Colt shakes his head. “You really think some gal from San Francisco is gonna wanna settle down a hundred miles from the nearest Niemen Marcus?”
“Some gal isn’t going to want to.” I say through gritted teeth. “Isabella will.” Except by the time I pull into the ranch drive way, I’m not so sure. I see the house through her eyes.
A log cabin with a giant wrap around porch in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by ranch vehicles, some metal outbuildings and a shit ton of mud.
Jessamine’s truck is back. That means Isabella’s here. My heart skips about a dozen beats as I jump out and storm the door.
Except, I can’t just go racing inside. I’m covered in mud.
Just like the high heels shoved against the wall in the mud room.
The only person who would have been wearing that kind of shoe around here is Isabella. And they’re dang near good as ruined.
One thing I remember vividly about my Isabella is that she loves her shoes.
I have no complaints about them, myself. In fact, they’d looked sexy as hell on her in St. Thomas.
Not something you’d want to wear around a ranch, though.
Especially on a day like today.
I strip off my boots. Damn, my jeans even. Hang my hat on a hook and throw everything else into a pile. Wearing just my shirt, socks and boxers, I glance into the kitchen. Jessamine, Mom, Gran, and Cassidy are sitting around the kitchen island. Pots on the stove, all of them drinking Diet Cokes. “Where is she?”
Mom looks uneasy but Jessamine’s smiling like a cat who just devoured a canary.
“She’s lovely.” My grandmother is the only person around here who isn’t acting all shifty-like. “Your mom showed her to your room. I think she’s resting up a bit.”
Not waiting around to hear anything else I take the steps two at a time, turn the corner in a flash and then throw open the doors to my room.
A giant lump forms in my throat.
She’s here. She’s in my bed, damn it, and she’s sound asleep.
My light. My sunshine.
She’s pulled up the afghan from the end of my bed and covered herself almost completely. Not so much though, that I can’t make out her golden blond hair peeking from the top and the sweet curves underneath.
I lock the door behind me. After a quick shower, where I happily notice Isabelle’s girly shampoo on the ledge, I dry myself off and then crawl onto the bed behind her.
When my arm wraps around her from behind, she sighs and twists around to look at me. I’ve missed those indigo blue eyes.
They’re a little red…and swollen. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit!
“God, I’m sorry Isa.” I can’t keep myself from kissing damn near every inch of her face. The rain. The mud. Her shoes. She must be overwhelmed by it all.
Not a great first day.
My lips capture a salty tear. “God, what a mess.” She’s wearing nothing but a T-shirt and soft cotton pants. My hands run down her arms, over her back. I squeeze her soft ass and pull her up against me. When her mouth lands on my throat, I know neither of us can wait.
Nothing has changed. It’s the same as when we said goodbye. All the tension of the day ebbs away as my body homes in on Isabella. I’ve thought about having her a million times and now she’s here, her fingernails combing through the hair on my chest and then trailing a fiery line to the elastic of my boxers.
So much pent-up emotion, pent-up restraint. “I wanna take this slow but I don’t think I can.”
“Don’t.” Her voice sounds throaty with need. Need that matches my own. “I’ve been so empty without you.” God, her words make me even harder, which I wouldn’t have thought possible.
Isabella.
In my bed.
