Into The Sunset: An Erotic Romance Anthology (2 page)

She snorted, the laugh she hated
but he loved. “My hairdresser is a
man.
A
straight man.
His name is Chad. How
the fuck did you get a Master’s in Business but stay so
fucking
country?
”

Each
fuck
was an explosion off her
lips—Nancy knew how much he hated swearing. He took a deep breath
and walked away. What he wanted to do was bellow, rip her suitcase
in half, but such behavior was uncivilized. If he’d been at a
ranch, he would have gone and mucked a stall or chopped wood.
Living in an apartment in Dallas, it wasn’t really an
option.

Now he was on a ranch. There was plenty of
work to be done. He still didn’t know how to explain to his
daughter, now eight, the truth.

“
Maybe next Christmas,” he
said.

“
Maybe not,” Annie
replied.

He ruffled her hair. She had his brown hair,
his sense, her mother’s eyes, and the rest was a muddle of the two
of them. “Maybe not,” he repeated. Maybe he was making this all
more complicated than it needed to be.

The dogs started
kiiyiing
, a high-pitched
excited sound Rex had never heard before.

“
Yes, yes, I missed you too, Elmer
and Olive and Bugs and Popeye.”

Crouching in the middle of the four hounds,
letting them lick her ears and nuzzle her face, was Rose McGovern.
The dogs knocked her pink hat loose and she grabbed it, holding it
above the fray.

Josh saw him standing there and gave him a
friendly wink. The man never pried into Rex’s life, but he wasn’t
stupid either. Josh had taken time to reassure him that Rose really
was a wonderful woman. He’d sensed Rex was uneasy about
her.

Josh took Rose’s hat from her and she gave him
a perfunctory thanks. Fur flew everywhere as she rubbed the dancing
dogs. Rex admitted to himself that she acted normal, but so had
Nancy.

Like a tea-kettle whistle, Lily came flying
out of the kitchen, shrieking her delight. Rose was ready for her,
arms open, big smile on her face. The two women squeezed each other
and then everyone politely ignored Lily while she wiped her
eyes.

“
Rose, I want you to meet our new
foreman, Rex Waits.”

Rose’s open friendly face turned hard.
Goddamnit did she look like Nancy. A spit-fire in and out of bed.
All those curves, they’d feel just right in his hands, hot and
soft. In college his friends had teased him for liking big girls,
but all he saw were women—full red-blooded women. The type of woman
that could take a man and make him forget that there was a world
outside of her arms.

“
Rose McGovern,” she said,
sticking out her hand.

Brown eyes and brown hair—not like Nancy.
Steel under all that softness, just like Nancy, but like her
mother, Lily, too. “Rex Waits.” He knew the reason for her chilly
demeanor. Tad had insisted they not tell Rose what they wanted the
money for, but rather show her. Rex thought it was a bad idea, as
needing that amount of money was likely to concern their loyal
daughter, and he had been right. Clearly, in her head, what was
wrong was the new foreman, and she was going to raise a ruckus
about it.

“
Let’s go say hi to your father.
He’s out back.” Lily put her hand on Rose’s shoulder, and like a
door slammed shut, the ice was gone. She was all warmth and
sunshine for her daddy. The fire and brimstone, she’d save for an
appropriate time.

“
No, say hi to me first.” Everyone
turned and looked at Annie. And now Rex had forgotten about his own
daughter, so consumed had he been with Rose.

She smiled and squatted down, just as she had
with the dogs. “Rose,” she said, her hand held out to
Annie.

“
Annabelle Lee,” his daughter
said, pumping Rose’s hand up and down with a grin. She turned to
smile at him, and Rex wiped the scowl from his face. That
ridiculous name, her mother and her romantic notions. Not that
there was anything romantic about Poe. Annie tolerated a nickname
from him, but to the rest of the world, she was Annabelle Lee, all
four syllables.

“
That lives by the sea?” Rose
asked.

“
In
a
kingdom
by the sea.”

