and fat come shipping day. And as far as the calves? I think the total is high there because of that new feed mixture I gave their mamas before calving time. Healthy cows make healthy calves.” She laughed again. “Well, duh.
As if you didn’t know. And you just watch. Next year, when those calves are ready for market, they’ll be weighing in at close to seven hundred pounds each—which is really what I’m leading up to here. Yeah, my new feed mixture is looking like a real success. But bottom line? Winter feeding is expensive. Not only because of all the hay we have to put up, but also in the labor-intensive work of caring for and feeding our pregnant cows in the winter months when the feed has got be brought to them. If you really stop and think about it, we work for the cows. My idea is to start letting our cows work for us, letting them find their own feed, which they would do, if there was any available during the winter months…”
He watched her mouth move and kept thinking about what it might feel like under his. What it might taste like…
She gave him a big smile. “There are changes going on in the industry, Grant. Ranchers are learning that just because a thing has always been done a certain way doesn’t automatically mean it’s the best, most efficient and profitable way. What I’m getting to here is that lots of ranchers now are switching from spring to summer calving. And you know what?”
He cleared his throat. “Uh. What?”
“It’s working for them, Grant. Matching the nutritional needs of the herd to the forage available can cut production costs and improve profitabil…” Her sweet, husky voice trialed off. “Grant? You with me here?”
“Yeah.”
“You seem…distracted.”
“No. Really. I’m not.”
She leaned in a little closer to him, a tiny frown forming between her smooth brows, the amazing scent of her taunting him even more cruelly that a moment before. “Is it…” She spoke so softly, almost shyly, the savvy ranch foreman suddenly replaced by a nervous young girl. “…about earlier?”
He flat out could not think. His mind was one big ball of mush. “Uh. Earlier?”
A flush swept up her satiny throat and stained her cheeks a tempting pink. “Um. You know. At the creek…” Her gold-tipped lashes swept down. And she swore. A very bad word.
It shocked him enough that he let out a laugh. “Steph. Shame on you.”
With a low, frustrated sound, she straightened and stepped back. He felt equal parts relief and despair—relief that she was far enough away he wasn’t quite so tempted to grab her. Despair that the delicious smell of her no longer swam all around him.
“Damn it,” she said—a much milder oath that time. “I am so…dumb. Just…really, completely childish and dumb.”
“Uh. Steph.”
“What?” She glared at him.
“What are you talking about?”
She flung out a hand. “Oh, please. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Er. I do?”
“I keep…beating this silly dead horse to death over and over again. It’s just not that huge a deal that you saw me naked, right?” She looked at him pleadingly.
For her sake—and his—he told a whopper of a lie. “No. Not at all. Not a huge deal at all.”
“Exactly. It’s no big deal and I need to act like a grown-up and let it go. But no. Every time you look at me funny, I’m just sure you’re thinking how annoyed or amused or…whatever you are at me and it gets me all…flustered and I instantly start babbling away about the whole stupid thing all over again. Oh, I just… Will somebody shoot me? Please. Will somebody just put me clean out of my misery?”
He rose. “Steph.”
She put up a hand. “Oh, wait. I know you’re going to say something nice. That’s how you are. Always so good. So understanding. So…um…” Her eyes widened as he did exactly what he shouldn’t do and closed the distance between them. “Wonderful…” she whispered. “Just a wonderful man.”
Getting close again was bad enough. But the last thing he ought to do was to put his hands on her. He knew that. He did.
So why the hell was he reaching out and clasping her shoulders?
Damn. Her bones felt so delicate. And the warm silk of her skin where the red shirt ended and her flesh began…
There were no words for that, for the miracle of her skin under his hands. There was nothing.
But the scent of her, the feel of her…
She swallowed. “Grant?”
He remembered to speak. “I’m not that wonderful. Take my word for it.”
“Oh, Grant…”
“And I want you to know…” The thing was, he could stand here holding her shoulders and looking in her shining eyes for the next decade or so. Just stand here and stare at that dimple in her chin, at her slightly parted lips, her clover-green eyes…
“What?” she asked.
He frowned and, like an idiot, he parroted, “What?”
“You want me to know, what?” Wildly she scanned his face.
And he had no idea what. Not a hint. Not a clue.
And something was happening. Something was changing.
Something about Steph. She was…suddenly different. All at once her nervousness, her girlish embarrassment, had vanished.
Now, he looked down at a woman, a beautiful woman, a woman sure of what she wanted.
“Oh, Grant…” They were the same words she’d said not a minute before.
The same.
And yet totally different.
She lifted her hands and rested them on his chest and before he could remember that he should stop her, she slid them up to encircle his neck.
He shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be standing here way too close to her, shouldn’t be looking down at that mouth of hers, thinking how he’d like nothing better than to cover it with his own.
He shouldn’t…
“Oh, Grant. Oh, yeah.” And she lifted up on tiptoe and pressed that soft, wide mouth to his.
Chapter Three
More things he shouldn’t be doing…
He shouldn’t be wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close, shouldn’t be easing his tongue between those softly parted lips of hers. Shouldn’t be sweeping his tongue over the eager surface of hers. Shouldn’t be finding the taste of her even sweeter than he’d dared to imagine.
Shouldn’t be.
But he was.
He ran an eager hand down the curve of her back and cupped her firm, sleek bottom, pulling her up and into him, nice and tight. So she could feel exactly how she affected him…
Wrong, he thought.
Shouldn’t…
But that didn’t stop him. He kissed those soft-sighing lips of hers and when she sighed again, he kissed her some more.
She didn’t seem to mind.
Far from it. She kissed him right back.
It was good. The best. Better than the best. He didn’t want it ever to end.
But he knew that it had to. Exerting a superhuman effort of will, he lifted his mouth from hers.
There was a moment.