that I’m worried about,” he told her.
“If I was making a pass at you, believe me, you would know it. I don’t mince words.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
She propped her hands on her hips. “Well, do you want a back rub or not? I guarantee you’ll enjoy it.”
Oh, he didn’t doubt that for a second. He just didn’t feel it was proper considering they’d only met that morning. But the thought of not letting her made him feel like a prude.
“Yeah, what the heck,” he agreed.
“Then take the shirt off and lay down on your stomach.”
He shrugged out of his shirt and tossed it over the footboard, sat down and pried off his boots, then stretched out on the bed, laying his head on the pillow.
He felt the bed shift as Nita climbed on. She straddled his legs, plopped down and made herself comfy on the back of his thighs. Then her hands were on his shoulders, her skin warm and a little rough, her thumbs working themselves deep into the muscle. If he hadn’t been so achy and exhausted, he might have been turned on by her touch, but the truth was, there was nothing sexual about her actions. All he felt now was relaxed.
Nita gave a low whistle, as her hands slid lower. “You military men sure do know how to grow the muscles.”
If he wasn’t half-asleep already, he would have laughed. “Out of curiosity, do you ever have a thought that you don’t say out loud?”
“Cowboy, if you knew what I was really thinking, you wouldn’t have let me anywhere near your bed.”
He glanced over his shoulder and gave her a wary look.
She grinned. “I’m just pullin’ your leg.”
He settled his head down on the pillow and closed his eyes.
“And the answer to your question is no. I pretty much say whatever’s on my mind. A lot of people don’t appreciate that. They say it’s not ladylike.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Not really. I was born this way. If people don’t like it, tough. I’m not out to impress anyone.” She smoothed her hands over his skin. “What are all these marks on your back from?”
“Burn scars. I was a little too close to a building when it exploded.”
“No kidding. And what about this one on your shoulder?” she asked, skimming her fingertips over it.
“Bullet wound.”
“It looks recent.”
“It was.”
“Some covert mission you can’t talk about, I’m assuming.”
“Yep.” He was fighting to stay awake, but he could feel himself beginning to fade, feel sleep overwhelming him. What the woman could do with her hands. He felt as if he were melting into the mattress.
She worked her hands lower, where he was the most sore.
“Hmm, feels good,” he mumbled. So relaxed.
Nita dug her thumbs into the knots in his lower back. She was sure his backside was aching pretty good, too, and wondered what his reaction would be if she touched him there. She sure wouldn’t mind. He had a body that wouldn’t quit—wide shoulders and arms the size of tree trunks. A thick, muscular chest that tapered down into a firm torso and slim hips. And she could just imagine the equipment he was packing under those jeans.
Even though he was now technically her employee, she wasn’t immune to all that strapping muscle and tanned skin. Not that a man being her employee had ever stopped her before. In fact, that made it all the more exciting. The stolen moments in the stable when no one was around. A quick roll in the field at sunset. Nights on a blanket under the stars after everyone else had gone to bed.
A little shiver of excitement passed through her when she thought of taking a tumble with Connor.
Those relationships—if you could even call them relationships—were always brief and uncomplicated. That was all men seemed to want from her, which worked out just fine since she’d never wanted to get married. She didn’t even want to settle down. Not that she wouldn’t enjoy the companionship. She might have thought about kids someday way in the future, someone to take over the farm someday. But in her mind, to have kids you ought to be married, and marriage meant compromise, losing your identity. She wasn’t going to do that for anyone. Not after knowing what it had done to her momma.
Katherine had been from a wealthy Dallas family—a city girl. But when she’d met Will Windcroft she’d fallen desperately in love with him. She’d married him after only three months of courting and left the excitement of the big city for a simpler life on the horse-breeding farm. According to what Nita had been told, as happy as they appeared on the outside, deep down her momma missed her life in Dallas and never quite adjusted to the harsh conditions of the farm. But she knew Rose and Nita were happy there, and she loved Will too much to leave him. Not one to cause a fuss, she’d never told her husband how she felt, and tried to keep up the facade of the happy wife.
Nita sometimes wondered if the cancer had only been a symptom, and what her momma really died of was a broken heart. She would probably never know. What information she did have came from her sister and her mother’s old friends. Her daddy, all these years later, still wouldn’t talk about it. She knew there wasn’t a day that passed that he didn’t think about his wife and miss her terribly. Sometimes Nita would pass by his room and hear him talking to the picture of Katherine that he kept next to his bed.
She was sure Katherine was the reason why her daddy had raised Rose and Nita to be independent, to stand up for what they wanted and believed in. He taught them to follow their dreams and not compromise themselves for anyone or anything. Katherine was the reason why he hadn’t made a fuss about Rose moving to the city instead of staying to help on the farm. Rose always had been like their mother in that way.
Nita heard a soft snoring sound and realized Connor had fallen asleep.
She sat back on his thighs and grinned. She really had worn him out. He’d done pretty well today considering his lack of experience. She had a feeling he was the adaptable sort, though she hadn’t completely figured him out yet. He was so guarded, so…controlled. He seemed to say exactly the right thing all the time, whether it was what he was feeling or not. The concept was foreign to her, since, as they had determined earlier, she wasn’t shy about speaking her mind.
She grazed her fingers over the puckered skin on his back. Burns, bullet holes—what he must have seen, must have been through. No wonder his eyes looked so old. So…wounded.
She very gently climbed off the bed and tiptoed to the door. She wouldn’t mind getting into Connor’s head, seeing exactly what made him tick. She wouldn’t mind getting to know other parts of him as well. She wondered if a guy like him would be interested in a woman like her. It might have been her imagination, but when she’d stepped up on the porch that morning, before he realized who she was, she could swear she’d seen male appreciation in his eyes.
That, she decided, flicking off the light and glancing back at his peacefully sleeping form, would be something worth looking into.
“The number one rule on the farm is safety,” Nita told Connor. She stood in the corral with Buttercup, a chocolate-brown mare.
Apparently her back massage had done the trick last night. He’d awoken that morning feeling refreshed and full of energy. So far he’d followed her through her daily routine and had learned how to feed and water the horses, how to muck a stall and how to put on a halter and saddle.
A great deal of what they did was hot, dirty, physically demanding work. But it was good, honest work. And though he couldn’t put his finger on the exact reason, there was something about it that made him feel so…peaceful.
His orders now were to sit