The Rancher's Rules

She smiled. “No.”

All thought of bunnies and principals went out of her mind as Grant’s lips fastened on hers again.

Zoe slid her gaze from the moonlight reflecting off the snow out the truck’s window to Grant’s profile. His handsome face took on a mysterious quality in the dim light. It was as if this man that she had known for most of her life had become a stranger. A sexy stranger.

She’d felt this way once before—the summer she’d been nineteen. She’d loved him then. Almost desperately. This time she just wanted his body—didn’t she?

She’d given up on his heart after he’d hurt her so badly when she was nineteen, but the feelings roiling round inside her now felt like something more than lust. That scared her more than the conversation she’d had with her principal at the Christmas Pageant.

John had suggested she stop seeing so much of her best friend for a while, to let the gossip die down. Evidently rumors were circulating about her living with Grant…with the most intimate connotation of the words.

John had been more than a little worried about how the gossip would affect the reputation of the school, even after she had assured him she wasn’t even living in non-connubial bliss with Grant. Part of her understood the school administration and board’s attitude about the matter. Despite its influx of the rich and famous twice a year, Sunshine Springs was so small a town that building the second stoplight had been cause for a town dance and barbecue.

She’d seen a different way of life when she’d gone away to college, but she’d never been able to completely dismiss the morals she’d been raised to believe were right. Those morals did not include moving in with a man without the benefit of marriage. She knew the majority of the townspeople held similar ideas, particularly the parents of her five-year-old students.

John had been right about that. But she wasn’t living with Grant and she refused to be punished for rumor rather than reality. She wasn’t giving up her relationship with Grant for anyone, and she’d told her principal that very thing.

He hadn’t been happy.

“You’ve been about as talkative as a sleeping bull since you and John talked after the pageant.” Grant’s words brought Zoe back from her reverie. “What’s going on?”

She smiled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore you. Really. I was thinking.”

“I could tell. I want to know what you were thinking about. Are you having second thoughts about us?”

The vulnerability in his voice surprised her. “I’m not having second thoughts.”

“Then what is it?”

“John had heard from some reliable source that I was living with you. He wanted me to know that the school administration, the school board and the parents of my students would all take a very dim view of such an arrangement.”

Grant’s head whipped around to face her. “Did he threaten your job?”

Zoe sighed. “Not in so many words. And I don’t know how far he would have pushed it either, because I told him immediately that I’m staying at the Pattersons’ and looking for a place of my own.”

“What else?” He knew her so well. Someone else would have assumed that had been the end of the discussion, but Grant could read her too well.

“He’s as concerned about the rumor as the reality. He wants me to cut back the time I spend with you to allay gossip,” she said.

“Like hell.” The words exploded in the truck cab like a Christmas firecracker. “What did you say?” There was that vulnerability again.

She put her hand on his thigh, reveling in the hard muscle and the sense of intimacy of the action. “I told him that I refused to have my private life dictated by the gossips in Sunshine Springs.”

“Did he accept that?”

She started to draw little shapes with her finger on Grant’s leg. “He wasn’t thrilled, but he had no choice.”

Grant’s breathing quickened. He put his hand over Zoe’s to still it. “I’m going to drive us into a ditch if you keep that up.” He squeezed her hand and went silent for about half a minute. “Maybe we should consider what John said. I don’t like the idea of you being the brunt of gossip in town.”

Frustration poured through Zoe. She hadn’t stood up to her principal for Grant to go chicken-hearted on her. “Make up your darn mind. I’m tired of playing this tune. This morning you were so appalled by what happened in the kitchen that you wanted to curtail our friendship. Then you apparently chucked your whole rule about kissing me and your concerns about getting too close out the window.”