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Two
Staring out the office window, Stone listened for the door to click closed as his grandmother and Johanna left, then he sank into the leather desk chair, his shoulders hunched. He couldn’t believe Johanna had actually agreed to a week alone on the road with him.
Heaven or hell?
He’d started to argue with Mariah, but she’d cut out on the conversation, claiming exhaustion. How could he dispute that? If anything, he wanted to wrap her in cotton to protect her even as she made her way to her favorite chaise longue chair up in her sitting room.
The prideful air that had shone in Mariah’s eyes kept him from following her. Not to mention the intuitive sense that she needed to be alone. He understood the feeling, especially right now. He and his grandmother were alike in that, needing privacy and space to lick wounds. A hard sigh racked his body as he tamped down the urge to tear apart the whole office space—books, computers, saddles and framed awards—to rage at a world that would take away his grandmother.
The last thing he wanted to do was leave Fort Worth now and waste even one of her remaining days flying around the country. Even with Johanna.
What exactly was Mariah’s angle in pairing them up on this Mutt Mission of Mercy? Was she making him jump through hoops like one of her trained dogs to see how badly he wanted to run the company, to prove he had a heart? Or was she matchmaking, as Johanna had accused? If so, this wasn’t about the company at all, which should reassure him.
More likely his multitasking, masterminding grandmother was looking to kill two birds with one stone—matchmaking and putting him through the wringer to make him appreciate what he’d inherit when he took the reins of the company.
He just had to get through the next seven days with his former fiancée without rehashing the train wreck of their messy breakup where she’d pointed out all his emotional shortcomings. He couldn’t give Johanna what she’d wanted from him—a white picket fence family life. He wasn’t wired that way. He truly was aptly named. He might have overcome the rough start in life, born with an addiction, spending most of his first ten years catching up on developmental delays—but some betrayals left scars so thick and deep he might as well be made of stone.
He understood full well his grandmother’s concerns about him were true, even if he disagreed about the company needing a soft-hearted marshmallow at the helm. Although God knew he would do anything to give his grandmother peace, whatever her motivation for this doggy assignment. The business was all he would have left of her and he didn’t intend to throw that away because hanging out with Johanna opened him up to a second round of falling short. His hand fisted on the chair’s armrests as he stared out at the rolling fields filled with vacationers riding into the woods.
No, he didn’t expect a magical fix-it with the only woman he’d ever considered marrying. But he needed closure. Because he couldn’t stop thinking about her. And he was growing weary of her avoiding him.
Truth be told, he would give his right arm for the chance to sleep with Johanna again. And again. And most certainly again, because she ruled his thoughts until he hadn’t been able to touch another woman since their breakup seven months ago. That was a damn long time to go without.
The life of a monk didn’t suit him. Frustration pumped through him, making him ache to punch a wall. He dragged in breaths of air and forced his fists to unfurl along the arms of the chair.
A hand rested lightly on his shoulder.
Stone jolted and pivoted around fast. “Johanna? You’ve been there the whole time?”
He’d assumed she’d left with his grandmother.
“I started to tell you, but you seemed...lost in thought. I was searching for the right moment to clear my throat or something, and that moment just never came.”
She’d stood there the whole time, watching him struggle to hold in his grief over his grandmother’s announcement? The roomy office suddenly felt smaller now that he was alone with Johanna. The airplane would be damn near claustrophobic as they jetted across the country with his grandmother’s pack of dogs.
“What did you need?” His voice came out chilly even to his own ears, but he had a tight rein on his emotions right now.
Johanna pulled her hand off his shoulder awkwardly. “Are you okay?”
There was a time when they hadn’t hesitated to put their hands all over each other. That time had passed. A wall stood between them now, and he had no one to blame but himself. “What do you mean?”
Her sun-kissed face flooded with compassion. “Your grandmother just told you she has terminal cancer. That has to be upsetting.”
“Of course it is. To you, too, I imagine.” The wall between him and Johanna kept him from reaching out to comfort her.
“I’m so sorry.” She twisted her fingers in front of her, the chain from the diamond horseshoe necklace dangling. “You have to know that regardless of what happened between us, I do still care about your family...and you.”
She cared about him?
What a wishy-washy word. Cared. What he felt for her was fiery, intense and, yes, even at times filled with frustrated anger that they couldn’t be together, and he couldn’t forget about her when they were apart. “You care about my family, and that’s why you agreed to my grandmother’s crazy plan.” It wasn’t that she wanted to be alone with him.
“It influenced my decision, yes.” She shuffled from dusty boot to dusty boot, drawing his attention to her long legs. “I also care about her dogs and I respect that she wants to look after their welfare. She’s an amazing woman.”
“Yes, she is.” An enormity of emotion about his grandmother’s health problems welled inside him, pain and anger combatting for dominance, both due to the grinding agony that he couldn’t fix this. Feeling powerless went against everything in his nature.
It made him rage inside all over again, and only exacerbated the frustration over months of rejection from Johanna.
Over months of missing her.
Something grouchy within him made him do the very thing guaranteed to push Johanna away. Although arguing with her felt better than being ignored.
He stepped closer, near enough to catch a whiff of hay and bluebonnets, and closed his hands over her fingers, which were gripping the necklace his grandmother had given her. Johanna’s eyes went wide, but she didn’t move away, so he pressed ahead.
Dipping his head, Stone whispered against the curve of her neck, “Do you feel sorry enough for me to do anything about it?”
She flattened a hand on his chest, finally stopping him short. But her breathing was far from steady and she still hadn’t pushed him away.
“Not anything.” Her eyes narrowed, and he knew he’d pushed her far enough for now.
He backed away and hitched a hip on the heavy oak desk he’d climbed over as a kid. His initials were still carved underneath. “You’ve come back to offer comfort. Mission complete. Thanks.”
“You’re not fooling me.” Her emerald-green eyes went from angry to sad in a revealing instant. “I know you better than anyone.”
He reached for her fist, which was still holding the necklace from his grandmother, and drew Johanna toward him until her hand rested against his heart. “Then tell me what I’m feeling right now.”
“You’re trying to get me to run by making a move on me, because I’m touching a nerve with questions about your grandmother,” she said with unerring accuracy. He never had been able to get anything past her. “You’re in pain and you don’t want me to see that.”
“I’m in pain, all right—” his eyes slid down the fine length of her curvy, toned body “—and I’m more than happy to let you see everything.”
She tugged away from him, shaking her head. “For a practiced, world-class charmer, you’re overplaying your hand.”
“But you’re not unaffected.” He slipped the necklace from her fist deftly.
Standing, he put the chain around her neck as if that had been his reason for coming closer. He brushed aside the tail of her thick braid. Her chest rose and fell faster. As he worked the clasp, he savored the satiny skin of her neck, then skimmed his fingers forward along the silvery links, settling the diamond horseshoe between her breasts. Her heartbeat fluttered against his knuckles.
“Stone, our attraction to each other was never in question,” she said bluntly, her hands clenched at her sides and her chin tipping defiantly. “Because of that attraction, we need to have ground rules for this trip.”
“Ground rules?”
She met his gaze full-on. “No more of these seduction games. If you want me to play nice, then you be nice.”
“Define nice.” He couldn’t resist teasing.
“Being truthful, polite—” Her eyes glinted like emeralds. “And above all, no games.”
