Page 31 of The Banker and the Blue Collar Man

Then I sat on my twin bed and, on my cell, started a draft of an email I planned to send to my boss, Logan Cotterhill, to ask for additional PTO because the audit was going to take longer than a week. And, to be honest, I had the beginnings of a hankering to stay.

Logan was an asshat, pure and simple, and I needed to have my argument set up like a plane ready to land.

Sure, he had good business sense and knew how to make the company money. And sure, I got good bonuses from his decisions and projects. But he treated his staff like nothing more than tools, to be used as long and as hard as possible.

Lucas had felt the same. In spite of his struggles to get up to speed at the ranch, from what I could see, he was happier here, being his own boss.

Me, I was like a C-130 Hercules, needing tons of runway, but once I was up there, I was there. Planning usually settled me, but tonight I couldn’t focus.

Beyond the four-pane window, I could see the glow of the bonfire. Could hear the muffled chatter and laughter.

Was Jake at the bonfire? Probably he was, but why did I think so? Why did I care? I’d known him less than a week.

Usually my first impressions of people were spot-on. This one’s a good guy. That one is a doofus. The other, avoid at all costs. Which office admins could be bribed. Which knew more than everyone at Hadley & Maine put together.

But Jake. My first impression of him had been skewed, probably by my notions of what Snow Creek Ranch was. What life was like outside the city limits. What Jake was like. Who he was.

A cowboy, yes. But a good guy. Nothing fake. Nothing pretentious.

During that time, after Lucas left Hadley & Maine, we’d talked and texted, and Jake’s name had come up often as Lucas had settled in on the ranch.He’s still out there with the calves, Lucas had texted once.I don’t think he’s slept for two days. And then over the phone,Yeah, he does what he thinks best, but it’s always the right thing.

In those conversations, Lucas had never mentioned anything personal about Jake. Like how much he loved food, especially anything sweet. How patient he was. How generous. How broad his shoulders were. How still his expressions were. How watchful his eyes, a startlingly sharp blue-and-gold hazel. How his hair curled behind his ears after a shower.

I stood up and pushed all that away, tucked my cell beneath my pillow, and took a shower. I could take a long one, because my roommates were out there at the bonfire, laughing so hard you’d think they were drunk. They were just kids, having a good time. But once they tumbled into the bunkhouse, I’d get almost no sleep.

In the meantime, I showered, shaved with the last sharpness of my disposable razor, and dried off. Got dressed in briefs and a t-shirt and, on sudden impulse, went to stand on the little porch. The night was warm, but I wrapped my arms around myself like I was cold and stood in the shadows and looked.

There he was. My heart sped up, and my stomach felt hollow. He was standing on the far side of the bonfire, wearing the hat I’d helped him pick out. Because, of course, cowboys wore their hats at all times until the things fell apart. Or got crushed by an inexpert rider who was too stupid not to get bucked off.

He pulled his hand out of his pocket, where it’d been jammed halfway in, and, looking down, drew his other thumb along the length of his palm. Where the lariat had sliced it open. Of course, it had only been a few days, so his hand was still healing. But why wasn’t he wearing a bandage?

I was all about sunscreen and smoothies and plenty of greens and first aid. Jake was all about first aid, too, and I had two butterfly bandages to prove it. But for himself, nothing. Why wasn’t anyone asking him what he was doing?

He was off by himself in a pool of flickering firelight and shadow. Alone in spite of the people around him.

I reached up to touch my forehead. The bandages were damp from the shower. I could take them off. Maybe put on new ones. Maybe I could ask Jake to put them on.

I stopped myself and tested the waters of that idea. Not only to see if it was true, but to understand what it meant.

Calf, cat, horse. I’d watched him with all of them. Slow, careful, gentle. The thought made my head spin, but wouldn’t it be nice to have the force of that attention? Yes, it would.

My body tightened at the thought of it. I could go up to him. Maybe tomorrow. He’d be in the barn. He’d have a string of horses to take care of and a green-eyed Jasmine on his shoulder.When I asked, he’d turn from all of them, place Jasmine on a hay bale. And then?—

Flushed with heat, my body felt like I had a fever, as though the air were very cool instead of summertime warm. I pressed my cock against my belly with the palm of my hand. It was hot beneath the thin layer of cotton briefs. It’d been a while, and it and the rest of my body were all gathered together, ready to surge forward at the slightest indication that action would be welcome.

Since my parents had died, whether or not it was my fault, my body had gone into shutdown mode. It had taken Jake Colter, attentive and unsmiling Jake, to flip the switch, which, somewhere inside of me, had decidednow.This one.Jake.

He was too sweet to simply flirt with. I somehow sensed this. He’d be an all-or-nothing kind of guy. His courtship would be slow. Measured. Heady in its sweetness.

As for his kisses, I could imagine nothing beyond the point where he’d blink, slowly, then reveal those amazing eyes of his before taking what he wanted.

Or maybe, more likely, he’d say something likeDo you reckon it’d be all right if I kissed you?

My body jumped, want pooling inside me.

I shook my head and stepped back deeper into the shadows of that small porch. I needed to focus on what was important: getting what rest I could before Cameron and Dillon decided it was time to bring the party indoors.

In the morning I’d have breakfast and report to Lucas, then start assembling the things I needed for the audit. Passwords. Spreadsheets. Ledgers. All those anal-retentive, ninety-degree tasks that made up so much of what I did for a living.