her face was chapped from the wind and her lungs burned.

The sun was getting high in the sky and she knew it was time to haul ass back. She grimaced and slowed her horse, Roo, turning sharply, as she would if they were going around a barrel, before picking up the pace again on the way out of the loop and galloping back in the direction she’d come.

Wind whipped strands of dark hair into her eyes and she cursed her decision to leave it loose. So maybe nobody yelled at her for letting her hair get tangled, but in the end she had to comb it out and that was always a pain.

She would braid it before work. Because when she’d gotten her horse ready to be put away, she wasn’t going to have time to get herself looking pretty. Not that she needed to be particularly pretty to man the counter at the Farm and Garden.

She would settle for not looking homeless.

She slowed Roo as they approached the horse barn, and she dismounted, breathing hard, the early-morning air like a shot of ice to her lungs on every indrawn breath. She led the horse inside and removed her bridle, then slipped on a halter and looped the lead over a hook. She didn’t even bother with tying a quick-release knot on Roo when they were at home. She knelt down and loosened the girth on the saddle before taking it off completely, along with the bright blue blanket underneath. In spite of the chilly air that marked the shift from summer to fall, Roo had worked up a sweat during the ride.

She pulled the towel off a nearby rack and wiped Roo down, making sure she was dry and that the saddle marks were removed. Then she took her bright yellow pick out of the bucket and ran her hand down Roo’s leg, squeezing gently until the horse lifted her foot. She picked out any rocks and mud that had collected during the ride, humming softly as she did. She repeated that step on the other three legs and was nearly finished when she heard footsteps on the ground behind her, followed by her oldest brother’s voice.

“You’re up early, Katie.”

“I wanted to get a ride in before I headed to work. And if you call me Katie one more time, I’m going to stick this pick in your eye.”

Connor only smiled at her threat, crossing his arms over his broad chest, his wedding band catching her attention. In the seven months since he and Liss had gotten married, it had stayed shiny. It was some kind of metal designed to break if it got caught on anything, since ranch work was dangerous for men wearing jewelry.

She liked the reminder, though. The reminder that he was happy again. Connor had spent way too much time buried in the depths of his grief, and Liss had finally been able to lift him out of it.

As an added bonus, Liss had allowed Kate to wear jeans and boots to the wedding. Which was more than her future sister-in-law, Sadie, was letting her get away with for her and Eli’s upcoming mammoth nuptials.

“Sorry, Kate,” Connor said, his smile getting wider.

“You’re cheerful this morning,” she observed, finishing with Roo’s last hoof before straightening.

“I’m pretty much cheerful all the time these days.”

“I’ve noticed. Which is more than I can say for your wife.”

“Her ankles are swollen. It’s all my fault,” he said, but he didn’t look at all abashed. In fact, he looked rather proud. Love did weird things to people. It was kind of strange being surrounded by it like she was now.

Watching both of her older brothers fall fast and hard.

And she was just alone. But then, she was kind of used to that. And she liked it. She wasn’t beholden to anyone. It was secure. It was familiar.

Anyway, it made for a lot of free time available to ride her horse.

“Yeah, she makes a good case for staying far away from marriage and pregnancy—” Kate tucked a strand of hair behind her ear “—what with all the complaining.”

“Suits me just fine if you stay away from it for now,” Connor said. “Nobody’s good enough for you anyway.”

“I don’t know about that. But I haven’t met anyone with the balls to keep up.” That wasn’t strictly true. It was more true to say she hadn’t done any serious looking.

Really?

She gritted her teeth and ignored that thought.

“That doesn’t surprise me. What time do you get off?” he asked.

“Pretty early.”

“Are you coming out for poker?”

She was usually invited to the family game these days, after years of them behaving as though her presence stifled conversation. No matter whether she was three, thirteen or newly twenty-three, Eli and Connor looked at her like she was a child. Of course, Sadie and Liss weren’t much better.

And Jack was pretty much the worst.

She ignored the slight twist in her stomach when she thought of her brothers’ friend.

“Isn’t it my night to bring dinner?” she asked.

He leaned against the barn wall. “That’s one reason I was making sure you’re coming. If not, I was going to have to cook something.”

“By which you mean opening a frozen pizza box?”

“Yes. Because that is the extent of my skills and if I ask Liss to cook anything right now, I’m going to end up with a ladle shoved up where the sun don’t shine.”

Kate winced. “Well, out of concern for your...that, I promise to bring dinner.”

He pushed away from the wall. “Excellent. See you tonight.”

She hesitated before asking the next question. But she did need to know. “How many of us will there be?”

Connor screwed up his face, clearly doing mental math. “Six counting you.”

So that meant everyone was coming. Which wasn’t all that remarkable. It was more common than not. Considering that, her stomach should not have felt the way it did when she took an extra-sharp barrel turn while riding Roo.

“I might bring fish and chips from The Crab Shanty.”

“You don’t have to do that. It’s expensive. And greasy.” He paused for a moment. “You realize that expensive was the negative and greasy was the positive.”

She waved a hand. “I’m sick of pizza. I’ll spend my money however I damn well please. Anyway, I still have some cash from my last win.” The purse for the last amateur barrel racing event she’d won hadn’t been very big, but it had been enough to continue giving her the luxury of working part-time at the Farm and Garden while she kept honing her skills.

It was too expensive to jump into the professional circuit without the ability to back it up.

“Fine. Spend your money on seafood. In which case, I’ll take the lobster, thanks.”

“Liss isn’t the only one who might stuff things in places, Connor. I’d watch it.”

He reached out and mussed her hair, like she was a damn toddler. Or a puppy.

“Watch it, asshole,” she grumbled.

“Sorry, did I break one of the eggs in that bird’s nest of yours?”

She scowled. “I hope your wife punches you in the face.”

“That isn’t a far-fetched hope.”

“Excellent,” she said, knowing she sounded bloodthirsty. She felt a little bloodthirsty.

“I hope you don’t plan on treating your customers the same way you treat me.”

“No, I perk up for actual people.”

“I don’t really care how evil your mood is if you bring food. And money to lose.”

“Shut it, Garrett. You know you aren’t going to get any of my money.”

Connor’s smile turned rueful. “No. Because Jack is going to end up with everyone’s money.”

The outright mention of Jack’s name made her skin feel prickly. “Well, that’s true,” she said. “I don’t know why you invite him.”

Connor looked mystified. “I don’t think anyone does. He just shows up.”

“Ha. Ha.” Kate scuffed her boot through the dirt, leaving a line behind.

“I have to get a move on,” he said. “These cows won’t castrate themselves.”

“Damn lazy beasts. Also—” Kate held her hands up and wiggled her fingers “—no thumbs.”

“Right. It’s thankless work. It’s also the only magic trick I know.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Magic trick?”

“I’m off to go change bulls into steers. With the help of my lovely assistant, Eli.”

She snorted. “Yeah, well, enjoy that. I’m going to give thanks that I’m not on ranch duty today.”

“See you tonight.” And with that, he turned and walked out the alley doors.

Kate grabbed her brush out of the bucket, then tossed the pick back in. She straightened and ran the bristles quickly over Roo’s hair before taking the end of the lead rope and guiding her into her stall.

She unhooked the rope and patted Roo on the nose before scratching the white star on her forehead. “See you later,” she said, unable to resist dropping a kiss on the horse’s nose.

A day that started with a ride and ended with a poker game surrounded by her family could only be a good day.

And the presence of Jack Monaghan didn’t matter at all.

* * *

IT WAS A strange thing knowing that whenever a random expense came up, he had the means to handle it. After spending most of his childhood in poverty, Jack Monaghan was still getting used to having money. Not just in his pocket but in his bank account. In stocks and bonds. He even had a savings account and some set aside for retirement.

If someone looked at his finances, they might think he was responsible. Stable. Because on paper, he looked good. A person might be tempted to draw the conclusion that Jack was a steady, staid family man.

Yeah, that motherfucker would be wrong.

But Jack didn’t care either way. Because today his tractor was broken, and he was headed over to the Farm and Garden to get a replacement part and he didn’t have to beg anyone for a loan.

He killed the engine on his F-150 and got out of the truck, walked to the front door of the store and pushed it open. The little bell that was strung overhead signaled his arrival and a dark head popped up from behind the counter.

“Hey there, Katie,” he said making his way across the store.

The youngest Garrett narrowed her brown eyes, her glare as penetrating as a rifle bullet. “What are you doing here, Monaghan?”

“I’m a paying customer, twerp.”

“Did you just call me a twerp? Because I have the right to refuse service to anyone.” She flipped her braid over her shoulder, her expression remaining fierce.

“Yeah, that would go over real well with your boss. Especially since I’m here to drop decent money on a freaking carburetor.”

“We’re probably gonna have to order it. You could always go to Tolowa and pick it up at one of the bigger stores.”

“I’d rather get it here. Keep my business in Copper Ridge.”

The corner of her lips turned up in a bad approximation of a smile. “That’s appreciated.”

“It’s okay, Katie. I know you don’t appreciate much about me.”

“If you called me something other than Katie, I might.”

“I just called you twerp and you didn’t seem to appreciate that, either.”

“Maybe if you pulled your head out of your ass and realized I was a grown-up and not a child, we wouldn’t have so many problems.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts—which he knew she had; he wasn’t blind—and cocked her hip to the side.

“We don’t have problems. You have problems. I am fine.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket that had all of the relevant make and model information for his tractor. “Well, except for a carburetor problem.” He handed her the paper and she took it from him, studying the information before scrunching her nose and turning to the antiquated computer on the counter.

The monitor was practically the size of a hay bale, big and square, off-white. Like something they had used back in the junior high school computer lab.

“Doesn’t that thing drive you crazy?” he asked, indicating the machine.

Kate frowned, entering numbers in slowly before turning to look at him. “Why would it drive me crazy?”

“Because it’s so outdated I’m surprised you can’t hear gears turning inside when you give it a command.”

“It works fine.”

“Isn’t it slow?”

She blinked. “Compared to what?”

“Do you have a computer?”

“Why would I need a computer?”

He looked at the completely earnest and completely confused expression of the younger sister of his two best friends in the world. Kate was pretty enough even if she didn’t choose to make the most of her assets, not a bit of makeup to enhance her features, her hair rarely in any configuration other than a single braid down her back. Invariably, she wore slightly baggy T-shirts or flannel button-up tops tucked into either a pair of Wrangler or Carhartt jeans.

Kate dressed for functionality, not decoration.

He had no issue with that. Kate was... Well, as women went, she was more functional than decorative, so it fit.

“I think most people would say they couldn’t survive without one,” he said.

“Well—” Kate flashed him a smile “—look at me. Surviving and shit.”

“Good job.” He tapped the counter. “Now let’s see if you can order me a carburetor as handily as you can survive.”

“Watch it, Monaghan,” she said, still typing numbers into the computer. “I am bringing dinner tonight, and I don’t have to bring any for you.”

“Oh, do we have the option of excluding people from dinner now? I’ll remember that when my turn comes around.”

Lately, Kate was usually prickly as a porcupine when he was around. He was never sure why. But then, he seemed incapable of leaving her be. He wasn’t sure why that was, either. She brought out the devil in him. Of course, the devil in him seemed to live real close to the surface.

It hadn’t always been like this. Sure, they’d always hassled each other. But beneath that, he’d known where he stood. Somewhere in the vicinity of her brothers. Both of them had had some pretty shitty home situations. His mother stressed, angry and resentful of his presence. While Kate’s mother had been gone, her father a slobbering drunk.

Eli and Connor had done their best to take care of her, but when they’d needed help? He’d been all in. Making her smile had been his goal. Because she’d been so short on reasons to smile.

An only child, he’d had no one around to take care of him. To cheer him up when he’d been smarting from a slap across the face delivered by his mom. He’d had the Garretts. And he’d soon realized that the void he’d felt from having no one to take care of him could be filled by offering Kate what he’d so desperately wished for when he’d been young.

Somewhere along the way they’d lost some of that. Something to do with her not being a kid anymore, he supposed.

The bell above the door rang again and Alison Davis walked in, carrying a white pastry box with a stack of brochures on top. “Good morning, Kate.” She offered Jack a cautious smile, tucking her red hair behind her ear and looking down at the ground. “Good morning.”

“Hi, Alison,” he said, softening his tone a bit.

Though she’d left her abusive husband a year and a half ago, Alison still seemed skittish as a newborn colt. Maybe that was just him, too.

“What brings you by?” Kate asked.

Alison appeared to regroup in time to focus on Kate. “I wanted to bring you a pie. And also to ask if it would be all right if I put a couple of advertisements for the bakery here in the store. I have two new employees, both women who just left men who were...well, like my ex. I’m happy to have them working for me, but now I need more business to match the expense. One of them hasn’t had a job in fifteen years and no one else would hire her.” Alison let out a long breath. “It’s hard to start a new life.”

“I’m sure,” Kate said. “Yeah, I’ll take a whole stack of those ads. I don’t think Travers will have a problem with it. But if he does, I’ll tell him he’s being stupid. And then he’ll probably change his mind because he’s pretty cool.”

“I don’t want to get you in trouble,” Alison said.

Kate snorted and planted her hands on her hips. “Nobody gets me in trouble unless I agree to be in trouble.”

“I appreciate it.” She set the bakery box on the counter and took the brochures off the top of them. Then she lifted the lid, revealing the most perfect meringue he’d ever seen in his life. “Lemon meringue,” she said. “I hope you like that.”

“I do.” Kate took the pie and moved it behind the counter. “I gladly accept. I promise to refer customers to you, too. If anyone comes in with a pie craving I can send them right down the street.”

“I appreciate it. Really I appreciate what everyone has done. I thought when I quit the diner, Rona would be mad at me. But instead she decided to order all of her pies from me now that I’m not making them there.”

“That’s great!” Kate smiled.

Yes, she seemed perfectly capable of being nice to other people. So it was him.

“I have a few other businesses to go to. And I don’t want to distract you from your work.”

“Great—just leave the brochures here on the counter.”

“Thanks, Kate.” She offered a shy wave, then turned and left the store.

Jack watched her go, then turned his attention back to Kate. “That was nice of you.”

“I am nice,” she said.

“To some people.”

She scrunched up her face. “Some people deserve it.”

“Oh, go on, Katie. You like me.”

Kate looked at the computer screen, a slash of pink spreading over her cheeks. “I like my brothers, too, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to punch them in the face half the time.”

She was blushing. Honest-to-God blushing. But he didn’t have a clue as to why.

“That embarrassing to have to admit that I’m not the worst person in the world?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, looking back at him, her dark eyes glittering.

“You’re blushing, Garrett.”

She pressed her palm to her cheek before lowering it quickly. “I am not. What the hell would I have to blush about around you?” She turned her focus back to the computer screen, her expression dark now.

“You wouldn’t be the first girl I made blush.”

“Gross.”

“Are you bringing that pie tonight?” He thought it was probably best to change the subject, because something about it was making him edgy, too.

“I don’t know. I might hide it back in my house and keep it all for myself.”

“You can’t eat a whole pie.”

“I can absolutely eat a whole pie. And will.”

“Better idea. Only you and me know about the pie. Save it, and I’ll come back to your place with you.”

Kate blinked rapidly. “No.”

“What?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come to my house. I mean, I think we need to share it.”

He wasn’t sure why it was so difficult to find a topic that didn’t make her mad or...weird. Jack never had problems talking to women. Women liked him. He liked women. The exception seemed to be Kate. And seeing as he’d known her the better part of her life, he couldn’t fathom why. Usually, their banter was pretty good-natured. Lately, he wasn’t sure that was the case.

“Your total is one ninety. That includes shipping,” she said, the change in topic abrupt.

“Great. When do you expect it to be here?”

“Should only take two days.”

“Even better.” He reached into his back pocket, took out his wallet and handed Kate his debit card. “I might actually swing by the bakery and pick up another pie on my way home.”

“Yeah, I wish there was more I could do to help. For now, all I can think of is increasing my pie consumption. Which I’m not opposed to. But there has to be more that can be done.”

Ideas started turning over in Jack’s head. His brain was never still. Not unless he was on the back of a bull intent on shaking him loose. Or riding his horse so hard and fast all he could hear was the pounding of hooves on the ground. In those moments he had what he imagined was tranquility. Outside that, it never happened.

“If I think of anything, I’ll let you know,” he said. He was already determined that he would think of something.

The printer whirred, spitting out a receipt that Kate tore off and handed to him. “You’re all set. Someone will give you a call when it’s in.”

“Great.” And then, for no other reason than that he was curious whether or not he could make her cheeks pink again, he tipped his hat, nodded his head and treated her to his patented Monaghan smile. “See you later, Katie.”

He didn’t get a blush. He didn’t even get a return smile. Instead he got a very emphatic middle finger.

Jack laughed and walked out of the store.

CHAPTER TWO

“I COME BEARING FISH! And chips. Well, French fries. But you knew that.” Kate pushed her way through the front door of Connor’s house holding two large white takeout containers. One held the fried fish fillets, and the other the fried potatoes.

“I’m starving.” Kate rounded the corner and saw her sister-in-law, Liss, standing in the center of the dining area with her hand on her rounded stomach.

“You’re eating for two,” Kate said. “Or so I’ve heard.”

Liss screwed up her face. “That would make sense. If I knew I was gestating a ravenous wolverine rather than a human child.”

