“What look?” Alex had grabbed a gray-felt cowboy hat from the same rack Gabe had used. Holding it by the crown, he settled it on his head with practiced ease.
“The look you gave me when Gabe told you about the family motto. Just to be clear, the motto is ‘Chance men are lucky,’ not ‘Chance men get lucky.’” But, oh, man, he’d increased his odds exponentially by adding the hat. She couldn’t say what it was about a guy in a Stetson, but wearing one sure did multiply the sexy factor.
Alex laughed. “What made you think I had any such thoughts?”
“Are you saying you didn’t?”
He gazed at her for a moment before answering with a brief smile. Then he turned to study the darkening sky. A tug on the brim of his hat brought it lower over his eyes. “We need to take that tour of the ranch ASAP before the storm hits.”
Tyler’s breath caught. The hat was a sexy addition, but when Alex took hold of the brim and pulled it down, she melted. One little innocent gesture created a soulstirring image of courage and purpose, of protecting the weak, and shoot-outs in the middle of a dusty street at high noon.
That simple movement made Alex seem more focused and intense, even a little bit dangerous. No doubt about it, there was something compelling about a guy wearing a cowboy hat. For a gorgeous specimen like Alex, it was almost overkill.
She took a deep breath of air that already smelled of rain. “Lead on.” She followed him down the porch steps.
Once they moved away from the shelter of the two-story ranch house, the wind cut through the light cotton of her T-shirt.
“The hands set up bleachers over by the largest corral.” Alex pointed to a spot where a small set of metal bleachers had been erected. “I’d planned to protect the guests with a canopy, but now I only have one, and the food and beverages should be under cover, either for shade or rain protection.”
“Let’s check out the barn.” She started toward the large hip-roofed structure that was the biggest building on the property outside of the main house. “There should be places in there where people can get in out of the rain.”
“At least it’s clean as a whistle. The hands have been working on it all day. They’ll go through again first thing in the morning, but they’ve put down fresh straw everywhere and set out some fresh hay bales which can be used for seating.”
“I can smell the hay from here.” And the scent turned her on. She still had a three-inch piece of it she’d plucked from the mounds scattered in the hayloft. It sat on a shelf along with her collection of souvenirs from her travels, and every once in a while she’d pick it up and sniff it. The aroma was fading, but her memories of Alex never had.
Last August as she and Alex had gathered up their clothes in preparation for leaving, Alex had explained that the ranch had outgrown the capacity of the hayloft and it was now strictly ornamental. A hay barn held the bales that supplied the ranch animals. But the old barn was the only structure left of the original ranch buildings, and so the Chance brothers threw some loose hay up in the loft every spring because their father had liked the picturesque way it looked.
The romance of that tradition had appealed to Tyler. She’d wondered if Jonathan Chance had enjoyed an episode or two in the hayloft himself. She’d asked Alex, but he hadn’t known much about the family secrets at that point. Now that he was an honorary Chance, he might.
Two dogs were stretched out in front of the barn, one on either side of the open door. Tyler remembered them from her first visit last summer. At Alex and Tyler’s approach, the dogs lifted their heads and thumped their tails in the dirt.
“Hey, Butch.” Alex leaned toward the dog on the right side of the door. Butch was medium-size, with a short tan-and-white coat and a snub nose. Alex scratched behind Butch’s ears and the dog’s tail thumped faster.
“Right. This other one’s Sundance.” Tyler figured the dog on the left, all black with slightly curly hair, was her responsibility to pet. “Hi, Sundance.” She stroked the dog’s silky head. Dogs would have been a luxury when she was growing up, so she’d never had one, or a cat, either. She liked animals, but she wasn’t used to them.
If an animal rooted a person to one spot, and Tyler thought maybe they did, then the Chance family must really be rooted with all the ones they had around here. Besides the horses, they had these dogs, a few barn cats and at least one goat, if she remembered correctly. Last summer she’d been a bridesmaid, so she’d been concentrating on the wedding instead of cataloguing the animals, so she could be wrong about the goat.
She certainly remembered the hayloft, though. The details of that area were permanently recorded in high def, probably even 3-D, and the movie flickered in her head every time she looked at Alex. Even if they never touched again, she would never forget those glorious hours in his arms.
Another gust of wind whipped up the dust at their feet and would have blown off Alex’s hat if he hadn’t grabbed it at the last minute. Thunder rolled overhead.
He straightened and glanced at the dark clouds hovering over the ranch. “We’d better finish up this tour and get back to the house.” He walked through the large door and flicked a switch to his right, which turned on a row of ceiling lights that ran the length of the stalls.
As Tyler followed him into the barn, the scent of fresh hay swirling around her was an aphrodisiac more tempting than she could have imagined. Her body hummed with eagerness. They’d kissed here in the barn before climbing into the hayloft. The kiss had begun as gentle exploration and had ended with enough heat to melt all her inhibitions.
The open house, she reminded herself. She was here to evaluate the space for entertainment possibilities. The barn was quiet except for the sound of horses munching their evening meal. Somewhere a horse stomped a hoof, and another blew out a noisy breath. The scent of oiled leather mixed with the aroma of hay.
“I guess all the hands headed for the bunkhouse when they saw the storm coming,” Alex said.
“Smart.” She chose not to glance over at him as they stood in the center aisle of the barn only about two feet apart. Hearing his voice in this setting reminded her of how he’d murmured in her ear as he’d undressed her, and how he’d coaxed her to new heights of pleasure during that long, glorious night.
His voice had been a big part of the attraction early on. Hearing it coming through the sound system during the reception had begun the seduction, and by the time the festivities were over and she’d suggested moving the party to the hayloft, she’d been more than ready to hear that voice in a more intimate setting.
The open house, girl! You told him you’d help him plan his party! She cleared her throat. “If you lined the center aisle with tables for food and beverages, you could sweep out a few stalls and have potential seating in those. People could meander up and down this aisle and be close to the horses, which is what you want, right?”
He didn’t answer.
“Right?” she prompted, turning to him.
“Yeah.” His tone was husky, and he gazed at her with longing in his eyes.
Her heart began to pound. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Can’t help it.” He took a step toward her.
She thought about moving back. She didn’t. “We talked about this.” But her words lacked all conviction.
“I don’t want to talk.” He reached for her.
“Me neither.” With a groan she surrendered to the kiss she’d been craving for ten long months, the kiss she’d promised herself wouldn’t happen, the kiss that was so … damn … good.
4
MISTAKES