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“I thought your only agenda here was making sure the dogs end up in good homes.” He toyed with the diamond horseshoe, barely touching her. A little taste of Johanna went a long way.
“I can place the dogs without you,” she said confidently. “I’m agreeing to your grandmother’s plan to give her peace of mind on a broader spectrum. She wants us to make this trip together, and the only way I can manage that is if you stop with the practiced seduction moves. Be real. Be honest.”
“Fine then.” He slid the horseshoe back and forth along the chain, just over her skin, like a phantom touch. “In all honesty, I can assure you that I ache to peel off your clothes with my teeth. I burn to kiss every inch of your bared skin. And my body burns to make love to you again and again, because, hell, yes, I want to forget about what my grandmother just told me.”
He dropped the charm and waited.
She exhaled long and hard, her eyes wide. “Okay, then. I hear you, and I believe you.”
Shoving away from the desk and around her, he strutted right to the door and stopped short, waiting until she turned to look at him.
“Oh, Johanna, one last thing.” He met her gaze dead-on, her eyes as appealing as her curves. “I wanted you every bit as much before my grandmother’s announcement. This has nothing to do with me needing consolation. See you in the morning, sunshine.”
* * *
Johanna had until morning to pack her bags and get her hormones under control.
Moonlight cast a dappled path through the pine trees as she walked the gravel lane from the barn to her cabin. Her heart ached as much as her muscles after this long day. Too long.
She opened her mailbox and tugged out a handful of flyers and a pizza coupon. Laughter from vacationers rode the wind as they enjoyed a party on the back deck of the main lodge, the splash of the hot tub mingling with the trickling echo of the creek that ran behind her little hideaway house.
Since graduation from vet tech school four years ago, she’d lived in a two-bedroom cabin on the Hidden Gem Ranch, the same cabin model used by vacationers. She liked to think of it as home, but truth be told she hadn’t had a home since her parents’ trailer had burned down when she was eighteen. She’d lived in an apartment during her two years of vet tech training, thanks to a scholarship from Mariah McNair. Then Johanna had accepted a job at Hidden Gem after graduation, her girlhood crush on Stone flourishing into full-out love.
Day by day, she’d earned a living, marking time, doing a job she adored but never putting down roots of her own, waiting on Prince Charming to pop the question. Once he did, she discovered her prince was a frog. A hot, sexy frog. But a frog nonetheless. She couldn’t blame Stone for how things shook down between them. She was the one who’d worn blinders, refusing to accept the truth until it was too late.
But with the silver chain around her neck, the diamond horseshoe cool against her skin, she could only feel the weight of impending loss, the finality of closing the book on this chapter of her life. Once Mariah died, there would be nothing left holding Johanna here. Nothing other than her tenacious attraction to Stone, but that only kept her from moving on with another man, finding a future for herself with the family she craved.
She pushed open the gate on her split rail fence. The night air carried the refrain of square-dancing music from the sound system that fed the pool area. Maybe she needed this trip away from the ranch for more reasons than she’d thought. Perhaps this wasn’t just about finding peace for Mariah, but snipping the last bonds that held her to Stone so she could move on without regrets.
She climbed the three wooden steps up to her dark log cabin, katydids buzzing a full-out Texas symphony. A creak just ahead stopped her in her tracks. She searched the railed porch, wishing she’d remembered to leave on a front light, but she hadn’t expected to come home so late. She blinked her eyes fast to better adjust to the dark and found a surprise waiting for her in one of the two rocking chairs.
Amie McNair sat with a gray tabby cat in her lap, a Siamese at her feet, both hers, soon to have feline siblings when Mariah’s pride joined them.
“Well, hey, there,” Amie drawled. “I didn’t think you would ever get home.”
What was Amie’s reason for waiting around? Was she here to talk about Mariah’s announcement? The impending loss had to be hard on the whole family. She and Amie weren’t enemies but they weren’t BFFs, either. They were more like childhood acquaintances who had almost been related. And because of that connection, she felt the need to hug this woman on what had to be one of the most difficult days of her life.