Kate laughed and walked over to the table and set the cartons down. The only other thing on the scarred wooden surface was the big green Oregon Ducks ice bucket her brother put his beer in. Well, beer and soda now, since Liss was pregnant and Connor barely drank anymore.

“Although, if it isn’t a wolverine, it just means that I lack restraint.” Liss groaned. “I can’t pass Rona’s without going in for a milkshake. And I can’t pass The Grind without getting an onion cheese bagel. I’m a cliché without the pickles.”

Connor leaned in and kissed his wife on the cheek. “You’re having a baby. You can be a cliché if you damn well please.”

Kate’s heart squeezed tight as she watched the exchange between Connor and Liss. Connor’s first wife, Jessie, had been an influential figure in Kate’s life. The two had gotten married when Kate was only nine, and seeing as she didn’t have a mother, Jessie was as close as she’d gotten to a female influence.

Jessie’s loss had been devastating for everyone. Though she knew it had been the worst for Connor. Considering that, him falling for and marrying Liss was only good in Kate’s eyes. And Liss had always been a fixture around their house, seeing as she’d been best friends with Connor since they were in high school.

Having her as a sister was a bonus that Kate quite enjoyed.

“Ugh. Can I be a cliché eating French fries?” she asked, sitting down at the table and digging a Coke out of the ice bucket.

“I’ll get you a plate.” Connor turned and walked back into the kitchen just as they heard a pounding on the door.

“Who even knocks?” Liss mused.

She had a point. Jack, Eli and Sadie never knocked. “I’ll go see.” Kate walked back out to the entryway and jerked the front door open, freezing when she saw Jack standing there holding a stack of four pastry boxes. Her heart did that weird thing it did sometimes when she was caught off guard by Jack. That thing where it dramatically threw itself at her breastbone and knocked against it with the force of a punch. “Were you kicking the door?”

“I couldn’t open it. Not without setting all of these down.”

Kate looked up, studying his expression. He was so very tall. And he always made her feel...little. Sure, Connor and Eli were tall, too, but they didn’t fill up space the way Jack did. He was in every corner of every room he inhabited. From the spicy aftershave he wore to his laugh, low and rough like thunder, rumbling beneath every conversation.

Kate stepped to the side and held the door. “What do you have?”

“Pies. From Alison’s.”

“Four pies?”

He sighed heavily and walked past her into the dining room. She shut the door and followed after him. “Yes.” He placed the boxes on the table next to the fish and chips. “Four pies.”

Liss’s eyes widened. “What kind?”

“I’m not sure. I just bought pies.”

There was something about all of this that made her feel weird. A little bit weak, a little bit shaky. He’d done this for Alison, which was...touching. Definitely touching. And nice. Beyond nice of him. And a little bit curious. Because he was Jack, and he had a tendency to be kind of a self-centered asshole. So when he did things for other people, it was notable.

And strange.

And it made her throat a little bit dry. And her face a little bit hot.

“Is that going to be your solution for her?” Kate asked. “Going on a four-pie-a-day diet?”

“Obviously not,” he said, sitting down at the table and snagging a beer out of the bucket.

“What solution are we talking about?” Liss asked, crunching on a French fry.

Connor returned then, setting a plate in front of Liss before setting places in front of the rest of the chairs, then taking his seat next to his wife. “Hey, Jack,” he said.

“Hey,” Jack replied, putting a handful of French fries on his plate.

“I brought fish,” Kate said. “It’s healthy. And you people are eating French fries.”

“Don’t worry, Kate,” Jack said. “We’ll get around to eating your healthy battered fried fish in a minute.”

“Solution?” Liss prompted, her eyebrow arched.

“Alison stopped by the Farm and Garden today,” Kate said. “She had brochures for her bakery. And she mentioned that she’s hired on a couple of other women who just got out of circumstances similar to hers. But of course, it’s a new business, and she has a lot more overhead now since she’s renting out store space. Anyway, Jack and I were talking earlier about how we wish there was more we could do.”

“So Jack was also at the Farm and Garden?” Connor asked.

“I had to order a carburetor.” He ran a large hand over his jaw. His very square jaw. And she heard it. The brush of his palm over his dark five o’clock shadow. She swore she could feel the friction, deep and low in her stomach. And it wrapped itself around the general feeling of edginess firing through her veins.

For some reason the line of conversation was irritating to Kate. Possibly because it was preventing her from figuring out just what Jack’s motives were where Alison was concerned. And even more irritating was the fact that she cared at all.

For some reason a lot of little details about Jack’s life sometimes ended up getting magnified in her mind. And she overthought them. She more than overthought them; she turned them over to death. She couldn’t much explain it. Any more than she could make it stop.

“So you obviously stopped by the bakery and bought pies,” Kate said, trying to speed things along.

“Obviously,” Jack said, sweeping his hand in a broad gesture, indicating the still-stacked boxes of pie.

“It was nice of you.” She was pushing now.

“I don’t know that I’d go that far,” he said, shrugging his shoulder before pushing his fingers back through his dark hair. “But you know I was raised by a single mom who couldn’t get a lick of help out of her deadbeat ex. Stuff like this... I don’t like hearing about men mistreating the people they’re supposed to care for. It sticks with me.”

Kate felt as though a valve had been released in her chest and some of the pressure eased. “Oh. Yeah. That makes sense, I guess.”

Jack arched a black brow, his blue eyes glittering. “I know you don’t think I make sense very often, Katie. But there’s usually a method to my madness.”

“Don’t call her that,” Connor said. “She hates that.”

“Thank you, Connor,” Kate said, feeling exasperated now. “But I’m perfectly capable of fighting my own battles. Especially against Monaghan. He’s not the most formidable opponent.”

“I’m wounded, Katie.”

He’d said it again. That nickname that nobody else but Connor ever called her. But when Connor said it, it rubbed the wrong way, made her feel as if he was talking down to her. Like he was still thinking of her as a kid.

When Jack said it, her skin felt as though it had been brushed with velvet, leaving a trail of goose bumps behind. It made her feel warm, made it hard to breathe. So basically the same as being rubbed the wrong way. Pretty much.

Either way, she didn’t like it.

“You’re a slow learner, Monaghan.”

He chuckled and leaned back in his chair, crossing his forearms over his broad chest. “There are quite a few women who would beg to differ.”

Her cheeks caught fire. “Shut. Up. You are so gross,” she said, picking up her plate with shaking fingers and serving herself a heaping portion of fish. No fries. Ungrateful bastards not eating her fish.

She heard the door open again, and then Eli’s and Sadie’s voices. Now the gang was all here. And she could focus on playing cards, which was really what she wanted.

Sadie led the charge into the dining room, holding her now-traditional orange-and-black candy bowl in front of her, a wide grin on her face. Eli was a step behind her looking slightly abashed. Probably because his fiancée was breaking sacred football laws by bringing the colors of an opposing team onto hallowed ground.

But she did so every week. And every week, Connor made a show of not eating the candy in the bowl. Eli didn’t eat it either but didn’t make a big deal out of it. While Jack ate half of it without giving a crap what anyone thought. Which summed them all up, really.

Kate always ate the candy, too. If only because she didn’t see the point in politicizing sugar.

“Fish and chips!” Sadie exclaimed. “That makes a nice change from pizza. And pie!”

“The feast is indeed bountiful tonight,” Liss said, eyeing the pie. “We have Kate to thank for that.”

“Excuse me,” Jack said. “I brought the pie. I will have you all know that Katie has a lemon meringue pie hidden back in her cabin. And she did not bring it to share with you.”

Kate lifted her hand to smack Jack on the shoulder, and he caught her wrist. Her heart hit the back of her breastbone so hard she was afraid it might have exploded on contact. His hand was so big his fingers wrapped all the way around her arm, holding her tight, a rash of heat breaking out from that point of contact outward.

Her eyes clashed with his, and the sharp remark she’d been about to spit out evaporated on her lips.

She tugged her wrist out of his hold, fighting the urge to rub away the impression of his touch with her other hand. “I didn’t bring it because I don’t want to share my pie with you,” she said, looking at Jack.

“Selfish pie hoarder,” he said, grinning at her in that easy manner of his.

And her annoyance tripled. Because him grabbing her wrist was a whole event for her body. And he was completely unaffected. That touch had been like grabbing ahold of an electric fence. On her end. Obviously, it hadn’t been the same for him.

Why would it be? It shouldn’t be that way for you.

Yeah, no shit.

“I am not.” And she cursed her hot cheeks and her lack of snappy remark.

“I might have to side with Jack on this one,” Liss said, her tone apologetic. “Or maybe I’m just on the side of pie.”

“Traitor,” Kate mumbled.

“Though, on the subject of pies,” Jack said, turning his focus to Sadie, “we were trying to figure out if there was something that could be done to help bolster Alison’s business.”

“Hmm.” Sadie piled food on her plate and sat down, Eli taking a seat beside her. “I’ll have to scheme on that for a while.”

“You have to watch her. She’s a champion schemer,” Eli said.

“The championest.” Sadie smiled broadly.

“Scheme away,” Jack said.

“You don’t have to tell her to scheme,” Eli said. “She can’t stop scheming. This is how I ended up with an annual Fourth of July barbecue on my property.”

“I’m delightful.” Sadie nodded, the expression on her face comically serious.

“She is,” Eli agreed.

“Are we going to play cards?” Kate asked.

“So impatient to lose all of your money,” Jack said.

This was a little more normal. A more typical level of Jack harassing her.

“To me,” Sadie said, her grin turning feral. Sadie, it turned out, was a very good poker player for all her wide-blue-eyed protestations to the contrary when she first joined their weekly games.

Kate opted to stay silent, continuing on that way while the cards were dealt. And she was dealt a very good hand. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep her expression steady. Sadie was cocky. Jack was cockier. And she was going to take their money.

By the end of the night Kate had earned several profane nicknames and the contents of everyone’s wallets. She leaned back in her chair, pulling the coins toward her. “Listen to that. I’m going back home, dumping all this on the floor and swimming in it like Scrooge McDuck.”

“No diving in headfirst. That’s a sure way to spinal trauma. It isn’t that deep of a pool,” Connor said.

“Deeper than what you have. I have all your monies.” She added a fake cackle for a little bit of dramatics.

“Then I will keep all the pie,” Liss said.

“That’s my pie,” Jack said.

“You have to stay in fighting form, Monaghan. Your bar hookups won’t be so easy if you lose your six-pack,” Liss said cheerfully.

“I do enough work on the ranch every day to live on pies and still keep my six-pack, thank you very much.”

“You aren’t getting any younger,” Sadie said.

The conversation was going into uncomfortable territory as far as Kate was concerned. Really, on all fronts it was getting to an awkward place. Jack and sex. Jack’s abs. Yikes.

“I would return volley,” Jack said, “but I’m too much of a gentleman to comment on a lady’s age.”

“Gentleman, huh?” Eli asked. “Of all the things you’ve been accused of being, I doubt that’s one of them.”

Jack squinted and held up his hand, pretending to count on his fingers. “Yeah, no. There have been a lot of things, but not that one.”

“Anyway,” she said, unable to help herself, “you comment on my age all the time.”

“I said I never commented on a lady’s age, Katie.”

She snorted. “I am a lady, asswipe.”

“I don’t know how I missed it,” he said, leaning back in his chair, his grin turning wicked.

For some reason that comment was the last straw. “Okay, hate to cut this short, but I have an early morning tomorrow.” That was not strictly true. It was an optional early morning since she intended to get up and spend some time with Roo. “And I will be stopping by The Grind to buy a very expensive coffee with the money I won from you.”

Jack stood, putting his hands behind his head and stretching. “I’ll walk you out. I have an early morning, too, so I better get going.”

Dammit. He didn’t seem to understand that she was beating a hasty retreat in part to get away from him. Because the Weird Jack Stuff was a little more elevated today than normal. It had something to do with overexposure to him. She needed to go home, be by herself, scrub him off her skin in a hot shower so she could hit the reset button on her interactions with him.

She felt as if she had to do that more often lately than she had ever had to do in the past.

The thing was, she liked Jack. In that way you could like a guy who was basically an extra obnoxious older brother who didn’t share genetic material with you. She liked it when he came to poker night. She liked it when he came into the store. But at the end of it she was always left feeling...agitated.

And it had created this very strange cycle. Hoping she would see Jack, seeing Jack, being pissed that she had seen Jack. And on and on it went.

“Bye,” she said.

She picked up her newly filled change bag and started to edge out of the room. She heard heavy footsteps behind her, and without looking she knew it was Jack. Well, she knew it was Jack partly because he had said he would walk her out.

And partly because the hair on the back of her neck was standing on end. That was another weird Jack thing.

She opened the front door and shut it behind her, not waiting for Jack. Which was petty and weird. She heard the door open behind her and shut again.

“Did I do something?”

She turned around, trying to erase the scowl from her face. Trying to think of one thing he had actually done that was out of line, or out of the ordinary, at least. “No,” she said, begrudgingly.

“Then why are you acting like I dipped your pigtails in ink?” he asked, taking the stairs two at a time, making uncomfortable eye contact with her in the low evening light.

She looked down. “I’m not.”

“I seem to piss you off all the time lately,” he said, closing the distance between them while her throat closed itself up tight.

“You don’t. It’s just...teasing stuff. Don’t worry about it.”

Jack kept looking at her, pausing for a moment. She felt awkward standing there but also unable to break away. “Okay. Hey, I was thinking...”

“Uh-oh. That never ends well,” she said, trying to force a smile.

“What does that mean?”

“I’ve heard the stories Connor and Eli tell. Any time you think of something, it ends in...well, sometimes broken bones.”

“Sure,” he said, chuckling and leaning against the side of his truck. “But not this time. Well, maybe this time since it centers around the rodeo.”

“You don’t ride anymore,” she said, feeling stupid for pointing out something he already knew.

“Well, I might. I was sort of thinking of working with the association to add an extra day onto the rodeo when they pass through. A charity day. Half-price tickets. Maybe some amateur events. And all the proceeds going to...well, to a fund for women who are starting over. A certain amount should go to Alison’s bakery. She’s helping people get jobs. Get hope. I wish there had been something like that for us when I was a kid.”

Kate didn’t know anything about Jack’s dad. As long as she’d known him, he hadn’t had one. And he never talked about it.

But she got the sense that whatever the situation, it hadn’t been a happy one.

And now mixed in with all the annoyance and her desire to avoid him was a strange tightening in her chest.

“Life can be a bitch,” she said, hating the strident tone that laced its way through her voice.

“I’ve never much liked that characterization. In my estimation life is a lot more like a pissed-off bull. You hang on as long as you can, even though the ride is uncomfortable. No matter how bad it is on, you sure as hell don’t want to get bucked off.”

“Yeah, that sounds about like you.”

“Profound?”

“Like a guy who’s been kicked in the head a few times.”

“Fair enough. Anyway, what do you think about the charity?”

Warmth bloomed in her stomach. “Honestly? I think it’s a great idea.” She couldn’t even give him a hard time about this, because it was just so damn nice. “We only have a couple of months until the rodeo, though. Do you think we can pull it off?”

“We?”

Her stomach twisted uncomfortably. “Well, yeah. I think it’s a good idea. And I would like to contribute in any way I can. Even if it just means helping the pros tack up or something.”

“When are you going to turn pro, Katie?”

She gritted her teeth, and it had nothing to do with his unwanted nickname for her. “When I’m ready. I’m not going to waste a whole bunch of money traveling all over the country, entering all kinds of events and paying for association cards when I don’t have a hope in hell of winning.”

“Who says you don’t have a hope in hell of winning?” he asked, frowning. “I’ve seen you ride. You’re good.”

The compliment flowed through her like cool water on parched earth. She cleared her throat, not sure where to look or what to say. “Roo is young. She has another year or so before she’s mature. I probably do, too.”

He reached out and wrapped his hand around her braid, tugging gently. “You’re closer than you think.”

Something about his look, about that touch that should have irritated her if it did anything, sent her stomach tumbling down to her toes.

Then he turned away from her and walked around to the other side of his pickup truck, opened the driver-side door, got inside and slammed it shut. He started the truck engine and she felt icy spots on her face. She released her breath in a rush, a wave of dizziness washing over her.

You’d have thought she’d been staring down a predator and not one of her family’s oldest and dearest friends.

Freaking Jack and all the weirdness that followed him around like a thunderclap.

She walked over to her pickup and climbed in, then started the engine and threw it into Reverse without bothering to buckle. She was just driving down the narrow dirt road that led from Connor’s house to her little cabin.

The road narrowed as the trees thickened, pine branches whipping against the doors to her old truck as she approached her house. She’d moved into the cabin on her eighteenth birthday, gaining a little bit of distance and independence from her brothers without being too far away. Of course, it wasn’t as if she’d really done much with the independence.

She worked, played cards with her brothers and rode horses. That was about the extent of her life. But it filled her life, every little corner of it. And she wasn’t unhappy with that.

She walked up the front steps, threw open the front door that she never bothered to lock and stepped inside. She flipped on the light switch, bathing the small space in a yellow glow.

The kitchen and living room were one, a little woodstove built into a brick wall responsible for all the heating in the entire house. The kitchen was small with wood planks for walls that she’d painted white when she’d moved in. A distressed counter-height table divided the little seating area from where she prepared food, and served as both infrequently used dining table and kitchen island.

