Chapter Fourteen
Two days later, Josh, Brooke, and Adam decided to take a ride across their pastures, gathering up the tarps and poles, the temporary dams they’d used to manipulate the flooding of the fields as the hay had ripened back in May and June. The equipment had been left behind in the rush to harvest the hay, but now they had to make time for all the chores needing to be finished up before winter came to the Rockies in October.
But Brooke had gotten stuck in a muddy creek bed, and Adam had gone to help her. Both had ended up falling in, then made sure, at the next bend, that Josh had had to wade through mud for the tarps until he fell in as well.
So as they rode back to the barn, Adam in the pickup with all the dams, Josh was a muddy mess.
“You should see yourself,” Brooke said, riding Sugar at his side as they approached the barn.
He glanced at her. “Unless you’re wearing new makeup, that’s a lot of mud on your face.”
She wiped at her cheeks, only making matters worse. When he laughed, she leaned across and tried to smear some on the one clean part of his arm, but his horse danced away with a whinny.
Josh dismounted, feeling his mud-caked clothing crack, but he knew he had to take care of Bandit first. He pulled off his shirt, tossing it in a heap by the door, when suddenly the dogs shot past him and through the barn doors, growling.
Josh exchanged a concerned look with his sister.
Then they heard the sound of feminine shrieking, and two young women came rushing out of the barn, hay in their hair as if they’d been hiding, herded by the cowdogs. One started to snap pictures, and Josh heaved a sigh.
“Really?” he said wearily, hands on his hips. “You want pictures of me like this?”
One of the girls pushed her blond hair out of her eyes and gazed down his chest as if she’d never seen a man before. “Josh Thalberg, you could be wrestling steers in the mud, and I wouldn’t care.”
“Nothing so glamorous as that,” he said.
“Doesn’t matter. Now I’ll have something to post.”
“But you do know you’re trespassing, and I could call the sheriff.”
The other girl, chubby beneath her stylish clothes, stiffened at his threat. “Go ahead. My dad won’t let anything happen.”
Brooke and Adam stood to the side and talked in low voices.
“I don’t know who your dad is, and I don’t care,” Josh practically growled. He was about to say more, when he saw Brooke wince and shake her head. He hesitated, then realized the girls hadn’t caused any harm except to his temper. “Go on, get out of here before I call the sheriff.”
They blew him kisses as they ran toward their expensive car, the one he’d originally figured belonged to friends of his parents. They roared away, tires spinning in the dirt, the dogs chasing them down the road.
Brooke looked him over. “All this fame is finally getting to you.”
He sighed and walked into the cool shadows of the barn, knowing she trailed behind. “It’s harmless, I know, but I’m starting to feel… hunted.”
“Or already mounted on display?”
He turned and gave her a look even as she grinned at him.
Their old ranch hand, Lou, limped into the barn and picked up as if he’d heard the whole conversation. “I’ll be your bodyguard, Josh. I’ll frighten all them scary women away.”
Lou snorted a laugh even as Josh winced. And then he got to “enjoy” some more ribbing at lunch about the National Intruder photos. His family hadn’t let that go since they’d seen them. Luckily, he could look forward to Whitney, whom his parents had invited to dinner, before he and Whitney went to the opera fund-raiser at the Royal Theater that night.
Throughout dinner, he watched her relate to his family, easily teasing Nate (who needed it), discussing girly stuff like clothes with Brooke and their mom, and even some of the places she’d visited in the world with his dad, who admitted he used to collect international postcards when he was a kid. How had Whitney gotten him to confess that? Josh wondered with amusement.
She seemed to fit in easily, but now that he’d gotten to know her better, he could see the touch of eagerness she couldn’t quite hide when sitting at his family dinner table.
She insisted on helping clean up the kitchen, then he was able to drag her outside, ostensibly to look over some of his preliminary work. But he was hoping to get her up to his loft sooner rather than later. They had time for a little fun before dressing for the fund-raiser at nine.
As she stood at his workbench, touching the various pieces of dyed and trimmed leather strips, she gave him a curious look.
“What?” Josh asked. “I thought these were what you wanted. I can have Adam—”
“No, no, it’s not that. These are perfect so far.” She glanced at another workbench strewn with larger pieces. “Shoulder bags, too, I see. But no, that’s not what’s on my mind. Your family couldn’t wait to tell me about your trespassers today.”
