Page 36 of Then You Happened
Those brown eyes as he looks up at me from under the bill of his hat.
Click.
His broad shoulders as he hefts a bale of hay over the fence into the corral.
Click.
His swagger as he moves toward me. The dust his boots kick up almost like a haze around his legs as he walks.
Click.
His lips framed in the lens. His stubble a dark shadow against his tanned skin. The feather of the muscle in his jaw as he fights whatever it is he’s going to say.
Click.
“Put the camera down, Tate.” Jack’s voice is a deep rumble that washes over my skin and makes me look up from the finder.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” He strides the rest of the way to me and takes the camera from my hand. “It’s my turn to take some of you.”
“No way.” I pull the Canon away from him, but he’s stronger, faster, bigger, and he is able to get his arms around me without much of a struggle.
Not that I struggled very hard against the familiar heat of them. The undeniable strength in them. The smell of sun and shampoo on him. All of these things hit me about the same time as Jack’s lips slant over mine.
His tongue slips between my lips, and every part of me heats and aches and melts into the familiarity of the kiss. Into the sense that he gives me that everything is going to be all right.
“Wait a minute!” I say, ending the kiss and pushing against him playfully. “Do you think your lips are going to distract me enough that I’ll get on the other side of the lens?”
His laugh rumbles through his chest as he rests his forehead against mine. “Tate.” He sighs my name so that the warmth of his breath feathers over my lips. “I’m about to distract you a whole lot more than that.”
I AWAKE WITH A START. My heart is in my throat, and my hand drifts to my lips as I take a minute to allow my brain to catch up and my pulse to calm down.
Real.
It seemed so damn real.
Real and peaceful and normal.
How is that possible when everything about Jack Sutton riles me up? He’s strong-armed his way into my life, my ranch, and my business, and now he’s invading my damn dreams.
“Fiona.” I groan her name, knowing her comments were what got my imagination going and caused this dream.
That has to be it.
Still, I dreamed about photography. I dreamed about it when my muses haven’t been seen or heard from in years. Sure, I’ve picked up the camera and headed out to the pond, begging to be inspired, needing to get lost in something other than the ranch’s day-to-day routine, but I’ve always put the camera down after taking one or two photos. After each of those impulsive outings, I was left feeling emptier than I was before because the one thing I used to count on, getting lost in my art, was no more.
Of course, it doesn’t help that I feel as if my subconscious is betraying me by suggesting that Jack could be my new muse. Nothing like a dream like that to whack me over the head and tell me to stop resisting Jack’s help. That deep down my mind was telling me that letting him in might be a g
ood thing for the ranch’s success and for me to learn to trust others again.
I’d rather focus on that revelation than the kiss that lit every single part of my body so brightly the ache still burns . . . even if it was a figment of my imagination.
It was a dream.
A kiss in a dream.
That’s it.