She had one bathroom and one bedroom. The house was small, but it fit her life just fine. In fact, she was happy with a small house because it reminded her to get outside, where things were endless and vast, rather than spend too much time hiding away from the world.

Kate would always rather be out in it.

She kicked her boots off and swept them to the side, letting out a sigh as she dropped her big leather shoulder bag onto the floor. The little lace curtains—curtains that predated Kate’s tenure in the house—were shut tight, so she tugged her top up over her head and stripped off the rest of her clothes as she made her way to the shower.

She turned the handles and braced herself for the long wait for hot water. Everything, including the hot-water heater, in her little house was old-fashioned. Sort of like her, she supposed.

She snorted into the empty room, the sound echoing in the small space. Jack certainly thought she was old-fashioned. All that hyperconcern over her not owning a computer.

Steam started to rise up and fill the air and she stepped beneath the hot spray, her thoughts lingering on her interaction with Jack at the Farm and Garden. And how obnoxious he was. And how his lips curved up into that wicked smile when he teased her, blue eyes glittering with all the smart-ass things he’d left unsaid.

She picked up the bar of Ivory soap from the little ledge of the tub and twirled it in her palms as she held it beneath the water, working up a lather. She took a breath, trying to ease some of the tension that was rioting through her.

She turned, pressing the soap against her chest, sliding it over her collarbone.

Yeah, Jack was a pain.

Still, she was picturing that look he got on his face. Just before he said something mouthy. She slid the bar of soap over her breasts just as she remembered her thwarted retaliation for his teasing tonight. The way his fingers had wrapped around her wrist, his hold firm...

She gasped and released her hold on the bar of soap. It hit the floor and slid down between her feet, stopping against the wall.

She growled and bent down, picking it back up, ignoring the pounding of her heart and the shaking in her fingers.

The shower was supposed to wash Jack off her skin. He was not supposed to follow her in.

Another jolt zipped through her at the thought because right along with it came the image of Jack and his overbearing presence sharing this small space with her. Bare skin, wet skin...hands on skin.

She turned and rinsed the soap off her chest, then shut the water off, stepped out and scrubbed her skin dry with her towel, much more ferociously than was warranted.

She needed to sleep. Obviously, she was delirious.

If she didn’t know better, she would think she was a breath away from having a fantasy about Jack freaking Monaghan.

“Ha!” she all but shouted. “Ha ha ha.” She wrapped her towel around her body and walked to her room before dropping it and digging through her dresser for her pajamas.

She found a pair of sensible white cotton underwear and her flannel pajama pants that had cowboy hats, lassos and running horses printed onto the fabric.

There could be no sexual fantasies when one had on cotton panties and flannel pants.

With pony pajamas came clarity.

She pulled a loose-fitting blue T-shirt over her head and flopped down onto her bed. Her twin bed. That would fit only one person.

She was sexual fantasy–proof. Also sex-proof, if the entire long history of her life was anything to go by.

“Bah.” She rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow. She had arena dirt, pounding hooves, the salty coastal wind in her face, mixed with pine and earth. A scent unique to Copper Ridge and as much a part of her as the blood in her veins.

She had ambitions. Even if she was a bit cautious in them.

She didn’t need men.

Most of all, she didn’t need Jack Monaghan.

CHAPTER THREE

JACK ROLLED INTO the Garrett ranch just after nine. He’d finished seeing to his horses earlier and was ready to ambush Kate with coffee and a plan. It was her day off, and he knew she wasn’t still in bed lying low while the sun rose high. It wasn’t her way. Which meant he would have to track her down on the vast property.

But that was fine with him. He didn’t have much else happening today.

His equine operation had gotten to the point that it was running so smoothly he often felt as if he didn’t have enough to do. He had people who worked on the ranch seeing to all of the horses’ needs and a housekeeper who took care of all of his needs. He was forging great connections in competitive worlds. Both the Western riding community and dressage. And he was very close to signing a lucrative deal to breed one of his stallions to a champion hunter jumper, Jazzy Lady.

Now that all that was falling into place and he wasn’t traveling with the rodeo, he was left with a lot of free time.

His mother had said idle hands were the devil’s workshop, usually before she booted his ass outside so he’d stay out of her hair. But then, he’d never had much use for worrying about things like that. In part because he never worried all that much about the devil. He’d gone to church once when he was a boy with a friend from his first-grade class. The pastor had said something about Joshua the son of Nun. And after the service the boy who had been his friend when they’d walked into the building had decided Jack the son of Nun was a fitting nickname for him since he didn’t have a daddy.

Jack had punched that little son of a bitch in the face and had never darkened the doors of any holy institution from there on after. He hadn’t stayed friends with the kid, either. In fact, the only people he had stayed friends with were the Garretts and Liss. He’d raised too much hell over the years to keep many other connections.

Hell, he’d taken to it as if it was his job. And when he’d transitioned from causing trouble in town to bull riding, it had just been a more legitimate method.

And another way for him to try to get his old man to take some notice. To make his mother look at him for more than thirty seconds.

It hadn’t worked. His success hadn’t changed that, either.

But he had Eli and Connor.

Together they’d knit a strange and dysfunctional group that continued on to this day. He liked to think they were all a little more functional now. Well, the rest of them more than him, he supposed.

Though he had some stability now with his ranch. He might not be married and procreating like his friends, but he wasn’t a total lost cause.

And he knew that in and of itself was a big surprise to most people in Copper Ridge. Oh, sure, they were all polite enough, but he knew for a fact no one wanted him dating their daughter or their sister.

Though now they were happy to have him spending money at their establishments.

He killed his truck’s engine and got out, grabbing hold of the big metal thermos he always carried with him during the workday and two tin mugs.

This was a peacemaking mission, which meant he had come prepared. He shoved his truck keys into his jeans pocket and crossed the gravel lot, heading toward the newly built barn, Connor’s pride and joy, with the exception of his wife and unborn child.

Just then Connor walked out of the alley doors and Jack called out to get his attention. “Morning,” he said.

“You brought me coffee,” Connor said, flashing him the kind of smile that up until a few months ago had been absent from his friend’s face.

“Sorry. You’re out of luck. The coffee isn’t for you.”

“I’m hurt,” Connor said, putting his hand on his chest. “You’re bringing coffee to another man, Monaghan?”

“Nope. It’s for Katie.”

Connor’s brows shot up. “Uh-oh. What did you do?”

“Nothing. But I do need to convince her to help me out planning this charity rodeo day. I can use some contacts with the pro association. I’ve been in touch with a few people since I stopped competing. But she’s in a better position with the locals.”

“You could probably seduce help out of Lydia. Or just ask.”

Jack thought of the pretty dark-haired president of the chamber of commerce. Yeah, Lydia would be into it, no seduction required. The charity event, not sleeping with him. He let his brain linger on that thought for a moment, if only because it had been a while since he’d seduced anyone or been seduced in return.

“Sure,” he responded.

“You don’t sound enthused.”

“I’m not unenthused.”

“Yes, you are.”

Jack shrugged. “Not interested, I guess.”

“Are you sick? Because she’s female, so she’s your type.”

Jack couldn’t argue with that. “I don’t need to seduce her into helping. It’s a good idea. You make it sound like women only want to listen to me because of my body,” he said, arching a brow. “I’m more than just a pretty face.”

“I want to say something right now...but I have a feeling I could dig myself into a hole I’ll never get out of.”

“You probably shouldn’t say it,” Jack said. “However, if you were thinking that I’m also a very sexy ass, you would be correct.”

“You better wash your mouth out with soap before you bring that coffee to Kate. Or she’ll probably end up throwing it in your face.”

“She’s not my biggest fan.”

Connor offered him a skeptical smile. “Actually, I think she’s a pretty big fan of yours.” Jack puzzled over the words for a second before Connor continued. “You’re like another brother to her. Which is why she gives you hell.”

Jack let out a hard breath. “Lucky me. Do you have any idea where the little she-demon is?”

“She took Roo out for a ride. But she should be back in soon.”

“Which way does she normally go?”

“She rides out through the main pasture toward the base of Copper,” Connor said, talking about the mountain that the town was named after. “And she comes back around behind the horse barn.”

“Thanks. I’ll head that way.”

Jack turned away from his friend and started walking down a dirt path that would lead him toward the horse barn and hopefully bring him into line with Kate.

The cloud cover hadn’t burned off yet, gray mist hanging low over the pine trees, pressing the sky down to the earth. The air was damp, thick with salt from the sea, and he had a feeling it would rain later. Or if they were lucky, the moisture would burn away, leaving clear blue skies.

But he doubted it.

He cut through a little thicket of pines and came out the other side on another little road. This was the one that led all the way back to Kate’s cabin, but if he crossed that and cut through a little field, he would make it to the barn in half the time. So he did, wet grass whipping against his jeans, dewdrops bleeding through the thick denim.

He could only say thanks for good boots that would at least keep his feet dry.

He hopped the wire fence that partitioned the next section of the property off from the one he’d just left and stood there in the knee-high weeds, staring off into the distance. Then he saw her, riding through the flat expanse of field, strands of dark hair flying from beneath her hat, her arms working in rhythm with the horse’s stride. As she drew closer, he could see the wide smile on her face. It was the kind of smile he rarely saw from her. The smile of a woman purely in her element. A woman at home on the back of the horse.

He felt the corners of his own mouth lift in response, because that kind of joy was infectious.

He stood and watched her as she drew closer, hoofbeats growing louder as she did.

He could pinpoint the exact moment she saw him, because she straightened, pulling back on Roo’s reins and slowing her gait. He started to walk toward her, and she dismounted, her smile faded now.

“I have coffee, so you can stop frowning at me,” he said, holding up the thermos and the mugs.

She squinted, her expression filled with suspicion. “Why do you have coffee?”

“Because I want to talk to you about something. And I figured it was best to try and bait you.”

Kate screwed up her face, wrinkling her nose and squinting her eyes. “I am not a badger. You can’t bait me.”

“Sure I can, Katie. I bet I tempt you something awful,” he said, holding out the thermos and unscrewing the lid.

Kate rolled her eyes. “Tempt me to plant a boot up your ass.”

He left one mug dangling from his finger and straightened the other, then poured a measure of coffee into it. “Be nice to me or I won’t give you what you want.”

He watched as the faint rose color bled into her cheeks, lit on fire by the first golden rays of the sun breaking through the cloud cover, adding a soft glow to her face. “You seem to be forgetting who you’re talking to, Monaghan,” she said, her voice gaining strength as the sentence picked up momentum. “Boot. Ass.”

“You do need your coffee. You’re cranky.” He held out the mug and she took it, wrapping her fingers around it like claws.

“I wasn’t.”

“Well, stop. I want to talk to you about the rodeo.”

She took a sip of the strong black coffee and didn’t even grimace. But then, she would have trained herself to never make a face. She drank her coffee and her whiskey straight up and never complained about the burn. Kate never seemed to show weakness, never appeared to have any vulnerability at all.

In that moment he wondered what it might be like if she did. If she softened, even a little bit.

Dark brown eyes met his, a core of steel running straight on through, down deep inside of her. Yeah, there would be no softening from Kate Garrett. “Then talk,” she said before taking another sip.

“Who do you think you can get to volunteer to ride when there’s no score or purse at stake? I mean, we can keep score, but it won’t count toward anything. Just winning the event.”

“I’m not sure as far as the pros go. We’ll probably have to reach out to the association. But I know some people who can do that. You being one of them, I assume.”

One thing about the rodeo he’d liked. He’d come in with no established baggage. Nobody cared that he didn’t have a dad, that he’d grown up poor. His luck with buckle bunnies and his propensity to fight in bars had also added to his popularity.

But the circuit wasn’t real life. It was like living in a fraternity. Too much booze, too much sex—it was all good there. It just wasn’t real life.

Of course, real life was often hard and less fun. “Yeah, I’ve got a lot of buddies from back in those days.”

“You make it sound like it was a million years ago.”

Only five, but it felt like longer sometimes. “It doesn’t just have to be all pros,” he continued, pitching an idea at her he’d had the other day. “We can do amateurs against professionals. That would make for a fun event.”

“Well, you know I would do it. And a few others might. I bet Sierra West would.”

At the mention of Sierra’s name Jack’s stomach went tight. Her involvement in this could be a slight complication.

He gritted his teeth. No, there was no reason to consider the Wests a complication. Sure, he shared genetic material with them, but the only people who knew that were his mother, the man who had fathered him and Jack himself. As far as he knew, the legitimate West children knew nothing about it, and Kate certainly didn’t.

If he were a sentimental man, he might have been tempted to think of Sierra as a sister. But he couldn’t afford sentimentality. And anyway, he’d accepted quite a bit of money to pretend he had no clue who his father was. And so he was honor bound to that. Well, not exactly honor bound. Bought and paid for, more like.

“Great. Sure.”

“If you don’t want my suggestions, don’t ask for my help,” she said, her tone cutting.

“I want your suggestions,” he bit out.

“You sound like you want my suggestions like you want a root canal.”

If he was this transparent at a mention of Sierra’s name, then dealing with her while coordinating the rodeo events would be somewhere way beyond awkward. Which meant he had to get it together.

“Sorry, honey,” he said, not quite sure why the endearment slipped out. Because he was trying to soften his words maybe? “I do want your suggestions. That’s why I came to you for help.”

She chewed her bottom lip. “You really do want my help?”

“Yes.”

“Why? I mean, there are a lot of people you could get to help you. People who aren’t kids.”

“I don’t think you’re a kid.”

He could remember her being a kid, all round-faced enthusiasm, shining dark eyes, freckles sprinkled over the button nose. Usually, she’d had dirt on her. Yeah, he could remember that clearly. But that image had very little to do with the woman who stood before him. Her cheeks had hollowed, highlighting the strong bone structure in her face. Her nose was finer, though still sprinkled with freckles. Her dark eyes still shone bright, but there was a stubbornness that ran deep, a hardness there developed from years of loss and pain.

She cleared her throat. “That’s news to me.”

“Consider yourself informed.”

“Now that we’ve established we’re on equal footing—”

“I didn’t say we were on equal footing. I said I didn’t think you were a kid.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’ve been pro, honey badger,” he said, combining her earlier assertion that she was not a badger with his accidental endearment. “I know the ins and outs of these events. My contacts are a little bit out of date, which is where you come in, but the rodeo is still my turf.”

“Bull riders. The ego on y’all is astronomical.”

“That’s because we ride bulls. Those are some big-ass scary animals. A guy has to think he’s ten feet tall and bulletproof to do something that stupid.”

“It’s true. You are kind of stupid.” A smile spread over her face. Sometimes, it turned out, Kate did smile at him. But usually only after she was done insulting him.

“I’m wounded.”

“Don’t waste your time being wounded. First, we’re going to have to find out if the Logan County Fairgrounds are available for the date we would need it. Probably the day before the actual rodeo starts or the day after.”

“You know who to call for that?”

“Yeah, but I might want to go through Lydia.”

“Good call,” he said. “See? This is why I asked for your help.”

“Because I’m a genius.”

“Sure.” He shrugged. “About a couple things.”

“Aren’t you going to have any coffee?” Kate asked, something searching in her brown gaze now. He had no clue what the hell she was looking for, but even so, he was almost certain she wouldn’t find it.

“I have to run,” he said. He didn’t have to run. He didn’t have anywhere to be. Except for some reason he felt averse to prolonging this moment here in the field with her. “When is the next local meeting?”

“Tomorrow night. You should come.”

He’d stopped going to the amateur association meetings in Copper Ridge years ago. He’d turned pro when he was twenty, using the money that the man who was, according to genetics, his father had given him to keep his mouth shut about his existence.

Sometimes it felt like his attempt at being seen when he’d been paid to disappear. A way to demand attention without breaking that damned agreement. Other times it had all felt like an attempt to bleed that unwanted blood right out of his veins, let it soak into the arena dirt until the Wests weren’t a part of him anymore. But that feeling had faded as he turned that initial bit of money into yet more money through event wins and investments and sponsorship deals.

Though at thirty-three, he felt too damn old to get trampled on a regular basis. He’d felt too old five years ago when he’d quit. Not just too old for the getting-trampled part but the hard living that went with it. He knew there were plenty of guys still out there riding, but he didn’t need to and he felt lucky to have escaped with as little damage as he had.

“Sure, I’ll be there. I’ll do the hard sell and see if anyone else has more ideas.”

“Do you want to ride together?”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah, let’s do that. Do you want to drive?”

“I think your truck is a little bit cushier than mine, but I appreciate the offer.”

“Okay, then, I’ll pick you up... When?”

“Seven.”

He gripped the brim of his hat with his thumb and forefinger and tipped it slightly. “Okay, then, see you at seven.”

* * *

SHE HEARD A car engine and raced to the window, her heart pushing against the base of her throat. But she didn’t see anything. No truck. No Jack.

“Oh my gosh, calm down, me.”

It was probably just one of the ranch hands headed out to the barn, or maybe Eli getting home from work. There were three whole minutes before Jack was supposed to show up, after all. And she was being ridiculous about it. Completely overcome by the sense of hyperawareness that often assaulted her when dealing with Jack-related things. And she would picture him pulling up, and her stomach would turn over sharply, her breath catching, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. The response was completely involuntary, and it was so strong it made her legs shake.

Anyone would think she was waiting for a date.

She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes tight just as she heard another engine sound. Her eyes popped back open and she brushed the curtains aside again just in time to see Jack’s truck rumbling up the drive.

