Taking Charge (Lone Star Burn #4)(3)

And apparently delusional now.

“That’s a kind offer, but, really, I’m fine.”

There was a stubbornness in his beautiful blue eyes. “I told Sarah I’d make sure you’re okay. I wouldn’t feel right about leaving before I can say you are.” He picked up a pen and a piece of paper from the counter. As he wrote, he said, “This is my phone number. Get some rest today, and I’ll take you to lunch tomorrow. If you need anything before then, call me.”

He handed the paper to Lucy. The brush of his hand against hers sent unwelcome shivers of desire through her. Passion lit his eyes, and everything else faded away. For a moment, she was just a woman who wanted a man. Sexy. Young. Alive.

And he wanted her with the same intensity.

I can’t do this.

How would this make anything better?

All it would do is hurt Ted. Even if I don’t feel this way about him, he has been kind to me. He deserves better. I’ll find a way to pay him back and break it to him gently that I’ll always care about him, but I don’t want more than friendship.

“I probably won’t feel much like eating tomorrow or seeing anyone, either.” Lucy sighed. Nothing about where she was or what she was doing felt good.

His eyes held hers, and Lucy’s heart began to pound wildly. “I’ll call you. You might feel better in the morning.”

Lucy couldn’t imagine how she could, but she found herself agreeing. Really, when he stood there, looking down at her that way, she didn’t have the strength to deny him much.

She paced the downstairs of her house for a long time after David left. She should have said no to him. She should have sent him back to Fort Mavis. Instead, she would likely spend the rest of the day thinking about him, anticipating his phone call, and hoping she hadn’t found the only way to make her situation worse.

That morning, she’d woken up numb, as if she were slowly dying from the inside out. She’d yearned to feel something, anything.

She could have, however, done without the lonely ache that meeting David had left her with.



A week later, David sat at a table in a restaurant in Fort Mavis along with some of the men who worked for him on Tony Carlton’s horse ranch. There was a time when they used to gather off property to discuss the business side of training and selling horses because the climate on the ranch had been hostile, but that had changed when Tony met his fiancée, Sarah Dery.

A good woman could do that to a man. She could change the way he saw everything. Until he’d met Lucy, David had thought his place was in Fort Mavis, but after spending a day with her, he wasn’t so sure. She was all he could think about.

Lucy was a complicated woman who was going through a difficult time. David admitted to himself that she brought out a protective side of him. He’d never been one to walk away from someone in need, but Lucy’s hold over him was much more than that.

Yes, she was beautiful. She had large dark-brown eyes a man could lose himself in. Her body was rounded in all the right places. And that hair—long, thick, and wild. He’d imagined it spread across his bed while he made love to her again and again.

That part of their relationship would come soon, he hoped. For now, it was enough that she was beginning to trust him. She said she wasn’t ready to see him again yet. If the breathless way she answered his calls was anything to go by, whatever was holding her back wouldn’t for much longer.

His fascination with her hit him on every level. He admired her for coming back to care for her mother after her father had died. She could have sold the family ranch and moved back to the city, but she’d stayed out of a sense of duty to family. The more he learned about her, the more he wanted to make her his. And not just for a night; although that would be a fine place to start.

He smiled down into his coffee. He and Lucy had gone to lunch at a restaurant similar to the one he was presently at. After a tense drive into town, and twenty minutes or so of awkward conversation, Lucy had finally relaxed around him.

They’d sat and talked long after finishing their meal. Two cups of coffee later, they were laughing and sharing childhood stories. It had been hard to reconcile the woman across the table from him with the one who’d answered the door the day before. He’d almost said as much, but stopped himself. He wasn’t sure any woman would see the compliment in that observation.

He remembered how Lucy had played with the spoon beside her coffee cup. “I was a challenging child. My mother always said I would do the exact opposite of whatever she told me to. She called it stubbornness, but I like to think of myself as spirited. I used to be, anyway.” Her expression had momentarily turned sad, but she forced a smile. “I bet you were easy to raise.”

Not quite. “I wouldn’t say that, but like a good whiskey, I’ve gotten better with age.”

Lucy had blushed and looked away. “That’s a healthy ego you’re sporting.”

That’s not all I’m sporting. David had kept that thought to himself, too. He wasn’t used to being so turned on simply by sitting next to a woman. He didn’t believe in love at first sight, but he’d never experienced anything close to how Lucy made him feel. Every time she touched him, even if it was as innocent as resting her hand on his forearm, his blood pounded and his cock jumped to attention. The more she spoke, the more he wanted to hear her voice. There was a natural easiness about being with her, a feeling he’d known her longer than a day. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t need to. It simply was.