How to Wrangle a Cowboy (25 page)

* * *

Lindsey landed a little harder than she’d intended, and the breath left her lungs in a sudden rush of air. She could have sworn her heart stopped, or at least stuttered, but she’d relaxed her body and twisted to take the impact on her hip and shoulder, just like Bud had taught her. He’d helped her learn all sorts of stunts as a kid, and most of them ended like this—with a spectacular but safe landing.

She lay in the grass inside the circular drive, looking up at the blue, blue sky. Dang, she loved it here. Loved the ranch. Loved Wyoming. Why couldn’t she stay? She needed to stay.

Damn William Ward, for trying to take this away from her. For trying to take it away from Grace.

She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of the surrounding grass. It smelled of sage, of mint, and ever so faintly of rich, healthy dirt. It was the smell of life. She wanted to roll in it like a dog, then lie there for the rest of the day, toasting in the sun.

But of course, that couldn’t happen. There was work to be done. What would Mr. Serious Shane Lockhart think of her if she whiled away the afternoon lying in the grass?

She was about to open her eyes and sit up when she realized a shadow was passing over her. Opening her eyes, she found Shane gazing earnestly into her face. He was inches away.

“Lindsey!” He put a hand on her shoulder and shook her slightly. “Lindsey, talk to me!”

His expression was so solemn, it hurt to look at him. Closing her eyes again, she struggled to smother a laugh. She couldn’t help it. He was so ridiculously
serious
. All the time.

Did he think she’d had some kind of accident? Like what? Maybe he thought something in the barn had exploded, tossing her into the grassy yard like the hero of an action movie. The thought made her want to laugh even more, and a tear leaked out of one corner of her eye.

“Lindsey!” He shook her again, and she opened her eyes. “Lindsey, talk to me.” He raked her hair back and held her face between his hands. “Talk to me! Are you okay?”

She couldn’t talk; if she opened her mouth, she’d laugh.

“Are you okay?” He shook her head in desperation. “Blink once for yes, twice for no. No, blink twice for no…” He sucked in a panicked, shuddering breath. “Just
blink
, okay?”

She opened her eyes. She blinked.

And then he kissed her.

Kissing in the tack room had been one thing. Kissing here was far more public. They were sprawled on the grass of God’s green earth, kissing for all the world to see.

She was surprised—again. Shane didn’t seem like the impulsive type, but he’d surprised her in the tack room, and now he was risking everything. Cody could walk out on the porch any minute and see them.

Maybe the man was ready for a relationship after all.

“I’m sorry.” He pulled away, breathing hard. “It’s just—I saw you there, and I thought,
What if she’s dead? What if it’s too late?
” He brought his fist to his chest, breathing hard and staring down at her. “
What if something happens and I never…acted?
”

“Acted?”

Surely this country cowboy didn’t have Hollywood aspirations. But then, he’d worked for Grace for years. Maybe the old lady was contagious. Lindsey herself had gone through a brief phase where she’d wanted to act, but then she’d discovered dancing and singing were major prerequisites to a successful stage and screen career. Since she couldn’t carry a tune in a five-gallon water bucket and danced like a monkey with an inner-ear infection, she got over that ambition.

“Acted?” she asked. “You want to act?”

He looked so concerned that she wondered if something was wrong. Was she hurt? She did feel a little dizzy, and her breath was still catching in her chest, but she wasn’t sure if that was from the hard landing or the hot cowboy.

Lying down beside her, Shane swept her hair out of her face. “Acted on this—this feeling we have. I realized, when I saw you lying there, that we can’t let this go. I thought I’d missed my chance with you, and I can’t—” His voice broke. “I just can’t.”

Holy cow. That was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever said to her. Whoever would have thought a laconic, slightly grumpy cowboy could be so eloquent?

He kissed her again, and then he simply held her, as if she was some precious thing. No one had ever held her quite like that. Not since she was a child.

She decided, in that moment, that she liked it.

She wanted more. She wanted regular kissing and holding and lovemaking.

To hell with Charleston, and to hell with William Ward. She wanted Shane Lockhart, and somehow, some way, she was going to have him.

For keeps.

