Taking Charge (Lone Star Burn #4)(29)

A sex toy, even the best one, would never be David.

She tried to tell herself David could never live up to the fantasy she’d built around him. For all she knew, he’d be awful in bed. Some men were. Look at Michelle. Her husband is perfectly happy accepting that he can’t fully satisfy her.

Lucy left her office and locked the door behind her. David is a distraction, and one of the few ways I could mess up something that is finally looking like it might work. If I let him close, let him in, I’ll want to be honest with him. But what if he tells someone what I’m doing? It won’t matter how much money I make; I couldn’t look anyone in the eye. This ranch would no longer be worth saving.

He doesn’t seem like someone who would say anything, but my track record with reading people hasn’t been that good lately.

I should be happy that the gamble I took looks like it will work. I should be celebrating the realization that I may actually be good at online marketing.

But I have no one to tell.

No one to celebrate with.

Lucy walked onto her front porch and sat in the swinging chair. David was talking to a ranch hand while they both watched another man work one of the horses in a round pen. As if he could sense her, David looked over his shoulder, and Lucy’s breath caught in her throat.

He still wants me, and God help me, I want him just as badly.

He waved to her.

Lucy hesitated. Their attraction was too strong for things to stay innocent for long. Highly combustible. The only way to not burst into flames was to stay far, far away from the heat source until it gave up and went home.

Is that what I want? For him to leave? To know that the next time I see him will be at Melanie’s wedding and, likely, with a date on his arm.

No. God, no.

Is it just that I’m lonely? I wake up and talk to no one. I go to bed alone. Would I crave him like I do if I were back in the city booked with social engagements?

I would.

He was watching her intently with those blue eyes she found impossible to look away from. He’s waiting for a cue from me, a sign that I’m ready.

I’m not. Not for what we both want.

All or nothing. That’s how this feels, but does it have to be that way? I could say yes to time with him. I don’t have to give in completely.

Where would the harm be in a walk together? In dinner?

Is anything I’m doing worth it if I become some kind of weird recluse whose only companionship comes from devices with batteries?

Lucy lifted her hand and waved back. David said something to the man beside him and started walking toward her. This time, Lucy didn’t run. She stood and met him on the top step of her porch.

He stopped at the bottom step, rested a foot on it, removed his hat, wiped his forehead with his sleeve, and then held his hand out to her. “Come see what I do for a living.”

Lucy bit her bottom lip and let her eyes wander over him. He was covered with dust, but she doubted there was a woman in Texas who would have minded. The simple act of raising his hand in her direction flexed the powerful muscles in his arm and shoulder. He was ridiculously handsome, but without the air of conceit that usually came with such good looks. She looked him over hungrily. No man should fill out a pair of jeans as well as he did. As soon as she realized where her gaze had settled, she raised her eyes to his and blushed. Her hesitation lasted long enough that most men would have dropped their hand, but David didn’t. His eyes danced with humor that made it impossible for her not to smile back at him. She finally placed her hand in his and said, “I’d like that.”

Another man might have asked her why she’d hidden from him all week or rushed to apologize in case he’d offended her. David did neither. He acted as if their last awkward conversation had never happened, and Lucy was grateful.

As they walked together, he kept her hand in his. A week earlier, Lucy would have pulled away. Today, she let herself enjoy the pleasure in that simple touch.

That is what I have missed. When was the last time someone held me? Touched me? Cherished me?

He led her to a round pen where a young man with red hair was standing in the middle with a lead line, encouraging a horse to circle him. “That’s Lucas. He’s helping me not only with the horses but with the new men I hired. Ask ten cowboys how to train a horse and you’ll get ten very different answers. I don’t break horses; I gentle them. What men do on their own time with their horses is none of my business, but any man who works with me will follow my philosophy.”

Lucy looked the large horse over. If she had to guess, it was around five years old and still wild. “Is that a mustang?” To a cattle rancher, mustangs were direct competition for resources. Government land was leased to ranchers, and the time they were allowed to graze their herds on that land was often dictated by how much the wild mustangs grazed an area. In the past, the mustangs were culled through hunting, but animal protection organizations had made that illegal. Now many of them were rounded up and kept in holding facilities where they spent the rest of their lives in large overpopulated paddocks. Lucy’s father had often said what people do out of kindness is often a cruelty of its own.

“It is. This one is a quarter horse mix. As you likely know, so many breeds have been released into the wild that mustangs now can be any pedigree. Their only commonality is their wildness.” David watched the horse as it trotted around the young cowboy.