Killer Cowboy (Cowboys of Holiday Ranch) Read online

  But nothing would happen now with the men in the house together. She was certain that if one of them tried to harm her the others would rescue her. At least that was what she hoped.

  When the men started taping and spackling, Cassie heard her back door open. Oh, crap, she’d forgotten to set the alarm again when the men had come inside.

  She raced into the kitchen to see Dillon standing with a duffel bag in hand and a fierce scowl on his face. “I know...I know, I let the men in to do some work and I forgot to reset the alarm,” she said hurriedly.

  “Forgetting to set the alarm could mean the difference between life or death for you,” he said harshly. “I could have sneaked through this unlocked door, hidden in one of the rooms and then attacked you when you were here all alone.” Veins popped out in his neck and pulsed in his jawline. It was obvious he was beyond angry with her.

  “I’m sorry, Dillon. I just forgot.” She hated to see him so upset.

  “Forgetting is not an option.” He drew in a deep, audible breath and his gaze softened. “Cassie, you have to take this threat seriously.”

  “I do take it seriously,” she replied fervently. “I know we’re talking about my life here. I’m scared, Dillon, and I just forgot.”

  “Hey, Chief, give her a break,” Sawyer said as he entered the kitchen. “This is all new to all of us.” His caramel-colored eyes darkened. “We didn’t know there was an ax murderer in the neighborhood.”

  Dillon appeared to relax a bit. “I’m just looking out for Cassie’s welfare.”

  “As we all are,” Sawyer replied with a slight upthrust of his chin.

  Dillon sighed and looked at her. “You want me to bunk on the sofa or do you have a spare bedroom I can stay in?”

  “When you go upstairs the first room on your right has a couple of twin beds and across the hall is a guest room with a queen bed. Either room is fine with me.” She’d been so shaken up the night before she hadn’t even thought to offer him one of the guest rooms. Her heart thudded just a little quicker as she thought of him under her roof during the long nights ahead.

  “I’ll just go upstairs and get settled in.” With a curt nod to her and another one to Sawyer, he stalked out of the kitchen.

  “I just came in to tell you the others are finishing up with the spackling. It will need to dry overnight, and tomorrow we can sand and repaint it all,” Sawyer said.

  “Thanks. I really appreciate it,” she replied.

  Sawyer reached out and touched her lightly on the shoulder. “I just want you to know that he’s not the only one who has your back.”

  “I know that, Sawyer, and I appreciate it.” She did know that most of her men would have her back no matter what the circumstances, but it was the one who didn’t that scared her.

  Within minutes the men were gone and the alarm system was armed. Cassie walked back into the great room and stared up the stairs. She didn’t blame Dillon for being angry at her. He was going out of his way to move in here to protect her and she had made a stupid, thoughtless mistake. She couldn’t make that same mistake again.

  She left the bottom of the stairs and sank down on the sofa. She secretly was happy that Dillon was going to stay with her, not just to protect her, but what better way was there to really get to know a man than to live with him?

  Maybe he was a complete slob and she’d find his dirty socks all over the house, or perhaps he was really selfish and self-centered. That would certainly stop the wild pull she had toward him.

  And maybe without Dillon on her mind, she could decide once and for all where she wanted to spend the rest of her life. Here she would always be a nothing, a nobody, just as her parents had predicted she’d be.

  At least if she returned to New York she’d have a chance to figure out how to really be somebody and prove her parents wrong. It would be nice to have their approval for the first time in her life.

  And why, oh, why was she thinking about all these things when it appeared that some nutcase was after her?

  She looked up as Dillon came down the stairs. He smiled at her and she relaxed, pleased that he didn’t seem to be angry any longer. “I took one of the twin beds in the room on the right,” he said. “I also put my toiletries in the bathroom next to the room. I hope that’s okay.”

  “It’s fine, but aren’t you going to be uncomfortable in a twin bed?” She eyed his broad shoulders and tamped down an edge of heat that threatened to sweep through her. Dear heaven, what was wrong with her?

  “I’ll be all right.” He sat in the chair opposite her.

  An uncomfortable silence grew between them. “I baked an apple pie,” she finally said, not wanting the awkwardness to go on any longer.

  He smiled, that warm slow slide of his lips that she found incredibly attractive. “I smelled it when I first came inside. It brought back memories of when I was a young boy and I’d come home from school to find that my mother had baked that day.”

  “Are your parents still alive?” He hadn’t mentioned them the night they had gone out to dinner.

  “Alive and kicking,” he replied. “Seven years ago they decided to sell the family ranch and move into a retirement village in Oklahoma City. My mother is now the social director and my dad works maintenance.”

  “That’s nice. Do you visit them often?” Oklahoma City was only a little over an hour away from Bitterroot.

  “I try to drive out to see them about once a month or so.”

  “Are you an only child?” She was hungry to learn everything she could about him, and this conversation was so much better than one about potential murderers.

  “I am. Of course my mother tells me the reason she was a stay-at-home mom and there were no more children was because I was more than a handful. In truth she had three miscarriages after me and so they gave up on the idea of me having a sibling.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad. Do you want children?”