She put her hand on her stomach. “Stop it,” she scolded herself. It did nothing.

She grabbed a jacket and her bag and jerked open the front door, then walked out onto the front porch as she slung both over her shoulder. She wasn’t going to sit in her living room and wait for him to come to the door. She was not going to encourage her weird bodily reactions.

She scampered to the truck and flung open the passenger-side door, then braced her foot on the metal running board before climbing into the cab. She slammed the door shut and buckled. “Let’s go.”

“In a hurry, Katie?”

“I would like to be on time,” she said, battling against her urge to bristle.

She didn’t want to bristle. She wanted to be sleek. She wanted to have no reaction to him whatsoever. None at all.

“Is it still at the Grange Hall?”

“Yes, it is. And I hope you ate, because they still serve store-bought sugar cookies and watered-down punch.”

“Ah yes, the official small-town meeting food.”

“I don’t mind the cookies. I don’t even really mind the punch. I just don’t know why people think they go good together.”

He put the truck in Reverse, then turned around and drove back down the narrow driveway that fed into the wider main driveway that eventually curved onto the highway.

“It’s one of the great mysteries of our time,” Jack said. “Personally, I think overearnest meetings like this should come with whiskey.”

“I would have no problem with that. But somehow I don’t think the budget allows for alcohol.”

“Well, that’s an oversight. What has to be cut to make room in the budget for alcohol?”

“There really isn’t much to cut. We kind of pay for our own stuff. In addition to paying dues to be a part of Oregon’s Amateur Riders Association. But you know, support system. Training. And we do get to use the arenas of the fairgrounds a couple times a month at no extra charge.”

“I guess next time I’ll bring my own whiskey,” he said.

“There won’t really be a next time, though, will there?”

“I suppose that all depends on whether or not I’m creating a monster with this.”

“You feel pretty passionately about it, don’t you?” She so rarely asked him sincere questions that he seemed stumped by this one. Well, she was, too. She had no idea what she was doing. Why she wanted to know more. Why she wanted to dig deeper.

“I do,” he said finally. “It feels like half the time the odds are stacked pretty high against women.”

“Seeing as it was my mom that screwed everything up, I can’t say that’s been my experience,” Kate said.

He huffed out a laugh. “I suppose in your life it was different. Not just because of your mom, but because Connor and Eli would kill anyone who hurt you. You’re surrounded by people who love and protect you. There are a lot of people who aren’t. A lot of kids, a lot of women. They’re either abandoned and left to their own devices, or worse, they’re actively hurt by the people who are supposed to love them.”

Kate immediately felt stupid for her earlier comment. “Did your dad... Did he hurt your mom?”

“No. Thank God all he did was leave. But even that didn’t make it easy. It just... This kind of stuff gets me. I don’t want a wife. I don’t want kids. Because I know myself. It doesn’t make any sense to me, these men who have kids just to leave them. Who get married just to mistreat the women they made vows to. At least I know my limitations.”

“You wouldn’t hurt anyone, Jack.” Kate’s voice was small when she spoke the words.

“Not with my fist.” He tightened his grip on his steering wheel.

She studied his profile, the strength in his hands, the muscles in his forearms. He was tan from hours working out in the sun, strong from all the lifting and riding he did.

And regardless of how he treated her sometimes, regardless of the fact that he had been around since she was a little girl, he was most definitely not her brother.

She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. “I’m sure that you... I mean...if you wanted to...”

“I don’t. So it isn’t an issue.”

His response, so hard and sharp, definitive, made her feel stupid. Young.

He took a hard right just before Old Town, moving farther away from the ocean and into the less quaint part of Copper Ridge. The Grange was a tiny little building nestled between a modern grocery store and the edge of a residential neighborhood. It looked as if it was built out of Lincoln Logs, and Kate imagined it was supposed to be quaint, when really, years of repainting and foul weather had left it looking worse for wear.

An American flag and an Oregon flag flew high in the parking lot, which was already filled with pickup trucks. There was no place for Jack to park, so he pulled up to the curb, put the truck in Park and shut it off.

“Maybe we should have warned them?” she asked.

“With what? You can’t email them—you don’t have a computer.”

She snorted. “I could have called.”

“You don’t have a cell phone.”

“I have a landline.”

“You could send smoke signals.”

“Jack,” she said, exasperated, opening the passenger door and sliding out, not waiting for him. She went ahead and walked into the building, greeting everyone who was in attendance, already seated in a semicircle in the back room.

The front room had permanent seating and a stage for community theater. But they met in the back in a sterile environment that had a little kitchenette with bright orange countertops, a white linoleum floor and fluorescent lighting.

Long folding tables were set out with the promised punch and cookies. They looked mostly untouched.

The lonely punch and cookies weren’t all that surprising. They were more of a formality. An offering of refreshment because if there was going to be a gathering, refreshments had to be on offer. The laws of small-town etiquette.

There were only two vacant chairs, and it so happened that they were right next to each other, so any hopes she’d had of getting some distance from Jack were thwarted.

Her friend Sierra waved, but there were, of course, no open seats next to her. Sierra somehow managed to exude both femininity and strength. Kate had no fucking idea how you were supposed to exude femininity. Yet Sierra managed. Her blond curls were always perfectly set; her brightly colored eye shadow made her blue eyes glow. She was the classic sequined rodeo queen. Kate couldn’t even fathom trying to wear a sequin. It would just feel like trying too hard.

She wasn’t the type to ride with turquoise and rhinestone.

But sometimes Sierra made her wish that she was.

Eileen, the president of the group, was reading minutes, so Kate took her seat as quietly as possible. She kept her eyes fixed on Eileen and jumped when Jack took a seat next to her. Did he have to be so...warm? Yes, he was warm. Uncommonly warm. She could feel it even with a healthy bit of air between them. And it was distracting. And disturbing.

She looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. But then she saw Jack’s denim-clad thighs in her peripheral vision and became completely distracted by that. They looked hard. And if they were like the rest of him, they were probably uncommonly hot. Temperature-wise. Just temperature.

She forced herself to glance away.

When Eileen got to the part where everyone brought up relevant business, Kate didn’t speak up, because she didn’t want to speak first. And also, the dry throat.

When it finally seemed that topics had been exhausted, from a need for new barrels for the arena they trained in at the fairgrounds to shared transportation to amateur events on the West Coast later in the year, Kate opened her mouth to speak. But Jack beat her to it.

“Hi,” he said, clearing his throat. “If you don’t know me, I’m Jack Monaghan. I used to ride pro in the circuit, though I haven’t for a few years. But I wanted to come today to talk to you about the possibility of doing a charity day at the upcoming rodeo here in Logan County.”

Eileen brightened visibly. “What sort of thing did you have in mind?”

“Well, Kate and I have been talking, and she was the one who told me I should come tonight.” He gestured toward her and she lifted her hand, twitching her fingers in an approximation of a wave. “We were thinking that it would be a chance for this group here to take part in some events. And I could get in touch with some of the riders I know coming through with the pro association. See if maybe they wouldn’t mind participating, either. You could all compete against each other. And we would work with the chamber of commerce both here and in some of the other towns to get food donated, as well. I have plans for the proceeds to go to a couple of the battered-women’s shelters and to help a local business that’s been trying to get disadvantaged women back on their feet after they leave abusive situations.”

“Well, provided we can secure the space, I think that sounds like an excellent idea,” Eileen said. “Can I get an informal count of who would be interested in participating?”

Nearly every hand in the circle went up, and Kate’s heartbeat increased, satisfaction roaring through her.

“That’s a good start,” Eileen continued. “We’ll just want to see which day the fairgrounds might be able to accommodate us. I’m willing to do that.”

“That would be great,” Kate said.

She was more than happy to let Eileen use her connections with the board at the county expo.

“Kate and I will work on the roster and the schedule of events.” Jack was speaking again, and volunteering her for things, things that they would work on together. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “So you can get in touch with either of us if you want to participate, and we’ll get you added to the list. If you don’t want to compete, we could still use the help. We’ll need a lot of volunteers to try and keep costs down. Because if it gets too expensive, we won’t have anything to donate.”

After that, much-less-organized conversation broke out in the room, a buzz of excitement surrounding them.

“Okay, I think that concludes official business for the evening,” Eileen said above the din.

Kate stood, and Sierra rushed across the circle and to her side. The other woman spared a glance at Jack, a half smile curving her lips upward, a blush spreading over her pale cheeks. She was doing it again. Exuding. Sierra West was beautiful—there was no denying it. She was even beautiful when she blushed, rather than awkward and blotchy. Kate had a feeling that she was just awkward and blotchy.

“This is such a great idea,” Sierra said. She reached out and put delicate fingers on Jack’s shoulder, and everything in Kate curled into a tight hissing ball. She did not like that.

“I can’t take much credit,” Jack said. Except he really should have been taking all the credit.

“I’d love to participate in a barrel racing event,” Sierra went on.

Jack cleared his throat and took a step away from their little huddle. “Well, just give Kate a call about it and she’ll add your name.”

“And anything else I can do to help...”

“We’ve got it,” Jack said.

Sierra looked confused at Jack’s short reply, as though no man had ever turned down the opportunity to spend extra time with her. “Okay. I will...call Kate, then.”

Jack nodded, his jaw tense. And Kate was perversely satisfied by the fact that Jack didn’t seem at all enticed by Sierra’s clear interest.

On the heels of her satisfaction came annoyance at said satisfaction. Jack could do what he wanted with whoever he wanted.

Though Sierra was one of her few female friends and she had to admit it would be weird if the other woman was sleeping with someone Kate was so close to.

Jack. Sleeping with Sierra.

Immediately, she pictured a messy bed and a tangle of limbs. Jack’s big hands running down a bare back. Long hair spread out over a white pillowcase. Only, for some reason, the woman in her vision wasn’t a blonde with a riot of luxurious curls. Instead she had straight dark hair...

Kate bit down on the inside of her cheek. “Yes,” Kate managed to force out, “call me.”

“Hey, some of us are headed to Ace’s,” Sierra said. “You want to come?”

“I came with Jack...”

“That’s fine,” Jack said, cutting her off. “She can go. We’ll both go.”

“Great.” Sierra smiled brightly. “See you there.”

Kate rounded on Jack, the tension from earlier taking that easy turn into irritation. “Did you just give me permission to go somewhere?”

“I’m your ride.”

“Yes. My ride. Not my dad.”

He chuckled. “Oh, honey, I don’t think for one second that I’m your dad.”

“Stop calling me that,” she said, ignoring the rash of heat that had broken out on her skin when he’d spoken the endearment.

It made her angry because she was not his honey. Not now, not ever. She clenched her teeth and her fists, turned, and walked out of the room, headed out into the warm evening air.

“I can’t call you honey, I can’t call you Katie. I can’t win,” he said, his voice coming from behind her.

She turned around to face him. “You could call me Kate. That’s my name. That’s what everyone calls me.”

“Connor calls you Katie.”

A strange sort of desperation clawed at her chest. “Connor is my brother. If you haven’t noticed, you aren’t. Now let’s go to Ace’s.”

CHAPTER FOUR

JACK WAS FEELING pretty irritated with life by the time he and Kate walked into Ace’s. He was pretty sure his half sister had attempted to make a pass at him, and Kate was acting like he’d put bugs in her boots.

He also couldn’t drink, because he was driving.

Irritated didn’t begin to cover it.

He was getting pretty sick and tired of Kate’s prickly attitude and now he’d gotten himself embroiled in a whole thing with a woman who was the human equivalent of a cactus.

He really needed the drink that he couldn’t have.

Though maybe if Kate had one, she would calm the hell down.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked.

“A Coke,” she said.

“You want rum in that?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because making an ass out of myself in front of a roomful of people is not on today’s to-do list. I’m a lightweight.”

He laughed. “Okay, I’m a little bit surprised that you would admit that.”

“Why?”

“You’re the kind of girl who always has to show the boys up. I would think you’d want to try to drink us under the table.”

She arched her brow. “I’m way tinier than you. I’m not drinking you under any table.”

“All right, one Coke for you.”

He turned and headed toward the bar, and to his surprise, she followed him rather than going over to the table where her friends were already seated. “Why are you buying me a drink?”

“I was hoping to trick you into getting drunk so you wouldn’t be so uptight,” he said, because he always said what was on his mind where Kate was concerned. Neither of them practiced tact in the other’s presence.

She sputtered. “I’m not uptight.”

“You’re something.”

Kate’s lip curled upward. “Now I don’t really want you to buy me a drink. I don’t like your motives.”

“I’m not going to sneakily give you a rum and Coke. I’m ordering you a soda.”

“But it was not born out of generosity.”

“Will you please stop making it impossible for me to do something nice for you.”

“But you aren’t doing something nice for me,” she insisted. “You were trying to...calm me. With booze.”

He turned, and Kate took a step back, pressing herself against the bar. He leaned forward, gripping the bar with both hands, trapping her between his arms. “Yes, Katie, honey, I was.”

Her dark eyes widened, her mouth dropping open. Color rose in her cheeks, her chest pitching sharply as she drew in a quick deep breath.

He looked at Kate quite a lot. He saw her almost every day. But he’d never really studied her. He didn’t know why in hell he was doing it now.

There wasn’t a trace of makeup on her face, her dark lashes long and thick but straight rather than curled upward to enhance her eyes. There was no blush added to her cheeks, no color added to her lips. It exemplified Kate. What you saw was what you got. Inside and out.

And for some reason the tension that had been gathering in his chest spread outward, spread around them, and he could feel a strange crackling between them. He wasn’t sure what it was. But one thing he was sure of. He’d made a mistake somewhere between calling her “honey” the first time, days ago, and the moment he’d pressed her up against the bar.

Everything he knew about her had twisted. The way Kate made him feel had shifted into something else, something new.

If it had been any other woman at any other moment, he might’ve called it attraction.

But this was Kate. So that was impossible.

And then the sort of dewy softness in her eyes changed, a kind of fierce determination taking over. She took a step away from the bar, a step closer to him, and reached up, gripping his chin with her thumb and forefinger, tugging hard, bringing his face nearer to hers. “Look, Jack,” she spat, hardening every syllable, “I think you need to back off.”

Her skin was soft against his, her hand cool. Her hold was firm, uncompromising, like Kate herself.

Unlucky for her, he didn’t compromise, either.

He leaned in, closing some of the distance between them. Her lips parted, and for just one moment he saw Kate Garrett soften. But it was only a moment. Then the steel was back, harder than ever. He waited for her to back down, waited for her to step away and hiss at him.

But she didn’t. She simply stood there, holding him fast, her breasts rising and falling with each indrawn breath.

The noise faded into the background, and the people around them turned into a blur as his focus sharpened on Kate. The only thought he had in his head was that this was without a doubt the strangest moment of his entire life.

They were playing chicken—he knew her well enough to realize that. She was challenging him, and she thought he would back down.

That was fine. It was almost normal. It was the undercurrent beneath the challenge, the one making his heart beat faster, making his stomach feel tight, that was giving him issues.

She leaned in slightly and without even thinking, he took a step back, breaking her hold on his chin. Breaking whatever the hell thread had wound its way around them.

“I’m going to get you that soda,” he said, knowing his tone sounded way harsher than he intended. “Go hang out with your friends. I’ll meet you over there.”

He expected her to argue, but she didn’t. She just nodded and moved around him cautiously, her dark eyes glued to his for a moment before she averted them and made her way to her group.

He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Well, that was fucking weird.

“Monaghan,” Ace, said sidling over to his end of the bar. “Can I get you something?”

“Two Cokes,” Jack said, resting his forearms on the bar.

Ace laughed and pushed his flannel shirtsleeves up. “Sure. You want me to start a tab for that?”

“I’ll pay now,” Jack growled.

Ace grabbed two glasses and filled them with the nozzle beneath the bartop. “So... Kate Garrett?”

“What about her?” Jack asked, feeling irreversibly irritated by the other man now. Because he could feel himself being led somewhere, and he didn’t like it.

“You and her are...”

“What? No. Fuck no.”

“It looked like something to me. So I wondered.”

“It was nothing,” Jack said, ignoring the rush of heat in his blood that made him wonder if it was more than nothing. “Just messing with her.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Ace said, smiling broadly. “Anyway...why not?”

Anger surged through Jack’s veins. “For one because I like my balls where they’re at. And if I ever touched Katie, Connor and Eli would remove them. And then Liss would sew them onto the top of a winter hat as a festive decoration. Additionally? She’s a kid.”

“She’s not a kid,” Ace said, his eyes fixed across the room. “And I’m not the only one who realizes that.”

Jack turned and looked and saw Kate nearly backed up against the wall by some asshole cowboy who had his hat tipped back and his jeans so tight his thighs were probably screaming for mercy. He was leaning in, holding her hostage.

Because he was an asshole. And never mind that Jack’d had her cornered only a few minutes ago. It was totally different. No matter what Ace thought, he wasn’t trying to get into her pants.

But that guy was.

“Excuse me,” Jack said, grabbing the sodas and moving away from the bar.

He stalked across the room, his eyes on Kate and the cowboy. And then he stopped, the two frosty glasses sweaty in his hands. He had no clue what the hell he was doing. About to bust in on Kate flirting with some guy... Chad something, if Jack remembered right. Your standard frat bro with spurs.

