Brandee popped the cork on her favorite Shiraz and poured out two glasses. “What sort of day is that?”
“One where I spend it in the saddle or out surveying the pastures.” His usually expressive features lost all emotion. And then he gave her a meaningless smile. “You know, ranch work.”
“You don’t sound as if you’re all that keen on ranching.”
Because he seemed so much more focused on his real-estate developments, she’d never considered him to be much of a rancher. He gave every appearance of avoiding hard work, so she assumed that he was lazy or entitled.
“Some aspects of it are more interesting than others.”
With an hour and a half to kill before dinner, she decided to build a fire in the big stone fireplace out on her covered patio. The cooler weather gave her a great excuse to bundle up and enjoy the outdoor space. She carried the bottle of wine and her glass through the French doors off the dining room.
The days were getting longer, so she didn’t have to turn on the overhead lights to find the lighter. The logs were already stacked and waiting for the touch of flame. In a short time a yellow glow spilled over the hearth and illuminated the seating area.
Choosing a seat opposite Shane, Brandee tucked her feet beneath her and sipped her wine. “You do mostly backgrounding at Bullseye, right?”
Backgrounding was the growing of heifers and steers from weanlings to a size where they could enter feedlots for finishing. With nearly fourteen thousand acres, Shane had the space to graze cattle and the skills to buy and sell at the opportune times. He had a far more flexible cattle business than Brandee’s, which involved keeping a permanent stock of cows to produce calves that she later sold either to someone like Shane or to other ranches as breeding stock.
“I like the flexibility that approach offers me.”
“I can see that.”
She’d suffered massive losses after the tornado swept through her property and demolished her operations. She hadn’t lost much of her herd, but the damage to her infrastructure had set her way back. And loss of time as she rebuilt wasn’t the sort of thing covered by insurance.
Shane continued, “I don’t want to give everything to the ranch like my father did and end up in an early grave.” Once again, Shane’s easy charm vanished beneath a stony expression. But in the instant before that happened, something like resentment sparked in his eyes.
This glimpse behind Shane’s mask gave Brandee a flash of insight. For the first time she realized there might be more to the arrogant Shane Delgado than he wanted the world to see. And that intrigued her more than she wanted it to.
She couldn’t actually fall for Shane. Her ranch was at stake. But what if he fell in love with her? Until that second, Brandee hadn’t actually considered the consequences if she won this desperate wager. And then she shook her head. The thought of Shane falling for her in two weeks was crazy and irrational. But wasn’t that the way love made a person feel?
Brandee shook her head. She wasn’t in danger of losing her heart to Shane Delgado, only her ranch.
Five
Tossing and turning, his thoughts filled with a woman, wasn’t Shane’s style, but taking Brandee in his arms for the first time had electrified him. After a nearly sleepless night, he rolled out of bed at five o’clock, heeding her warning that breakfast was at six. The smell of coffee and bacon drew him from the guest suite after a quick shower.
He’d dressed in worn jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and his favorite boots. He intended to show Brandee that while he preferred to run his ranch from his office, he was perfectly capable of putting in a hard day’s work.
Shane emerged from the hallway and into the living room. Brandee was working in the kitchen, her blond hair haloed by overhead recessed lighting. With a spatula in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, she danced and sang to the country song playing softly from her smartphone.
If seeing Brandee relaxed and having fun while she flipped pancakes wasn’t enough to short-circuit his equilibrium, the fact that she was wearing a revealing white cotton nightgown beneath a short royal blue silk kimono hit him like a two-by-four to the gut.
Since she hadn’t yet noticed him, he had plenty of freedom to gawk at her. Either she’d forgotten he was staying in her guest room or she’d assumed he wasn’t going to get up in time for breakfast. Because there was no way she’d let loose like this if she thought he’d catch her.
The soft sway of her breasts beneath the thin cotton mesmerized him, as did the realization that she was a lot more fun than he gave her credit for being. Man, he was in big trouble. If this was a true glimpse of what she could be like off-hours, there was a damn good chance that he’d do exactly what he swore he wouldn’t and fall hard. He had to reclaim the upper hand. But at the moment he had no idea how to go about doing that.
“You’re into Florida Georgia Line,” he said as he approached the large kitchen island and slid onto a barstool. “I would’ve pegged you as a Faith Hill or Miranda Lambert fan.”
“Why, because I’m blond or because I’m a woman?”
He had no good answer. “I guess.”
She cocked her head and regarded him with a pitying expression. “The way you think, I’m not surprised you have trouble keeping a woman.”
He shrugged. “You got any coffee?”
“Sure.” She reached into her cupboard and fetched a mug.
The action caused her nightgown to ride up. Presented with another three inches of smooth skin covering muscular thigh, Shane was having trouble keeping track of the conversation.