He pulled back, their eyes meeting, and a single word left his mouth. “Shit.”
Well, it wasn’t exactly what a woman wanted to hear after getting the kiss of her dreams, but if he was feeling all the things she was feeling, then every part of his body was tingling and reacting. Again, not necessarily a good thing to happen in front of parents.
“So, it’s settled, then,” Hope said just to fill the awkward silence. She didn’t even aim the comment at anyone in particular.
Josh’s mother huffed and lifted her nose in the air as if she’d gotten a whiff of the crap on Hope’s boots.
“Think long and hard about this,” his father warned him. “This could be the biggest mistake of your life.” He huffed, too, took his wife by the arm and marched her out of there.
Whoa, that was pretty deep gloom and doom for just a kiss. And it told Hope loads as to how they felt about her. In their way of thinking, she was the wrong woman for their son. They probably thought she was a pampered rich girl who only wore the stinky cowboy boots to try to fit into this ranch world. They didn’t know that this place owned every bit of her heart and that she’d spent nearly every penny of her trust fund to buy it when her parents had sold it.
Hope had wanted the place to be hers, and it had cost her plenty, including some of her parents’ ire—they had outright refused to sell it to her because they wanted bigger things for her. The ranch was as bigger of a thing as she’d ever wanted, so she’d made the man they’d sold the place to an offer he couldn’t refuse. Basically, Hope had paid nearly double what the ranch was worth on paper, and all these years later, she knew it was the best investment she’d ever made.
Josh stood there a moment, staring at the empty doorway and repeating that one word of profanity again. “I guess I need to change for the party,” he finally grumbled, and he headed out the back of the barn and in the direction of his log cabin.
The cabin had once been a guesthouse, but he’d moved there when they’d expanded the ranch a year ago and brought in the palominos. Good thing, too, since he worked as many hours as she did and never took a day off.
“Everything okay?” Termite called out to them.
“Fine,” Josh snapped. “Just take care of the gelding and do the other chores I told you about before you quit for the day.”
“Will do. Have fun at that party.”
There was zero chance of that, and Hope suddenly felt guilty that she’d roped him into doing this. Of course, if she hadn’t, she might not have gotten that kiss.
“I’ve had some experience with parents’ disapproval,” Hope said, catching up with him. “My folks had rather me be at their corporate office in Austin so they can groom me to take over the world.”
He glanced back at her as if to see if that was an exaggeration. It was only a slight one, but then, he’d almost certainly heard about her parents’ quest to gobble up as much money and stuff as they could—only to get bored with the stuff they’d gobbled and go after something else to conquer. Their latest venture was the buyout of a cookie company, and they were on the track to world domination of snickerdoodles, her father’s favorite sweet treat.
Once, the ranch had been their quest, one they’d bought her senior year of high school. Once they’d grown tired of it, they’d moved on. They’d probably thought she would have the same mind-set as them and move on, too, but it’d been ten years now, and Hope had never felt more grounded. That was saying something since Josh’s kiss had practically lifted her feet off the ground.
Josh threw open the front door of the cabin as if it’d been the object that had riled him, and he went straight into the bedroom. Hope stayed put in the living room, figuring the time had come to go ahead and offer him an out.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said.
No answer, and a split second later she heard him turn on the shower. She went closer, peering into the bedroom, and saw the trail of clothes he’d dropped along the way to the adjoining bathroom.
She didn’t mean to snoop, but it was hard to miss the homey way he’d decorated the room. The deep blue Lone Star quilt on the bed and framed photos of the back pasture that rimmed the creek. She knew the spot, also knew it was one of his favorite places to ride. Apparently, he had a knack for photography.
And reading.
There was a foot-high stack of books on the nightstand. Books about horse management and pedigree studies mixed in with horror paperbacks and one simply titled Sex.
Hope found herself moving toward it. A moth-to-a-flame kind of reaction. All she wanted was a peek, and she blamed it on the kiss. She suddenly had sex on the mind—and in her hands. She plucked the book from the stack and got an eyeful on the very first page. A couple engaged in...something. She turned the book to get a different angle of the page, to see if she could make sense of it, but then she got another eyeful.
Of Josh.
He came out of the shower, his back to her, while he dried off with a towel. His body was about the only thing getting dry right now because Hope responded. To his naked butt. To all those muscles pulling and tightening as he moved. And speaking of moving, he did. He looked over his shoulder at her and then said something very confusing.
“You found my trap.” Then he tipped his head to the book she was holding.
Hope slapped it shut and put it back on the nightstand. “Trap?”
He nodded, and with the towel covering the most interesting parts of him, Josh walked out of her line of sight and into the closet on the other side of the bathroom. “Yeah, a couple of the books are actually props with hollowed-out centers where I keep spare cash. I never lock my doors, so I figure if someone with sticky fingers comes up looking for something to steal, then Sex will distract them.”
Well, it had certainly distracted her, but it was nothing like the distraction that happened when Josh came back into the room. No more towel. He was dressed, for the most part, and was tucking in a crisp white shirt.
God, had his jeans always fit like that, framing his...? Great balls of fire, she was looking at his crotch! And Josh was looking at her looking at his crotch.
The corner of his mouth lifted. “I think we just opened Pandora’s box,” he drawled.
*
JOSH PAUSED. THEN he cursed. There were a lot of smart things he could have said to Hope, but that Pandora’s-box comment sure wasn’t one of them.
“We should probably close that box, though,” he quickly amended. “Especially after that kiss. Sorry about that, by the way. I was trying to make a point to my folks.”
Exactly what point, he wasn’t sure. Again, not a smart thing.
“I’m not sorry it happened,” Hope blurted out.