He adjusted his hat, lowering it on his head. Susan never failed to make his blood warm, even when they were kids. He had no business wanting her. Not then and not now.
But he couldn’t help it.
When they were teenagers, he’d heard all sorts of stories about her. He had no idea if the rumors were true. According to gossip, she’d slept with a slew of boys in Red Rock. She’d supposedly devirginized a few of them, too.
Not that his fantasies hadn’t run in that direction. She’d been the object of every wet dream he could remember. But he’d had other dreams about her, too. He’d wanted to protect her, to heal her the way he’d learned to minister to the animals on the ranch. But Susan hadn’t been a wounded filly or an ailing calf. She’d been wild and independent, as raw as the confusion she’d caused.
The confusion she was still causing.
Ethan wanted to give in to temptation. He wanted to unlock the mystery of the girl he’d refrained from touching, the girl who’d bloomed into a sophisticated woman.
With anxiety churning in his gut, he mounted the front steps. Why hadn’t she stopped by the hunting cabin to see him? Had she deliberately left him panting after her? Or was he reading too much into it?
Either way, he was trapped, locked in good and tight.
The way she used to flirt with him. The nights he’d spent thinking about her. Every last memory was magnified in his mind, right down to the day she’d gone off to college.
The day she’d disappeared from his life.
Ethan cleared his thoughts, then knocked on the door, expecting Lily to answer his summons. But when Susan appeared, wearing a flowing robe draped over a pair of silky pajamas, he wished he’d had the sense to forget about her.
She presented a soft, sultry image, with the top button on her pajamas straining above her breasts. The robe gaped in that spot, drawing his gaze to the slight swell of cleavage.
“Ethan?”
He pulled his gaze to her face. Her honey-blond hair fell in a loose, nighttime style, lightly combed and framing her chin. He wondered if it smelled like lemons. Her hair had been longer when they were younger, and the citrus scent used to drive him half-mad. Not that she would know the difference. He’d never mentioned it.
“I wasn’t expecting you.” She tightened the belt on her robe, but her modest effort didn’t change a thing.
He could still see the straining button.
He cleared his throat. “I hope it’s not too late for a visit.”
“No. Of course not.” She recovered her composure. “Ryan and Lily already went to bed, but I was just getting ready to fix a cup of tea. Would you like some?”
He rarely drank tea, but he wasn’t about to turn her down, not after showing up at her door. “Sure. That’d be nice.”
Ethan followed her into the kitchen, where she filled a stainless steel kettle, the kind that whistled, and set it on the stove. He remembered that his mom used to boil water in one of those. As a child, he used to wonder what made it cry out.
When Susan turned to look at him, he caught himself frowning.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He wiped the surly expression off his face. Thinking about his mom always put him in a bad mood. “I’m fine.”
She invited him to sit in the dining room, where she was still close enough to hear the whistle blow.
He removed his denim jacket and placed it over the back of a chair. But he didn’t expect her to remove her robe. She still had it cinched. As a teenager, she used to show a lot of flesh, wearing skimpy outfits designed to set his gender on fire. Yet somehow, the misbehaving button on her pajama top seemed even sexier than all those cropped T-shirts and short-shorts ever did.
“Is there something special you wanted to talk to me about?” she asked.
Suddenly Ethan had the urge to bolt. He didn’t know what to say, how to explain his compulsion to see her at this hour, so he faked it the best he could. “We didn’t have much time to visit earlier, to catch up on old times.”
She smoothed the Aztec-printed placemat in front of her. “You had an appointment.”
“I’m not in a hurry now.” Which was a lie, of course. He was anxious as hell, impatient to cross the finish line, to have a zipper-blasting affair with her. He’d always been sexually obsessed with her, but things had been complicated when they were young.
She tilted her head. “So that’s your only agenda? To catch up on old times?”
Guilt clawed at his chest. She’d come home to be with Ryan, to help him face the prospect of death. Tearing up the sheets with a man from her past didn’t factor into the equation. “You think I have ulterior motives? Me? The guy who never even kissed you?”
Susan appeared to be pondering his words. And worse yet, she was assessing his body language. He could tell by the way she looked at him. He wondered if she could see through him, if that was part of her job, something psychologists of her caliber were able to do.
“You didn’t come here tonight to see how much I’ve changed? To decide if I’m still a bad girl deep inside?”
He cursed beneath his breath, wishing he’d stayed away from her. “I came here because—”
The whistle on the kettle blew, nearly jarring him out of his skin. She hopped up, bumping the table, rattling his emotions.
“I’ll go get our tea,” she said.
He waited in the dining room. Once the kettle stopped making noise, the house fell into a slumberous hush. Nothing stirred but his heart.
Trying to relax, Ethan looked around. The Spanish-style decor appealed to him. He liked the heavy woods and rich textures.
Susan returned with a clay-colored tray that held two stoneware cups, a small variety of tea bags, a bowl of sugar and a cow-shaped creamer.
He chose an herbal blend that came in an orange packet, but he didn’t add anything to it. Susan picked the same flavor, doctoring hers with sugar and milk.
The drink was warm against his throat, more soothing than he expected. And he was glad she’d provided sturdy cups. His hands were too big for delicate china.
“Go ahead and finish what you were going to say,” she told him. “Tell me why you’re really here.”
He opted for honesty. But not complete honesty. He was keeping his hunger to himself. “It bugged me that you didn’t stop by today.”
“I considered it. But I didn’t want you to think I was starting that old cycle again. Throwing myself at you.”
Her admission gave him a boost of confidence. “Maybe we could do something together. Go on a date or something.”
“A date?” She sounded intrigued yet wary, still unsure of his intentions.
He backed off a bit, lifting one shoulder in an easy shrug. “Just something casual.”
She sucked in a breath. “Like what?”
“We could go for a ride tomorrow afternoon. It’s supposed to warm up.” And he was willing to rearrange his schedule to spend some time with her. “Around noon?”
“Do you have a horse that would suit me? I never was a skilled rider.”
“I’ve got a gentle old mare. I inherited her from one of my clients. I got roped into some dogs, too. And there’s a wild squirrel that pesters me for attention.”
She gave him a sweet smile. “You were always