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“Yeah. We made a one-night, casual, no-strings deal, and neither of us expected to see each other again. So now what? What do you want with me?”
“Several things,” he said with enough heat in those two words her panties almost melted off. “First, we need to acknowledge the facts.” He took another step until he was toe to toe with her. “One, I never agreed to a single night. I just didn’t think that far ahead. Two, casual is still on the table, and so is no-strings. And while I didn’t expect to see you again, that is not how things worked out. I’m going to see you, and you’re going to see me. There’s no way around it.”
He ran a finger down her throat, between her breasts, and down her stomach.
She swallowed hard.
“Which brings us to your final question…what do I want with you?” He hooked his fingertip in the waistband of her jeans and tugged, ever so slightly. “I want more casual encounters,” he said. “Because the fact remains that you’re only here a short time and I don’t want to mix—”
“Business with pleasure?” she offered.
“My daughter and you.”
“Ouch.” That stung a bit. She’d tried and failed to see things from his point of view, and she couldn’t understand why he was so adamant about keeping her away from his real life. Like the moment they were alone, he was fine. But when reality—which was Gracie—came in, he tensed up and protected her like Charlotte was the witch from Hansel and Gretel and her words were poisonous candy.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Tripp said. His hand dropped from her stomach and he looked her in the eye. “I just want expectations to be clear. I don’t want Gracie hurt when you leave.”
“Okay,” Charlotte conceded. She wouldn’t fight him on this. But she wouldn’t be made to feel like a witch. She knew what it was like to not have a father, so Tripp being an overprotective one didn’t seem like a bad thing.
“Charlotte?” The way he said her name made her shiver and want to reach out and wrap her arms around him. To feel his strength surround her.
“What?” she said, trying to sound terse, but it came out softer than she’d meant.
“Wanna sit in my bucket?”
She smiled and glanced at the tractor over his shoulder. “Seriously?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “You hop on in there, I’ll lift you into the tree and you start picking and dropping the pears into the bucket.”
“That sounds…fun,” she said. Not even remotely, but it did sound easier than her original ladder plan.
She climbed in the big bucket of the tractor, and Tripp resumed his place behind the wheel. He shouted over the engine, “You ready, darlin’?”
“Yes!”
He slowly lifted her into the tree. Her body tensed, knuckles going white from the death grip she had on the bucket. Shit, she was going to fall out. No, no, she was okay. She gripped tighter to be sure, her mind flashing to her on her ass, busted leg, and sitting side by side with Grammy in that bed with Princess Peanut Butter the only one left to care for them.
She barely choked back a squeal as the machine lifted her higher. Once he stopped, she cautiously stood, slowly letting her hands relax, then moved them an inch away from the bucket. Then another inch. Then another as she moved at a snail’s pace. A thousand deep breaths later, she wiggled her legs and made sure the bucket was steady.
“What are you doing?” Tripped called up to her.
“I’m making sure this rust trap is safe!” she yelled back. Okay, so the tractor wasn’t a “rust trap,” but rather a pristine machine that had to be expensive and well taken care of, because there wasn’t a scratch on it.
“So you decided to dance in my tractor?” he said back. Tripp threaded his fingers behind his head and leaned back. “Then by all means, darlin’, dance away. I’ve got the best view.”
She rolled her eyes, but that same heat only Tripp made her feel crept along the back of her neck.
She was safe, Tripp was with her, and the tractor was sturdy. She looked around and her breath caught in her throat from the view. Golden prairie stretched so far she couldn’t see where it ended. The powder-blue sky was bright, and the sun radiated smooth hues of light yellows that made the entire state of Wyoming dazzle.
“This is amazing!” she said. “I can see over the trees and…wow.” She could see why Grammy loved it here. Which reminded her that she had a job to do. She started grabbing pears and tossing them into the bucket she stood in.
“The view is pretty great from down here, too,” he said, looking up at her ass, and she may have given an extra wiggle for good measure. Whatever this casual thing between her and Tripp was, she liked it. She had no clue what to expect, other than the expectation that this was going nowhere and there were limits he’d set. Of course, he’d also done things to her body she couldn’t forget. Every encounter with him was hotter than the last.
It took a couple of hours to finish up. Tripp drove her from tree to tree, helping her load the pears in the back bin before she went up for more. He was mostly business, except for the few times his hands “accidentally” brushed her ass or her breasts when “helping” her in and out of the bucket. By the end of the afternoon, she was starving, in more ways than one.
Tripp killed the engine and walked toward her with an armful of…was that a blanket?
“Figured you’d get hungry and forget to pack something for yourself,” he said, spreading out the blanket beneath the pear tree. He had a brown paper bag with two sandwiches and bottles of water. He grabbed two pears from the bucket and added them to the pile.