Josh winced. “As if that will heighten your interest in me or something?”
“Oh, trust me, I don’t need anything more for that.” She hesitated. “Brooke mentioned that one of the girls wanted photos to ‘post.’ ”
“What about it?”
“Post where? I’m assuming online. Have you checked it out?”
“Isn’t that your job as my agent? Let me escort you to my computer.”
“I was waiting for that excuse,” she teased.
But although he wanted nothing more than to drag her to his bed, very noticeable in the corner of the big room, he put his laptop on the coffee table and gestured to the couch.
She gave him a glance but sat down, lifted the lid, and when the desktop appeared, she clicked on the browser and began to type. He sat down beside her, making sure to let their thighs touch, enjoying himself far too much. It wasn’t as if he really cared about any search online—
“Got something,” she suddenly said.
He leaned in, letting his face brush along her hair, nuzzling her neck just behind her ear. “Hmm?” he murmured.
“Jesus, Josh, you have a Facebook Fan page.”
That took a moment to sink in, as he was inhaling the scent of her. At last something pierced his brain. “What did you say?”
“Facebook. You’ve heard of it, right?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it, but I’m not a member. No time.” He faced the screen, and right there on a Facebook page, he saw that ridiculous photo of him at the Aspen boutique, gazing out at the camera as if the weight of the sexual world was on his shoulders. “That photo is everywhere, right? Surely—”
“No, you don’t get it. You have over thirty thousand likes, Josh.”
She seemed shocked, even fascinated, as he studied her expression.
“So… thirty thousand people like the photo?”
“Not just that. They’re posting about you, where they’ve seen you—and here you go. Those girls today? They uploaded a photo of you all muddy and bare-chested.”
He frowned and finally gave his full attention to the screen. “You told me to let people take my picture, that it’d die down.”
“I assumed it would. Wait a sec.”
She called up another browser window, even as he sank back on the couch.
“Josh, you are actually trending on Twitter. Worldwide.”
She gave him the wide-eyed look of someone in awe.
“Don’t you start looking at me like that,” he said wearily.
“It means people are talking about you on Twitter. And they’re sending people to Facebook, which of course has all the information about where you’re from. No wonder people have found you so easily.”
“They put that info in the first article. It’s been no secret.” And for the first time, he honestly felt exposed, as if he could never have a private life again. How much longer could people stay interested in him if he never left Valentine, if he didn’t promote himself? Of course, his own work promoted him all the time…
“Is that one of my journal covers?” he asked, squinting to see a tiny thumbnail of a photo.
“Yes, it is. This girl is bragging that she was able to buy some of your work.”
“So if this keeps up, I will have women and photographers trailing me all the time.” He’d tried to make light of it, but the reality was beginning to sink in. “What are you going to do about it?”
She straightened from her bemused stare at the computer screen. “You’re going to make this agent stuff hard work, aren’t you?”
“I probably wouldn’t have posed for Geneva but for you.”
She lifted up a hand. “I know, I know. Believe me, most people would kill for this kind of publicity, and it just seemed to happen to you.”
“Lucky me,” he said, trying not to sound strained.
“All right, let me see who the Facebook admin for your site is.”
He watched her type a few keys and frown.
“All I see is an e-mail address, [email protected].”
“JoshFan?” he echoed, rolling his eyes. “Hardly original.”
“I’ll send an e-mail and try to see who’s doing this.” Another minute went by. “There. I’ll let you know what this person has to say for herself, see if we can get her to take down the page. Although a new one would probably pop up. Of course, I’m just assuming it’s a her…”
He pulled her away from her hunched-up posture over the laptop and back onto the couch, where he could keep his arm around her.
She linked her hand with his. “You know, this can really help your career. We’ll have to contact Geneva and see how your shoulder bags are selling. Fame helped me—why wouldn’t it help you?”
“But I don’t need fame—I’m not certain I can produce enough work right now, let alone if the demand rises.”
“And that’s when you charge higher prices. And you hire more help.” She held up a hand when he was about to protest. “I know you’ve been training Adam to prepare the leather, but here’s another thought. You could just do the design work.”
He blinked at her. “You do know that my skill carving leather is what people are paying me for, right?”
