She barely had the chance to recover before he moved away from her. “Walk me to the door?”
He stood, clasped her hands and pulled her up.
Standing in the little entry, he touched her face and kissed her again. A sweet kiss, gentle and filled with promise. “Good night, Lana.”
“Bye.” After locking the door behind him, she sank against it and hugged herself.
Good or bad, right or wrong, she was falling in love with Sly Pettit.
She shouldn’t, and not only because of the lawsuit and her family. He cared for her and wanted her, but he wasn’t a relationship kind of man. She’d only get hurt. Then there was the baby. For his or her sake, she needed to forget about love and focus on a long-term friendship with him that would last.
Those arguments made a lot of sense, but her heart didn’t care.
Chapter
Twenty-One
Monday morning,Memorial Day, Sly whistled as he met Ace, Bean, and Ollie near the barn.
“You seem happy today,” Ace said with a searching look. “Going to the celebration at Prosperity Park later?”
Every Memorial Day the town hosted an annual celebration and picnic at the park.
“Not this year.” He was giving his crew half the day off, but there was too much to do at the ranch for him to leave.
He should’ve been in a lousy mood for that and several other reasons. Ollie was still here—that was hopeful news—but he half expected the kid to ask for his paycheck and leave town at any moment. If that wasn’t enough cause for a sour mood Lana was pregnant, and Sly needed sex, had needed it badly since Saturday night. But instead of going for what he wanted, he’d concentrated on Lana and drawn his own pleasure from hers.
That was the main reason he felt so good about their whole evening together, so good that not even the prospect of being short-handed could bring him down. “I had a great weekend,” he said.
The foreman’s eyes lit with curiosity, but he didn’t pry. Not that it’d have made a whit of difference. Sly wasn’t going to talk about Lana.
“The wife and I went to some friend’s house and played poker Saturday night,” Ace said. “We beat the pants off them—won two whole dollars.” He thwacked his thighs and chuckled.
Sly grinned. “What are you going to do with all that cash, Ace?”
“It went into our vacation jar, for that trip to Hawaii my wife wants.”
Bean shared that he’d attended a country-and-western concert and was headed for a family picnic at the park later.
Ace glanced at Ollie, who had yet to say much. “How was your weekend, kid? Did you and that gal friend of yours go out dancing Saturday night?”
“Not this weekend.” Not a hint of a smile crossed his face.
“Trouble in romance land?” Ace asked.
Ollie kicked at a hard patch of dirt that didn’t budge. “I gotta talk to Sly.”
“I ain’t stopping you.”
“Alone.”
Ace held up both hands, palms out. “Sure, kid. You want to help me with that clogged irrigation pipe, Bean?”
“I’ll meet you later,” Sly said. When Ace and Bean disappeared from sight, he settled his hands low on his hips and studied his young ranch hand.
“I talked to Tiff.” Ollie scratched the back of his neck.
“Good man. What did you two decide?”
