No White Knight

There, I can see where paler skin arcs up over the edge of the cloth, promising a mouthwatering contrast of tanned skin against white flesh crossing over the swells of her sweet tits.

She’s wearing some kind of strapless bra underneath, just a flash of saucy red and tight-stretched cloth keeping her girls from bouncing with the horse’s sway.

But hell, that doesn’t mean they don’t sway just enough to keep me hypnotized and make me forget what I was thinking.

“Don’t even say it. There’s no ‘if,’ mister. I’m keeping my ranch. Period and end of story.”

“Sorry.” Thank hell she doesn’t seem to notice my wandering eyes, her gaze fixed between her horse’s ears. “Slip of the tongue.”

I force my eyes on her face. Not on her chest and definitely not on the way her hips roll with the horse’s stride in teasing waves.

Her knowing sidelong glance, part amused and part disgusted, tells me I’m not nearly as subtle as I think I am.

She knows damn well I’ve been staring at her all this time.

“We’re not having any slips of your tongue today,” she says, and I smirk.

“My tongue doesn’t slip, usually. Slides, glides, twists, thrusts…now all that, yeah, it’s practically an expert. Slipping isn’t usually in its repertoire.”

She flicks me a wide-eyed look before snorting.

Her mouth twitches with repressed laughter. “You trying to convince me to sell—or trying to convince me to dump your body out here and leave you for the coyotes?”

“You keep threatening to hurt me like you think I won’t enjoy it,” I growl, and she smirks, flashing white teeth in an easy smile.

“You keep pointing that out like you think I won’t enjoy hurting you.”

I can’t help laughing along with her.

I like a girl with a splash of confidence.

I’d probably let her hurt me a little if she wanted to.

Hell, I wouldn’t mind her nails scratching up my back. Digging in hard, just like the little tiger she is.

Fuck, I gotta stop thinking like this.

Trouble is, riding with your dick harder than steel and bouncing around the saddle isn’t a pleasant experience.

“You still haven’t answered the question,” I say, conjuring up a sorely needed diversion. “Besides having plenty of places to bury my damn body when you murder me, are you going to do anything with the ranch? Or do you just like having tons of space with no neighbors to chase off your lawn?”

There’s something odd about the way she reacts to a flippant comment about her murdering me.

I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Her mouth thins, her eyes go strange and wide and fixed, her brow furrowing up.

Then her face smooths again to the stone-faced neutrality you’d expect out of a cowgirl who can talk as much trash as her.

Libby doesn’t answer for a bit, just riding along silently with the jingle of tack and the clop of the horses’ hooves on dry earth between us.

Finally, she says, “I kinda want to build an observatory.”

I raise both brows.

Even knowing who her old man was, that’s not the answer I expected.

“Good place for it,” I say. “No light pollution. Perfect view of the night sky.”

Her lips curve bitterly. “But you’re aiming to fix that, right? With a nice, brightly lit shopping mall and all the bells and whistles that go with it. Highway lights, parking lots, cars out the wazoo…”

I wince. “Now, c’mon. It usually takes a whole big city’s worth of lights for the kind of light pollution that blocks out the stars.”

“Sometimes all it takes is just one light bright enough, and the sky never looks the same.” She takes a deep breath, reaching up to adjust her hat. “I don’t know. I don’t need more than an acre of land for that. The rest, well…the water table’s shifted so the land’s dried up. I’d like to get it irrigated and growing things again someday. At least enough hay and feed so I don’t have to keep buying it.”

“That’s not a bad plan to boost your income,” I agree, and watch her sidelong as we ride. I’d known she was smart from the moment she opened her mouth, but it’s impressive to hear her talk about her plans. “What’s stopping you?”

“Money.” Just one word, hissed harshly. “Always money.”

Her hands tighten where they rest against the saddle horn with the reins knotted around her fingers. “Even with machinery, I can’t work that many rotating fields of crops by myself. I’d need to hire more than the few part-timers I manage to keep on now, and I can’t. Not to mention there’re miles of land that need proper irrigation before it can grow anything, and irrigation systems don’t pay for themselves.”

I hold my fire. Don’t point out how she could easily afford all that if she just sold a fraction of her land to me.

“Not that there’s any point. Sierra’s either gonna cut the whole thing in half so there’s not enough left to run a sustainable crop cycle, or she’ll make sure I lose the whole thing out of spite.” She growls under her breath, teeth clenching, sharp blue eyes flashing in the shadow of her hat. “Why is she even doing this? I can’t believe she’s pulling this crap. It’s like…like Dad never meant anything to her at all.”