“But not everyone has your eye for design.”
“Bull. Sorry, Whitney, but that’s just bull. I enjoy every phase of what I do. It’s been something I do for fun, a hobby, and I don’t want to lose that.”
“Josh, you’re fooling yourself. When you get paid—and paid well—it’s no longer just a hobby but a job. What about hiring someone to take over your work on the ranch?”
He took her hand between his. “That’s not just a job, either. This ranch has been in my family for over a hundred years. It’s important to me to be a part of nurturing it. Surely you felt the same way, when you wanted to go into your family business.”
He saw her flinch, felt it in her fingers, but he didn’t let her go.
“What your grandfathers built meant something to you,” he continued, “and it wasn’t fair of your family to deny you. And I won’t deny myself.”
“I saw that picture of you today, Josh. You were a muddy mess. Manual labor—you could cut back to the important stuff.”
He shook his head. “It’s all part of it, along with doing it all with my family. You didn’t see Adam and Brooke—they were just as muddy.”
She shrugged. “I had to try.”
“So if people want to pay over a thousand dollars for a purse, then they’ll just have to wait. My time is important, and so are the necklaces I’ve promised to you. I’ve always wanted to live life on my own terms, and I won’t let that be taken away from me. Perhaps you need to see some of what I do that’s so important to me—and I don’t mean looking over my shoulder as I carve leather. Spend a day on the ranch with me.”
“Is this the big date you keep promising me?” she teased.
He leaned forward and gave her a swift kiss. “Nope. You’ll know when I take you on our big date.”
“I’m getting impatient.”
“Then take out your impatience on that computer. Did the Facebook person respond?”
“The admin. I’ll check.” After a few minutes she looked up. “Nope, but that’s not surprising. Some people don’t check their e-mail regularly. I seem to remember you being guilty of that.”
He grinned. “I got better things to do than hang out online. So you’ll spend the day with me?”
“The next nice day,” she amended. “I think you still have mud behind your ears from this afternoon.”
“Then I better wash it before we hit the theater tonight. Can’t wait to see what you wear.”
Whitney was at the Silver Creek Ranch the next morning, just after dawn, because she didn’t sleep all that well. And it was all Josh’s fault. He’d looked incredible in a charcoal suit at the opera fund-raiser, and had been patient for everyone who wanted his picture. She managed to keep out of the way whenever anyone pulled out a camera. They’d eaten scrumptious appetizers and drank excellent wine, and even bid on a few of the auction items—a vacation package to Hawaii for her, snowboards and apparel for him. Then he’d dropped her off after 1:00 A.M. and gone home. She’d lain awake thinking about him and sex and unfulfilled desires, and kept imagining putting him in the shower that afternoon to wipe all the mud off him.
Josh knew how she felt—and she wasn’t about to make another pass at him. But oh, how she wanted to…
He came out of the barn just as she parked her SUV. He waved, then continued to his pickup truck with a horse trailer hitched behind.
“Is someone going somewhere?” she asked, glancing into the empty trailer.
“We are.”
After opening the back door to the trailer, he studied her thoroughly, and she was once again reminded of feeling overheated and lustful in the night.
“Nice outfit,” he said. “Haven’t seen you in regular jeans. They fit real good. And is that a Western shirt?”
“Complete with pearl snaps,” she said, looking down at the pink-and-green checks. “I might have bought more than cowboy boots when Em and I shopped in Aspen. Just needed an excuse to wear it.”
“Fancy,” he said, giving her that grin that melted the hearts of all his fans. “Did you hear back from that Facebook person?”
“The admin? No, not yet. But again, we haven’t given her much time yet. So where are we going?”
“Up to the White River National Forest to move some of the cattle to a different pasture. You up for some horseback riding?”
“It’s been a while, but you never forget. So introduce me to my horse.”
Montana was a black-and-white paint mare with just enough years on her to be mellow with each new rider. Whitney approached from the side, not meeting Montana’s eyes at first, then let her sniff her shoulder, all the while talking to her softly about the day ahead.
“Brooke uses Montana a lot for her students,” Josh said.
“So in case I lied about my experience with horses, Montana will take good care of me.”
Josh sent her a sexy grin. “I’d never accuse you of lying. But if you’d like to prove yourself, go ahead and saddle her up.”
