“That’s true,” Brady interrupted coolly, putting up a hand before Kelsey could go all contentious and argumentative on them. He looked Wade straight in the eye. “But we did buy back the ranch that belonged to her folks. We’ve been in partnership for four months now. That ought to count for something.” Especially since most people in Laramie hadn’t thought he and Kelsey would last more than a few weeks together, at most.
Wade sighed and handed back their business plan. “Look, Brady, I know you’re a good man and a talented cowboy—otherwise my brother Travis wouldn’t have hired you to work on his ranch—but that doesn’t mean I approve of what you’re doing with Kelsey here.”
Brady had an idea what Wade was hinting at—that he was somehow taking advantage of the six-year age difference and Kelsey’s youth to get what he wanted. “We’re business partners, Wade,” Brady told him. “Pure and simple.”
Wade nodded. “Yeah, I heard you’ve been sleeping in the tack room in the stables since you moved out to the ranch, and have even rigged up a little bathroom and outdoor shower for yourself there.”
“Nothing untoward has gone on between us,” Kelsey interrupted, beginning to look very ticked off that anyone could even suspect there had been. “Not that it would be any business of yours or anyone else’s if there had been!” she finished angrily.
Wade lifted a brow in a way that said “The lady doth protest too much.”
Brady knew how Wade felt. If he didn’t know better, he’d think by Kelsey’s defensive reaction and the blush in her cheeks that there was something going on between them. Not that it would have been surprising if there had been, from a strictly physical perspective. Kelsey was one very sexy woman. She was half a foot shorter than Brady, with a slender, athletic body that curved in all the right places. Very much a tomboy. Notoriously fickle. But somehow very innocent, nevertheless. She had a way about her that somehow made her everybody’s kid sister. And yet there was nothing siblinglike about the increasingly lustful feelings he was beginning to have for her, Brady knew.
Was that what Wade McCabe was picking up on? Was that what had Wade, and everyone else who knew them, concerned about the partnership between him and the black sheep of the Lockhart family? Brady wondered, his glance taking in Kelsey’s snug-fitting jeans and red cowgirl boots. The man’s denim work shirt she wore knotted at her hips was loose enough to conceal the abundant curves of her breasts and her slender waist—the figure-hugging tank top she wore beneath was not.
“Kelsey,” Brady finally said, before Kelsey could make the two of them look even guiltier with her hot-tempered protests, “Wade is not interested in our love life or lack thereof. Not that there is one, you understand,” Brady finished firmly, looking at Wade. Regardless of how much he desired Kelsey, he had never once so much as tried to kiss her. For one thing, he didn’t want to be another notch on Kelsey’s belt. He figured to date and then be dumped by her, as she apparently dumped every man sooner or later, would be the kiss of death for their partnership. Because he doubted he could ever get over that. For another, he didn’t think he should get involved with her when he still had some very sticky problems of his own to deal with—a secret debt of his own that was coming due in two weeks. A debt that could change the way she felt about him, permanently, once she realized all he had been keeping from her and everyone else in Laramie. She might understand him not telling everyone about the rash promises he had made and the debt he owed. A debt he still had no way to effectively settle, without a loan from a venture capitalist like Wade McCabe. But she wouldn’t understand him not telling her. Not when his earlier actions could leave her partnerless in another two weeks.
“That’s good to hear,” Wade continued with a warning look at Brady, picking up their conversation where Brady had left off, “because Kelsey is like a kid sister to me and I wouldn’t want to think you or anyone else had taken advantage of her.”
“Wade, could you please just forget about my personal life and concentrate on business. I’m trying to get a loan from you here—not advice to the not necessarily lovelorn.”
Brady grinned at her cute play on words.
Wade was amused, but he didn’t grin. “Kelsey, I am a businessman, pure and simple,” he told her firmly, standing to signal the meeting was over. “I don’t make bad investments. If I had I never would have been a millionaire by the time I was thirty. And the bottom line is, this partnership of yours and Brady’s does not look like something that is going to stand the test of time to me.”
“Thanks, anyway.” Brady stood, too, and held out his hand, to let Wade know there were no hard feelings. Maybe the trick here was to go to a venture capitalist who didn’t know them personally. Someone who didn’t feel so protective of Kelsey.
Ignoring Brady’s hint that they cut the meeting short and make a dignified exit, Kelsey glared at Brady, who was still shaking hands with Wade McCabe. She slipped her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “Oh, really, and how do you figure that, Wade?” She lifted her chin, the look she gave Wade as contentious as the rising tenor of her voice. “Do you have some sort of businessman’s crystal ball?”
“No,” Wade returned evenly, abruptly looking as if he were an exasperated father talking to a wayward child. He clamped his lips together. “But I do know your history with men and jobs, Kelsey.”
Oh, man, Brady thought, having heard this same spiel or something like it from everyone in Laramie County.
“And you never stay with either very long,” Wade continued flatly, not about to back down from his stance any more than Kelsey was. “The bottom line? The only way I’d loan you and Brady money is if you were married.”
“WELL, THAT’S IT THEN,” Kelsey said as she and Brady walked back out to the Lockhart-Anderson Ranch pickup truck. She thrust out her chin defiantly. “We’ll just get married. Today.”
Brady rolled his eyes. “Kelse, be serious.”
“I am.” She stomped closer. “We need the money to expand. You need more cattle, fence and feed to start turning a profit on your side of the ranch. And I need more horses, another stable to house them, and the money to hire some instructors so I can teach all those kids and adults who want riding lessons from me. The only way that will happen is if we get a loan.”
“I agree we need more money as soon as possible,” Brady said. He opened the passenger door for Kelsey.
Instead of getting in, she leaned against the side of the truck. “Then let’s get hitched and get it,” she suggested in her usual carefree manner.
Brady frowned. As much as he hated to admit it, he could see himself married to Kelsey. He could also see them in bed. Making love. And doing any number of things that would lead to nothing but trouble. He had just sworn to Wade McCabe he would keep Kelsey out of trouble. Not lead her into it. “Marriage is serious business, Kelse,” he reminded her sternly.
A mixture of curiosity and devilry sparkled in her dark green eyes. “You say that as if you know,” Kelsey taunted.
Brady hated being the responsible one in any relationship. But when he was with Kelsey, that was exactly what role he usually found himself playing. “Well, I do,” he retorted evenly.
Kelsey’s lips parted slightly in an “oh” of surprise as she continued to study him carefully. “Have you ever been married?”
“No.” Deliberately, Brady pushed aside the memory of his near-miss. “You?”
“No,” Kelsey replied rapidly, the look she gave him letting him know she had never been anywhere close. Which wasn’t a surprise, given her notoriously fickle history with men. “But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t be if it were necessary for business reasons,” Kelsey continued. “And let’s face it, it is.” She stood, legs braced, heels dug into the gravel driveway beneath her feet. “The only way anyone,