Cathy Thacker - The Texas Rancher's Family

What speculation that would bring! Erin glanced around, assessing the options. “Let’s walk over to the park across the street.” She could pretend she was showing him something.

Mac glanced behind him, and his brow creased with concern. “Have those men been bothering you?”

His protectiveness rankled. “No. Why do you ask?”

He slid a hand beneath her elbow, ready to take care of her, anyway. “You seemed...a little on edge when you were looking at them.”

She let him grasp her arm for a moment, so as not to look like an overreactive idiot to anyone watching, then casually pried herself loose, her skin still tingling from his touch. “I was wondering if they were following you around.”

“Maybe. Then again—” Mac mimicked her Southern drawl as his handsome face took on a Texas-size grin “—maybe we’re all just going to the same places. We’re definitely all bunking at the Laramie Inn, at least since I got back.”

Texas was a friendly place, Laramie County even more hospitable. Yet Erin knew things could get ugly fast when large sums of money were involved, no matter what state you were in. Luckily, Mac looked like he could take of himself, and then some.

She didn’t want to see anyone go after him. And there was his adorable little daughter to consider, too.

“Where is Heather this morning?” Erin had expected to see her with Mac.

“School. She was enrolled in a Montessori program in Philadelphia, so it was easy enough to get her transferred into the one here. Because it’s a self-paced curriculum, she should be able to finish out first grade here in Texas, before we head back to Philly.”

If Erin ever needed another reminder he was leaving again, this was it. Which was another reason she shouldn’t get involved. Last thing she needed was to fall for another man who would leave her in the dust.

“I’m still looking for a furnished house or apartment to rent,” Mac continued as they walked over to the park, “but that’s not so easy. Seems no one wants to rent for one to two months. If you hear of anything...”

Erin nodded. “I’ll put the word out, let you know if anything turns up.”

“There it is. That legendary Texas hospitality again.”

Erin returned his smile. It would be so easy to get lost in that charm. In him.

“So what did you want to discuss with me?” Mac asked.

Erin stopped short of the stone-and-glass monument that contained the framed map of the downtown Laramie historic district as well as directions to other popular tourist destinations in the area. She pretended to show him something. “Why did you kiss me last night?”

He studied the flush in her cheeks. “Do I need a reason, beside the obvious?”

“That’s not an answer,” she said stiffly.

Mac’s blue eyes took on a mischievous gleam. “Okay, then. Why did you kiss me?”

Because, Erin thought, I had been wanting to kiss you all evening, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. And because you make me feel incredibly reckless and alive whenever I’m near you. After years of feeling numb inside, I suddenly want to feel like a woman again. I want to feel desired. And that scares the heck out of me, even as it appears to energize you.

“Did your hitting on me have anything to do with selling me on the wind farm idea?” Because if that was the case...

Mac’s consternation quickly turned to pique. “I haven’t slept my way up the ladder, if that’s what you’re intimating.”

“What about to a specific deal?” Erin persisted. Mac was ambitious, charming and oh, so good-looking. He oozed testosterone. Not to mention being single and in a very competitive field. Erin knew there were sales execs who would use whatever they had at their disposal to close a deal, and then move on to the next. Her ultrasuccessful ex-husband had been one of them.

Mac scoffed. “Let me get this straight. You think I need to bed a woman to persuade her that dealing with me and the company I represent would be good business?”

I think, given the way you kissed me, you could persuade a woman of damn near anything if you ever got her into bed.

Erin struggled not to flush. “I’m just saying there are better ways to get what you want around here than by bolstering someone’s ego.”

“And here I thought you were a straight-talker,” he teased.

“I am very direct.”

“Then maybe you can answer this for me.” He looked her square in the eye. “If I were to pursue you romantically, would it make you more inclined to listen to me? Or less?”

“Neither.”

“Sure about that?” Mac asked.

She propped her hands on her hips. “Why do you keep answering a question with a question?”

“I want to know more about you. What you’re thinking, feeling, wishing for.”

Now she was really in trouble. How long since it had been since anyone had cared about her in that way?

“And because your questions are all so foolish,” he added.

They were, Erin thought indignantly, if his feelings were aboveboard and he could totally separate attraction and desire, and the process of closing a business deal. But if, as she half suspected, his emotions were as tangled as hers, they should run as far and fast from each other as they possibly could.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t get a good reading from him, courtesy of his calm, inscrutable expression. “Look, I just want to know why you kissed me.” I want to know, she added silently to herself, if it meant anything.

The look in his eyes became even harder to decipher. “It was dark. You’re pretty. You smelled good. And felt amazing. And,” he finished huskily, “you tasted pretty nice, too. Like that cup of peppermint tea you’d been drinking, before I came back downstairs. And like, for lack of a better way of describing it, you.”

He had tasted good, too. And felt so warm and strong and male. She hung on to her irritation with effort. “Gavin said the two of you spoke about us.”

“Yeah.” Mac let out a breath. “Your brother wasn’t too happy he caught us making out.”

Though Gavin was a year younger, he had taken on the role of her male protector in the family since their folks died. Just as Erin had assumed the role of mama bear. They acted as surrogate parents to the rest of the brood, which made their sibling relationship a lot more complicated.

Aware that the Prairie Natural Gas roughnecks were still watching her and Mac, Erin turned her back on the men. “I wasn’t happy about it, either.”

“The kissing?” Mac studied her. “Or getting caught?”

“Both.”

He pursed his lips, clearly not believing her on the first, accepting the truth of the second.

Erin knew he had a point. Had Gavin not come downstairs, she and Mac could have ended the embrace in a more leisurely, natural way. Said whatever needed to be said then, instead of putting it off until now, when everything was so much more confused and complicated. Mainly because Mac had insisted on bringing his company’s proposed wind farm and her land into the mix.

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