Whitney took her time, brushing Montana and checking her hooves before centering a saddle pad. She shooed Josh away when he would have lifted the saddle for her.
“Would you do that for Brooke?” she demanded, huffing as she swung the saddle up high.
“Nope, but she’s my sister. You’re the woman I’d like to stay on the good side of.”
“Any particular reason?” she asked, as she cinched the saddle tight.
“A few,” he murmured, coming up behind her and resting his hands on her waist.
“Hey, now, let’s not get Montana too excited.” She pushed his hands away when she really wanted to bring them up to cup her breasts.
“Who’s excited?” he whispered in her ear, then pressed his hips into her backside.
She shivered and pushed back against him, feeling his erection. “Are you going to be able to ride like that?”
He laughed. “I’ve been riding like that a lot since you came to town.”
She turned around, and soon they were kissing, wrapped in each other’s arms.
“How much longer are you going to make me wait, Josh?” she asked, panting and overheated.
“I don’t think I can make me wait any longer,” he said, then groaned as he lowered his head to kiss her again. At last he took her upper arms and held her away from him. “But right now, we have work to do.”
She felt almost helpless and weak with longing as he slipped a halter on Montana and led the mare to the trailer. He put his own horse beside her and made sure they could both reach the hay.
At last, they were in the pickup, two cowdogs on the bench behind them, headed away from the Silver Creek Ranch and toward the Elk Mountains.
Whitney sighed and leaned her head back. “Hard to believe when the sky is this blue, that soon the snow will start falling.”
“Heck, you were here last winter. We have a lot of blue skies. But then there are the winters where the snow piles so high, people used to have to put bandanas on their car radio antennae so they could see each other at intersections. Or so I’m told. You can’t have missed how cold it’s already getting at night. A couple mornings this August, I had to break the ice on the dogs’ water bowls.”
She spent the rest of the trip quizzing Josh about cattle grazing up in the mountains, and how ranchers had a permit that covered several pastures as their allotment. She, Josh, and the dogs were moving a herd of cows to fresh pasture. He made even that topic interesting, and she found herself relaxing and just watching him talk.
The road grew steeper, and eventually became more of a dirt track, and they finally parked near a gated fence. After unloading the horses and slipping on bridles, they led them inside the enclosure and mounted up.
The sky was still so blue, and behind them, the world dropped sharply away, through stands of trees, aspen and evergreen, and fields full of wildflowers sloping and twisting between streambeds and rock outcroppings.
“You may be used to the altitude in Valentine,” Josh warned her, “but take it easy up here. Drink water regularly.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, pointing to the water bottles she’d stowed in a saddlebag. “So what do we do now?”
“We round up the cattle.”
For the next several hours, they gathered fifty head. Whitney watched in amazement as the dogs took their cues from Josh and forced the much bigger cows and calves to do their bidding, barking and prancing, then running full speed until the cows veered in the direction Josh wanted. When they were at last all together, they herded them farther uphill, following a path Whitney couldn’t see but Josh seemed to recognize. When they came to another gate, he opened it wide without dismounting—“Showoff!” she called—and the cows grudgingly followed him through, with Whitney and the dogs urging them from behind.
When the gate was closed, Josh reined in as he rode up beside her. “Good work.”
“Thanks.”
“And you’re impressive on a horse.”
“Isn’t that a prerequisite for dating you?”
“Well, no,” he said, smiling that slow, easy grin. “A woman can have other talents I admire.”
They stared into each other’s eyes, smiles dying.
At last he cleared his throat. “Come on, I know of a good picnic spot. I brought some lunch.”
He eventually spread a blanket across soft moss beside a gurgling stream, while Whitney finished unsaddling the horses. When she turned around, he was stretched out on his side, propped up on his elbow as he reached into a saddlebag and began to pull out small containers. His hat was set carefully on a nearby rock, and the wind ruffled his wavy, dark hair. He looked up and smiled at her, and she almost lost her breath at the beauty of the picture before her. This was a picture that would make Facebook explode.
She sat down cross-legged beside him, grateful for the fried chicken that gave her something to do other than stare at him. But that could only distract her for so long.
