Mary Brady - Winning Over the Rancher

“Over there—” he pointed toward the far side of the meadow “—is where you propose to start the first cabin.”

She leaned closer to the windshield and peered at an isolated stand of pine and larch trees. “Perfect. We’ll need to set down the roads first so the equipment can be moved easily in and out.”

She reached for the door handle.

“Hang on. I’ll drive over and you can get a closer look. It gets muddy out there when the snow melts.”

She nodded. Her expression held a mixture of concentration and excitement. He wondered if he would have gotten that reaction from the other bidders.

Baylor realized she had a hand on her belly. She seemed to be speaking to her baby and that simple gesture made her seem totally invested in the project. At that moment, she seemed more like a partner than a vendor. He wasn’t sure whether that was bad or good.

Bad if it made him lose his objectivity, and good if it made her care more about his family’s future.

Suddenly, she seemed very attractive and not just because she was sexy. He stopped the truck. The heat must have been making him stupid. He needed fresh air and badly.

BAYLOR STOPPED THE TRUCK at the edge of the stream and leaped out, but KayLee climbed down before he could get around to help her. She didn’t need help, she couldn’t allow herself to need help, but she wanted to stand where one of the cabins would be built, feel the site, make sure it was as perfect as she had hoped it would be.

While Baylor rummaged around for something in the toolbox in the bed of the truck, she made her way across the uneven, somewhat icy terrain to the middle of the grouping of ponderosa pine trees. Their sweet scent filled the air and she inhaled deeply and let herself imagine.

She could see a cabin nestled between the largest trees where there was a natural space. There was enough access from the side of the lot away from the stream that only one small sapling might have to be removed to make way for the heavy equipment.

It was the perfect spot for a cabin, a home, her mountain home. She shook her head at the futility of that dream and swiped a rascal tear from the corner of her eye.

“What do you think?” Baylor spoke softly from behind her as if he knew he was intruding on the mood.

Upbeat, that’s all she’d show him, not tears. In fact when she wasn’t pregnant anymore, she vowed to never cry again for any reason.

“It’s perfect,” she said when she was sure her voice wouldn’t squeak or waver. “I’d put the cabin right here, offset from the middle.”

“That’s where me and my brothers would pitch a tent when we wanted a wilderness adventure and our mother thought we were too young to be too far away.”

The sound of his voice drew closer until she could feel the heat of his breath against the back of her neck. KayLee fought a sudden intense craving to have him touch her, put a hand on her waist—well, where she used to have a waist—or put his lips to her neck. Oh, heck and darn. She took a step away.

“This is a special place, and I think a cabin here would be great. We could call it the Whispering Winds Cabin because the wind swishes like a whisper through the pine needles.”

“Maybe not,” he said and chuckled.

“No?” Why not? Why was he laughing? Was he going to squash all her ideas?

He nudged her shoulder with his fingertip to get her attention. “It’s a fine name, but Whispering Winds is the name of the neighbor’s ranch. Thinking of names as you build them is a good idea, though. Cabin one, two, three, et cetera is kind of boring.”

She shifted to look directly into sky-blue eyes that studied her face. She dropped her gaze to keep him from reading her soul.

The sparkle of golden hair in the V of his cream-colored shirt beckoned her with a “come on and touch me.” She wanted to put her fingers in the V and loosen the rest of the buttons so she could press her palms into the middle of that soft hair, feel the ridge of muscle where his pecs bulged. She fought to keep her eyes from moving even lower and then with a hormone-balancing force of will brought her gaze back up to his face.

She smiled and shifted from one foot to the other. “You know…”

“What do I know?” He was amused and not embarrassed by her assessment.

“Besides the obvious handsomeness of your face, speaking from a Hollywood perspective, you have uncommonly nice individual features.”

“A Hollywood perspective?”

“I saw enough of the people my husband cast in films to know a great jaw and a sexy camera-friendly mouth when I see them.”

“Sexy, too?”

She parted her lips to speak again, but stopped when she realized she wanted to ask him to kiss her.

She stepped backward.

Ask him to kiss her? Yeah. That should send him fleeing back to the ranch house, where he could call the sheriff to toss her out of Montana for good.

But he didn’t look upset. He might even look…interested?

Not good.

They were both being silly, not just her.

Worse.

They had known each other only a few hours. She had an excuse—pregnancy.

She tried to put distance between them but he stuck to her side. When in the center of the clearing, she slipped on an icy patch and found the electric touch of his hand on her arm long enough to stabilize her—long enough to make her burn inside and out.

That’s it. A drastic intervention was called for.

“Thank you.” She stuck her hands in the pockets of the jacket. “Okay. All right. I want to be upfront about something so I can keep it from growing out of proportion.”

He gave her a skeptical look. “Go on.”

“I’m attracted to you and I want you to know the pregnancy hormones racing around inside of my body are doing that to me. I’m sure you’re a perfectly nice guy who is perfectly attractive to most women.”

“But you aren’t most women?” He stepped closer, she was sure he did that to make her step farther away…and she did. She wanted to skitter away, but she didn’t do skittering very well these days.

“Unfortunately, I am most women, and right now, I could eat you up without even sitting down.”

He grinned. “This is turning out to be a very interesting day.”

“I’m afraid it’s not really me talking.”

“It’s the hormones?”

“Afraid so. I usually have more control than…”

“Than what?”

“I know you’re yanking my chain now, but I’ve been around pretty faces for years and I’ve always been able to keep a lid on feeling anything about any of them, because a pretty face is just that.”

“I’m a pretty face?”

She stepped closer to the stream. “Oh, you are such a pretty face.”

“And you find yourself helplessly attracted to me?” He took another step toward her.

“If you come any closer, I might have to defend all of us from me. I might seem to be a helpless, pregnant thing, but I have to tell you, I’m not.” She drew herself up tall and put fists to her hips to take up as much space as possible.

“Never entered my mind that you were.” He stopped and leaned against a convenient pine tree, letting her put some distance between them. “Helpless in any way.”

“I shouldn’t have opened my mouth. I am so much less censored these days, but I thought if I got it out in the open I could enlist your help in keeping me from doing something we’d regret.”

He moved again, stalking unhurriedly toward her like a big cat after prey.

“Darlin’,” he said with an exaggerated drawl, “speak for yourself.”

KAYLEE FELT HER MUSCLES tense. She couldn’t budge, even to flee. Baylor approached where she stood by the burbling stream.