Not the kind of guy he would recommend she talk to. But she could if she wanted to, and he had no say in it.

She was right. He wasn’t her older brother.

A fact he was very aware of right then.

So instead he paused at an empty table for two and set the drinks down, flicking an occasional glance over to Kate. But he didn’t sit. Not until he got a read on the situation.

She looked over the guy’s shoulder and locked eyes with him, just for a moment, and then her expression turned defiant. She flipped her hair over her shoulder, batting her eyelashes in a near-cartoonish manner.

Then she arched her back, thrusting her breasts outward, and Jack about choked on his Coke. She was... Well, she was being pretty obvious but Jack wasn’t sure she knew what the hell game she was playing.

She isn’t a kid.

No, she wasn’t, but she flirted like a fifteen-year-old who’d only ever seen it done in bad teen movies. Why hadn’t anyone ever...talked to her about this shit?

She was over there throwing herself to the wolves. She was playing the game, and she had no idea what the prize was.

He thought back to his rodeo days. To the way he and the other guys had been with women. Love ’em and leave ’em...fast. But those women had known just what they were asking for and Kate so clearly didn’t.

Watching her with this guy, who couldn’t touch the skill the guys on the circuit had, Jack had a sudden vision of her surrounded by the type of guy he knew waited for her in the pros...

Yeah, lamb to the slaughter was what came to mind.

She was just so damned naive.

She tilted her head to the side, putting her hand on the guy’s shoulder, laughing loudly enough for him to hear her.

Then the cowboy leaned in and said something, and Kate’s face flushed scarlet, her posture going rigid against the wall. She was saying something back and then the guy leaned in closer.

Jack took a couple of steps closer to the couple—so he could tell Kate her ice was going to melt and make her Coke taste like sadness, not for any other reason—and it put him in earshot of the conversation.

“If you want to get out of here,” Chad was saying, “we can get in my truck and I’ll take you for a real ride. Especially if you’re into giving a little head.”

And in a flash Jack saw Kate walking out of the bar. Getting into that truck. Undoing that asshole’s belt and lowering her head to...

“Okay. Enough.” Jack took two long strides forward, his blood pounding hot and hard. It was time to intervene.

* * *

KATE FELT A SHIFT in the air, and it was welcome. Her conversation with Chad had started out well enough, and she could tell it had annoyed Jack. Which was sort of the idea after the shit he had pulled earlier.

Buying her alcohol to make her sweet, pressing her up against the bar, looking at her like she was a fucking sunrise or something. Setting off a burst of heat low in her stomach that made it impossible to pretend anymore that she didn’t know what was happening.

Attraction. That was why his presence made her feel itchy. Made her feel restless and hot, like a spark ready to ignite.

It was the worst. It was literally the worst. Worse than knocking over a barrel at a key moment, worse than a fresh cow patty between your toes and even worse than trying to eat a salad without ranch dressing.

Worst. Worst. Worst.

And so she had decided to try to parlay that attraction into an interaction with Chad. Because if she was that hard up for a little male attention, Chad was certainly a better bet. Also, the idea of being into Chad didn’t fill her with terror and a whole lot of “dear God no.”

But that was before he leaned in and told her just what he’d like to go in the back parking lot and do with her.

And she had no idea if she was supposed to want to, if she was supposed to be flattered, or if she was supposed to punch him in the face. She was just too shocked to process it. Fascinated, really. That somehow a little conversation and back arching had turned into...that.

But she didn’t have any time to process it, because a deep voice broke the interaction between her and Chad and broke into her muddled thoughts. “Is there a problem here?”

It was Jack. And she wondered then if him moving closer was the shift she had felt. Disturbing. On so many levels.

“I don’t think there’s a problem here,” Chad said, tugging his hat down, when only a few minutes earlier he had pushed it back. “Kate?”

“No,” Kate said, “no problem.” She was feeling completely at sea and in over her head, but she wouldn’t admit that, not to Jack. She would fight her own damn battle. If she was even going to fight it. Maybe she would go in the back parking lot with Chad and undo his belt in his truck as he had suggested.

The thought did not fill her with arousal. In fact, it kind of made her feel sick. So she supposed she wouldn’t be doing that. But Jack didn’t have to know that.

“You look uncomfortable, Kate, and from where I was sitting, it looked like this bonehead was blocking your exit.”

Chad turned to face Jack, pushing his hat back again. That was one annoying nervous habit. “How is it your business, Monaghan?”

Jack chuckled and crossed his arms over his broad chest, the muscles in his forearms shifting, and in spite of herself, Kate felt her heart rate pick up a little bit.

“It’s my business because anyone who’s bothering Kate has to deal with me.”

“Oh, really?” Kate all but exploded. “Anyone bothering me has to deal with me, Monaghan. End of discussion.” And now she was just pissed. She turned her focus back to Chad. “And you. I wouldn’t go out back with you and do...that...even if you bought me a whole dinner at The Crab Shanty.”

“Oh, come on, Kate. You are obviously asking for it,” Chad said, his tone dripping with disdain now. “Shoving your tits in my face like that.”

And suddenly, Chad was being pulled backward, then spun around and slammed up against the wall. Jack was gripping the collar of his shirt, his forearm pressed hard against the other man’s collarbone. “If you’re in the mood to get your jaw broken tonight, then keep talking,” Jack said, his voice a growl. “Otherwise I’d walk away.”

A hush had fallen over the bar, all eyes turned to Jack and Chad.

And on her, too. She had lost control of the situation, and she didn’t like it at all.

“Jack, don’t,” Kate said.

“Are you actually defending this dickhead?” Jack was incredulous.

“No. But I don’t need your help to say no. Let go.”

Jack released his hold slowly, but there was still murder glittering in his blue eyes. “Whatever you want, Katie.”

And then Chad lunged at Jack. It was a mistake. Before Kate could shout a warning, Jack was in motion. His fist connected with Chad’s jaw, the sound rising over the lap steel that was filtering into the room from the jukebox.

“What’d I tell you, asshole?” Jack looked down at Chad, his expression thunderous. “I would’ve let you off because she asked. But since you made it about you and me... Hopefully, you don’t have to get that wired shut. Drinking out of a straw for six weeks would really suck.”

Jack stepped over Chad’s crumpled form and walked out of the bar. Kate looked around the room. The only people who were still watching were members of the rodeo club. Everyone else had gone back to their darts and their drinks. A punch-up in Ace’s wasn’t the rarest of events. But seeing as Jack had just punched out one of their own, the club was still interested.

“Well, he was being an ass,” Kate said, turning and following the same path Jack had just taken out of the bar.

It was downright chilly out now, the fog rolling in off the ocean leaving a cool dampness in the air. She could hear the waves crashing not too far away but couldn’t see them because of the clouds.

The moon was a white blur of light mostly swallowed up by the thick gray mist. She could see only the faint outline of Jack, walking to his truck, thanks to the security light at the far end of the parking lot.

“Are you just gonna leave me here?” she shouted, breaking into a jog and going after him.

“I figured you could get a ride,” he ground out.

“I did not need you to come over there and intervene.” She stopped in front of him, and he turned around to face her.

She could only just make out the strong lines of his face, could barely see the way his brows were locked together, his expression still enraged. “It looked like you did. Don’t be such a stubborn child all the time. If Connor or Eli had been here, they would’ve done the same thing.”

“You aren’t Connor and Eli,” she bit out.

“No,” he said. “But I’m something. And I’m not going to apologize for being mad about a guy talking to you that way.”

“Maybe I wanted him to talk to me that way.” She hadn’t.

“Then raise your standards.”

“As high as yours?” she asked.

“At least I know what I’m doing. You’re like a...lamb being led to the slaughter.”

She laughed, an outright guffaw, in spite of the fact that she found very little about this funny. She was attracted to Jack, she had just caused a major scene in Ace’s, and now this. “Does anything about me look adorable and woolly? I didn’t think so. I’m like a...a bobcat. I’m not a lamb.”

“I thought you were a badger.”

“That is beside the point. Maybe I’m a badger-cat. Anyway, the point is I don’t need you to take care of me.”

“Maybe not. But I’m not going to stand there while he says things like that to you.”

“Why not? Why do you care?”

Her words hung in the silence, resting on the mist. And she wished they would just go away, because they felt exposing. And he was looking at her, making her heart beat faster, making her stomach seize up. Now that she knew, it didn’t seem so irritating. It seemed like something else entirely.

Her shower the other day, the way her skin had felt so sensitive, the way Jack had flashed through her mind, rose up to the top of her thoughts. She nearly choked on her embarrassment then and there.

But she didn’t say anything. She didn’t back down.

“Because I could tell he was asking for things you weren’t ready for,” he said, his voice muted now.

“You don’t know what I’m ready for.” She forced the words out, her throat scratchy and dry.

He took a deep breath, lifting his head, his expression concealed by shadow. “I guess not. But I’m going to go ahead and assume based on knowing you and the way you were flirting that you don’t have a whole lot of experience.”

Heat flooded her face. “I don’t really want to talk about this with you.”

“Why not? As we have established,” he said, his voice lowering slightly, “I am not your brother.”

A shiver ran down her spine and settled in her stomach, leaving it feeling jittery and uncomfortable. “Right. That’s been well established.”

He looked pained. “I mean, look, you could maybe...talk to Sadie about this? Or Liss?”

“I’m not looking for advice,” she said. “Anyway, Liss feels like crap, Sadie’s busy, and they would both rat me out to my brothers, who would... It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

“Right.”

“And I’m good at flirting, Jack.”

“You’re not.”

“Yes, I am. I could have closed the deal with him. All I had to do was shove my boobs in his face and he was good to go. It’s not like it’s hard. I mean, I didn’t really expect for him to say...all that. But it’s not like I repelled him.”

“That’s not how you flirt. That is how you get...not a date. You get something else. And really, what you did had less to do with it than...just the guy you were talking to. You have to understand some guys are just after one thing. You have no idea what you’re doing.”

The air felt thick between them, and she couldn’t blame it on the fog. It was just like earlier, when he dropped her at the bar. When she reached out and grabbed his chin, his stubble rough beneath her skin, so undeniably masculine, so undeniably something she’d never felt before.

Damn him, he was right about her experience. Or lack of it.

She’d never even been kissed. Which put Chad’s offer firmly in the no column. But...what would it be like to kiss Jack? To feel his lips, warm and firm, and that stubble, all rough and...

“Maybe I’m the one who’s wrong,” he said. “Did you want to leave with him?”

Jack’s question pulled her out of her fantasy. And she was relieved. “No.” She was certain about that.

“So obviously, shoving your... Doing the... That isn’t what you want to be doing.”

Jack tongue-tied was almost funny enough to make the conversation less horrifying. Almost. “And you’re an expert?”

“More than you. Look, what is it you want? The way you were acting is definitely going to work for one thing. But if your end goal is a date, you might want to approach it in another way.”

“If I want a date?” she asked, blinking slowly, not exactly sure how they wound up in this conversation.

“Yes, a date. And not like...an invitation to go down on a guy in his truck.”

Her face burned. “It’s not my fault he said that stuff.”

“I know,” he said. “I’m not blaming you. But you know...if you set a trap for a horny dillweed, that’s all you’ll catch. And there’s a lot of those in the circuit. If you intend to go pro, you’re going to be exposed to a lot of it.”

She let out an incredulous sound. “Are you...are you actually offering to help me hook up?”

“No. I’m not offering to help with that. But obviously, you could use a little bit of help figuring out how to deal with this kind of thing. Teaching you how to use...different bait.”

“Instead of horny-dillweed bait?”

“Yes,” he said. “I can help you.”

“I’m twenty-three,” she said.

“I know. And you’re fast and strong and smart. You’re the best damn barrel racer around, whatever you think about yourself. You’re ready to go pro and take the circuit by storm. You’re a hard worker and a good sister.”

“So what exactly are you...offering?”

“If you’re going to flirt, you should flirt with me.”

CHAPTER FIVE

JACK WASN’T QUITE SURE what devil was possessing him at the moment. The same devil that had possessed him when he crossed the room and intervened in Kate’s interaction with Chad. Something hot and reckless, which he was used to but not in connection with his best friends’ little sister.

You’re just looking out for her.

True. It might not be God’s work, but it was Eli and Connor’s work. He was helping.

Leading her not into temptation, and away from idiots who only wanted to get into her pants.

“Chad didn’t hit you, did he, Jack?” Kate asked, her tone suddenly filled with concern.

“No. Why?”

“Because you’re talking like someone who has a head injury.”

“Lesson one,” he said, his tone firm. “Don’t insult the guy you want to hook up with.”

Kate took a step back, her expression hidden from him by the dim evening light. “I don’t want to hook up with you.”

“Obviously.” He felt like a moron for phrasing it that way. Things had gotten weird in the past hour and this wasn’t helping. “I didn’t mean that. I only meant that I can teach you how to talk to men.”

“I was raised by men,” Kate said, holding her hands wide. “I know how to talk to men. I know about horses, sports and even some of the finer points of tractor mechanics. I even like to compare scars.”

Jack’s throat clamped down hard on itself at the image of Kate shuffling clothing around to show off the various scars she no doubt had on her body.

Want to compare scars, baby?

Yeah, that might actually work as a pickup line. The other stuff, not so much.

“You know how to talk like a man, Kate. That’s different than knowing how to talk to men. And it’s also different than talking to them the same way you would your brothers but adding the...back arching you were doing.”

“How?” she asked, sounding totally mystified.

“It just is. I mean, I don’t talk to women the way I talk to Connor and Eli.”

“You pretty much talk to me the way you talk to Connor and Eli. Except condescending.”

Jack let out a heavy sigh. “Get in the truck.”

“See? You’re all ordery.”

“Kate,” he said, through clenched teeth, “get in the truck.”

This time something in his tone spurred her to obey and she got in the passenger side of his black F-150. He breathed into his nose and then let a slow breath out through his mouth. He was insane.

He shook his head as he got into the truck, slammed the door behind him and started the engine before Kate could say anything.

He put the vehicle in Reverse and drove out of the parking lot, gripping the steering wheel tight, tension creeping up his shoulders.

“So,” Kate said. He had known his reprieve wouldn’t last. “What exactly would this flirting boot camp entail?”

Okay, so she hadn’t forgotten. Which meant he was committed. No turning back now. Anyway, there was no reason not to go through with it. Kate was just Kate. End of story. “I figure since we’re working together on the rodeo, we might as well work on this, too.”

“Why?”

The question of the year. “I don’t want to babysit you the whole time we’re organizing this. And when you go pro, Kate Garrett, there are going to be cowboys all over you.”

“And what? You think I’m so stupid I’m gonna get tricked into bed? Like I don’t know my own mind? Or are you trying to help me get some?”

The tension crept higher, climbing up into his neck. “That isn’t what I said.”

With any luck, him taking control of the situation would keep her from getting taken advantage of. Not that it would be wrong for Kate to get laid.

Even thinking about it threw up a big fat stop sign in his brain, warning his thoughts not to go any further.

Okay, so it wasn’t as if he expected she never would. Or even that she hadn’t. Because, as she had pointed out a few times, she was twenty-three. And you didn’t exactly have to be smooth to get a guy into bed.

But she deserved better than an ass clown like Chad.

“Okay, what you do with my teaching is up to you,” he said. “But forewarned is forearmed. If you want to get better at talking to guys, I’ll help you. And what will help me is if I know that you’ll be more prepared to deal with jerks should any approach you. And that you understand you don’t have to do anything with them just because they asked.”

“Good grief, Jack. I know that,” she muttered.

“Just don’t ever sell yourself short.”

“Why not? Men do it all the time. I don’t understand what all this protecting me from shallow creeps who are only after one thing is about. You are that creep. I mean, obviously, with other women, not with me.”

He nearly choked on his tongue. “That’s different.”

“How is it different?”

There was no way for him to say how it was different without sounding like a total jackass. So he kept quiet.

But Kate wasn’t content with that. Of course she wasn’t. “Come on, Jack. I’m waiting for an explanation.”

He let out an exasperated breath. “It’s just that there are different kinds of women. There are the kind that you marry. And there are the kind that you...”

A hard crack of laughter filled the cab of the truck. “Are you kidding me? Are you trying to tell me that you marry good girls and sleep with bad girls? And that if I keep pushing my breasts out, the boys will think I’m a bad girl and corrupt me?”

“It’s not good and bad.” He had no clue how to dig his way out of this. Sure, it sounded wrong when he said it like that. Maybe it was even bad to think it. But the bottom line was there were women who were fair game in his mind, and then there was Kate. And she was an entirely different category.

“All right, then. What kind of girl am I?”

Jack tightened his hold on the steering wheel. “The type that could get taken advantage of by assholes.”

“You think I’m stupid?”

“That isn’t what I said. Stupid and inexperienced are two different things.”

“You think I’m wholesome.”

Yes. It suited him just fine to think that Kate Garrett was as wholesome as whole grains. “Comparatively.”

“Compared to what? The women you sleep with?”

Heat lashed Jack’s face. “You’re determined to take this the wrong way.”

“Enlighten me. What is the right way to take this? You’re sitting here telling me there’s a certain type of woman it’s acceptable to mess around with and a kind that isn’t acceptable to mess around with, and you’re putting me in the category that isn’t allowed to mess around.”

“It’s not just women,” he said.

“Okay, then. What kind of guy are you, Jack Monaghan? Are you the kind of guy a girl marries? Or are you the kind we’re supposed to want to bang?”

