Yet the longer she looked at what she felt for the man and what she’d done for him, the more she realized what a fool she really was.
She staggered across the wood chip–covered floor and crashed into the stall wall. Chest heaving, she shook her head and watched the fall of her hair move in slow, measured sweeps. And still, her internal argument carried on.
Love? This isn’t love. This is...something else. But not love. It couldn’t be.
How did she know, though? She’d never been in love. Not romantic love. Not spend-your-life-together-forever love. No. This couldn’t bethat. Not with Ty. She might have strong feelings for him, feelings so vibrant they marked her a neon idiot, but love?
“No,” she whispered, thumping the edge of her fist against the thick wooden wall.
Her mind drifted back to the conversation she’d had with her father when she was only a teen. His words, so profound even then, had stuck with her.
I don’t care if the man you fall in love with is an artist, a pilot, a musician, a doctor or a garbageman, he’d said.
He’d made absolutely sure she understood that the amount of money her potential spouse had—or didn’t have—meant little to nothing, that her inheritance afforded her the means to choose a life partner based on love alone. How would her dad feel about Ty? Would he hold true to his word? He’d been proud that she’d managed to secure a partnership with Gizmo’s owner, but also protective when he’d believed Ty was taking advantage of her. What would he think of her falling in love with that man?
“This isn’t going to end well,” she whispered.
Twisting, she leaned her shoulders against the stall and thumped her head against the wooden wall. How had she ended up here, of all places? She’d been struggling with her developingfeelings for Ty even before the accident, but not once had she suspected they ran this deep. What would he do if she told him?
Probably grab his passport and disappear into a Brazilian jungle, she thought with an involuntary smile. But then he’d probably charm a young woman in some undiscovered native tribe and have to move on to Siberia when the respective father took offense to Ty’s practice of short-shelf-life relationships. A small laugh escaped Kenzie at the thought of Ty being the only person with a tan in Siberia.
She’d be willing to bet he didn’t sport tan lines, either.
That image led her mind straight back to a montage of memories, all of them centered around the myriad ways he’d pushed her body to new heights, had encouraged her to embrace the pleasure he could offer and then seen her to her own end before achieving his.
Her nipples pearled.
The response had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with her cowboy. She couldn’t let her need for him supersede his want of her. Not without consequence. But she hadn’t been able to help it, hadn’t been able to reject the psychological convenience of using Eli’s promises as her excuse to see Ty.
In the quiet aftermath of lovemaking, when heart rates thundered and minds weren’t quite clear, she’d been able to tell herself she was doing it to help Ty. It had also been a way to hoist her butt out of the sling she’d so efficiently parked it in with the very first lie. She could let Eli assume the responsibility of Ty’s wrath over breeding Gizmo, get out of the partnership claiming that the ninety-day rights to the stud horse satisfied the debt owed, and she wouldn’t have to tell her dad she’d made the whole thing up. If Ty was up and mobile before she left, even better for the Covingtons and her conscience.
A cold gust of wind curled around the door and stirred up straw motes. The pungent scent of animal grew sharper on the crisp, dry air. Outside, the merry jingle of sleigh bells and the hiss of wide steel runners over snow advertised the passage of the sleigh on its way to the chow hall to pick up guests. She envied them the view of the ranch, pristine as it would be. Nothing could beat the views from solitary vistas and the otherworldly quiet of snow-packed plains in either New Mexico or Colorado.
She longed to share a moment like that with Ty. They’d cover up with blankets and share a carafe of hot cocoa... Leaning her head back against the wall, she sighed and let her eyes drift closed. It would be idyllic. Except for the fact that Ty would know their driver. No fooling around for them, then. Maybe they could go out together, just the two of them. She’d driven a team before, and the smooth pull over snow wouldn’t jar Ty’s neck. He’d probably appreciate getting some fresh air and a firsthand look at the ranch. Heck, he might even enjoy taking the reins. If she could figure out who to ask... Maybe Eli? She’d get on that this after—
“You’re fired.”
The deep voice shocked her out of her romantic reverie. She shoved off the wall and spun toward the voice, knocking the shovel over in her haste. The handle snagged on the side of the stall trolley with a wood-to-plasticthwackthat made her wince. But it failed to dislodge her heart where the stupid organ had welded itself to her larynx and wasn’t giving up ground.
“We Covingtons run a tight ship, Ms. Malone. Daydreaming isn’t allowed.”
A slow, sensual smile on familiar lips made her knees weak.
Ty tipped the brim of his hat up, those mirth-filled dark eyes ringed with even darker lashes peering down at her. “Unless, of course, you were thinking of me. Then, I’ll not only keep you,I’ll see that you’re promoted for exercising stellar judgment and exceptional taste.”
She should have issued a witty reply, should have told him she didn’t work for layabouts, should have said...something. Anything. But all she could focus on was the last sentence.
He’d keep me.
Throat inexplicably tight, she knew with the certainty that darkness always yielded to light that her grief had yielded to hope. Somewhere in the recent past, at a time she hadn’t been wise enough to recognize, her heart had tipped the scales from “like” to “love” where this man was concerned. It changed nothing because he didn’t know. Not yet. But for Kenzie?
It changed everything.
TYWATCHEDKENZIEstruggle through a string of emotions, her eyes darkening even as the color leached from her face only to come back in a rush, her cheeks flushed and rosy. Her eyes didn’t lighten, though, and he wondered what had gone through her mind. Half of him wanted to ask while the other half shied away from anything powerful enough to steal the voice of such a straightforward woman.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You came,” she said. How she packed two simple words with so much weight he’d never understand.