  “Definitely. I always thought I’d have a couple by now. But I suppose I need to find a wife before I have those children.”

  “Why haven’t you found a wife yet?” According to what he’d told her, Stacy had left town a long time ago. Cassie was certain that most of the single women of Bitterroot had fantasized about the very hot lawman at one time or another.

  “I just haven’t found that special woman yet. But I definitely know what I want in a wife.”

  “And what’s that?” She gazed at him curiously and was surprised to discover that she hoped he’d say what he wanted was a mouthy little blonde who could only cook a handful of meals and often smelled of turpentine and paint on the days she was working.

  He leaned back in the chair and cast his gaze out the nearby window, and once again a small smile curved his lips. “I want a woman who will build her life around mine, one who wants to bear my children and nurture them and fill the kitchen with the scent of homemade bread and sugar cookies. I need her to support me and this town and be my soft place to fall after a hard day at work.”

  “Whew, that’s a pretty tall order,” Cassie replied. And the woman he’d just described couldn’t be more different than her. Six months ago cooking for herself was throwing something into the microwave instead of eating out and she’d known nothing about this small town. Even if she lived in Bitterroot for the next ten years, she’d never be the kind of woman he’d just described.

  “What about you? Do you want children?” he asked.

  “I always thought it would be nice to have children,” she replied. “But, like you, I haven’t found the life partner I want, mostly because I haven’t really been looking.”

  A husband and a family had been a distant dream for her, but she’d wanted her career first. She still wanted it. She needed to prove to her parents that she wasn’t just a failure. But as evening approached and she and Dillon moved into the kitchen to fix dinner, New York was the very last place on her mind.

  “What can I do to help?” he asked.

  “Maybe you could cut up so
me lettuce for a salad. I’ll put the steaks in the broiler and the potatoes in the microwave.” She pulled a couple of potatoes from a bag in the pantry and began to scrub them, all the while trying to ignore the scent of Dillon’s cologne that seemed to fill the kitchen.

  Dinner was pleasant despite the fact that the potatoes were a little crunchy and the steak was overdone. While they ate he asked her questions about the ranch. She told him about the lucrative contract they had with a major meat packager and that Adam was encouraging her to think about getting into the horse breeding business.

  “I’m not ready to jump into anything new right now,” she said. “I’m still learning all the ins and outs of the cattle business.”

  “If you decide to do something with horse breeding, don’t forget Abe Breckenridge does a little horse breeding. I’m sure he could answer any questions you might have.”

  “I just know if he offers me any of his spiced cider to politely decline,” she said with a laugh.

  She made a short pot of coffee and then cut the apple pie for dessert. She watched him take his first bite. “How is it?”

  “Good,” he replied and grabbed for a drink of coffee.

  She frowned at him and took a bite of it for herself. It wasn’t awful, but it was tart...very tart. “It’s not good. It needs more sugar or more cinnamon or something.”

  “It’s fine, Cassie,” he assured her.

  “I was shooting for fantastic, not fine. The problem is Aunt Cass’s recipes aren’t exact. It’s a pinch of this and a handful of that and I guess I just didn’t get it right.” She released a deep sigh.

  “Next time you’ll know to add a little more cinnamon and sugar,” he replied easily.

  “That’s right. The next time it will probably be much better,” she said optimistically.

  “What happens to the ranch if something happens to you?” he asked as they worked side by side to clean up the dishes.

  She paused between the table and the sink and stared at him. “I don’t know. I never thought about it before.”

  “So you don’t have a will in place?”

  “Jeez, Dillon, I’m only twenty-nine years old and in good health. A will is the last thing I’ve thought about.” She continued to the sink and placed the dishes in the bottom and then turned to face him once again.

  “Maybe you should think about having a will drawn up,” he replied.

  “If you’re trying to figure out who might profit from my death, the answer is nobody right now, least of all any of my men. As it stands now I suppose that if I die, then the ranch would probably go up for auction and if that’s the case Raymond Humes would probably swoop in and who knows, I might wind up selling out to him anyway.” She drew in a deep breath. “And this conversation is going to give me heartburn if it continues any longer.”

  He grinned. “I wouldn’t want you to get heartburn, so I guess I’d better change the subject.”

  “Thank you,” she replied.

  “However, it is something you need to think about,” he said. “And now this topic is over.”

  For the next fifteen minutes they finished clearing the table and loading the dishwasher, and while they worked Dillon talked about his childhood here in Bitterroot.

  “When I was five years old I got mad at my mother and told her I was leaving home and was going to live in the doghouse out in the backyard.”

  “What did she say?” Cassie asked.

  “She helped me move a couple of my favorite toys and a blanket out there. I stayed out there for about an hour and then I got hungry. When I came inside to get a snack my mother said I couldn’t eat in the house anymore since I’d moved out.”

  Cassie laughed. “How long did it take you to move back into your bedroom?”

  “About three minutes.”

  He could have read the ingredients in a bottle of drain cleaner and she would have enjoyed it. His voice was so low, so melodic, it reminded her of the warmth she got when she sipped a shot of whiskey.

