he put his arm around her and started walking toward the open doors of the barn, she asked, “How early are we talking about?”
He grinned. “Well before daylight.”
“Is it that imperative to get up so early?” she asked, frowning.
“The livestock get breakfast before we do,” he explained, holding her to his side. “Besides, in the summer we get as much done as we can before the hottest part of the day. The earlier we get up and get started, the better chance we have of doing that.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” she said as they climbed the porch steps and went into the house. “Why don’t you wake me up when you get back to the house after you feed the livestock?”
“Hey, you’re the one who’s here to observe what a real cowboy is all about,” he reminded, laughing. “That includes the morning chores as well as what I do the rest of the day.”
“No, I’m here to talk you into being the spokesman for your family’s PR campaign,” she shot back. “It was your idea that I needed to see what you do.”
Walking her into the foyer of the homestead and up the stairs, they fell silent and Chance cursed himself as nine kinds of a fool the closer they got to their bedrooms. After he had put her in the room across the hall from his, he’d realized that it probably hadn’t been one of his brightest ideas. But now that he knew the sweetness of her lips and how responsive she was to his kiss, there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that it was the dumbest decision he’d made in his entire adult life. But at the time, he’d thought she might like the room with the window seat. It was the only one of the six bedrooms that was the least bit feminine.
When they stopped at the door to her room, he barely resisted the temptation of taking her back into his arms. “Sleep well, Fee.”
“You, too, Chance,” she said, giving him a smile that sent his blood pressure skyrocketing.
He waited until she went into her room, then quickly entering his, he closed the door and headed straight for the shower. Between the kiss they’d shared in the barn and the knowledge that at that very moment she was probably removing every stitch of clothes she had on, he was hotter than a two-dollar pistol in a skid-row pawn shop on Saturday night.
He’d have liked nothing more than to hold Fee to him and kiss her senseless. But that hadn’t been an option. If he had so much as touched her, he knew he wouldn’t have wanted to let her go. And that had never happened to him before.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t experienced a strong attraction for a woman in the past. But nothing in his adult life had been as passionate as fast as what he had felt with Fee when he kissed her. He hadn’t counted on that when he asked her to stay with him. Hell, the possibility hadn’t even been on his radar.
Quickly stripping out of his clothes, he turned on the water and stepped beneath the icy spray. Maybe if he traumatized his body with a cold shower, he’d not only be able to get some sleep, maybe some of his sanity would return.
As he stood there shivering uncontrollably, he shook his head. Yeah, and if he believed that, there was someone, somewhere waiting to sell him the Grand Canyon or Mount Rushmore.
Fee yawned as she sat on a bale of hay in the barn and watched Chance saddle Rosy and another horse he’d called Dakota. She couldn’t believe that after he’d knocked on her door an hour and a half before the sun came up, he’d gone on to feed all of the animals housed in the barns and holding pens and met with his ranch foreman to go over the chores for the day—all before breakfast.
Hiding another yawn with her hand, she decided she might not be as tired if she’d gotten more rest the night before. But sleep had eluded her and she knew exactly what had caused her insomnia. Not only had Chance’s kiss been way more than she’d expected, it had caused her to question her sanity.
Several different times yesterday, she had practically asked the man to kiss her and when he finally had, she’d acted completely shameless and all but melted into a puddle at his big booted feet. Thank goodness he’d kept it fairly brief and ended the kiss before she’d made a bigger fool of herself than she already had.
Then there was the matter of the promise she’d made to herself years ago. She’d seemed to forget all about her vow to never put her career in jeopardy because of a man.
“You’re not your mother,” she whispered to herself.
Her mother had been a prime example of how that kind of diversion could destroy a career, and Fee was determined not to let that happen to her. Rita Sinclair had abandoned her position as a successful financial advisor when she foolishly fell head over heels in love with a dreamer—a man who chased his lofty ideas from one place to another without ever considering the sacrifices his aspirations had cost her. Maybe he’d asked her to marry him because she had become pregnant with Fee or maybe he’d thought it was what he wanted at the time. Either way, he had eventually decided that his wife and infant daughter were holding him back and he’d moved on without them.
But instead of picking up the pieces of her life and resuming her career, Fee’s mother had settled for working one dead-end job after another that left her with little time for her daughter. Her mother had died ten years ago, still waiting for the dreamer to return to take her with him on his next irresponsible adventure. Fee suspected that her mother had died of a broken heart because he never did.
When she’d been old enough to understand the life her mother had given up for her father, Fee had made a conscious decision to avoid making the same mistakes.
Although he wasn’t her boss, Chance’s family owned the company she worked for and that was even worse. She could very easily end up getting herself fired.
She tried to think if she’d heard anything about Lassiter Media’s policy on fraternization. Would that even apply in this situation? Chance wasn’t an employee of the company, nor was he an owner. But he was closely related to those who were and she’d been sent to smooth over a scandal, not create another one.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but if that frown on your face is any indication, it can’t be good,” Chance said, breaking into her disturbing thoughts.
“I was thinking about the PR campaign,” she answered, staring down at the toes of her new boots. “I should be working on ideas for the videos and print ads.”
Technically it wasn’t really a lie. She had been thinking about the reasons she’d been sent to Wyoming and how losing her focus when it came to him could very easily cost her a perfectly good job.
Squatting down in front of her, Chance used his index finger to lift her chin until their gazes met. “What do you say we forget about fixing the Lassiter reputation today and just have a little fun?”
The moment he touched her, Fee could barely remember her own name, let alone the fact that she had a job she might lose if she wasn’t careful. “You think I’m going to have fun riding a horse?” she asked, unable to keep the skepticism from her voice.
“I promise you will,” he said, taking her hands in his. Straightening to his full height, he pulled her to her feet, then picked up her hat where she had placed it on the bale of hay when she sat down. Positioning it on her head, he pointed to Rosy. “Now, are you ready to mount up and get started?”
“Not really,” she said, wondering if workers’ compensation would cover her falling off a horse since she was only learning to ride in an effort to get him to agree to be the Lassiter spokesman. Eying the mare, Fee shook her head. “Is it just me or did she get a lot bigger overnight?”
“It’s just you,” he said, laughing as he led her over to the mare’s side. He explained how to put her foot in the stirrup and take hold of the saddle to pull herself up onto the back of the horse. “Don’t worry about Rosy.