Chapter 30

There was a cricket in the grass next to Lindsey’s ear. She could hear the little fellow tuning up his tiny music machine, then lurching into a delicate, heartfelt love song that was the perfect counterpoint to her soaring emotions. Birds twittered in the trees, and a teasing breeze made the grass whisper its secrets.

Tilting her head back, she closed her eyes and smiled up at the sky as Shane made a trail of hot, wet kisses down her neck. She rolled a little to one side, then the other, loving the way his body felt as it rocked against hers. She felt wild and free, as if she’d finally thrown off the strictures of everyday life and made up her mind to live as she pleased.

Wild love.
That’s what she wanted out of life, and that’s what she felt when Shane Lockhart touched her, looked at her, kissed her.

So she was completely unprepared for the sharp bang that exploded the country quiet, stilling the chirping cricket and cutting off the birdsong symphony as if someone had hit an off switch. Shane tensed, then leaped to his feet. Was he injured? Was
she
?

Lindsey’s glorious swell of emotion shattered into a million pieces as one word reverberated through her mind:

Gun.

Adriana had warned her there might be trouble. Bud’s secrets had festered for too long, and they’d created complications and resentments that might bring out the worst in people. The son he hadn’t claimed might do worse than blackmail her.

But shoot her?

It didn’t seem likely, but she didn’t have time to sort out likelihoods and probabilities. Not when Shane was about to take a bullet for her.

Bits and pieces she’d learned about him tumbled through her head—how Cody worshipped him, how alone in the world the boy was, how he ran the ranch with such a steady hand. So many people counted on him—including Lindsey’s own grandmother.

Including Lindsey herself.

Leaping to her feet, she jumped on his back, doing her best to drag him to the ground, but he shoved her away as if she was an over-affectionate lapdog.

Where was the shooter? She glanced at the house and saw Cody on the front porch. Then, as she watched in horror, Josh exited the house too.

The kids. She needed to get to the kids. She’d just taken a breath to shout out a warning when the screen door slammed shut behind them.

Bang.

Bang? Oh.

Nobody was shooting at her. The kids had slammed the screen door. That’s all.

Now she felt as if she really had been shot—as if she was a balloon and the bullet she’d imagined had punctured her tension and let all the air out of her body. The terror that had lit up every one of her nerve endings gave way to embarrassment, and she could feel herself deflating.

She was an idiot.

She tried to stand up and realized things were about to get a whole lot worse, because the onslaught of emotions she’d been through in the past five minutes—happiness, lust, love (or something like it), then terror and stark fear—had made her so dizzy that her legs buckled beneath her and the world turned gray.

* * *

A strong hand gripped Lindsey’s arm, holding her up through the worst of her momentary weakness.

“Sorry.”

She looked up at his grim, serious face.
Her hero
. She was pretty sure he’d thought the noise of the screen door slamming was a gunshot too, and he hadn’t hesitated to leap to her defense.

He looked out for everyone, especially her. But who looked out for Shane?

She did. Now. Everyone needed a defender, a supporter, a friend in all weathers. And she intended to be that person for Shane Lockhart.

“Are you okay?” she asked. It was hard to defend him when she could hardly stand, but she wanted him to know she was there for him. Even though he looked a little wavery, and sometimes he had two heads.

“I’m fine,” he muttered. Once again he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes flicked guiltily toward Cody, and she realized he wasn’t checking for a wound. He was worried about what Cody might have seen.

Guiltily, she wiped her own lips too. She felt like they were a couple of teenagers, caught in the act.

“What happened, Dad?” Cody asked.

Lindsey started to answer, but the hand on her upper arm tightened until she was afraid he’d leave bruises.

“Nothing,” Shane said.

“But why was Lindsey on the ground?” Josh squinted up at her, his watery blue eyes filled with concern. “Did you fall?”

Shane’s hand clenched a little tighter. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, she did.”

Things were starting to come into focus at last. Shane, who finally was down to one head, wasn’t ready for Cody to know about their hidden passion. She was a little disappointed by that, but he was still her hero. He was just trying to protect his son.

