Here in this tent, she would spend the night in the closest of confines with the most handsome and irresistible man she’d ever laid eyes on. The lantern, hanging from a hook, cast a pale glow across the tent. She glanced from side to side. The camp cot to her left boasted a pillow and a blanket covering it. On top of the cot to the right lay a rolled-up blanket with a pillow atop it. She grasped the pillow of the cot on the right and tossed it toward the far end.
Quickly, she unzipped her jeans, pushed them down and sat. Whoa! Okay, so sitting on a cot was not like sitting on a bed. She’d almost tipped it over. Carefully repositioning herself she shed her boots and jeans. She tossed her jeans to the end of the cot, untied her shirt, and smoothed the tails over her tummy and hips. Carefully lying back on the cot, she shook the blanket out over her legs and torso. Whew. Done. Before Cash got back. For the next few minutes, she concentrated on breathing evenly trying to calm herself.
“Are you decent?” came his baritone voice at the entrance to the tent.
“Yes.” Tracy heard the tremor in her reply and swallowed. “I’m good.”
Cash pushed open the flaps of the tent and entered. “I’ll bet you are.”
His compliment and rakish grin made her tingle. The tent had seemed roomy until Cash filled it. He couldn’t stand up straight. Sitting down on his cot, he grinned across the short span between them. Rolling to her side to face him and careful to keep her blanket in place up to her waist, she almost tipped the cot over again. Cash shook his head and chuckled.
“Any sign of Donna?” Tracy asked.
“Didn’t see her, but I heard snoring when I stopped to thank Ed and Larry for getting her inside her tent to her cot.”
“I told you about the snoring, didn’t I?” Tracy asked as Cash nodded. “I will repay Ed and Larry with a photo and nice quote about them in the magazine article.”
“Got everything you need for now?”
“Heck no,” Tracy said incredulously with a soft laugh. “I need to brush my teeth, wash my face, take a shower, shampoo my hair, blow it dry, and put on my nightgown.” When Cash nodded and took off a boot, she said, “But we’re roughing it tonight, right?”
“Kinda.” He set his boot aside and took off the other one. “Roughing is when you’re moving cattle for days on end. My brother, Chase, and I grew up doing that on Triple C-Central. He doesn’t go on those drives much these days because he and Jade have two young kids; my nephew, Colton, and my niece, Courtney. But driving cattle is roughing it.”
“I need to make a note of that for my article.”
Tracy carefully sat up so as not to wobble the cot, and keeping the blanket in place across her lap, she grabbed her jeans. Reaching into the back pocket, she pulled out her phone and made a note. As Cash unbuttoned his shirt, she wondered if he’d take it off. She wanted him to. She was curious. Though she didn’t know exactly what to expect, as he certainly did, she’d bet he wasgoodtoo. She stole a quickglance and saw that he had removed his shirt and placed it on top of his boots. Wearing his jeans, instead of covering himself with the blanket, he’d stretched out on top of it. Hands stacked under his dark head, chest bare, and ankles crossed, he had easily settled onto the cot.
Prolonging her view of Cash, she let her gaze roam from the jeans at his feet, up his calves, to the snug fit around his thighs and hips. Below his indented belly button, dark hair swirled and disappeared beneath a brown belt with a silver buckle. Above the belt and buckle, she admired a flat stomach and muscular chest belonging to thesexiest man alive. Then back to the crotch of Cash’s jeans she visually caressed the masculine bulge.
“Done?” he asked.
Tracy snapped her gaze back up his body, and his blue eyes seized her. “Done.” She clicked off her phone and placed it beside her. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
Cash turned the lantern off and moonlight streamed in through the netted windows. Tracy carefully lay back in the cot. Her heart was pounding. Wildly! She hoped he couldn’t hear it and to make sure she folded her hands over her heart. If this man could elicit such a reaction from four feet away and not touch her, however would she survive a kiss? That is if he decided to kiss her…under the stars…on the balcony of his house.
“Good night, Cash.”
She detected a slight groan in Cash’s, “Night, Tracy.”
Tracy closed her eyes and after a long, busy day and two nights of little sleep, she hit dreamland. Visions of Cash played with her in slumber; he was in the saddle, the owner, the man in charge, the leader. He set her straight about the Mustang and swept her onto his stallion. Cash sent her heart racing, her knees wobbling, and her skin heating. She kissed him. He was completely unmoved. Unaffected. Not touching her. Uninterested.
Then as dreams often do the scene changed and Tracyfound herself wrapped in Cash’s muscular arms. He’d taken command in what had to be his bed. His lips touched hers, his hands slid around her body, and he tugged her on top of him. Tracy rolled with it and—splat!
“Oof!” she said, waking up on the floor of the tent.
The lantern spread its soft glow. She lay on her stomach with the cot on top of her. The cot was hauled off her and put right side up, where it started.
“Are you okay?” Cash asked.
“Yes,” she mumbled, mortified. She pulled the pillow, which was on top of her head, close around her face. The blanket lay underneath her and she realized too late that her shirt had ridden up her back with the movement of her arms. Her bikini panties and bare legs had to be in full view. She prayed for the ground beneath her to open up and swallow her whole. It didn’t. “I meant to do that.”
Cash’s deep chuckle put a grin on Tracy’s lips, but it stayed hidden underneath the pillow. It was the middle of the night, and she could tell he was doing his best to rein in his amusement so as not to wake the camp. Had this been during the day, she absolutely knew he would have hooted and hollered in a belly laugh. She would have too.
“This little episode is going inRanchers and Rangesif I have to write it myself,” Cash informed her.
“No!” Tracy said as she pulled the pillow off her head. She looked up at Cash as he snapped a flash photo of her with his phone. Leaning forward as he sat on his cot, his forearms rested on his spread knees. He turned his phone to show her the shot of her looking up at him; eyes big, hair in wild disarray, and her bikini-clad fanny clearly exposed. He grinned down at her and she pleaded, “You can’t tell anyone! It’s our secret! Pinkie swear!”
