But that was before he found out that Yasmine was returning. Now the image of the young girl he’d known long ago filled his mind.
“Payback can be a bitch, bro.”
“Asshat,” he’d bitten out as Nate’s booming laugh echoed into the phone, stabbing the end button on his cell and staring down at the phone, a deep frown on his face.
Nate was his oldest brother and had recently become engaged. The fact that Holt, along with their middle brother, Shilah, had hired Althea knowing Nate’s mandate of no women allowed had been an issue. Even though it had turned out well—better than that, the two of them had fallen head over heels in love, despite Nate’s avowals of never wanting to get married—both Holt and Shilah had known that he’d get them back for their interference.
Everyone knew, Holt included, that as a young girl Yasmine had had a major crush on him. Although he’d not allowed himself to think of her in romantic terms back then, he easily recalled her big brown eyes and riotous mane of curls and her laugh … The sound of her laugh had always made him pause.
“Round one goes to you, big brother, but the game ain’t over,” he’d said to the empty phone.
Holt had tossed the phone on the side table. The woman—hell, what was her name?—had sleepily turned to him at that moment, reaching out for him. He’d given her a distracted smile and kissed her on the forehead, promising to see her later in the week, that something had come up at the ranch, and within a matter of minutes he’d dressed and had headed out.
He’d planned to park and go inside to help Yasmine with her bags, but a last-minute change in the airport she was scheduled to fly into had made it so that he had barely got there in time for her plane to land. His glance fell to the dashboard. According to the flight itinerary she’d texted to Miss Lilly, she would have made it in thirty minutes ago.
There had always been something about Yasmine that made him want to go the other way whenever he was around her.
He remembered when she first came to the ranch; she couldn’t have been any older than nine or ten to his twelve years of age. He remembered that she rarely spoke; in fact, he’d wondered if she could until finally he had heard her laugh while in the kitchen with her aunt.
Her laughter, even back then, had drawn him to her, and briefly mesmerized, he’d stood in the doorway, staring across at her. But the minute she saw him, her light brown face flushed with color and she literally flew from the kitchen.
It hadn’t taken long for Holt to realize, as they grew older, that she had a crush on him.
That crush came to an awkward head when, the day before Holt left for college, the young Yasmine grabbed him and pulled him close and kissed him. Surprised, he’d pulled away. But not before he’d returned the kiss for a short time. The memory of her soft lips, the feel of her soft young curves against him, had intermittently whispered into his mind throughout the years.
That was the last time he’d seen her.
When he’d returned home, Yasmine had always been away, and within two years she had left for culinary school. The few times she’d come to visit her aunt, she’d always managed to come when he wasn’t home, whether by accident or design, Holt never knew.
Finally, the van moved and he scanned the crowded throng, looking for her.
He drew in a breath and froze, his hands gripping the steering wheel like a vise, his eyes widening, then narrowing. He felt as if he’d been sucker punched right in the gut.
Although it had been years since he’d seen her last, he knew the minute he saw the woman standing near the curb that it was her.
Yasmine Taylor. All grown up.
Damn.
The traffic and noise from the bustling travelers, the irritating shrill whistle from the cop, all faded to background noise as he sat behind the wheel, transfixed, staring at her.
The sun’s rays gleamed against her upswept dark brown hair.
His gaze swept over her, head to toe.
She was small; he remembered that she’d barely reached him at chest level as a young girl. She’d been slightly overweight when she was younger. However, as an adult, the curves had settled in all the right places, he thought, subtly adjusting his jeans, the fit becoming uncomfortable as he watched her bend over and unzip a compartment in her luggage.
Her jeans hugged her firm, round bottom to a T, and as she bent forward, the ends of the shirt she wore, which hugged her generous breasts, slipped out of her waistband, exposing the slim expanse of unblemished brown skin.
When she straightened she looked directly at him, her large, doelike eyes widening. Even from his ten yards’ distance away from her, he could see the flush that blazed across her face.
Again, he felt his gut clench and his mouth go dry as she stood staring at him, across the walkway.
The shrilling whistle broke him out of his absorption and he broke his gaze, turning to see the cop maniacally waving his baton, urging him forward.
“Sorry about that.” Yasmine glanced behind her, mumbling the apology when her suitcase banged against the guy standing so close behind her she could almost feel his warm breath singe the back of her neck.
But really, did he have to jump into the same sliding door as she had, at the same time? Plastering a fake smile on her face while pushing as close as humanly possible against the glass-paned door, she heaved a big sigh of relief when she finally tumbled out, nearly falling when the man pushed past her.
It was an unseasonably warm day, particularly for Wyoming, and she felt a trickle of sweat travel past her forehead and down the side of her face as she emerged from the revolving doorway. She righted herself and brushed her hands over her hips, down her jeans, a scowl on her face, as she scanned the curbside, looking for the ranch’s foreman, Jake Stone.
As soon as she’d deboarded the plan she’d turned on her cell and checked her messages. Earlier she’d made a hasty call to her aunt when she’d learned the plane she was scheduled to fly on was having mechanical issues.
Because of that, instead of flying into the nearby airport, she’d had to travel into this one, nearly four hours away from the ranch.
She’d been disappointed when she’d heard the message from her aunt, telling her she wouldn’t be able to pick her up from the airport, that her knee had been bothering her and she was instead sending the foreman from the ranch.
She’d been looking forward to the alone time with her aunt, to catch up on life on the ranch since the last time she visited. Although it had been a few years since she’d seen Jake, she found herself smiling, her mood lightened. Jake had always had a way of putting her at ease. Even when she was a younger woman, when she was so painfully shy, he could drag a smile out of her.
He was as much a part of Wilde Ranch as the men who owned it, as his father was Jed Wilde’s first foreman. Jake had grown up at the ranch from boyhood and eventually he’d taken over the position as foreman when his father retired.
And besides, the man knew how to make a great lemon Bundt cake. Any guy who could make a lemon Bundt, much less from scratch, was a winner in her book.
Yasmine shook her head, a ghost of a smile on her face as she thought of the ranch. It had been a long time since she’d visited, and she’d found herself eager to come home the closer the time came for her departure. Everyone who worked at the Wilde Ranch was treated like family. From the first moment she’d come, she’d been welcomed. Jed Wilde had been that type of man. Despite his gruff outer demeanor, he had a heart of gold and did his best to make her feel at home.
And as she inhaled a deep breath, releasing it slowly, Yasmine realized that she’d missed home.
The last time she’d been to the ranch had been after graduating from culinary school in Chicago, before she’d moved