Of course she knew the whole morbid poem by
heart: She was named after it. Rex bit back a groan and Lily got
everyone moving. Annie had attached herself to Rose’s side and Rex
wasn’t worried about her—the ranch hands treated Annie like their
mascot. They wouldn’t let her get hurt.

“
How you holding up, boss?” Josh
asked.

Rex grunted at him and stalked from the
room.

“
That good, huh?”

Rex could hear the laughter in his voice. Now
he was grateful the ranch hands had been lackadaisical about their
work. There were plenty of chores to keep him busy.

* * *

The little girl, Annabelle Lee, had grabbed
her hand and followed her mother and the dogs out back to see her
father.

Rose was more confused than ever. Given that
her parents needed one hundred thousand dollars, she would expect
there to be signs of neglect, of poverty, on the ranch. If
anything, it looked nicer than the last time she’d been there. As
soon as she spotted Rex Waits, she thought she had located the
problem. He was embezzling and being mighty sneaky about it too.
The way he’d been looking at her, like he didn’t know whether to
eat her up or tell her off, had just confirmed her opinion. Then
little Miss Annabelle Lee had wanted to shake her hand. She was
having difficulty reconciling Rex Waits the scumbag to Rex Waits
the devoted father.

Her father was in the shade of the barn,
working leather conditioner into the horse tack. It was his
favorite chore. As a little girl, Rose would help him, and she
learned to love the smells and the soothing movements just as much
as her father.

He turned and grinned at them. They could have
been on the set of a John Wayne movie. He belonged there like the
cattle and the barn. “Well, if it isn’t all my girls.” He gathered
them up for a hug and her mother started crying again.

“
Can I help?” Annabelle Lee
asked.

Her father patted the stepladder he’d brought
out, the rungs padded with an old horse blanket. Annabelle Lee
picked up a bridle and a soft brush. She smiled as she cleaned the
leather. Rose went to the other side of the saddle to help her
father. She soon lost herself in the familiar task. Seeing
Annabelle Lee’s head bent over the bridle, her tongue stuck out of
her mouth in concentration, Rose thought about how as a small child
she used to sit on that stepladder and do the very same
thing.

For a moment, emotion choked her,
and she had to look away. She didn’t want all this—the ranch, her
family, and the friends that were like family—to end. Maybe things
weren’t so bad. Maybe selling the ranch would turn out to be
an
option, rather than
the best option. Rose wouldn’t know until her father decided it was
time to talk. One lesson she had learned as a child was not to rush
him. Patience was a virtue, albeit her least favorite
one.

“
Well, it’s getting late. How
about we pack it in ladies and head inside for a nice
meal?”

Rose nodded and tried to keep the emotion off
her face. Her father didn’t like to have big exciting conversations
while digesting or before bed, so she’d have to wait another day to
find out what was going on at the ranch.

She let her mind wander to Rex, thinking it a
suitable distraction. Now, there was a man, the kind that could
work outside all day and come home and please his woman. God, if
they made them like that in Boston, she wouldn’t be so lonely. If
only she knew whether he was trustworthy or not. She couldn’t get a
read on the mercurial man.

Rose, on the other hand, was more of a flat
line. It was just that tight squeeze in her chest, tighter than her
mother’s embrace, darker than the black velvet night.

* * *

Annie was holding that woman’s hand. Rex saw
them and hurried to his room. He was covered in sweat and crap and
hay from mucking out the stalls. The hot water felt nice, but when
his mind wandered to Rose’s abundant curves, he had to switch the
temperature to cold.

Tomorrow was what was known as Rose’s Big
Tour. They had picked out where they were going to build the guest
cabins, and even put together one so she could see what they would
look like when they were finished. Peggy and Lily had decorated it
in a style they described as: What rich people think country looks
like. Instead of the serviceable pieces of furniture they bought
for the ranch, they got second-hand items that showed
wear-and-tear, and whenever possible, had turned tin cans and feed
bags into lampshades and pillows.

