“You’re comfortable?” he asked, placing a wide-brimmed Stetson on his head.
She glanced over at him and she held his gaze for a moment and then nodded. “Yes, I’m fine. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
He backed up the truck and then they headed out of the parking lot in silence, but she was fully aware of his hands that gripped the steering wheel. They were large and strong hands and she could imagine those same hands gripping her. That thought made heat seep into every cell and pore of her body, percolating her bones and making her surrender to something she’d never had before.
Her virginal state had never bothered her before and it didn’t really bother her now except the unknown was making the naughtiness in her come out. It was making her anticipate things she was better off not getting.
“You’ve gotten quiet on me, Bella,” Jason said.
She glanced over at him and again met his gaze thinking, yes she had. But she figured he didn’t want to hear her thoughts out loud and certain things she needed to keep to herself.
“Sorry,” she said. “I was thinking about Friday,” she decided to say.
“Friday?”
“Yes. Pamela invited me to dinner.”
“She did?”
Bella heard the surprise in his voice. “Yes. She said it would be the perfect opportunity to meet everyone. It seems all of my neighbors are Westmorelands. You’re just the one living the closest to me.”
“And what makes you so preoccupied about Friday?”
“Meeting so many of your family members.”
He chuckled. “You’ll survive.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Then she said, “Tell me about them.” He had already told her some but she wanted to hear more. And the ladies who came to visit had also shared some of their family history with her. But she wanted to hear his version just to hear the husky sound of his voice, to feel how it would stir across her skin and tantalize several parts of her body.
“You already met the ones who think they run things, namely the women.”
She laughed. “They don’t?”
“We let them think that way because we’re slowly getting outnumbered. Although Gemma is in Australia she still has a lot to say and whenever we take a vote about anything, of course she sides with the women.”
She grinned. “You all actually take votes on stuff?”
“Yes, we believe in democracy. The last time we voted we had to decide where Christmas dinner would be held. Usually we hold everything at Dillon’s because he has the main family house, but his kitchen was being renovated so we voted to go to Ramsey’s.”
“All of you have homes?”
“Yes. When we each turned twenty-five we inherited one hundred acres. It was fun naming my own spread.”
“Yours is Jason’s Place, right?”
He smiled over at her. “That’s right.”
While he’d been talking her body had responded to the sound of his voice as if it was on a mission to capture each and every nuance. She inhaled deeply and they began chatting again but this time about her family. He’d been honest about his family so she decided to be honest about hers.
“My parents and I aren’t all that close and I can’t remember a time that we were. They didn’t support my move out here,” she said and wondered why she’d wanted to share that little detail.
“Is it true that Kenneth is upset you didn’t sell the land to Myers Smith?” he asked.
She nodded slowly. “Yes, he told me himself that he thinks I made a mistake in deciding to move here and is looking forward to the day I fail so he can say, ‘I told you so.’”
Jason shook his head, finding it hard to believe this was a family member who was hoping for her failure. “Are he and your father close?”
Bella chuckled softly. “They barely know each other. According to Dad he was already in high school when Kenneth was born, although technically Kenneth is my father’s half uncle. My father’s grandfather married Kenneth’s mother who was twenty-five years his junior.”
“Do you have any other family, like cousins?”
She shook her head. “Both my parents were the only children. Of course, Uncle Kenneth has a son and daughter but they haven’t spoken to me since the reading of the will. Uncle Kenneth only spoke to me when he thought I’d be selling the ranch and livestock to his friend.”
By the time he had brought the truck to a stop in front of a huge building, she had to wipe tears of laughter from her eyes when he’d told her about all the trouble the younger Westmorelands had gotten into.
“I just can’t imagine your cousin Bailey—who has such an innocent look about her—being such a hell-raiser while growing up.”
Jason laughed. “Hey, don’t let the innocent act fool you. The cousins Aidan and Adrian are at Harvard and Bane joined the navy. We talked Bailey into hanging around here to attend college so we could keep an eye on her.”
He chuckled and then added, “It turned out to be a mistake when she began keeping an eye on us instead.”
When he turned off the truck’s engine she glanced through the windshield at the building looming in front of them and raised a brow. “This isn’t a restaurant.”
He glanced over at her. “No, it’s not. It’s Blue Ridge Management, a company my father and uncle founded over forty years ago. After they were killed Dillon and Ramsey took over. Ramsey eventually left Dillon in charge to become a sheep rancher and Dillon is currently CEO.”
He glanced out the windshield to look up at the forty-story building with a pensive look on his face and moments later added, “My brother Riley holds an upper management position here. My cousins Zane and Derringer, as well as myself, worked for the company after college until last year when we decided to join the Montana Westmorelands in the horse training and breeding business.”
He smiled. “I guess you can say that nine-to-five gig was never our forte. Like Ramsey, we prefer being outdoors.”
She nodded and followed his gaze to the building. “And we’re eating lunch here?”
He glanced over at her. “Yes, I have my office that I still use from time to time to conduct business. I called ahead and Dillon’s secretary took care of everything for me.”
A few moments later they were walking into the massive lobby of Blue Ridge Land Management and the first thing Bella noticed was the huge, beautifully decorated atrium with a waterfall amidst a replica of mountains complete with blooming flowers and other types of foliage. After stopping at the security guard station they caught an elevator up to the executive floor.
“I remember coming up here a lot with my dad,” Jason said softly, reflecting on that time. “Whenever he would work on the weekends, he would gather us all together to get us out of Mom’s hair for a while. Once we got up to the fortieth floor we knew he would probably find something for us to do.”
He chuckled and then added, “But just in case he didn’t, I would always travel with a pack of crayons in my back pocket.”
Bella smiled. She could just imagine Jason and his six brothers crowded on the elevator with their father. Although he would be working they would have gotten to spend the day with him nonetheless. She couldn’t ever recall a time her father had taken her to work with him. In fact, she hadn’t known