She had to put effort into remembering to breathe as she tore her gaze from his and grabbed what she needed. When the coffee pot was half full, she pulled it from the warmer and poured him a cup.
By the time she joined him, Stone was sitting on the couch with Jäger curled up beside him, fast asleep.
“You have a secret for that?” she asked, nodding toward the puppy as she passed him the coffee mug. “When I’m with him, he won’t stop movin’.”
“He doesn’t realize you’re in charge.”
But you are. And he always had been. Without even trying, Stone could dominate an entire room. She’d been in awe of it. And yes, turned on by it back in the day.
“So, what brings you by?” she asked, forcing herself not to think about the past. Or him laying her out on the couch and having his wicked way with her right now. Or her curling up on his other side and falling fast asleep like Jäger.
Yeah. She was ridiculous. So what?
“My aunt and uncle called me this mornin’,” Stone explained. “Asked me to come by. They know I’ve been lookin’ for some land to buy.”
“To build a fancy bull breedin’ ranch, right?”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Stevie realized he’d never told her that. She’d picked up bits and pieces over the years, usually from running into Reilly or Donovan at the General Store. From time to time, Stevie would ask how he was doing. It usually got her the low-down.
Based on the sparkle in Stone’s eyes, he realized he’d never told her that, either.
“Yeah,” he said. “That was my original plan.”
She sipped hot chocolate and pretended this was just a casual conversation between casually acquainted people. “But not anymore?”
“I don’t know.” His expression shifted from smoldering to contemplative. “At one point in my life, that’s all I wanted. Now … especially if this opportunity comes through, I think I wanna go a different route.”
Figuring he would relay what that was, Stevie waited.
“Then I talked to Nico at the office, and he said somethin’ that made me want to do somethin’ … else.”
“Sounds like you don’t know what you want.”
His eyes took on that smoldering look again. “Baby, I’ve always known what I wanted. That wasn’t the problem.”
Baby.For fifteen years, she’d despised that word as a term of endearment. But when Stone said it, she was shot right back in time to when it made her feel like the most precious thing in his world.
Her insides clenched, and she found she couldn’t look away from him. He was talking about her. She knew he was. This was her opportunity to tell him he’d missed his chance, but she couldn’t get the words out. Her throat was constricted by a knot of emotion.
So she waited, praying he had more to say.
***
Stone didn’t mean to say that.
It was the truth, yeah, but he’d come here in a professional capacity. His last encounter with Stevie hadn’t gone quite the way he’d hoped, and he didn’t want to risk a repeat. Not this soon, anyway.
It wasn’t that he was ready to give up on talking to Stevie. Quite the opposite. But he was willing to give her space. With some time, he hoped she would come around, be willing to have him in her life again. He understood why she was hesitant to talk to him about what happened when he left. It had been a cowardly move on his part, and he owed her more than an apology. He owed her an explanation.
“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I didn’t mean—”
“Whatwasthe problem then?”
That was new. The Stevie from fifteen years ago never would’ve questioned him. It wasn’t that she’d been amenable to everything he said or did; it was that they’d never gotten onto subjects that required her to voice a different opinion. Back then, they’d gone from getting to know one another on a friendly, casual level to a sexual exploration that had taken over everything.
“Me,” he said truthfully.
“So it wasn’t that you were freaked out because the three of us had sex?”