Hearing the provocative words on Kate’s lips made his stomach wrench up tight. “Kate...”

“Go on. Tell me. It’s hardly fair, since you have such a comprehensive assessment of me. I deserve one of you. So tell me, Jack,” she said as he turned the truck into the narrow drive that would take them to the Garrett ranch and on to Kate’s house, “are you the sort of guy that a girl should dream of getting in a tux? Or are you the kind of guy that a girl should think about getting naked with?”

He slammed on the brakes, without thinking, without meaning to. But he could not drive while she talked like that. “Dammit, Katie.”

“For such an experienced man, you’re acting very prudish.”

“You want to know what kind of guy I am, Kate?” He shouldn’t challenge her, and he knew it, but he couldn’t help it. Because she was pushing. And when Kate pushed, he had to push back. Now and always. “Let me lay it out for you. I’m not the guy you marry. I’m the guy you stay up all night with. I’m the guy who doesn’t call the next day. I’m the guy your mama would’ve warned you about if she had stayed around.”

The last words barely made it out of his mouth before Kate grabbed ahold of his shirt and tugged him toward her. “Now you’re being a jerk on purpose,” she said, dark eyes glittering in the dim light, clashing fiercely with his.

“You wanted to know what kind of guy I was. I think that should answer your question.” He felt like a tool. He’d lost sight of what the end goal was in this weird game they were playing. All he knew was that she was pushing, and he was pushing back. All he knew was that his blood was burning, and his heart was pounding faster than it should have been.

“You did. You’re an ass. Question answered.”

She raised her hand as if she was going to hit him, and he caught her wrist, holding her steady, their eyes still locked. She was breathing faster than he was, and suddenly, the anger riding over the heat burning in his blood fizzled out. The heat remained, his heart still thundering hard, steady. And he was still holding on to Kate’s wrist.

The feeling that had surrounded them back at the bar had returned. Deeper. Stronger. And there was no pretending he didn’t know what it was. He could feel her pulse fluttering beneath his thumb, faster and faster the longer he held her.

Fuck.

He released his hold on her and put both his hands back on the steering wheel. “I am. I’m an ass. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said that.”

“Why did you?” she asked, her voice small now.

“I don’t know,” he said, lying through his teeth with the truck still idling in the middle of the driveway.

“It was offensive. Not just what you said about my mother.”

“I know. I didn’t start out meaning to be offensive. Saying it out loud, I realize it’s stupid. But definitely in my mind I think of the kind of women that I would pick up in a bar and the kind I wouldn’t. Or more specifically, the kind who wouldn’t go with me. Of course, saying it out loud forces you to listen to how stupid it is.”

“It is stupid.”

“I know.”

“So,” she said, folding her hands in her lap now like a good student. “You’re going to teach me to flirt.”

He didn’t want to. He didn’t want her flirting with the guys who were part of her group. He didn’t want her flirting with the cowboys who would come in with the rodeo.

And considering what had just happened a few seconds ago, that meant it was exactly what he needed to help her learn to do.

As long as he focused on protecting her, as long as he focused on the right angle, the weirdness between them would evaporate. It had to. It was an aberration, something he would have liked to blame on alcohol. But he couldn’t, since all he’d had was a Coke.

He could blame it on the full moon or on the way she had grabbed his chin. All things that had passed and would pass.

And since they were going to be working on the rodeo together, he really needed to get a grip.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” He eased his foot slowly off the brake, and the truck started rolling forward.

“But chastely.”

“I will give you certain tools. What you do with them is up to you. And does not need to be shared. And none of this should be shared with Connor or Eli.”

Ultimately, he had Kate’s best interest at heart, he really did. But since he wasn’t related to her, he was being slightly more realistic than they would be. They would probably lock her in her room and not care about the fact that she was twenty-three.

“Okay. It will be our secret.”

He turned his truck onto the little road that led to her cabin. And he tried not to dwell on the way the word secret sounded on her lips. Illicit and a little bit naughty. Nothing he and Kate talked about should sound naughty or illicit.

He swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

He breathed a prayer of thanks when he rolled up to Kate’s house. He needed to get home and get his head on straight. Tonight felt like some kind of weird detour out of his normal life. Suddenly, he’d become aware of some different things about Kate. Some things that he would rather have never been aware of.

And with that had come a thick, heavy tension that just wouldn’t clear up.

A new day would fix that. The sun rising over the mountains, bathing everything in golden light, chasing away the shadows that rested on Kate’s face now. The shadows that accentuated her high cheekbones and the fullness of her lips. The darkness that blanketed the whole situation and made it seem fuzzy. Made her seem not quite like Kate. Made him feel not quite like a man who had known her since she was a whiny two-year-old.

He put the truck in Park but left the engine running. “Good night, Kate,” he said, opting to use the name she preferred. All things considered, it seemed safer.

“Do you want to come in?”

His pulse sped up. “Why would I want to do that?”

“For some tea? For a flirting lesson?”

“Let’s hold off on that,” he said, his throat constricting. Right now he needed to get away from her.

“Okay. Thank you for coming tonight.” She took a deep breath. “And thank you for punching Chad in the face. He’s a doofus.”

Jack laughed. And for a moment things felt as though they might be back to normal. The kind of normal they had before the past year or two, when everything he’d said and done had been wrong in Kate’s eyes. “He really is. I hate that guy.”

“I guarantee that he now hates you,” Kate said, opening the passenger-side door and sliding out of the truck. “See you later?”

“You know you will. Probably a whole lot sooner then you’d like.”

She didn’t say anything to that. She simply smiled and slammed the door. He watched her walk all the way into the house. Because he had to make sure she was safe, after all. Not for any other reason.

Once she was inside, he put the truck in Reverse and backed out of the driveway. The air quality in the vehicle had changed since Kate had left. He could breathe easier.

He wasn’t going to overthink it. It would be a nonissue by tomorrow.

The sun would rise, he would be able to put Kate back in the proper place in his mind, and life would go on as it always had.

* * *

PERFECT. JUST PERFECT. Now that she’d made the critical mistake of admitting it to herself, it was as if a veil had been torn from her eyes and she could no longer feign ignorance of any kind. She was attracted to Jack.

Heart-pounding, bone-tingling, heavy-breathing, thinking-about-him-in-the-shower kind of attraction. How she’d spent so long pretending it was anything else was a mystery.

Self-preservation. That was clearly the answer. That and deep denial that ran all the way to her bones. Because nothing was ever going to happen with Jack. Never, ever, ever.

On a personal level, she liked Jack okay except when he was being a pain in the ass. Which was always. So often she liked him only minimally.

Apparently, though, liking him or not had nothing to do with sex feelings.

She let out a heavy sigh and dropped her bag on the floor. She had sex feelings for Jack. And it was undeniable. When she imagined getting in Chad’s truck and doing all that dirty stuff to him, it made her feel vaguely unsettled and more than a little disgusted.

She allowed herself, just for a moment, to imagine she was back in the truck with Jack, the light low, his blue eyes fixed on her. And she imagined him putting his hand on her cheek. His fingers would be rough, calloused from all the hard work that he did. No matter how much Jack tried to pretend he didn’t take things seriously, she knew it wasn’t the truth. He was a hard worker, and everything he had was a result of that hard work.

She was sure his touch, his skin, would reflect that. Then she imagined him leaning in, those eyes that were usually all filled with mischief turning serious as his focus narrowed onto her face.

And then she imagined him whispering all those filthy things to her. Except he didn’t say the words quite the way Chad had. Not in her fantasy. Of course, what he did say was all very vague and murky because Kate wasn’t exactly up on dirty talk.

But she knew Jack would be way smoother than Chad. His voice would go all deep, the way that it did when he talked about something serious, which was so rare it was like finding gold. And it would get a little bit rough, the way it did when he called her Katie.

When she thought of touching Jack, of taking her clothes off for Jack, she didn’t feel disgusted. She felt shaky and afraid, and given that this was only a fantasy, she could only imagine how terrified she would be if she found herself in this moment in reality. But she didn’t want to run away. She wanted to lean in.

Shit, shit, shit. Undeniable sex feelings.

She turned to her couch, bracing her knees against the arm and falling forward over the side. Then she buried her face in one of the throw pillows and let out a long, drawn-out moan. What the hell was she supposed to do with this? Attraction to Jack, of all people.

It was the worst thing ever.

In his eyes she was nothing more than a kid. A kid he had to protect from herself. As though her flirting was tantamount to running with scissors. And he was going to teach her how to do it right. Just more reinforcement of the fact that he did not see her as an adult woman. And even if he did, there was no point in going there. He was the baddest bet around and everyone knew it.

He was an unapologetic manwhore who did whatever he wanted with whoever he wanted and never, ever made a commitment.

She tried not to find that assessment of him exciting. She should have found it disgusting. She should have found him disgusting. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. She never had.

From the time she was a little girl, running wild through the fields until she couldn’t breathe, until the wind tangled her hair into knots, Jack Monaghan had amassed a whole mountain’s worth of admiration in her soul. When the world had been bleak, he’d made her smile. Simple as that.

She wasn’t a child now. She was a twenty-three-year-old virgin who had never even been kissed, who still ran like lightning through the grass and let her hair get tangled into a mess. And no matter how hard she tried to fight it, he still held his claim on that turf in her soul. The way Jack walked around doing what he wanted was more than a little appealing to someone who felt sheltered beyond reason.

Plus, the man was so hot it was entirely possible that women’s clothes incinerated on contact. And if that happened, what was a guy to do but say yes?

She clicked her teeth together, annoyance at her own self coursing through her veins. She was making excuses for him. And for her.

So, two things she knew. She wanted him. And she shouldn’t.

The rest she would have to figure out later.

CHAPTER SIX

THE ONLY PROBLEM with the weekday at the Farm and Garden was that it provided far too much time for thinking. Kate didn’t want to think. Not right now. At the moment her thoughts were lecherous and traitorous and she didn’t really want to deal with either thing.

But there had been very few customers today and she’d spent the past forty-five minutes dragging a giant hose around and watering the plants in the back. Which meant thinking.

About last night. About her misguided flirting attempt with Chad. About what a jerk he’d been. About the way Jack had looked when he’d strode up looking like an outlaw ready to start a gunfight. And then he’d punched Chad. She had no idea how something like that could be...sexy. Yes, it had been sexy.

Oh yeah, there was also the fact that she was acknowledging that Jack was sexy now.

Thankfully, there were still no customers or they would all have been looking at her blushing right now.

Then there was the flirting thing. He had offered to teach her how to flirt. With other men.

She’d spent the entire night in her bed tossing and turning, trying to figure out what to do with that offer. It was a weird, patronizing offer. One she would normally have been tempted to tell him to shove up his ass. But given her recent revelation, she was looking at it a little bit differently.

She was attracted to Jack. He had punched a guy for her, and it had been sexy. He wanted to teach her to flirt.

Doing the Jack math on that equation was leading her to some interesting places.

If he was giving flirting lessons, they would potentially find themselves in some interesting situations.

Situations that might give her an opportunity to try to seduce him.

She dropped the hose into the planter that was right in front of her, covering her face with both her hands. Seducing Jack. She’d never even thought of seducing a man before. Much less this man. The idea filled her with a strange kind of tingly horror and an excitement that mixed together so well she couldn’t sort out which one was which.

She supposed at this point it was all the same, really. The fear of the unknown, the fear of a missed opportunity.

But one had far fewer consequences, that was for sure. Because Jack was a person she had to deal with on a fairly regular basis. Of course, the problem with living in a small town was that any guy she chose to get involved with would be someone she had to deal with on a regular basis.

She was not in the market for relationship. She wanted to go pro with her barrel racing and that would mean traveling all over the place, which would not leave any time for a guy. Which, provided things wouldn’t get all weird after, actually made Jack the best bet of all. Because he wouldn’t want anything more, and neither did she. Because she knew him, knew he wasn’t, like, a secret ax murderer or anything. And because she trusted him.

That all had to count for something.

She pointed the hose at a little azalea that was placed in a pot on the ground. She was so focused on that, and on her seduction thoughts, that she didn’t realize she had company until said company spoke.

“If you keep making that face, it will get stuck that way.”

She jumped and splashed water on her hands with the hose, looking up to see Jack standing there grinning at her. “You scared the piss out of me!”

He made a face. “So that’s not all just from the hose?”

She looked down and saw she’d misdirected the stream and that the water was puddling at her feet. She scowled and directed it at the plants again. Her face was hot, embarrassment over her choice of words lashing her. Which was stupid, because she shouldn’t be embarrassed to say the normal things she always said in front of Jack. Seduction plans or no.

“What are you doing here?”

“You have two strikes against you already, Katie bear,” he said, dodging the question.

“How did I get strikes? I’m not playing baseball. I’m watering azaleas.”

“In the flirting game, little missy.”

She decided to ignore the fact that he’d called her little missy. “Is it three strikes in flirting, too?”

“No idea.”

“You’re supposed to be the expert.”

A slow grin spread over his face, the expression positively wicked. “I don’t know, because I’ve never struck out before.” She felt the heat in her face intensify, spread over her cheeks. “I made you blush. So I’m doing something right.”

“You’re not supposed to be practicing on me. I’m supposed to be practicing on you,” she said, irritated that she was so transparent.

“You might want to turn your hose off.”

She scowled and turned around, twisting the faucet handle then discarding the hose. “There. Off.”

“Lesson one—don’t look at the object of your affection like you want to stretch his scrotum out and wrap it around his neck.”

“But what if that’s what I want to do?” she asked, keeping her face purposefully blank.

“I didn’t realize you were kinky,” he said, arching a brow.

She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from reacting. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Jack.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, really. I’m a complex woman and shit.”

“Of course you are.” His blue eyes glittered with humor, and anger twisted her stomach. He still wasn’t taking her seriously. Still looking at her as if she was a little girl playing dress-up.

She’d never played dress-up in her damn life. Her mother had left when she was a baby, taking every frill, every pair of high heels, every string of pearls with her. And Kate had seen two things in her household. She had seen her father sit on the couch and waste away, and she had seen Eli and Connor get out every day and bust their butts to make a better life for her, for themselves.

So she’d worked. From the moment she’d been able to. And none of it had been a game.

If Jack thought this would be any different, then he hadn’t been paying attention.

“Somehow I don’t think you believe me,” she said, keeping her eyes locked with his.

“Sure I do.” He reached toward her, and her heart stuttered. Then he grabbed ahold of the end of her braid and tugged lightly, in that patronizing, brotherly way that he did.

And that was the end of her rope.

Kate was the kind of girl who rode harder and faster whenever there was a challenge placed in front of her. And this was no different.

So she tilted her head to the side, following the direction he was tugging her braid. And then she reached toward him, but since there was no braid to grab, she reached around behind his neck, sifting her fingers through his hair, ignoring the way a whole shower of sparks skittered from her fingertips to her palm, down to her wrist.

She made a fist, pulling gently on his dark hair. Then something different flared in his eyes. A heat that matched the one burning inside her stomach. The heat she had just identified last night.

Holy crap.

She took in a shaking breath, her heart pounding so loudly she was certain he could hear it.

She leaned in, running her tongue along the edge of her suddenly dry lips as she did. Jack’s posture went straight, his body shifting backward slightly, betraying the fact that she had now succeeded in making him uncomfortable.

The realization sent a surge of power through her, one that helped take the edge off the shaking in her knees. She moved her mouth close to his ear, the motion bringing her body in close to his, her breasts brushing against his chest, her pulse an echo like hoofbeats on the dirt.

She took a breath and was momentarily stunned by Jack. By his scent, clean and spicy, soap and skin. Being surrounded, enveloped, by his heat. By him.

A jolt of nerves shook her, and she felt tempted to bolt. And that temptation spurred her on. Because she didn’t run.

“If you were telling me a lie,” she said, lowering her voice to a whisper, “if you really think you know everything there is to know about me, I hope you consider yourself enlightened now.” She moved away from him, her cheek brushing against his, his stubble rasping against her sensitive skin.

The sensation sent a shock of pleasure straight down to her core. She looked up, her eyes clashing with his. They were close enough that if she leaned in just a fraction of an inch, the tips of their noses would touch. And from there, it would be only a breath between their lips.

Jack lifted his hand again, taking ahold of the end of her braid and wrapping his fist around it. But rather than giving it the gentle tug she had become accustomed to, he simply held her.

Kate’s heart thudded dully, her mouth so dry she felt as though she’d sucked on a piece of cotton. Everything in her was on hold, wondering what he would do next. Would he release his hold on her? Or would he pull harder on her braid, closing the distance between them?

Oh Lord, she could barely breathe.

Then he winked, releasing his grip on her and straightening, as though all of that tension between them had been imaginary. As though he hadn’t felt it at all. “Good job,” he said, his tone light, dismissive. “You might be a better student than I thought you would be.”

She cleared her throat and flipped her braid over her shoulder so he couldn’t grab it again. “Maybe I’m not the hopeless little innocent you think I am, Jack. Maybe—” she made direct eye contact with him, doing her best to look unflappable while she was internally quite flappy indeed “—there are a whole lot of things you don’t know about me.” Then she looked down, very purposefully, to the bulge just below his belt that she usually worked very hard to avoid looking at and back up, meeting his eyes again. Her heart was pounding so hard now she felt dizzy.