“Yeah,” she said. “I was, um, doing something, and your dad saw me fall. He was worried about me.” She glanced over at Shane and felt a warm glow—not a blush, but a sort of pride that he’d cared so much about her safety. “He was making sure I was okay.”

“But why did you fall down?” Cody asked.

Shane shifted his gaze from the barn to Lindsey and back again. Things were getting really clear now, coming into focus, and she realized he didn’t want Cody to find out about the rope. Knowing how protective he was of his son, she could understand his reluctance to let his six-year-old fly through the air like a trapeze artist.

“I fall down a lot,” she said. “Clumsy. Really clumsy.”

“Yeah,” Shane said, with a little too much enthusiasm. “She’s really clumsy. Terrible. Just falling all over the place. You hadn’t noticed?”

The boys shrugged.

“Yeah, kind of,” Cody said. “Like, every time you kiss her.”

Josh shoved his glasses up his nose. “Maybe you ought to tone it down a little.”

Lindsey resisted the urge to laugh. Shane was trying to shield Cody from the real world, but she had a feeling the boy was a lot tougher than he realized. He already knew, better than most, how fragile adult relationships were.

That was something she needed to remember too.

Cody and Josh had run down the porch steps and were now standing before Shane, fidgeting with eagerness. Lindsey could see clearly now, but it still felt like her brains might fall out.

“What’s up, guys?” Shane asked.

“
I’m
not clumsy.” Cody puffed out his skinny chest.

“Me neither.” Josh imitated his friend, but was somewhat less successful in his effort to look like a youthful strongman.

Shane grinned. “No, you’re not,” he said. “You guys are aces.”

The two boys turned, giving each other mirror-image grins and bumped their fists together. Then they turned toward Shane, beaming.

“So can we swing on that rope?” They chorused the request in perfect unison.

“No.” Shane didn’t even try to soften the denial. “The rope swing is way too dangerous for you guys. You saw what happened to Lindsey, right?” He shot Lindsey a glare as he said this, as if she’d introduced the kid to mixed martial arts or BASE jumping.

She supposed she shouldn’t have taken the swing down. But she’d had to do something with all the risk-taking, hell-for-leather energy she’d been left with after the abrupt end of their little make-out session. If there’d been a fast horse in the barn, she would have gone for a ride, but not one of Grace’s old nags was fast enough to cool down after Shane Lockhart’s kisses.

“But we’re not clumsy,” Cody said. He sounded sorrowful and hesitant. All the hope had disappeared from his voice.

Lindsey remembered being that age. She’d hated being told she was “too little” to play certain games or ride certain horses.

“Let me tell you a secret.” She drew the boys close in a circle that pointedly excluded Mr. I-Make-All-the-Rules. “See, my grandpa Bud taught me how to fall without hurting myself too bad.” She knelt, Shane style, to talk to the boys. “When you get a little older, I’ll teach you some of the old stunt moves he taught me. And then you’ll be able to use the swing.”

“Oh.” Cody thought a moment. “Why can’t you teach me now?”

She didn’t miss a beat. “Because Bud didn’t teach me until I was nine.”

“Oh. Okay.” Cody shrugged off the idea of the swing and shifted gears. “Are we still working on that dirty, old room?”

“We sure are. I’d like you guys to carry out everything you can lift, okay? And sort it like we talked about.”

The boys ran off, and she turned to Shane with a triumphant grin. “Crisis averted.”

He was staring at her, wide-eyed. “How did you do that?”

She shrugged. “I just remember how kid logic worked. Stuff was all about how big you had to be to do stuff, how old. Like,
You must be
this
tall to take this ride
.”

Shane nodded, slowly, but she could tell he didn’t understand.

“You weren’t ever really a kid, were you?”

He tightened his lips and shook his head. She could swear she felt her heart bleeding a little for this man who’d never been a boy.

The two of them watched the boys run to the barn, Stormy trotting happily behind them. The sight made Lindsey smile, but a worried frown creased Shane’s face.

“Keep an eye on that puppy,” he called after them. “Remember there are coyotes around.”

Cody’s eager steps slowed, as if his high spirits had evaporated. Even the dog pinned his tail and trotted a little faster when Cody turned and called him, looking over his shoulder as if the coyotes were already on their heels.