Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch (Gold Valley #13)(104)

Obviously, he did not have a great relationship with his family.

That thought made him snort.

It had just been a long time since he’d really talked to someone else. And he wasn’t sure he’d ever talked to anybody the way that he had talked to Tala. It was just something different to anything else he’d experienced.

He tugged his jeans on, and put on nothing else, because his shirt was covered in dried blood and sweat, and honestly, he was going to sleep anyway. The clothing situation needed to be solved, or he was going to end up walking around naked, though now it wasn’t anything she hadn’t seen.

“I’m sorry,” she said, peering out of her room, her face bright red.

“You thought I fell?”

“Yes. I was worried. That you might’ve lost consciousness or something. Or that your stitches came open and... I don’t know.”

“It’s fine,” he said. He smiled. “I’m not shy.”

But the way the color in her face deepened, he knew that she was.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

“Well, but I do worry about it.”

“Why is that?”

“Just... You know, if you had barged in on me, I probably would’ve been really angry.”

In spite of himself, his gaze drifted down to her mouth and then over her body.

She was curvy. Soft looking. Beautiful.

“Somehow, I don’t think you would’ve been all that mad at me.”

He hadn’t meant to do that. He wasn’t supposed to be doing that. He knew better than to do that.

“Here.” She reached out and thrust a stack of fresh clothes his direction.

“Thanks.”

“You can...you can change in there.”

He nodded and ducked back into the bathroom. The jeans she’d gotten were a touch loose, but were otherwise fine, and the shirt wasn’t covered in blood, so it would do just fine.

He came out and looked down the hall.

She was out in the kitchen area, watching TV on her tablet at the table again. She hadn’t sat on the couch since he’d come, and he knew she liked to because he remembered how she’d had all her grading supplies set up there.

“You can sit on the couch,” he said. “And watch your actual TV. I don’t want you feeling like I’ve claimed your couch.”

She looked up. “Oh, I don’t mind.”

He believed her. But he was also sure that on some level she did mind. She just wanted him to have his own space. Why his comfort mattered to her at all felt like a mystery.

He went into the living room and sat on the couch. “Sit,” he said, patting the cushion beside him.

She eyed him warily, but she stood slowly, collecting her papers and pencils, shutting the screen off on the tablet.

“You’ll be lost,” she said. “This is a short-run miniseries with an overarching mystery, and I’m halfway through.”

“I’m not really here for the TV show.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks turned pink and she sat, with a healthy amount of space between them.

He wasn’t lying. He didn’t watch the show; he watched her work. Watched her dark hair escape the bun she’d put it in and fall into her face. Watched the way she’d pause and chew the end of her pen while a particularly intense thing was happening on TV.

And she moved closer to him. Just fractions, every so often. Till they were nearly touching.

Until it felt like a natural thing to put his arm around her.

Lord. Like he was sixteen and this was a date. But he’d never been sweet and sixteen and on a date. He’d been running drugs and weapons on behalf of his father. He’d been given a woman on his birthday who’d taught him everything, except how to connect.

He’d never learned about sweet touches. Touches just for the sake of them. Connection.

Her breath seemed frozen in her throat. But she didn’t move away. And eventually she relaxed into him.

This was something he’d never done. Something he didn’t know. He couldn’t figure out how in the hell he’d ended up here, in this cozy little cabin with all the cold of December outside.

He looked at her, and she looked up at him, her face so close he could count her freckles.

“Do you want me to move?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Okay.”

They sat like that till the episode ended. Till the credits quit rolling. Then she moved, pulled away from him. “I’m confused,” she whispered.

“About the show? Because like you said, I just started it in the middle, so I have no idea what the hell is going on.”

“No.”

His gut went tight. “What exactly are you confused about?”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “Okay, I’m not confused,” she said. “I guess.”

“Yes, you sound like someone who’s not confused at all.”

She stared at him, those dark eyes pinned to his. And he could feel a tug toward her that wasn’t like simple attraction. Wasn’t like anything he’d felt before. He wanted her. But if it was just wanting, that would’ve been simple. A simple no, because he wasn’t in any kind of position to offer her anything, and she was the kind of woman that made him want to offer the world.