Rex had looked around, mute with
horror. Had they really painted the walls orange? Was that a
skull?

“
What do you think?” Peggy had
asked him, Lily at her side.

“
It’s awful,” he’d said, unable to
lie.

To his shock the women were delighted. “Then
it’s perfect!” Lily said.

Rex just shook his head. “So, if I told you
that, with the exception of the quilt on the bed, and the couch and
chairs and the TV, this whole place should be burned, you’d take
that as a compliment?”

The women laughed at him and patted his arm.
Lily wiped a tear from her eye. “Rex, I think you might get along
well with my daughter.”

Lily had made the comment a few times before,
and Rex had replied by stomping out of the room. He’d stomped out
of the room when she’d said it then. He knew the more he reacted
the more he’d be teased, but he couldn’t help himself. As if she
could sense his mounting tension, she’d stopped needling him the
closer Rose’s arrival date came.

And now she was here, and he was standing
under a stream of cold water still inexplicably half-hard. He
couldn’t go to dinner like this, so he took care of himself as
quick as he could, feeling like an awkward teenager, and put on a
clean polo shirt and some khaki pants for dinner. He thought of
dressing for business as part of keeping his business skills sharp.
After all, if everything went according to plan, he’d be out
marketing, drumming up business for the Crown of Thorns Ranch and
Resort.

Everyone was seated around the long table on
benches. The table was only half-full, ranching not being as
profitable as it once was. He pictured the table bustling with
riding teachers, maids, and a few masseuses.

Rex wanted this to work. He wanted this to be
his home and Annie’s home too. She was tucked between two ranch
hands, listening to them talk about their day while one cut a pork
chop for her and the other pulled the hot skin off a drumstick—her
favorite.

“
Cornbread?”

Rex jumped at the sweet voice next to his ear
and nodded.

He was used to Martha and Lily buzzing around
during mealtime, but Rose was something new, smiling and loading
people’s plates up with food. He grabbed a pork chop from the
platter set in the middle of the table. He still needed something
to do with his hands, so he started pouring everyone
water.

For the resort, they were going to build a
nicer dining hall for the guests, but the concept would be the
same. Vacationers would get to play at rancher if they wanted, or
if they preferred, they’d be able to order up a spa treatment,
direct to their door. It was a good idea. Lily had thought of it,
watching some ridiculous reality show on Bravo. A pampered ranch
experience for the bored rich people in Dallas. When Rex saw an ad
looking for someone to help develop a ranch resort, he knew the job
was perfect for him and for Annie. It was still perfect, except for
the fact that he was having mixed feelings about the
Rose.

Though, they were really feelings about Nancy,
still alive after all these years.

Tad said grace, and Rex got through dinner
without making too much of a fool of himself. Rose paid him no
mind, joking with her friends and jumping up to fetch things from
the kitchen, sparing Lily or Martha from doing it. Everyone would
protest for her to sit down and Rose would smile and say, “Now, I
don’t get back that often, so it’s a treat for me to wait on you.”
Then she was out the door with the milk pitcher.

Nothing like Nancy at all.

That little thought nested in the back of his
brain and stayed there, nibbling away all night. He dreamed he and
Annie and Nancy were all on a paddleboat at a park, only Nancy had
brown hair and she kept smiling at them.

Rex woke up, feeling happy and content, and
for the first time in a long time, reached for a body that wasn’t
there. “Christ.” His sunny mood stormed over, and the weather
agreed with him. It was a lousy overcast day.

“
Annie, I’d like you to stay here
when we go out with Miss Rose to see the cabin.”

She pulled a face at him, but he would make
sure to tell Lily she was around. Someone would keep track of her.
Lily and Tad had promised to provide “daycare” after all. Tad
qualified that with, “As long as you don’t expect it to always
happen in the house and for her to come back clean. All our hands
come from good families, so she’ll be well looked after. And Lily’s
getting impatient for a grandchild, so she’ll be able to
pretend.”