Young, innocent, and unsure of this place where she’s found herself.
I know what to do with a horse like her.
I don’t know what to do with this woman.
Not exactly. I know what I want to do. Watching her prowl around my office, wearing my clothes, gave me some very bad ideas that I know would feel really fucking good. And I can’t deny that there’s some kind of invisible string between us, some kind of chemistry that tethers us together when we’re alone. The kind of chemistry that says she’d be curious about how good a bad idea might feel, too.
Not gonna happen.
I have more discipline than to give in to that kind of impulse. But it’s dangerous to think that it might not be one-sided. Especially when I’m this close to her and can breathe in the shower-fresh scent of her willowy body.
Holding up my hands to show her that I’m not a threat, I ease back. “I just wanted to ask you aboutthe plants. We started to talk about them, and then got off topic.”
Her chest rises and falls quickly under my rodeo t-shirt that swallows her up, the hem hanging past her hips.
She looks simultaneously fragile and fierce. Brave girl. Tired girl.
My girl.
Wrapped in my old clothes, it would be easy to imagine that were the case. It’s inappropriate, given whatever she’s running from and the fact I’m now her employer, in a manner of speaking.
But I don’t feel like her boss.
I yank my gaze up to her face. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, all that strawberry-gold wild and wavy after her bedtime shower. That doesn’t help my reaction to her in this moment, this private, off-limits exchange with a woman who came here for shelter and work.
Nothing more.
My inner primal instincts growl.Don’t ever want to think about her like she works for me. Don’t ever want her to think she needs to?—
“What about the plants?” she asks in a rush.
Right.
Fuck me.
The plants. The ostensible reason I came back, not because I didn’t like the idea of her waiting all alone in here for her laundry to finish. Not because I got halfway downstairs and realized sleep could wait when there was more to learn about Hope.
I still don’t know her last fucking name, for example.
And that doesn’t matter at all. She’ll share more about herself when she feels safe enough, and making her feel safe—making sure she’s neverlonely or scared, ever again—is a burning desire under my skin.
And theonlyburning desire I can think about when it comes to her. The rest of it, my inconvenient attraction…that needs to be buried deep.
I drag in a breath and turn, pacing to the window. “You were looking at them like you might have some ideas to bring them back from the brink.”
“Oh.” She takes an audible breath and follows me.
I brace one hand against the window frame and shove the other in my pocket. Catching her by the elbows was accidental, instinctive. Brief. But my fingers are still warm from the contact, and I can’t pretend I don’t want to touch more of her silky skin.
"The peace lily could use less water," she says carefully as she stands beside me. "You want to give it a good, deep drink, but not as frequently as the others. It might also do better in an east-facing window.”
Her brows furrow as she looks out the dark window. The mountains are invisible right now in the inky night, but in the morning, they’ll be pink from the sun behind us—and these plants won’t get any light until the afternoon.
I see the problem. “We don’t have a ton of east-facing windows up here, but my room downstairs looks out on the valley, and I get woken up by the sun. I’ll take this with me when I go to bed.”
“Take the succulent, too. It craves direct light.”
I wince. “Of course, because it’s a desert plant. That makes sense.” I direct my attention to it. “Sorry, my spiky friend.”
