Page 26 of White Collar Rancher

A slight smile played over his lips. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right out.”

She flopped into the seat she usually took when they had their late-evening chats. She couldn’t deny how right it felt to be back again.

Justin entered the room again, a glass in each hand. “Did I tell you that I’m actually going to try and get some work done tomorrow?” He handed her a glass with barely a tip of wine in it. His own didn’t have much more. “Caleb and Brigit are coming over. We’re going to do some work with the ewes.” He dropped into his normal chair. He wasn’t settled on the end, like he expected they would jump in the sack right away. More tension drained out of her body. “We hope that between the three of us, we can actually get out there and do some work with a baby in the house. You?”

“It’s one of those days of total freedom I thought I wouldn’t get many of when I first started my career.” She dropped her gaze to inspect the rim of her glass. The topic of her abysmal career outlook was always on the tip of her tongue around him. She had no wish to go crying on his shoulder or anyone else’s. Her life, her problems.

“How’s work going?” The gravity in his voice lifted her gaze away from her wineglass. Had he heard something? Or was he that astute at reading her expressions? Likely both. They used to communicate by expression only around Maisy. “Martin mentioned something about Maisy’s death being held against you.”

All the tightness that had eased since she first entered the house flooded back until her shoulders ached. “Oh, that.”

She didn’t want to talk about work, but at the same time she should talk about work. She should talk to someone about what was going on, how she feared for the career she’d worked so hard for, and how to deal with the aftereffects of failing so spectacularly in front of everyone. All that on top of mourning her best friend, the one she’d worried about and pushed away at the same time.

“Do people really blame you?” he asked.

She went for honesty. Justin cared enough to ask, and she couldn’t deny the warm feeling that gave her. “I think they do. I think they’re scared. Even as a doctor it’s hard to understand what happened, but I have years of training and access to other people’s experiences with freak, traumatic situations. But even with all that, someone died. Not just anyone, but a young girl in her prime. I was in charge of her care. It’s hard for others who don’t understand the situation to see beyond that.”

“I don’t mean to sound callous, but people die all the time. Young people, old people, healthy people—even in Moore. But I don’t hear of the other doctors having issues.”

“I don’t know if they realize how it’s affecting me. They’re…leaving for other doctors.” She sucked her bottom lip in and released it slowly. “I admit, it doesn’t make sense. It’s like they hear things, they don’t think too hard on it, but then when it comes to making an appointment, they choose a different doctor. Or they think of a reason why another doctor would be better for them. I don’t know that they put Maisy’s death together with why they don’t trust me.”

“Is there anything you can do?” Justin set his drink down and leaned toward her. The move was so supportive, the most support she’d gotten outside of Krista’s pep talks.

“Keep being the best doctor I can with the patients I have.” The few she had left, but she couldn’t admit that. She didn’t want to talk about it anymore. The humiliation she’d worried about was getting turned down for sex, not the shoddy state of her job. She latched on to a subject change, one she’d been wondering about for months. “How are Martin and Katherine really doing?”

“Good. Their healing is slow, but they’re dealing with it.” He chuckled. “I think they’re going to spoil Isaiah silly.”

“That’s good.”

Justin watched her for a moment, his eyes leveled on her. She gazed back, loving how the dull light made the gold flecks in his irises twinkle. It seemed a foolish thought in the moment to think about the color of his eyes. But they had enough gold to be classified as hazel. At first glance they looked like the bright blue of the Atlantic, or the blue of a rainbow. When she’d flown on vacations with her parents in high school, she used to look out the plane window at the expansive blue sky with the bright sun and think of Justin.

She couldn’t escape the feeling that he saw under her facade. Maybe not far, but deep enough that he knew she wasn’t being completely honest with him. She also couldn’t escape the feeling that it bugged him. The same intuition had dogged her earlier when he’d been at her house. How could he know her well enough when her own parents were oblivious?

“Come here.” The timbre of his voice wasn’t one she’d heard from him before. It was lower, more…suggestive.

Her heart hammered hard enough to rattle her ribs. Like, come here come here? Were they starting? This was where she historically blew it. Her exes might not have complained about her performance, but more than one had commented on how getting her out of her own head was the real foreplay. She had a hard time shutting her mind off when it came to sex.

And again, as if he knew she was trapped in the hamster wheel of her thoughts. “Come. Here.” Firm, but gentle.

He sat back, stretching his legs out in front of him. She rose and took the three tentative steps toward him. He held his hand out.

Her gaze stuck on that big hand. So strong, so capable. Hands that she never thought would touch her except for a friendly pat on the back, or a “Hey, how are you?” slug on the shoulder.

She reached out and connected with him, slipping her palm into his. Warm skin enveloped her hand, and his strong grip closed around her. She toppled into his lap, but he deftly caught her, draping her legs across his.

“How come you never told me about work before?”

“You have enough going on.” And because she didn’t want to seem needy around him. She wasn’t the needy one, never had been. It wouldn’t do any good. There was never anyone there who had her back.

“I thought you’d say that.” He caressed her face with his other hand. She turned her head toward him until their lips were only inches apart. “Always taking care of others.”

She prided herself on the way she took care of others, yet the way Justin said it was almost a criticism, like a word of caution. She took care of others to her own detriment, and he saw that.

His thumb stroked her lower lip. She instinctively leaned toward him. Their lips touched, and there was only a second, then two, before the kiss deepened.

Then they both exploded in hurried movements. She tugged his shirt up. He sat up to give her room to remove it while yanking hers up, too. There was no more talking, no more hesitation, no more soft touches. They both wanted sex, and they both wanted it now.

Chapter 9

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