But she was going to win this weird game of one-upmanship they found themselves in, because she would be damned if she walked away with him still seeing her as a kid. With him making her feel like a kid.

“Maybe not.” His voice was rough now, sort of like she’d fantasized it might be when she’d imagined him propositioning her.

She opened her mouth to say something else, something sassy and sensual and undoubtedly perfect. Undoubtedly perfect before she was interrupted and unable to say it.

“Hi, Kate. Hello, Jack.”

Kate turned and saw her sister-in-law, Liss, standing there, her head tilted to the side, arms crossed over her rounded belly.

“Liss,” Jack said, nodding his head. “I have to run. See both of you later.”

He beat a hasty retreat, leaving her standing there alone with Liss.

“I thought I’d stop by and see if you had time for lunch. I’m in town grocery shopping and things. Generally killing time.”

Kate cleared her throat, feeling unaccountably guilty and as if she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Her hand had been nowhere near Jack’s cookie jar. She had no cookies. So that was ridiculous. Still, her face was all hot. “Sorry, I can’t take a break yet. No one’s here to relieve me for another hour.”

Liss wrinkled her nose. “Okay. I’d love to wait for you, but I can’t. I need fried fish with more malt vinegar than one person should reasonably consume. And I need it now.”

“Yeah, go eat. I’m fine.”

Liss did not leave. Instead she stood there, rocking back on her heels, bunching her lips up and pulling them to the side before taking a deep breath. “Kate, I love Jack like a brother. You know that.”

Deeply uncomfortable anticipation gathered at the base of Kate’s skull and crawled upward, making her scalp prickle. “Yes. I know that.”

“He’s bad news, Kate. I mean, as far as women are concerned. Nobody’s going to reform him. Not even you.”

Kate inhaled, preparing to say something. To protest. But instead she ended up choking. She covered her mouth, trying to minimize the coughing fit that followed. When she straightened, tears were running down her cheeks and her throat felt raw. Liss had made no move to help her; rather, she was just standing there looking at her. “Why exactly did you think I needed that warning?” she asked, her voice sounding thin and reedy now, certainly not convincing.

“I see the way you look at him.”

“Can you look at someone a certain way? I just thought I was looking at him like I look at any normal human.” Lies.

“If you don’t need the warning, feel free to ignore me. But if there’s any chance you might need it, take it.”

Kate was just completely done being treated like everyone’s little sister. “Thank you,” she said, her voice tight. “I will keep that in mind just in case. Though I’m not sure if you noticed, but I’m not sixteen anymore. Or twelve.”

Liss was not cowed. “I did notice. And I bet I’m not the only one. Which is what concerns me. Older, more experienced women than you have suffered a bad case of the Jacks.”

“I’ve known him my entire life. I think it’s safe to say I’m immune.” Lies. Lies. Lies.

“Forget I said anything. Unless you need to remember that I said this,” Liss said, looking extremely skeptical.

“Okay. Should I ever feel like I’m in danger from Jack, I will remember this.”

“Great.” Liss continued gazing at her for longer than was strictly necessary. “Okay. I’m going to go eat.”

“Great. Enjoy your vinegar.”

“I will. In fact, I have to go quickly so that I don’t die.”

“Don’t die. Feed my little niece or nephew.”

Liss smiled, the weirdness from a moment ago dissipating. “Oh, I definitely will. No worries about the baby skipping meals. Or even going a couple of hours without. See you later, Kate.”

And Liss left, leaving Kate there alone to examine both what had just happened between Jack and herself and Liss’s observations.

She didn’t really care what Liss thought about Jack and whether or not he was good or bad news. Because that had nothing to do with how she felt about Jack. She was attracted to him. She didn’t want forever and ever and a picket fence with him.

Still, she was a little bit unnerved that Liss seemed to read her so well. It made her wonder if Connor and Eli could read her just as plainly.

She immediately dismissed that. Unless it was printed on the back of a cereal box, neither of her brothers were going to read too deeply into anything.

Anyway, there was nothing deep to read.

It was just a case of a little harmless desire. And if given the chance, she imagined she could burn it out nicely.

A slow smile crossed her lips. Yes, that was what she wanted.

And with her decision made, Kate went happily back to work.

* * *

JACK DID HIS absolute damnedest not to reflect on anything that had passed between Kate and himself in the past twenty-four hours. Because he was sitting in his living room with her two older brothers, his very best friends, men who were like brothers to him. Men who would snap him in half like a matchstick if they had any idea of the thoughts that had run through his mind earlier this morning.

No matter how fleeting said thoughts were.

They had been brief, but they had been way, way outside the boundaries of Safe Kate Thoughts.

For a moment there, when she’d curled her fingers through his hair, those serious dark eyes on his... Yeah, for a moment there he’d thought about cupping the back of her head and closing the distance between them...

And he was going to stop thinking now.

He heard a sudden and violent outburst of profanity and realized he’d missed something on the game.

“Pass interference my ass!” Connor shouted.

“Must be nice to have the refs in your pocket,” Eli grumbled, leaning back on the couch.

“Yeah,” Jack said, only pretending to have any clue what was happening.

Connor snorted. “I just got a profane text from Liss.”

“Is she watching the game in between female bonding moments?” Eli asked.

“You don’t think Sadie is watching the game?” Connor asked.

“She pays just enough attention to football to irritate all of us. Though I imagine that if Kate is around, she and Liss will have banded together to commandeer the remote.”

“Had we opted to watch the game as a group, I imagine she would have showed up wearing orange and black and rooting for the Beavers. Even though they aren’t playing.”

“You chose a real winner there, Eli,” Jack said, happy to be on any topic other than the one his brain seemed intent on focusing on.

“Our love transcends football,” Eli said, lifting a bottle of beer to his lips.

“And my love for Liss doesn’t have to,” Connor said.

“And I’m single, assholes,” Jack added, grinning broadly.

“I don’t envy you,” Eli said.

“Because you’ve forgotten.”

“Forgotten celibacy? Feeling lonely, depressed.” Connor shook his head. “No, I have not forgotten that.”

“Some of us are not celibate,” Jack said. Though, come to think of it, it had been a lot longer than usual since he’d picked someone up.

Which could explain some of the weirdness between him and Kate.

And now he was back to Kate.

“So you and Kate are working on a charity thing?” Eli asked.

A sharp sensation twinged in his chest. It was almost as though Eli could read his mind. Which was a dangerous thing right now. “Yeah. Has she mentioned much about it?”

“No, not really. I was curious.”

“Well, it isn’t just me and Kate,” he said, feeling unaccountably guilty. “We’ve got the whole amateur association involved. And I’m working toward reconnecting with some contacts in the pro association to get them to help, as well. So it’s a whole group effort.”

“To help Alison?” Connor asked.

His question had a tone to it. A suspicious tone. “Yes. Her and other women in her situation. I’m impressed with what she’s doing, improving not only her situation but the situations of others.” Which didn’t sound defensive at all. Not that he had any reason to feel defensive about Alison. It was the entire situation.

“Is there something going on with her?” This question came from Eli. “You and her, I mean.”

Jack was almost grateful they were so far offtrack. “No. I’m sure she’s lovely but hooking up with vulnerable women is not exactly my thing.” Which was a nice reminder. “They want what I’m not going to give.”

“You seem to be giving things,” Eli said.

Well, this was the story of his life. He couldn’t possibly be doing something nice just to do something nice. He must have ulterior motives. Probably extremely dishonorable ones.

“Because I’m a nice person, jackass.”

Eli held his hands up, palms out. “Of course you are.”

“I do selfless things.”

“Uh-huh,” Connor said.

“I have.” Maybe not very many.

“Fine. I believe you,” Eli said.

Jack snorted and stood up, making his way into the kitchen to grab another beer. Of course, he couldn’t be too mad, since Connor and Eli were his oldest friends and they had a lot more context for his behavior than most people did. Still, the citizens of Copper Ridge tended to sell him short. And yeah, some of that he’d earned. But not all of it.

He liked to make people laugh; he liked to provide a good time. He liked to have a good time. And somehow people tended to mistake that to mean he didn’t take anything seriously. As though his ranch ran on charm rather than labor. As though he had lucked into his position on the circuit.

Maybe if he did a good job organizing this charity thing, the town would have to realize that he had the ability to see something through. To do something right, to do something noble, even.

Yeah, noble wasn’t a word typically used to describe him.

Maybe, though...maybe he could get noticed for doing something good. Maybe he could change some things.

Everyone liked him well enough, but no one took him all that seriously. He wondered if that would change if the townspeople had any idea that he carried the same genes as the venerable West family.

No doubt it would, since the oldest of the West children had a fairly large scandal in his past, and yet the town never seemed to talk much about it. As though the influence of Nathan West was mixed into the mist, settling over everything. All-seeing, all-knowing.

But he had no claim to that name; he’d sold it when he was eighteen years old. A little bit of hush money to get his life going, to permanently separate himself from a man who had never given a damn about them anyway. It had seemed like a no-brainer at the time.

Now sometimes he felt a bit as if he’d sold himself. Pretty damn cheap, too.

And the Wests were part of the town—the mortar in half the brick buildings on Main Street. Jack felt somewhat obligated to slide under the radar. Oh, sure, he’d been a pro bull rider; he was a ladies’ man; he lived in the same town he was born in. The people paid him no mind, because they thought he was harmless. Thought he was laid-back. Thought he was haphazard, that he came by his successes accidentally.

They underestimated him, and he allowed it.

And he was pretty tired of it.

He jerked open the fridge and pulled out another bottle of beer before slamming the door shut again. Yeah, he was pretty damn tired of it. So he was going to put an end to it.

This charity rodeo was going to be a success. One of the biggest things Copper Ridge had ever been a part of. Maybe it would even be something that caught on. Something that was annual, at least here, if not in other counties.

It would be work. Hard work. And people would have to acknowledge that.

Hell, that was the entire point of his horse breeding operation. No one knew it. No one but him. But he was amassing a reputation for having some of the finer stock around, and he was most definitely gunning for Nathan West. To overthrow him. To diminish the man’s empire.

To meet the man at the top of his own game and beat him at it.

Maybe it was petty. To want something just so he could prove to the man who would never lower himself to call himself Jack’s father that he wasn’t just a little bastard brat who could be swept under the rug. That if he was given money, he wouldn’t just go drink himself into a stupor with it because he was poor and unworthy and didn’t know what to do with cash. Oh no, he was making himself legitimate competition.

And the old man had provided the seed money that allowed Jack to do it.

It was poetic justice, albeit private poetic justice, that he had been enjoying greatly for the past couple of years.

This would be just a slightly more public showing. The middle finger to his dad, a bid for legitimacy. A way to flaunt himself without violating their agreement. His dad’s dirty secret shining in the light, and even if no one else knew it, the old man would.

Yeah, he was all in. No question.

He turned and walked back into the living room, offering Eli and Connor a smile they didn’t see, since they were glued to the game.

“Since I’ve been a pretty awesome friend to you lousy pieces of flotsam and jetsam for the past twenty-some-odd years, I was thinking you could help out with the charity.”

“How?” Connor asked. “I feel invested in helping, if for no other reason than Eli and I saw the way that husband of Alison’s treated her.”

“Time donation, monetary donation, spreading the word. Whatever you feel like you can give.”

“You’ve got it,” Eli said.

“It will be good for your reputation anyway, Sheriff,” Jack said.

“Well, now you’re acting like I need to have ulterior motives to contribute to charity.”

“I’m just adding incentive.”

“Your pretty face is enough incentive, Jack. It always is,” Connor said.

“I’m flattered, Connor but you’re a married man, and I’m not a homewrecker.”

“That’s too bad. Liss is pretty open-minded.”

“If I took you up on what you’re pretending to offer, you would scamper into the wilderness and never return,” Jack said drily.

“Damn straight.”

“And I’d run in the opposite direction,” Jack added.

“Okay, that call was balls. There is no way this game isn’t fixed,” Eli groaned.

And after that, they didn’t talk about charity, and Jack didn’t think much about it. He didn’t think about Kate, either. Well, not much.

Sure, there had been some tension between them recently. But ultimately, she would always be the little mud-stained girl he’d helped distract while Connor and Eli had dealt with their drunken mess of a father.

It had given him a place to be, something to focus on besides his unhappy home.

The simple fact was the Garretts were more than friends to him. They were family. Connor and Eli were his brothers, a dream an only child like himself had never imagined could be realized.

Then he’d grown up and found out he had siblings. Half siblings, but other people who shared his DNA. At that point he had another realization about just how little blood mattered.

Colton West was his brother by blood, but he doubted the man would ever cross the street to shake his hand. He doubted the other man had any idea.

Connor and Eli had always been there for him. And they always would be.

Nothing on earth was worth compromising that over. Nothing.

* * *

THE LIST OF PARTICIPANTS for each event had grown. And thanks to Jack’s hard work it included several people from the pro circuit. Kate felt downright intimidated, she couldn’t lie. She was signed up to compete against some of the best barrel racers around, and even though it was just a charity competition, she felt as if it would be some kind of moment of truth.

About her skills. About whether or not she had an excuse to hold back from turning pro. About a whole lot of things.

She looked down and kicked a stone, watched it skim across the top of the fine gray dust in the driveway. She’d come out to get a ride in before the meeting tonight. Before Jack was due to pick her up and take her over to the Grange again. But she sort of felt numb, sluggish, frozen. Not in the best space to do a run around the barrel she had set up in the arena.

But she supposed she had to. She kicked another stone.

She hadn’t seen Jack since that day at the Farm and Garden. They had only shared one phone call, where he had rattled off a list of names that had made her stomach heave with anxiety. All the while, her heart had been pounding faster because of the deep timbre of his voice. She didn’t need professional psychiatric help at all.

She let out an exasperated breath and shoved her hands in her jacket pockets as the wind whipped across her path. She upped her pace as she headed toward the barn.

Her fingers were still numb as she tacked Roo up. She pulled the girth tight and checked everything over once. Then she leaned in and kissed Roo right over the star on her forehead. She inhaled her horsey scent, shavings and the sweet smell of the hay. It was like slipping into a hot bath, a moment of instant relaxation.

“Okay,” she said. “We can do this.”

She led Roo outside before mounting and taking it slow over to the arena. Roo was a soft touch, and it took only a little gentle encouragement to urge her horse to speed up. Then she let out a breath and spurred Roo to go even faster, leaning into her horse’s gait, making the turn around the first barrel easily.

She wondered what her time was. She should have grabbed the stopwatch that was hanging on the fence. She leaned back slightly and Roo sensed the change, shaking her head and knocking against the second barrel as they went around.

“Shit.” She looked over her shoulder and watched it topple. So that was it. That was her run.

She slowed considerably when she approached the third barrel, then made an easy loop around it before stopping Roo inside the arena. She cursed again, the foul word echoing in the covered space.

She lowered her head, buried her face in her hands and just sat there. Feeling pissed. Feeling miserable.

“It was a pretty crappy run.”

She raised her head and looked up, saw Jack standing against the fence, his boot propped up on the bottom rung, forearms rested on the top.

“What are you doing here, Monaghan?”

“I decided to come a little early and see Eli and Connor. Neither of whom are here.”

“So you decided to come over and poke me with a stick?”

He lifted his hands and spread them wide. “No stick.”

“Verbal sticks, asshat.”

“Sure. I have verbal sticks. Why the hell did you suck so bad?”

“What does that mean? Why did I suck so bad? I didn’t suck on purpose.”

“No, you didn’t. But you can do better. So the question is, why did this run suck so bad?”

“I don’t think there’s an answer to that question,” she said, sitting up straighter on the back of her horse and crossing her arms.

“There is always an answer to that question. And if you want to be a lazy-ass rider, then the answer to the question is that your animal acted up. But if you want to get better, then the answer is that you did something stupid. Always put the control with yourself. Then it’s your fault when you lose, but then it’s up to you to win.”

“Are you going to have me wash your truck now?” Wax on, wax off.”

“I kind of am your Mr. Miyagi at the moment. Your flirting guru. I might as well teach you how to win rodeo events, too.”

“No one asked.”

“But I am the only one of the two of us who has competed on a professional level. And if it is something that you really want, maybe you should accept my help instead of being stubborn.”

“I’m not being stubborn.”

“Babycakes, you eat stubborn-Os for breakfast.” He wandered over to the open arena gate and grabbed hold of the stopwatch that was looped over the top rung of the fence. Even while he was here witnessing her failure, annoying her, she couldn’t ignore how damn sexy he was. The way his jeans clung to his muscular thighs.

Did women look at thighs? Was that even a thing? Or was it just a bad case of the Jacks?

“I’ll reset your barrels.” He walked into the arena and made sure everything was lined up, lifted the one she had knocked down. Then he walked back to the fence. “Reset yourself, Katie.”

She flipped him the bird while obeying his command. She had some pride, after all.

Then she shut him out. Shut out his voice, shut out his presence and focused. The horse started to move, and she knew that Jack would have started the time at that moment. The start was a little bit slow, and she faltered going around the first barrel. Then she shook her head, spurring Roo on harder into the second. That went better. But she knew she wasn’t at top time. Not even her own top time. She was too in her head, and there was nothing she could do about it right now. Not with Jack here. Not with that whole list of professionals she was going to be competing against in front of people.

Not when she was going to be faced with the undeniable proof of whether or not she had the ability to compete professionally and win. And down went the third barrel.

