Page 19 of Cowboy

She snorts. “I don’t think that’s it, and that’s definitely not what I meant.” She looks around the rooms open for viewing from the dining table where we sit. “I’d say working with your hands is your specialty.” She winks at me, and I fight the goofy grin creeping higher on my lips. I’d like to show her my special talent, but I don’t want to push. Tonight is about acclimating, getting to know one another in more than the biblical sense. Despite my disappointment she chose to stay in the guest room and stopped our kiss, I’m still excited to learn all I can about her.

“So what about you? What’s your specialty?”

She shrugs, looking off toward the double doors leading out to a small patio area. “I don’t really have a talent.”

“Of course, you do,” I say. “Everyone does.”

“According to my parents, I don’t. I wasn’t exactly the journalist they’d hoped I’d be after journalism school, nor was I the society wife they thought I’d grow accustomed to being with the good doctor. This is just one more thing I’ll have fricked up with them.” I ignore the mention of her husband as Scarlett rubs a hand over her belly where there isn’t a trace of her condition. She lowers her head.

“I don’t really see how being a mother is a frick up.” I chuckle at the term.

“It’s the way it might have happened.” Her eyes drift. “Either I slept with my husband after he impregnated another woman, or I got pregnant from a one-night stand. I haven’t told them about my condition yet.”

One-night stand does sound like a dirty deed at this point, and I reach across the table for her hand. “Scarlett, let’s count this as night two then.”

She looks over at my outstretched palm and slowly lifts her hand for mine.

“Night two,” she whispers.

“To many more,” I say, lifting my water glass, and her smile cautiously returns.

“Many more.”

When we finally arrive at bedtime, we circle one another as the only bathroom upstairs is outside my room. Scarlett is good at this, and it’s evident she’s recently been living with another man. We work around each other brushing teeth and finalizing bedtime rituals, but something is unsettling about it. We’re ships passing in the night, and I want to moor her to me. I want us to move in the same direction, toward my bedroom, toward my bed.

She pauses outside her new bedroom door, leaning against the jamb with half her body in the room and half in the hall. She’s wearing long flannel pants but a tank top for a shirt. Her breasts are heavy in the skintight material, and her nipples peak under my gaze. My mouth waters for another taste of those succulent globes.

“Good night,” she whispers, her voice husky and low, and the soundwaves travel directly to my dick, long and hard in my own pair of flannels, which I’ll be removing as soon as I crawl into bed. I’ll need to relieve myself, taking matters into my own hand tonight to take off the edge.

“Good night,” I offer with a wave and then want to kick myself once she closes the door behind her.

Waving? What an idiot. I should have rushed her and kissed her senseless to remind her of our night together. That would be a good night salutation.

Because deep down, I don’t want to be just roommates with her.

“Morning,” my dad says to me as I finish cleaning up after the milking by spraying down the concrete flooring of the barn. We handled one hundred and thirteen this morning. Not bad for one morning, I consider, fighting my thoughts from wandering to a woman warm in a guest bed in my house.

“Got a guest?” Dad asks. My dad’s an easy enough going man. He claims my mother softened him over the years. Currently, as a houseful of men, we’re well past incriminations, but I’ve never brought a woman to my home.

“Yeah. She’ll be staying with me a bit,” I say, not looking up, afraid of his disapproval. I don’t need his permission, though. He’d be the first to tell me it’s my life, and I can make my own choices. I chose the farm before anything else. We had trouble a couple of years back, and I could have walked away from it all, but I didn’t. I stuck it out same as I have for some twenty-five years.

“Going to explain more,” Dad wonders.

“Nope.”

“Keeping things in perspective?” He’s referring to my past relationships. Most people assume I’m in a rush to marry, and they wouldn’t be wrong. I want what my parents had, what I witnessed between my grandparents, which was a total commitment and dedication to one another. Love. Marriage equates to such a thing, but I’ve been known to be wrong.

I give my dad one glance before turning away from him.

“Okay then. Good talk,” he mutters, slapping me hard on the back and turning for the office. I’m certain I’ll be a topic of discussion at the breakfast table, but I’ll be skipping that meal, heading back to my place to check on sleeping beauty. My internet research on pregnancy informs me a woman can sleep a lot during her first trimester. Scarlett’s considered high risk as she’s over forty. It’s not the most optimal age to be pregnant, so I won’t be doing anything to disturb the rest she needs.

Returning to my house as soon as I can, I find Scarlett standing in my kitchen staring at my coffee maker.

“Whatcha doing, sweetheart?”

She jumps at my voice, turning to face me in the tight tank and flannel pajama pants ensemble.

“I’m willing that coffee machine to work.” Her hands land on her hips as she looks up at me, sleepy-eyed and rumpled