Her lips parted, and before she knew it, she was leaning over to kiss him, tasting the sweetness of soda mixed with fried chicken. She explored his mouth slowly, rasping her tongue along his, until an urgency began to take over, and she came up on her knees. When he rolled onto his back, she slid her torso, her sensitive breasts, along his chest until once again they were kissing, breath mingling, the sun warm on her back.
He rolled again until she was beneath him, his body blocking out the blue sky. Parting her legs, she moaned as his thigh rode between.
“Oh, Josh,” she whispered.
He kissed his way down her cheek and neck, and she arched to give him even more access. He didn’t stop there, tracing his way down the front of her shirt, unsnapping as he went. She pressed her hips against his thigh, a long, slow movement that also brought her intimately against his erection.
The dappled sunlight through the trees was warm on her skin as he parted her shirt, then lifted his head so he could watch his fingers slide along the lacy edge of her black bra. She watched, too, her anticipation climbing and climbing, until at last he brushed her nipple through the silk, and she gave a shuddering jerk.
“Poor thing is starving for attention,” he murmured, then lowered his head to take her nipple in his mouth right through her bra.
She flung her head back as she held Josh to her. He played with her, teased her for long minutes until she thought she’d come apart if they didn’t start removing clothes.
As if she were a doll, he lifted her up to straddle his lap. Her hair fell forward, brushing his face as they kissed, slow, deep kisses that mimicked what they were about to do. She felt her shirt being tugged down her arms, then the loosening of her bra as he unclasped it. She just wanted to feel his skin against hers and reveled in being able to pull his shirt wide as all the snaps came apart. They stroked and caressed each other, and she bent to lick his nipple, even as he cupped her breasts and played with them.
“We have to get out of these jeans,” she finally said. “Let me help you.”
When she pulled his belt loose, he set his hands on hers. “No.”
“No?” she almost squeaked.
“Not no, just—let me undress you first.”
He helped her to her feet, although he stayed low, so he had a prime view as he unsnapped her jeans and slowly pulled down the zipper. She knew just a touch of lace appeared, and she saw him swallow heavily and pause, as if he were frozen in anticipation. It made her feel so sexy.
At last she couldn’t wait anymore and started to push them down her hips. Again, he stopped her, then did it himself, in slow, maddening degrees.
“Josh…” she began, not even knowing how to form the next words.
“So impatient,” he murmured, then leaned forward to press his mouth just beneath her navel.
She shivered, and her legs threatened to buckle as he watched the slow progress of her jeans from up close, until at last he was tugging them down her thighs. She kicked them aside along with her cowboy boots and stood there in her black thong. He licked his lips and leaned toward it, but she moved back.
“My turn.” Pressing hard on his shoulders, she made him lie back, then she took just as much time examining his belt buckle and the tightness of his zipper over his erection, playing, teasing, tormenting.
At last he groaned and reached for her, but she still eluded him, bringing down his zipper and spreading his jeans wide.
“Boxer briefs,” she murmured. “Black. We match.”
“Whitney!” He said her name on a groan.
“Lift your hips.”
He did, and she pulled everything off at once although he had to help a bit with his tight boots. She admired his nudity, feeling almost faint with dark anticipation. On her hands and knees, she crawled up his body, then hovered over a very eager part of his anatomy.
He suddenly rolled, and she couldn’t stop him from putting her on her back.
“Hey! I was going to—”
He put a finger to her lips, holding his body just off of hers although she could feel the heat of him all along her skin.
“I know you want to please me,” he said hoarsely, “and I’m grateful. But right now, what would please me is pleasing you. Let me look at you, Whitney, let me touch. And don’t worry, I’ve had a condom in my wallet like a teenager since the day we met.”
And how could she say no to that, even though a part of her felt… strange just lying there? She never did that. But then Josh started to touch her, using his fingers and his lips, exploring every part of her body until she actually heard herself whimper, so close to the edge of exploding that even his slow removal of her thong made her writhe beneath his touch.
Eyes closed, she heard the sound of plastic being torn and whispered, “Oh, thank God.”
And then he was kissing her, sliding on top of her body, and she was greedily opening her thighs to him, wrapping her legs about him, moaning her pleasure when he settled between.
And yet still he teased her with his erection, sliding up and down her wetness but not quite entering. Her only lucid thought—and that was fast leaving her—was: How much stamina does this guy have?