He was talking about me.
“What’s got you working on a Sunday?” he asked, scanning the papers along the desk. I tried to pull them together into a pile, but he snagged the top page before I could stop him. “Financial records, huh? I hated staring at those for the bar. Frank couldn’t keep the books for shit. It took me months to sort them out.”
“You kept the books for the bar? I didn’t know that.”
Lincoln smiled, but it wasn’t the one I’d grown used to. “You’d run off before I had the chance to tell you, but yeah, I did most of the day-to-day shit. Frank was more of a silent partner, which meant I told him when I needed money to fix something around the bar and he watched me while drinking his stock.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how the bar lasted as long as it did. Frank never tracked his expenses and was a risky investor. He was always coming to me with an opportunity some young buck pitched him.”
“Did he ever move forward with them?”
“Sometimes. There were a few he was able to pull back aftertalking with a financial advisor, but a lot of it was a loss.” Lincoln met my gaze over the paper. “Hypothetically speaking, is that something you’re dealing with?”
I tapped my fingers against the desk, wondering how much I could tell him. Anything I said would stay between us, I knew that. Lincoln was a locked vault, loyal until the end. It was a long shot, but he did have more experience looking at this than I did.
Giving him a brief rundown hadn’t taken long, and Lincoln hung onto every word. He asked questions, some of which I had no answers to. By the time I was done, he glanced around the office with furrowed brows. “Mind if I take a look?”
“Be my guest,” I said, tipping my chin to motion him behind the desk.
The only problem? It seemed to have slipped my mind at how little space I had. There was no way to avoid him, no way to escape the thick diesel scent that clung to his clothes. He leaned over my shoulder, taking control of the mouse and scrolling through the documents.
“Did Charles say when this began?” he asked.
I shook my head. “He wasn’t clear. Just said that my father had wanted to diversify his portfolio a few years back and he’d advised against it. Dad swears he didn’t do anything outside of the agency, so…” I shrugged. “All signs point to something happening along the way. Charles says he’s going to get to the bottom of it.”
“Do you believe him?” His breath fanned out against the back of my neck, and I fought to keep my composure.
“I do. It might be foolish, but?—”
“It’s not,” he said, cutting me off. “Sometimes you’ve got to trust your gut, and if it’s telling you it wasn’t Charles, then you best believe it.”
I turned in my chair to look at him, wondering if he would move. No matter how inappropriate the thought might be, I hoped he stayed. His presence was comforting, like a warmblanket on a cold night. I wanted to wrap myself in his arms and listen to him tell me it was going to be okay. I wanted to believe that it would be.
“I don’t know what I believe anymore. Up is down and east is west. It tears me up that Dad’s been affected. He feels like he can’t turn to his best friend,” I whispered, uttering the confession in the limited space between us.
What would it feel like to run my fingers through his hair again? It’d always been so thick, the coloring slightly lighter than my own. But there was more grey than I remembered, a smattering that started at his temples and worked its way back. It was the first time I’d seen him without a hat since I’d left Tennessee.
“Doug’s lucky to have a daughter like you, you know? Don’t get me wrong, your sisters are great, but you’re something else. You fight for the ones you love with everything you have. It’s admirable.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, feeling heat creep up along my neck. “No, they’ve done a lot more than me. I’m just trying to contribute what I can.
Lincoln scanned my face, eyes softening. “You’ve got to stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
He tilted his head. “Putting yourself down like that. You did it when I first met you, too. Seems like you haven’t grown out of it. We’ve got to break that habit.”
I pulled my lip between my teeth, unable to hide the crushing weight of his stare. The way he said ‘we’caused goosebumps to break out along my skin. It was decadent. An ardent promise. It was yet another sign that Lincoln had no intention of leaving this ranch without putting up a fight.
Despite my weak insistence that what we had was over and done with, it wasn’t. My heart still beat in that erratic, lovesick way it always did when he was around. No matter how much hepissed me off or pushed me, Lincoln had this uncanny way of soothing the horrible negative voice in my head.
It would’ve been so easy to tell him as much; to let him know with brutal clarity that as reckless of an idea it might be, I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anyone in my life.
But at the end of the day, I had to remember that hewouldleave. He had a life back in Tennessee, something he seemed to enjoy. I couldn’t ask him to give that up, could I? Because if our roles were reversed, I couldn’t see myself leaving Black Springs behind.
Lincoln reached up, gently running the rough pad of his thumb along my bottom lip. His gaze dropped, hungrily watching as he slowly applied pressure. When it popped from between my teeth, he let out a low groan. “You’re gonna get me in trouble, darlin’. I’m supposed to be a gentleman, and you’ve got me thinking about being everything but.”
Fire, Josie… You’re playing with fire.
“Like what?” I asked. My voice was unrecognizable, and I was a quivering mess. It took every effort not to rock myself forward, searching for friction. “What’re you thinking about right now?”
