The Cowboy's Texas Heart (The Dixons of Legacy Ranch 3)

“Hey now, you’re wounded,” she teased. “No hard labor.”

He leveled a glare at her. “Ain’t crippled, woman.”

“Woman…charming.” She smirked. “And it was super laborious to pick up so of course I needed a man to do it.” Theatrically, she dusted her hands, punctuating the joke. “Seriously, you pretend like your back is no big deal, you lie to your brothers so they won’t worry about a freaking worrying amount of damage, now this? You act as if no one ever helps you out.”

He leaned around her, swinging the door open and standing wedged against the frame. Shrugging, he caught another tantalizing whiff of her sweet scent that dammit, he wanted another taste of, so this time he could savor it nice and slow. “They don’t.”

Just letting her into the house gave him pause. He’d never once brought a woman he’d slept with home. Not even Isabella had stepped over this threshold. She’d sent him divorce papers from the Lake Austin house, he’d signed them, dumped them at FedEx, driven home to the Legacy out west where Toby—home from grad school at the time—took him out for what his pissant bro had called “wheels-up beers” to toast the wheels on Isabella’s plane taking off when she’d left for Paris. Nature might have forced Heather upon him. But it was still breaking the rules to have her here. Sort of. His rules. Rules he’d sworn to himself he’d never break.

Naw, it’s only taking a woman home if I bring her home to sleep with her. Heather ain’t sleeping here. You’re good.

She eyed him, her face softening, as if trying to decipher him. She thumbed over the rivet that had permanent residence on his brow, brushing the skin smooth. It felt good, even if it re-furrowed when her thumb dropped away. “Why don’t you let them—”

“Before you go all psychotherapist on me, it’s fine. I’ve been taking care of family shit for years, so it ain’t no difference to me to fix this mess, too.”

She fell silent at his abruptness, thank fuck. Brushed his chest with her shoulder as she stepped over the threshold and into his world, leaving vanilla and almond and mahogany waves swirling around him in her wake, and teasing his senses. Like fresh meat dangling at the threshold of a starving lion’s den.