Page 43 of The Banker and the Blue Collar Man

He looked like he’d rather crawl between my legs until he could ensconce himself on my lap and twine himself around me. Like he wanted to kiss me.

I shook my head. Quick. Short. Flicked a glance at the gathering of ranch hands. At Lucas in a slicker, going around to each ranch hand, checking in with them. Ruth, making wide, descriptive gestures. A silver flask being passed around so everyone could take a sip.

Dalton came and sat beside me, his bejeaned hip snugged close to mine. He smelled warm, like sleep. Like blankets. I wanted to touch him, to tuck his hair behind his ear. Sweep my thumb along his jaw. Watch him smile.

Instead, I drank from my thermos. Sweet, hot, milky coffee, just the way I liked it. He must have been paying attention at mealtimes. I wasn’t used to that, but I found I wanted to be.

Someone to make me coffee. To run their fingers through my hair as the sun came up, blazing through an open window, streams of light stretching across a wooden floor. Someone to hug. To fetch and carry for.

A pipe dream. A someday sigh.

He leaned even closer and whispered in my ear, soft lips moving upon my skin. I shivered as he said, “I’m going into town later. Do you need anything besides what I’m already getting?” Then he kissed me. An innocent peck on the cheek, on the side away from where everybody else was. His cold nose in the curve behind my jaw. I could feel him smile.

I turned to look at him and wished I had my hat on to hide the flush of warmth on my face in the shadow of its brim. “There’s still a lot of work to be done in those fields,” I said. “It might be awhile.”

“I’ll wait,” he said brightly, those pretty eyes flashing a promise.

I was right. It took us all day.

After the gorgeous breakfast that filled every corner of me, Malcolm and I drove into town to the Mercantile to pick up straight wire. We returned with the truck bed loaded down, enough for now and more for later, in case we needed it.

We were also loaded down with apologies that they hadn’t gotten the ranch’s message sooner. To make up for the inconvenience, they gave us a discount on the wire and threw in several extra boxes of nails. As soon as we got back, up we rode into the foothills, me on Snowball and Malcolm on a bay named Sisco, rolls of straight wire strapped to our saddles.

The ground was so soaked that it would be days before we could bring the ATV up with barbed wire, thus Lucas decided we wouldn’t replace the straight wire with barbed, but just go with the straight wire and see if it held up. Hopefully, we could avoid double work, which was nice because the rain kept coming down. Foolish to repair a fence twice anyway.

We worked until halfway through the dinner hour tightening wire. Stringing straight wire across the gap. Discussing whether the cattle and horses should go back down or stay where they were. They stayed.

By the time I got to the dining hall, with the horses taken care of and most of the muck scraped off me, Dalton and Lucas were already sitting together at a table near the buffet line. Chatting and eating, as they must have done often, being the old friends they were.

When Dalton spotted me standing there with a loaded tray, he lifted his chin in greeting. Lucas turned to see what Dalton was looking at. Then Dalton said something to Lucas. Real conversation or a distraction, I couldn’t be sure. Didn’t matter. Dalton was watching out for me.

I wasn’t ashamed of what we’d shared, but I was a private person. And I did feel foolish for fetching up to someone whohad a life somewhere else. Who surely wouldn’t want to settle for half a double bed in a small bunkhouse on a struggling ranch.

Oh, sure, Lucas had plans—and, him being a Barrett of the banking kind, having a steady head on his shoulders, those plans probably had a good chance of success. But in the meanwhile, I didn’t have much to offer to a city man.

But I wanted to, though. Somehow the idea had taken root inside me. What could I offer this fair-haired, pretty man, with his summer-sky-blue eyes?

In the meanwhile, I ate with the other ranch hands and contented myself with stealing glances Dalton’s way, seeking that flyaway tuft, a cowlick on the back of his head that wanted smoothing—and by my hand, saints be willing.

After dinner, I bused my place and headed back to my bunkhouse. Where, in the half-circle of bunkhouses, I saw that some stubborn soul was attempting to light a bonfire. Head tilted down, so the mist would run off his hat. A sherpa-lined denim jacket pulled snug around his neck.

The mist was heavy and still. A fire was possible, but it would need to be built high to combat the rain. I wished him luck and mounted the wooden steps to the small porch of my bunkhouse.

I opened the door, the dry interior beckoning me as I traded thoughts of a shower with those of seeking out Dalton. His bunkhouse was only two doors away, but where was he?

Right behind me, it turned out. Clomps on the stairs. His arms circling around my waist from behind. A surprise, one that I wouldn’t have welcomed from anyone else. I pulled him into the darkness and shut the door without turning on the light.

“I’m freezing,” he said into my back. “Can we have a hot shower?”

Surely he was being polite. I was wearing two days’ worth of sweat, and I hadn’t shaved. I was as scruffy as a young bear crawling out of its cave in the warmth of spring.

“Yes,” I said, wondering about the state of my shower stall. Whether it’d be big enough. Whether he’d like my soap and shampoo. My supplies were pretty generic: shaving cream, toothpaste, antiperspirant. Skin Bracer.

There I stood in the darkness as I turned around to pull him to me, going over the list of my personal hygiene products when there was nothing I could do about it. Certainly, I wasn’t going to drop everything and race into town for something fancier. Not with him in my arms, snuggled close, smelling a lot sweeter than I currently did.

“Here,” I said, reaching to flick on the lights. We needn’t undress in the dark, not when there was Dalton, already stripping. A gift to watch. Slender hipped. Supple skinned. Taut belly. Fair hair dusting his muscled thighs. Dark gold hair around his soft cock. And the cutest pink toes I had ever seen.

I wanted to eat him alive.