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Colton didn’t believe in making excuses or kidding himself. Deep down, he knew the reason he was considering a visit to the Aldridge spread was Cassie. He wanted to see her again. It was that simple ... and that complicated.
The phone rang loudly, interrupting his thoughts. He snatched the receiver.
Denver’s voice boomed over the wires. “So you are still there,” he joked. “Tessa and I had a bet.”
“Who won?” Colton asked.
“Tessa. I thought by now you would’ve gone stir crazy.”
“Not quite,” Colton drawled, grinning to himself and gazing out the kitchen window to see Black Magic grazing near the fence. “About time I heard from you.”
“We’ve been busy.”
“Have you?” Colton couldn’t hide his sarcasm.
“Yep. But it won’t be long now. We’ll be back in less than three weeks.”
It sounded like an eternity. Restlessly Colton scraped the nail of his thumb against the wall. “I’ll try to hold it together till then.”
“Have you had any trouble?”
Colton’s eyes narrowed on Black Magic, and he considered telling his brother the truth. But what would be the point? Worrying Denver wouldn’t bring him home any quicker. In fact, it would only serve to make his brother angry and nervous. And Denver’s temper was as quick to flare as his own. “Nothing I can’t handle,” he said evasively before hanging up.
He finished his coffee, dashed the dregs down the sink, then strode outside. Clouds rumbled across the sky, and the wind had picked up, whistling through the branches of the oak and pine trees near the barns. He glanced at the Jeep, thought about driving over to see Cassie, and fought like hell to avoid that particular temptation.
Ramming his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, he took off across the yard. The rest of the day he threw himself into his work, repairing broken boards and sagging beams. As his hammer slammed nails into the wood, he tried and failed to shove Cassie Aldridge out of his mind.
* * *
“Okay, that’s it—the last of today’s walking wounded,” Sandy said, turning the lock of the front door behind a Border Collie that walked with a pronounced limp from a mending leg.
“Thank goodness!” Cassie quickly cleaned the examination room, then stripped off her lab coat and dropped it into the laundry bin.
In the back room, Craig Fulton the veterinarian she worked with, was closing the final cage on a fat gray tabby. Craig was a short man with thick brown hair, freckles and oversized features in a round face. A bachelor since his divorce three years before, Craig had offered Cassie a job as soon as she’d graduated. His clothes were always a little rumpled, and his thick wire-rimmed glasses tilted slightly to one side.
“It’s been a long one, hasn’t it?” he said with a tired smile. He’d spent most of the day driving from one ranch to another, examining sheep, cattle and horses.
“Maybe things’ll quiet down for the weekend.”
“Sure.” Craig chuckled. “Just remember, you’re on call.”
Cassie laughed. Though they took turns answering emergency calls on Saturday and Sunday, invariably they each worked part of every weekend. “I won’t forget,” she promised as she slung her jacket over her head and shouldered the door open.
Outside, rain poured from a darkening sky. Hunched against the wind, she dashed through the uneven parking lot, skirting the biggest puddles as she hurried to her white pickup. She flung open the door and started to climb inside, then pulled up short. There, slouched insolently against the worn seat on the passenger side, his legs sprawled in front of him, his wet Stetson shoved back on his head, was Colton McLean. “What’re you doing here?” she asked.
“Waiting for you.”
“Seems you’ve been doing a lot of that lately.”
“Probably too often,” he admitted, his sensual lips curved in a self-deprecating grin. “You’d better get in before you get soaked.”
She didn’t move other than to drop her shoulders. Oblivious to the rain collecting in her hair and sliding down her neck, she glared at him. “Why were you waiting for me?”
“The storm broke and I decided I’d rather be dry than wet.”
“But you can’t just climb into my truck and—”
