“You’re going to ruin me,” I whisper, my mouth running away with me, confessing a truth I should hold close to my heart rather than hang out in the midday sun.
But I mean it, because part of me already feels claimed by this cowboy, and I don’t know if I should stay or run.
There are other places I could go. Other ranches that might need a live-in cook and housekeeper. But I don’t have time to drive these mostly desert lands, anymore than I have money for gas.
Wade grins, and it crinkles his cloud-gray eyes to perfection.
He cups my cheek with his work-roughened palm. “That’s the idea, sweet little Joelle. That’s the idea.”
Chapter 8
Caleb
We’re resetting the fence line when I hear it. At first, it sounds like a startled breath, soft and quick. Then it rises; a long moan cutting across the pasture and hitting me right in the chest.
I stop cold. My hand stills on the post I was about to drive, and everything in me goes tense. Heat runs straight up my neck. I know that sound. That’s a woman reaching a very satisfying end, and there’s only one woman on this ranch, and one man missing from this work crew.
No. No way. It cannot be what it sounds like.
Joelle is our stepsister. The quiet, sharp-eyed girl from the worst months of my life. She lived here when my father was dying, stayed in that small bedroom down the hall, listening to the house fall apart around us. Her mother tried to pick the place clean after he passed, then left in a rush when the will locked her out.
Now Joelle is back, and five minutes after breakfast,Wade is up there making her cry out like that? I tell myself she could have dropped something, hit her knee, or slammed a drawer on her hand.
But that sound… no one moans like that from a bruise.
Eli looks up from the corner of the corral and grins. “Sounds like Boss is gettin’ his morning protein.”
Rick snorts. “Least she’ll be feelin’ better. Girl looked ready to pop this morning.”
I stare hard at the hammer in my hand, like the right amount of focus could drown out her voice. It does not work. Not when the crew is tossing the same thoughts around that I’m trying to bury.
“She get work done, you think?” I say before I can stop myself, curving my hands over my pecs.
Eli quirks an eyebrow. “Her tits?”
I nod. “They’re just… big. Swollen.”
Rick huffs. “That ain’t surgery, son. That’sbiology.Girl’s lactatin’. You never seen that before?”
I shake my head, throat tight like something lodged in it.
Eli stretches his arms, lazy and smug. “Surprised her spine hasn’t given out.”
I should not picture her, but my mind serves her up anyway. Her shirt pulled tight. Her breasts heavy. Skin warm, maybe flushed. Nipples aching to the point of leaking. My body reacts before I can shut it down, and I hate how easy it is to imagine her needing someone to help with all that pressure.
I recall how she was at breakfast. The way she blushed when Wade spoke to her. The way her voice went soft, like she was trying not to take up space. She’s got a kid. She told me that much, but is she still nursing?
“Kid’s back home with a friend, I heard,” Rick says. “One year old. I reckon she’s weanin’.”
Eli whistles. “Not anymore.” He winks at me. “If Wade weren’t helpin’ her out, she’d be in the barn gettin’ hooked up to the pump.”
That makes my stomach twist. Not because it’s gross but because itisn’t. An image slides in: her braced on a wooden bench, shirt off, full and aching, breath shaking. Her hands gripping the edge. Her mouth open, gasping for relief.
And Wade being the one giving it.
I drop the hammer. The sound jolts me. I turn away like I can walk out of my own thoughts.
She’s younger than us by too many years and practically a relative. I should not feel anything like this. I am not the man who hits the bars in town looking for girls barely past twenty. But Joelle is not some carefree, untouched thing. She carries herself like someone who’s lived a whole damn life already. You can see it in her shoulders, the way she walks, like she’s bracing for the next bad thing to drop into her lap
