Summer Days (Fool's Gold #7)

Rafe glanced toward the ceiling, a little uncomfortable with the conversation. While he did plan to end up victorious, he wasn’t ready for Heidi to know that. Especially after last night.

Just thinking about what had happened between them made him want to grin like a fool. Being with Heidi had been better than he’d imagined, and he’d imagined a whole hell of a lot. Just thinking about her in his bed had his blood heating. Not anything he wanted to experience with his brother in the room, so he shifted his attention to the horses Shane had unloaded.

“You drove here from Tennessee?” he asked. “With six racehorses?”

“The airlines don’t let me buy them seats, so there wasn’t much choice. They did fine. Now they can settle in while I finish up my business back east.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Driving back in a few days.”

“What’s going to happen with the horses?”

Shane took another swallow of his beer, then grinned. “Funny you should ask that.”

“No way. I’m not taking care of them.”

“Someone has to.” Shane looked more annoyed than concerned. “What are you doing with your day that you don’t have time to take care of my horses?”

“Running a business, for one thing.” Not that he had spent much time on his business. Odd how he was only a few hours from San Francisco, yet he was a world away from all he remembered. The town was getting to him, and he couldn’t seem to find it in himself to mind. Or maybe it wasn’t the town. Maybe it was Heidi. Not that he could see the bad in that, either.

“I’ll do it.”

They both looked up. Rafe saw that Heidi had walked into the living room. At least they weren’t still talking about him taking over the ranch. That sure would’ve changed the tenor of their relationship.

Shane stood. “Evening, ma’am.”

Heidi laughed. “While May would be thrilled with your good manners, if you call me ma’am again, I’m going to give your favorite boots to my goats. I’m Heidi. You must be Shane. Nice to meet you.”

Shane took a step forward and they shook hands. Rafe felt himself stiffen for that brief second of contact. The need to claim Heidi, to tell his brother to back off, nearly overwhelmed him. He held the words inside, because he and Heidi had agreed that no one would know about last night. But he sure didn’t like the way his brother smiled at her.

“Good to meet you, too,” Shane said.

“Now that we have that out of the way, tell me about your horses.”

“I brought six. Thoroughbreds. A little temperamental, but good animals. You know anything about horses?”

Heidi slid her hands into her back pockets, which caused her chest to arch forward. Rafe told himself the act was unconscious. She wasn’t flirting with his brother, trying to distract him with her feminine curves. Still, he wanted to step between them, to change the conversation.

“We board two horses here already. I take care of them. You’re welcome to take a look, and I can give you the phone numbers of the owners. For reference purposes.”

“If the price is fair, I’m interested,” Shane told her.

“We could go take a look at the barn after dinner.” Heidi smiled. “You can tell me what you expect, and then we can negotiate.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“All right, all right.” Unable to stand it, Rafe moved toward them. “Heidi’s off-limits. Mom and I have been living here.”

Shane frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Rafe expected Heidi to understand, to appreciate his desire to protect her. Instead, she seemed annoyed.

“Rafe has some peculiar ideas about how things should be done,” she said. “And what belongs to whom.”

Rafe felt as if he’d missed a significant part of the conversation, which wasn’t possible. He’d been standing right there. So why didn’t he know what Heidi was talking about?

Shane put his arm around Heidi. “Rafe has a lot of peculiar ideas about a lot of different things.”

Rafe didn’t like where this was going, but before he could protest, his phone rang.

He took it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen, then groaned. “Nina,” he muttered under his breath.

“Who’s Nina?” his brother asked.

“His matchmaker. She’s in San Francisco, and he’s using her to find the perfect wife.”

The only good to come out of this potentially disastrous topic of conversation was that Shane dropped his arm to his side as he turned to face his brother. “You’ve hired a matchmaker?” Shane chuckled as he asked the question. The chuckle turned into laughter. He slapped Rafe on the back. “Are you telling me that, with all the millions you have, you still can’t get a girl?”

Rafe pushed the ignore button on his phone. “I can get a girl just fine.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Heidi said. “I guess the real question is, can you keep one?”

With that, Heidi left.

Shane gave a low whistle. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you sure stepped in something.”