  With the kitchen clean they moved into the great room, where she sat on the sofa and he on the chair across the room. “Do you want me to turn on the television?” she asked.

  “Only if you want it on,” he replied.

  “I usually turn it on in the evenings just so the house isn’t so quiet, but I’m really not a big fan.”

  “What do you usually do in the evenings?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I read or I paint.” Or I sometimes fantasize about you. Warmth leaped into her cheeks at this thought.

  “Where do you paint?”

  “I’ve pretty much taken over the smallest bedroom upstairs and am now using it as my studio.”

  “Why don’t you take me up and show me? I’d like to see some of your work.”

  “Really? You aren’t just saying that?” she asked with cautious delight.

  He smiled. “Cassie, you’ll learn soon enough that I always say what I mean.”

  “Okay, then, come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly,” she replied before getting up from the sofa.

  He laughed and stood, as well. While climbing the stairs, she was acutely conscious of him just behind her. She suddenly felt shy as she opened the door to the bedroom and ushered him into the workroom.

  She never brought anyone up here to see her paintings. She watched him walk over to the easel where her latest work in progress was displayed.

  Turbulent gray clouds made up the sky in the picture, and wind was evident in the tall treetops. “I’m trying to capture what it must have looked like the day that the tornado hit this area,” she said.

  She watched him intently as he stepped closer and stared at the canvas. Was she only fooling herself in believing she could paint? Was that why none of her paintings had sold yet through Mary Redwing’s website? He probably hated it and now was struggling for words so he wouldn’t hurt her feelings.

  Failure. The word rang in her head with a discordant tone. You’re nothing but a disappointment to your father and me, her mother had told her with her father nodding his agreement. You’ll never amount to anything, Cassandra.

  Dillon turned to look at her and his gaze was soft and filled with a touch of wonder. “Cassie, I’m certainly not an art expert, but I’d say you have a ton of talent.” He turned back to the painting. “When I look at this I can feel the wind and I can smell the sulphur in the air. It’s such a good depiction of the weather that day just before the tornado hit. It’s powerful but it makes me slightly uncomfortable.”

  “That’s exactly what I was going for,” she replied as an intense relief blew through her. Something else blew through her, as well...a sweet yearning for him to hold her, to kiss her once again.

  He looked back at her and there was a spark in his eyes that drew her closer to him. “Cassie,” he murmured. She had no idea whether it was a protest or an encouragement. All she knew was that she was suddenly breathless.

  * * *

  Dillon stared at Cassie and his breath hitched in the back of his throat. The waning sunshine drifted in through the window, turning her hair into sparkly strands like angel hair, but there was nothing angelic in the blue fire that shone from her eyes.

  “Cassie...” he said again, unsure why he’d said her name.

  She took another step closer to him. “It’s been one of those days, Dillon,” she said softly. “One of those days where nothing bad has happened and my head is clear and I know exactly what I want.”

  His chest tightened. “And what’s that?” The words whispered out of him.

  “You.” A hint of uncertainty leaped into her eyes. “Unless you don’t want me.”

  “Oh, no... I mean, yes, yes I want you, Cassie.” He wanted her more than he remembered ever wanting a woman.

  He scarcely got the words out of his mouth when she was in his arms, and he was kissing her and she was kissing him back. Their tongues swirled together in a dance that had him instantly erect. Under any other circumstance he might be embarra
ssed by his instant reaction, but all he could think about was Cassie’s shapely body pressed intimately against his.

  Her mouth was hot and her scent drove him more than half crazy with need. He tore his mouth from hers and stared into her eyes, his heartbeat thundering a million beats a second.

  “Are you sure, Cassie?” he asked. “I need you to be completely sure.”

  She smiled. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life.” She took his hand and led him out of her workroom and toward the master bedroom.

  He was on fire and she was the only woman to put out the flames. They reached her bedroom where the scent of lilac and vanilla was even stronger. She turned to face him and came into his arms once again.

  This time when they kissed it was not only with hot desire, but also with the knowledge that they were going to follow through on that desire.

  They kissed for several long minutes and then she stepped back from him. Her eyes glowed in the waning light of day as she grabbed the bottom of her sweatshirt and pulled it over her head.

  Her bra was white and lacy and her erect nipples were evident through the wispy fabric. His mouth went dry at the sight of her and he quickly unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off. He took off his holster and set in on the nightstand, and by the time he’d done that Cassie was out of her jeans. He caught a flash of white lacy bikini panties before she got into bed and pulled up the covers. His fingers trembled as he pulled a condom out of his wallet and placed it next to his gun on the nightstand.

  He kicked off his shoes, peeled off his socks and shucked off his pants in record time, leaving him only in a pair of black boxers as he crawled into the bed with her.

  Their lips found each other’s again and this time his hands caressed up and down her bare back beneath the strap of her bra. Her achingly soft skin begged to be touched.

  It didn’t take long for him to want to touch all of her. His fingers nimbly unfastened her bra and she sighed in obvious pleasure when he plucked the bra off her and his hands found her bare breasts.

  She rolled over on her back and he tongued first one turgid nipple and then the other. She danced her fingers across his shoulders and onto his back, each touch increasing his need of her.