Johanna unlocked the front door and reached inside to turn on the porch light. “I worked late preparing to leave tomorrow, but I’m here now.” She let the screen door close again. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“Ah, so you’re actually going through with my grandmother’s plan.” Amie swept her hand over the tabby, sending a hint of kitty dander wafting into the night air as her bracelets jingled.
Even covered in cat hair and a light sheen of perspiration, Amie was a stunner, totally gorgeous no matter what she wore. She’d been the first runner-up in the Miss Texas pageant ten years ago, reportedly the first beauty competition she’d lost since her mother had teased up her hair and sent Amie tap-dancing out on the stage at four years old. She’d tap-danced her way through puberty into bikinis and spray tans. Johanna remembered well how Amie’s mama had lived for her daughter’s wins.
Johanna settled into the cedar rocker beside Amie and the cats, reluctant to go into her cabin. Inside, she had nothing to do but pace around, unable to sleep because of this crazy, upside down day. “I don’t have a choice but to go with Stone and the dogs.”
“Sure you do.” Amie kicked off her sandals and stroked her toes over the kitty at her feet. “Tell my grandmother no, that it’s not fair to play with your life this way. You know as well as I do that you can find homes for those dogs all on your own.”
“True enough, and of course I’ve thought of that. Except any...unease...I feel doesn’t matter, not in light of what’s important to Mariah. She’s dying, Amie.” The reality of those words still stole her breath for a long, humid moment. “How can I deny her anything, even if the request is bizarre?”
Amie blinked back tears and looked away, her sleek black ponytail trailing over one shoulder. “I refuse to accept she’s going to die. The doctors will buy her enough time so she can pass away at a ripe old age.” Her throat moved with a long swallow before she looked at Johanna again, her eyes cleared of grief. “Mariah can be reasoned with...unless you don’t really want to say no.”
An ugly suspicion bloomed in Johanna’s mind. “Or is it you who wants me to walk away so your cousin loses?”
Amie’s perfectly plucked eyebrows arched upward. “That wouldn’t be very loyal of me.”
“Yet you’re not denying anything. What’s really going on?” She hated to think Amie could be so coldly calculating, but then she’d always had the sense the woman wanted more power in the family business.
The former beauty queen spread her hands. Long fingers that had once played the piano to accompany her singing now crafted high-end jewelry. “I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I want my family to take me seriously.” Her hair swished over her shoulder, the porch light catching on the gems in the Aztec design of her hair clamp. “I’m just weighing in with my thoughts on this whole ‘test’ game. This is not the way to decide the future of our family legacy.”
“What’s your test?”
“Gran hasn’t told me yet. Or Alex, either, for that matter.” Amie scrunched her nose. In frustration? Or at the smoky scent of a bonfire launching an acrid tint to the night breeze? “But after what she set up for Stone, I’m not hopeful mine will make sense. I’m just trying to protect us all.”
Johanna thumbed a knotty circle on the armrest. “How is talking to me going to accomplish that?”
“You’re the only one who has ever come close to getting through the walls Stone puts around himself. I just hope you’ll make sure he’s okay.”
Johanna sat up straighter. “Excuse me?”
“Be sure he doesn’t crack up over this.”
“Crack up? Stone? He’s rock-solid—no pun intended.”
Amie clamped Johanna’s arm in a surprisingly strong grip. “I’m worried about him, okay? He doesn’t have a support system like I do. My brother and I can tell each other everything. Stone is our family, but he’s never let himself get close to us. And I’m worried about him right now.”
There was no denying the sincerity in her voice.
“That’s really sweet of you.” Johanna felt bad for assuming the worst. “I do care about Stone, even though we can’t be together. He’s a strong man. He will grieve for Mariah—we all will—but he will haul himself through. He always does.”