Kate growled, bringing Roo to a halt. She slid off the back of the horse, walked over to the barrel and reset it herself. “I’m gonna call it good now,” she shouted.

“Do it again.”

“No. I’ve done it twice—that’s enough.”

“Your horse can handle more than that. You know that.”

“I’m done, Jack,” she said, feeling a whole lot angrier than the situation warranted. But she didn’t care. Because all of this felt like a little bit too much. Because she wanted Jack, and yesterday, just when she thought he might want her too, he had walked away. He had walked away and acted as though it didn’t matter.

And now he was here again, getting in her face, treating her like a kid. He was the worst. He was worse than the run she had just done.

“Do you want things to go well when you compete next month?”

“No,” she said, her tone dripping with disdain. “I want to fail miserably in front of a thousand people.”

“With those skills, you will.” There was an intensity to him that was unusual. And it matched her own.

This was weird. All of this was weird. Sure, she and Jack sniped at each other, but this wasn’t normal.

None of this was normal, and she had no freaking clue what to do about it.

She turned away from him and started fiddling with the barrel position again.

“You going again?” he asked.

“Nope,” she said. “I already told you that.”

“Stop being a baby.”

She snorted. “Kiss. My. Ass.”

“I don’t think I’ll kiss it, actually.” She didn’t see his next action coming. Literally, because she was turned away from him. The sharp crack on her backside with his open palm didn’t hurt, but it sure as hell shocked her. “Now, get that pretty ass back on the horse and do it again.”

Shock, anger and undeniable lust twisted together in her stomach, forging a reckless heat that fueled her next set of actions.

He had too much control. She let him set the terms in the Farm and Garden, let him mess with her, let him ramp up her attraction and walk away. He thought he was the teacher, in everything, in all things, because he thought she was a kid, easily dealt with. Wasn’t that what all of this was? Just him dealing with an obnoxious kid. Teach her how to flirt, keep her out of trouble. No way. No more.

He had too damn much control, and he was too confident in it. She was going to take it. Now.

She reached out, grabbed ahold of the collar of his shirt and pulled him forward, catching him just enough by surprise that she managed to knock him off balance and close the distance between them as she stretched up on her toes to press a kiss to his lips.

She realized her mistake a split second too late.

She’d seen it as a moment to seize power, but what she hadn’t realized was that all semblance of control would flee her body like rats off a sinking ship the moment his mouth made contact with hers.

There was no calculation, not now. There was no next move that she could think of. There were no thoughts at all.

There was only this. There was only Jack. The heat of his body, the sensation of his lips pressed against hers. The fact that this was her first kiss was somehow not at all as important as the fact that she was kissing Jack.

And he wasn’t pushing her away.

He didn’t move for a moment, simply standing there and receiving what she gave him. But in a flash, that changed.

He wrapped one arm around her waist, holding her hard against him, crushing her breasts to the muscular wall of his chest. So tightly she could feel his heart raging.

Somewhere in her completely lust-addled mind, she was able to process the fact that he was affected by this, too.

She angled her head, trying to deepen the kiss, wanting more, needing more. Just as she did, she found herself being propelled backward, released.

Jack turned away from her and walked about four paces before whirling around again.

She felt cold. Shaky. She had kissed Jack. Actually kissed him. And for about two glorious seconds he had kissed her back.

And then he had...shoved her.

“Don’t do that again,” he said, his tone hard.

“If you’re going to slap my ass, I expect a kiss on the lips first,” she said, not quite sure how she was managing to keep her tone steady.

Her insides certainly weren’t steady. They were rocked, completely turned on end. But at least her voice was solid.

“Don’t...do that again,” was his only response.

“Why not? I thought you were going to teach me how to flirt. Doesn’t that fall under the header?”

“That falls under the header of playing with fire, little girl.”

Her heart thundered faster, her lips impossibly dry. “Maybe I want to.”

“Spoken by a girl who’s never been burned,” he said, taking another step backward.

“Spoken like a man who’s afraid I might be kerosene to his lit match.” Apparently, being stubborn and unwilling to back down handily took the place of having experience and confidence.

Good to know.

“We’re not going to do this.”

“Why?” she asked, not quite as pleased with the tone of her voice this time. She sounded needy. And she hated that.

Her mother had walked out when she was two; her father was a drunk. She’d never had the chance to be needy. Frankly, she didn’t like the way it looked on her. She was making a mental note to avoid it in the future.

“You know why.”

Because he thought of her as a kid? Because he wasn’t attracted to her? Because Connor and Eli would kill him and bury his body in a far-flung field? She didn’t know why, because there were too many whys. But she wasn’t going to go on. She wasn’t going to do the needy thing. She was not going to beg.

She had her pride. Sure, she’d never been kissed before today, but she had never really wanted to be kissed by any of the guys she had known. She would go find someone else before she would make a fool of herself in front of Jack Monaghan.

Though it was hard not to beg when her lips still burned from the touch of his. When her body ached in places she hadn’t given all that much thought to before.

Yeah, that made it a lot harder.

“Get on your horse. And do the run again,” he said, his blue eyes level with hers.

“Still?”

“Are you a quitter?”

“Fuck you.”

“Shout that at me all you want when you’re doing the run again. Go.”

She walked back over to Roo and got on. They walked back to the starting point. Then she looked at Jack, who was standing there holding the stopwatch. She took a breath and started. And her mind was blank. Blank of anything but what had just happened. Blank of anything but the heat and fire burning in her blood from the anger, from her arousal. That moment when her lips had touched his. When he had pushed her away.

She rounded the first barrel and it seemed slow, easy, in comparison to the confusion that was pouring through her. They straightened up and she went to the second, slowing down the moment in her mind so that she could capture the memory of his lips on hers. It had only been a second. A fraction of one, even. But it had felt so important. So altering.

Before she knew it, she was rounding the third barrel, the impression of the heat and firmness of his mouth still on hers as she let out a breath and finished the run.

It was fast. It was clean.

It was good.

She looked up, saw the stopwatch hanging on the fence where it had been before Jack had come.

And Jack was gone.

CHAPTER SEVEN

KATE SHOWED UP to the meeting late and pissed. All things considered, Jack didn’t really give a fuck about her mental state.

The little wench had kissed him.

Sure, he’d been baiting her to do something. He couldn’t deny that. But never, not once, had he imagined she would do that.

Somehow, in the moment, slapping her on the rear had made sense.

He’d shown up at the ranch, and neither Eli nor Connor had been there. Then he’d run across Kate. Riding her horse around the barrels, so obviously holding back it had made him angry for some reason.

Probably for the same reason her putting off turning pro made him angry.

She was selling herself short. Holding herself back. Making herself so much smaller than she should.

He hated that. It was something his mother had done, always. Accepting defeat. Receding into it. A woman who hadn’t been wanted by her rich lover, so she’d refused to take anything from him. Refused to fight. Curled so deep into herself she couldn’t even love her son, because she couldn’t see her value or his.

He didn’t want to see Kate doing it, too.

But then she compounded her sins by being...not the Kate he was used to. When she’d done her second run, he’d been far too aware of how her body moved with the horse’s. And it had been far too easy to imagine her riding astride him as he gripped her hips, as she followed his rhythm.

Something in his brain was short-circuiting. And that had been confirmed when she’d started running her mouth, and in his mind it had seemed a perfectly acceptable solution to give her a smack on the ass. Nothing more than a sports pat, something to prove he was in complete control of himself. That she was one of the guys, or just a little sister to him, or something.

It had backfired in a very spectacular way.

Not only because the contact had felt decidedly unbrotherly on his end but because then she had turned around and kissed him.

And it had damn near knocked him on his ass.

More accurately, it had damn near taken them both to the ground, where he would have taken things a lot further than a simple kiss.

He tried to think back to a few weeks ago. When Kate had simply been Kate, the younger sister of his two best friends in the entire world. A woman he’d known for so many years he didn’t spare her a second glance when she walked in the room. There had been no need to look at her. He had her memorized already.

No makeup. Long dark hair either hanging down her back or tied back into a braid. And her body... He’d never even bothered to look. Not in a serious way.

He wanted to go back to that time. Sadly, he couldn’t. Which meant when Kate stormed into the Grange Hall looking furious, he did look at her.

At the flush of rose in her cheeks that betrayed just how mad she was, at the dangerous glitter in her dark eyes. The way her hair was disheveled, probably from the ride earlier, but it made him think of the kiss. The possibility that it had been messed up by him.

The kiss had been too brief for that. He hadn’t had the chance to sift his fingers through her hair. Hadn’t had a chance to do anything much other than brush his lips briefly against hers. Because he had come back to his senses and fast.

He shouldn’t be regretting that.

He gritted his teeth and tried to focus on what Eileen was saying about the progress sheet made for their rodeo day. Kate, meanwhile, had taken a seat opposite him in the circle, making such a show of not looking at him that it made her anger all the more apparent.

Okay, so leaving her during her ride and then not taking her to the meeting as they’d agreed had probably been a jerk move. But he didn’t really appreciate the kiss, so as far as he was concerned, they were even.

Except for the part where Kate Garrett had made his dick hard and nothing would be right in his life or his head ever again.

So yeah, there was that.

Eileen called on him to speak and he rattled off the list of riders he’d gotten to agree to be a part of the competition.

With the venue confirmed, enough riders on board and enough livestock owners willing to have their bulls and broncs involved in the extra day, everything was ready to move forward.

And he could barely pay attention, because the kiss, the kiss that never should have happened, was still burning his lips.

Shit, he was the one acting like a virgin, not Kate.

The word sent a shock of heat through his body. A virgin.

The odds that Kate was a virgin? Very high. Very, very high and he shouldn’t care or ponder that. He shouldn’t think of Kate and sex or Kate and no sex at all.

Except he had thought Kate and sex a lot in the space of the past few minutes, and dammit, he needed a distraction. He needed to chop wood. No, that wasn’t good enough. He should go pull a tree down with his bare hands. Anything to expel the extra testosterone currently roaring through his body.

He could sleep with someone else, he supposed. Kate wasn’t an option and the best way to deal with being horny was to get some. A simple problem with a simple solution.

He raised his eyes and scanned the room, purposefully avoiding looking anywhere near Sierra or Kate. There were some hot cowgirls in the building. Chicks in rhinestone jeans and pink hats with tight tops and big breasts. Girls who would stay long enough to complete the ride, so to speak, and then get on their way. No hang-ups, no nothing. Just his type.

Except looking at them right now was just like looking at a sunset. Real nice, real pretty, but he didn’t want to fuck it.

Not that he wanted to do that with Kate. There was a lot of mileage between a kiss in an arena and full-on...bedroom events.

But the fact that it was on his mind was a bad sign.

By the time the meeting adjourned, Jack wasn’t in the mood to stick around and socialize, even if he should. Especially with the pretty cowgirls.

He didn’t feel like it.

He stood and made his way out, looking at Kate one last time. Kate, who was still very definitely ignoring him.

Fine. He walked out the door, and thankfully, no one stopped him. Probably because he looked about as happy as a guy chewing glass.

He crossed the street to where he’d parked his truck. The days were getting shorter, dusk already lowering itself down to the tops of the mountains and blanketing the town in deep blue. There was something peaceful about it like this. The familiar shrouded in darkness. He’d traveled all over the country during his stint in the rodeo, but he’d never found another place he felt as if he could call home.

On the road he’d found what he did or didn’t do meant nothing. Because no one who mattered was there to see it.

Copper Ridge, for all the history, good, bad and ugly, was his home. No doubt about it.

Eli was here. Connor was here.

And the Wests are here. And you’re still wishing he’d see you.

No. Hell no. The old man could rot, for all he cared. He wanted to be a thorn in his side, sure as hell, but he didn’t want attention. Didn’t need admiration.

“All right, asshole.”

Jack turned and saw Kate storming across the street, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. She painted a sharply contrasting picture to some of the other women in the group. No sequins, no pink.

Oh yeah, and she was looking at him like she wanted to kill him with her bare hands and feed his body to the seagulls.

“What do you want, Kate?”

“Why did you stand me up?” she demanded.

“Why did you kiss me?”

“Because you’re sexy and I wanted to. Now, why the hell did you stand me up?” she asked again, her voice cracking. “I waited for you.”

“I wasn’t in the space to deal with you. And you think I’m sexy?”

“No, dumbass. I think you’re a fucking troll—that’s why I kissed you.” She was mad. And not the normal Kate mad. Not the kind where she wanted to slap his arm and call him a name and call it done. He’d never seen her this mad.

“We can’t,” he said, because it was the only thing he could think to say.

“You can’t say you’re going to take me somewhere and then not show up.”

“That has nothing to do with the kiss.”

“So you didn’t leave me stranded because I kissed you?”

It was exactly why he hadn’t brought her with him to the meeting. “I didn’t strand you,” he said. “You have a truck.”

“I have waited on too many damn curbs for a man who was at home drunk off his ass to spend ten seconds waiting for you,” she said, her voice breaking now.

Kate wasn’t just mad. Kate was hurt. And he would have fed his own body to the seagulls about now if he wasn’t so attached to it.

“Kate... I didn’t... Look, I just thought it was best if we had some distance. I sure as hell don’t know what’s been...” He trailed off because he couldn’t find a way to finish the sentence that didn’t force him to confess more than he wanted to.

He looked through the hazy light and saw that her eyes were glittering, filling with tears. The mighty Kate Garrett, whose face he hadn’t seen streaked with tears since she was nine years old, sitting on the step outside her house while her dad raged and threw things inside, was about to cry.

Because of him.

She was right. He was an asshole.

He wanted to tug her into his arms and give her a hug. But hugs, touching of any kind, had turned an unexpected direction. Like a mean bull on a bad day. And there was no way he could reach out to her now.

“Katie,” he said, his voice rough even to his own ears, “please don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying,” she said, but the catch in her voice told another story.

“Damn it all to hell.” He took a step forward and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, tugging her in close. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I thought we could use some...distance.”

She looked up at him and the vulnerability in her eyes caught him off guard, punched him in the gut. “You want distance? From me?”

There was no good way to answer that. “I don’t...want...” He released his hold on her and took a step back. “Things are weird right now. You get that, right?”

“You never want distance from me. We’re around each other all the time.”

“Yeah. And up until today we’d never kissed. So things change.”

“It was only a little kiss,” she said, sucking her bottom lip between her teeth and chewing it.

“Big enough,” he said, his gut burning as the memory flashed through his mind again.

“That you need distance from me.”

“Kate...”

“You’re supposed to be teaching me to flirt.”

“You took it too far.”

“Why?”

“For God’s sake, Kate, drop it,” he ground out, turning toward his truck and starting to open the driver’s-side door.

“Is it because you didn’t like it?”

He whirled around. “It’s because given a few more minutes or a few less thoughts, I would have had you down on the ground and out of your clothes, badger-cat, so unless that’s the sort of thing you want to mess around with, I’d suggest giving me the distance I ask for.”

Kate’s eyes widened, her lips dropping into a rounded O shape. “You liked it, then?”

“This isn’t going to end anywhere good.” He didn’t know if he meant the conversation or what was happening between them. It could be either. Or both.

People were filing out of the Grange Hall now and looking in their direction.

“Can we get inside your truck?” Kate asked, her voice small.

“For a minute.” Only because he still felt like such an ass for making her tear up.

She rounded to the passenger side and got in and Jack paused outside the truck, taking in a deep breath of non-Kate-filled air before opening the door and climbing in.

“Okay,” he said, slamming the door. “What else do we need to talk about?”

“You said you would give me flirting lessons...”

“And I already told you why that’s over.”

“And you said you’d coach me with my riding.”

He rested his elbow against the place where the window met the doorframe. “You don’t need coaching. You need to stop holding yourself back. Get out of your head and just ride. There. I’m all done.”

“And I don’t want distance.”

He let out a long, slow breath, then turned to face her. Speaking of distance, there was less of it between them now than he would have liked. But then, at the moment, a whole arena wasn’t distance enough. Hell, a whole small town didn’t seem to be enough.

She didn’t have tears in her eyes, not anymore. Instead she had that look. That fierce, determined look she got when she was ready to dig her heels in and fight. He’d seen that look many times over the years and he knew her well enough to know there would be no placating her. There would be no gentle words to get her to back down.

When Kate had an idea in her head, she went with it, and he would be a damn fool to do anything but meet it head-on.

“All right, then. You don’t want distance. What do you want?” he asked.

“I want... I want more of what happened today.”

Shit. “What? You want...you want me to lay you down on the bench seat and screw you senseless, is that what you want? You want me to treat you like you’re just any old buckle bunny and not Eli and Connor’s sister?”

She wasn’t looking at him now. She was looking past him. It was dark in the truck, so it was difficult to tell, but he was pretty sure she was blushing a very deep shade of red. “You’re getting ahead of me,” she mumbled. “I was thinking maybe we could kiss a couple more times.”

Shame lashed him like a whip. He was being a serious dick because he had no clue what to do with everything rolling around inside of him. And pushing her away by shocking her, dealing with his rage at himself by speaking the fantasies he was actually having into reality, as if they were so ridiculous they were only worth mocking, not doing, was the only strategy he had at the moment.

“It’s not a good idea,” he said.

He looked out the window and noticed that most of the cars were gone, everyone who had been at the meeting dispersed, headed over to Ace’s, he imagined.

It was just the two of them now.

And there was no damned distance.

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