Summer Days (Fool's Gold #7)(34)
“You don’t approve.”
“I don’t have an opinion,” she told him. “I guess the part I don’t understand is wanting to spend your life with someone you’re not in love with.”
“Love is an illusion.”
“You’re wrong about that. Love is very real and it’s dangerous. People do crazy things in the name of love. Bad things. Love is powerful and shouldn’t be played with. So, when do you get to meet the first of your candidates?”
“In a couple of days.”
Heidi glanced at him. “She’s coming to Fool’s Gold? For a date?”
He shrugged. “I tried to put Nina off, but she said it wasn’t a problem.”
“That’s because you’re quite the catch, Rafe.”
She wasn’t exactly laughing, but he saw the humor in her eyes. When they’d first met, he’d been in control of everything going on around him. Somehow that had shifted. He felt as if he were walking on floating logs, and in danger of slipping and falling. It wasn’t a sensation he enjoyed.
“Will we get to meet her?” she asked.
“No.”
With that he stalked out of the goat house and headed back for the kitchen. He had a fence line to finish and a company to run. As for Heidi, he’d been wrong to think he’d offended her by kissing her. She was a lot less fragile than he’d thought. In fact, she was a formidable opponent. He was done playing nice. After all, he was in Fool’s Gold for only one reason, and that was to win.
* * *
HEIDI CARRIED THE MILK into the kitchen. She’d already seen Rafe heading out to work, so she knew she was safe. Thank goodness. She wasn’t sure she could stomach another encounter with him today. The last one had nearly done her in.
Everything about their relationship was unfair. How tall he was, how sexy, the way his smile made her feel weak in the knees. And that had been with her sitting down. Imagine if she’d been standing.
It was the kiss, she thought, as she poured the milk into containers and then put them in the second refrigerator in the mudroom. The way he’d touched her and made her feel. Now she knew the possibilities, and she couldn’t make herself forget them. While he was busy looking for his perfect wife, she was left wanting more kisses followed by long, languid nights in his bed.
She had a feeling she’d guessed right about the kind of woman he was looking for. Coming up with the list had been easy. She’d simply imagined everything she wasn’t.
She told herself it didn’t matter. That when she and Glen won their case, May and Rafe would return to San Francisco. She would forget all about this interruption of her regularly scheduled life, and all would be well.
She poured herself a cup of coffee and walked through to the living room. She’d barely swallowed her first sip when she was brought to a halt by the sound of soft laughter. Soft, intimate laughter. She heard Glen’s voice coming from his room. Seconds later, May answered. Also in his room.
No, no, no, she thought, freezing in place, like a mouse caught out in the open. Not already. They couldn’t be… She’d warned May, had talked to her grandfather. They were old enough to know better.
She backed into the kitchen and sank into a chair by the table. Now what? If Glen broke May’s heart, then they were in serious trouble. An angry May could have a fair amount of sway with the judge. Heidi was going to have to have a serious talk with him again, and then go look for someone else who would be on her side. Even if that meant having to deal with the one person she most wanted to avoid.
* * *
IT TOOK HEIDI TWENTY-FOUR hours to find the courage to speak with Rafe. He hadn’t come to dinner the previous night. May had mentioned something about him meeting friends in town. Heidi wasn’t sure if she believed that.
Regardless, he’d been gone, so she’d been unable to force herself to talk to him when he finally got home. Now she knew she couldn’t wait much longer. Glen was the kind of man who knew how to seduce a woman. While it wasn’t something she wanted to think about, protecting May was paramount.
She’d heard a couple of big trucks arrive and had assumed they were delivering more supplies for the fence line or barn. But when she stepped outside, what she found instead was a handful of men she didn’t know, her feral cows being herded into corrals and Rafe on a horse.
The sun was high in the bright, clear sky, the temperature still in the fifties. Despite the coolness, she found herself oddly warm as she looked at the man riding Mason.
He had a cowboy hat on his head and a rope in his hands. Worn jeans hugged powerful thighs. His jaw was chiseled, his eyes narrowed. She stumbled to a stop, caught up in the moment. One of the other men yelled something she couldn’t hear. Rafe’s mouth, the mouth she couldn’t stop thinking about, curved into a smile. She knew right then she was in more trouble than she’d realized.
As she watched, he urged Mason forward, then swung the rope in a lazy circle and dropped it around the neck of a cow. Mason sat back on his heels, bringing the cow to a quick stop.
Heidi wasn’t sure who had surprised her more—Rafe or the horse. For a man who looked as good as he did in a suit, he seemed to know his way around the ranch. She supposed the lessons learned as a child weren’t easily forgotten.
She returned to the house, where she made calls and answered emails. For all the danger Rafe presented to her personally, he’d made some great suggestions about her business. She’d already contacted several small stores in San Francisco and Los Angeles about carrying her cheese, and was asking around to see if she could hire a sales rep, at least part-time. With the money the cattle would bring, she could afford to take the risk and still put the majority of the funds aside in her Pay Back May account.