Barbara Dunlop - A Cowboy in Manhattan

Katrina snapped the cap back into place and slid the bottle back into its holder. She braced her hands on the handlebars and upped her speed.

A few moments went by in silence. Lights flicked off in the far reaches of the barn, and doors banged shut behind ranch hands packing it in for the night.

“Gone far?” asked Reed.

“Fourteen miles or so, I think.” She swiped the back of her hand across her damp forehead. She was dressed in lightweight black tights and a baggy white tank top, but the air in the barn was still warm and close around her.

He went silent again, gazing dispassionately at her while she rode.

After about five minutes she cracked, straightening on the bike seat to look at him. “What are you doing?”

“Waiting.”

“For what?”

“Mandy says you’re worried about your ankle.”

“Mandy needs to stop discussing my private business with everybody in the valley.”

“I already knew about your ankle.”

“She didn’t know that.”

“She does now.”

Katrina stopped riding and huffed her frustration. “Are you going to get to your point?”

“I already did. Your ankle.”

“What about it?”

He shifted away from the post, moving closer to her. “Will you let me look at it?”

Though she’d stopped riding, she was still growing hotter. “Are you a doctor?”

“No.”

“A physiotherapist?”

“Nope.”

“Guy with an ankle fetish?”

Reed cracked a grin. “No. But I’ve worked on a lot of horses with strained tendons.”

She coughed out a laugh. “Good for you.”

He braced a hand between hers on the handlebars. “I know how to make a herbal wrap that will increase circulation.”

She crooked her head to look up at him. “Is this a joke? Did Mandy put you up to this?”

“I’m completely serious.”

“I’m not a horse.”

His gaze flicked down for a split second. “In fact, you are not. But the principle’s the same.” He motioned for her to lift her foot.

She ignored the gesture. “I thought you were mad at me.”

“I am.”

“So, why do you want to help?”

“Because you need it.”

“And because Mandy asked you?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Katrina considered his expression seriously. “Were you ever in love with my sister?”

“No.” He reached down and lifted her ankle, crouching and resting her leg across his denim-covered knee.

She didn’t fight him. “Are you lying to me?”

“No.”

“So, there’s nothing between you and Mandy?”

“She’s marrying my brother. That’s what’s between us.” He tugged at the bow and loosened the laces of Katrina’s sneaker.

“I don’t even know how to interpret that.” Did he mean Caleb had come between him and Mandy?

Reed gently removed Katrina’s shoe and set it on the worn, dusty floor. “There’s nothing to interpret.”

“You’re being deliberately oblique.”

Reed shook his head, slipping off her sock. “What makes you think I had a thing for Mandy?”

“Because you’re doing her a favor. By helping me. What other reason would there-”

His large warm hands wrapped around her ankle, and she jumped at the electric sensation.

“It’s not Mandy.” He rotated her ankle. “Does this hurt?”

Katrina sucked in a breath and tried to tug her foot out of his grasp.

“Hold still.”

“It hurts.”

“Sorry.” His thumb pressed on the inside of her foot below her ankle bone. “This?”

“Yes,” she hissed.

He tried the opposite side of her foot and glanced up.

She shook her head in an answer.

“Point your toe?”

She did.

“Other way.”

She flexed. “Ouch.”

“Yeah,” he commiserated, moving back toward the sorest spot. He made small circles with the pad of his thumb, massaging in a way that hurt, but the pain wasn’t too sharp.

She steeled herself to keep still.

“Relax,” he instructed. His attention moved farther up her calf.

Okay, that didn’t hurt at all. In fact, it felt very nice. Very, very nice. She closed her eyes.

His deep voice was low and soothing as it rumbled in the cavernous space. “I’m going to move you.”

“Hmm?”

“You lean over any farther and you’re going to fall off the bike seat.” His hands left her leg, and suddenly he was scooping her from the bicycle, lifting her, carrying her.

“What-”

“Over here.” He nodded to a small stack of hay bales against a half wall.

He set her down, and the stalks of hay prickled through her tights.

She shifted. “Ouch.”

“Ouch?”

“It prickles.”

Reed shook his head in disgust, coming to his feet, striding away, his boot heels clomping on the floor.

Katrina straightened. But just as she was debating whether to hop her way back to her discarded sock and sneaker or get her bare foot dirty, Reed returned with a dark green horse blanket over one arm.

He spread it across the hay bales, then unceremoniously lifted her to place her on the thick blanket.

“Better?” he asked, tone flat.

“I only have thin tights on,” she protested, gesturing to the contrast of his sturdy jeans. “The hay pokes right through them.”

“Did I say anything?”

“You think I’m a princess,” she huffed.

“You are a princess.” He crouched down in front of her, lifting her foot to his knee again.

“I have delicate skin and thin clothing.”

His strong thumb began to massage again, working its way in circles up the tight muscles of her calf. “Am I hurting you now?”

“No.”

“Good. Lean back. Try to relax. We’ll talk about your clothes later.”

She leaned back against the hay. “They’re nice clothes.”

“For Manhattan.”

“For anywhere.”

“Shut up,” he said gently.

She did. Not because he’d told her to, but because his hands were doing incredible things to her calf. She found herself marveling that such an intense, powerful, no-nonsense man could have such a sensitive touch.

He took his time, releasing the tension from her muscles, gently working his way toward the injured tendon. By the time he got there, the surrounding muscles were so relaxed that it felt merely sore, not the burning pain she’d been experiencing for the past two weeks.

He moved away from her ankle, back up her calf, leaving bliss in his wake. Then, to her surprise, he started on the sole of her foot. She wanted to protest, but it felt too good as his fingers dug into the ball of her foot and the base of her heel. And when he switched to the other foot, she was beyond speech. Her sympathetic nervous system fully engaged, and her brain went to autopilot.

“Katrina?” Reed’s deep voice was suddenly next to her ear.

She blinked against the fuzziness inside her brain, realizing that he’d leaned down on the hay bales beside her. Her eyelids felt heavy, and her mouth couldn’t seem to form any words.

“Do I have to kiss the princess to wake her up?” he joked.

“Am I sleeping?”

“I hope so. You were snoring.”

“I was not.” She brought him into focus and saw that he was grinning. She couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep during a foot massage. “Do you have magic hands?”

“I do,” he intoned.

The barn was quiet, the light dim all around them. They were alone and his eyes were pewter-dark, molten, watchful. His face was hard-wrought, all planes and angles, beard-shadowed, with that little bump on his nose that seemed to telegraph danger.

She had a sudden urge to smooth away that imperfection, to run her fingertips across his whisker-roughened chin and feel the heat of his skin. He’d said something about kissing her. Was he thinking about it now? Would he do it?

Her gaze shifted to his full lips, imagining their softness against her own.

“Katrina.” His voice was strained.

She wanted him to kiss her, desperately wanted to feel those hot lips come down on hers, his hard body press her back into the hay, his magic hands wrap around her waist, along her back, over her buttocks, down her thighs. She just knew he would take her to paradise.

“The herbal wrap,” he said.

She blinked. “Huh?”

He eased away from her. “I should put it on your ankle now, while your muscles are warmed up.”

“But…” No. That wasn’t how this was supposed to end.

“It’ll help,” he assured her.

“Reed?”

He straightened, no longer looking at her, his voice growing more distant. “I know you’re not a horse. But trust me. The principle really is the same.”

She didn’t doubt it was. But that wasn’t her problem. Her problem was that she was powerfully, ridiculously, sexually attracted to Reed Terrell, and it didn’t look like it was going away anytime soon.

Reed swung the eight-pound sledgehammer over his head, bringing it down on the wooden stake with a satisfying thump. He drove it halfway into the meadow grass, then hit it once more, anchoring it firmly into the ground. He took a step back and set down the hammer. Then he consulted his house plans, lined up the electronic transit to position the next stake before repeating the process.

An hour later, as the sun climbed across the morning sky, he stripped down to his T-shirt, tossed it aside and shaded his eyes to gaze across the flat meadow that overlooked Flash Lake into the foothills and far across to the Rockies.

He’d known for years that this would be the perfect spot. Milestone Brook babbled fifty feet from where he’d build his deck. He already knew he’d put in a footbridge, teach his sons to fish for rainbow trout and build a picnic table on the opposite side of the bridge so his family could spend Saturday afternoons eating hamburgers, playing horseshoes or badminton.

He could picture the living room. He could picture the view. He could picture six kids racing around in the yard. He could even picture his future wife chasing down a toddler. She’d be beautiful in blue jeans and boots, a cotton shirt and a Stetson.

In his mind’s eye, she turned and smiled. And he realized it was Katrina.

Reed felt as if he’d been sucker-punched.

He shook his head to clear it. That wasn’t right. It wasn’t right at all. He’d come up here today to get away from Katrina. His burgeoning attraction to her reminded him that it was past time to get going on the rest of his life. And the rest of his life sure didn’t include a tiny, blond-haired, blue-eyed ballerina.

“Reed?” Her voice startled him, and he spun around to see her crossing the meadow toward him.

She moved steadily closer. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail. She wore tiny diamond earrings that sparkled in the sunshine. Designer jeans clung to her hips, while a deep purple cap-sleeved T-shirt molded to her breasts, nipping in at her waist, ending just above her low waistband. Even without makeup, her lashes were thick and dark, her lips deep red, and her cheeks soft pink.

“What are you doing?” she asked him, glancing around at his work.

“What are you doing?”

“Walking.” She came to a halt a few feet away. “It’s a low-impact exercise.”

“I thought you were biking for that.”

“Variety,” she answered, tipping her head to one side.

He fought an urge to take a single step forward, cup her face, and drink in a deep kiss. But somehow, it seemed sacrilegious, as if he was cheating on his future wife.

She peered pointedly around. “A building site?”

“I’m staking out the foundation,” he admitted. “For my house.”

“Seriously?” She shaded her eyes to scan his work. “You’re building a house up here?”

“No. I’m building a secret military installation, with a formal dining room and a view of the lake.”

She gave an eye-roll and paced her way toward the pattern of stakes. “It’s big.”

He found himself following behind. “Four bedrooms.”

“Where’s the front door?”

“You’re standing on the porch.”

She pointed. “So, here?”

“Go on in.”

She glanced back at him to grin. “Thank you.”

“Dining room on the right,” he told her, oddly pleased to share his plans with someone. He’d designed them himself, keeping them secret from his father and everyone else. “Straight ahead takes you into the great room and the kitchen.”

“On the left?”

“Media room, then utility room. You can cut through there to the garage.”

She walked straight through the future great room toward the back of the house.

“That’ll be a breakfast nook,” he described. “There’ll be French doors here that go out onto the deck.”

“Great view,” she put in.

“Isn’t it? Master suite will have the same view.”

She gazed out at the river. “But I don’t understand.”

He stopped next to her in the position he planned for the deck railing, resting his hands in his front pockets. “I like a nice view of the lake.”