Page 10 of Taking Charge (Lone Star Burn 4)
Lucy’s eyes scanned the area until she located David on horseback helping the men drive the cattle onto the rigs. “He’s not my friend. I barely know him.”
“He appears to have some strong feelings for you.”
“Appearances are often deceiving.”
Wyatt tipped his hat lower and looked in David’s direction. “Making one man pay for another man’s sins doesn’t right any wrongs.”
Lucy stepped out of the truck and sighed. “I want to feel bad about what I said to him, but I’m drowning in guilt already. I don’t have room to feel bad about anything else.”
Wyatt looked back at Lucy and looped his thumbs through his belt. “You would have had a nasty fight on your hands with Ted.”
“I need to believe I would have won,” Lucy said, just above a whisper. Maybe I didn’t lose today, but I didn’t win either. David stole that opportunity from me, and I don’t know if I can forgive him for it.
The challenge of loading the stock trailers left little time for David to reflect much on Lucy’s negative reaction to what he’d considered a grand gesture of his feelings for her. A man could easily get killed if he let his attention wander while convincing eight hundred head of cattle to do something they had no desire to do. It wasn’t until the tractor-trailers were pulling out of the driveway that David turned his attention back to the reason he’d driven to Mavis.
Lucy Albright.
Will I ever understand that woman?
He dismounted the horse he’d borrowed from one of the men, returned it to him, then scanned the area for Lucy and frowned when he didn’t see her. After Sarah’s phone call the night before, David had prepared to step in and help Lucy. Sarah had told him all about the loan and how Lucy was trying to break free from York but was afraid she’d lose everything in the process.
David had never been one to walk away from someone he felt needed him. His only regrets in life were the times he’d let himself be convinced to. After speaking to Sarah, David had felt positive he belonged in Mavis, helping Lucy.
He knew she’d be skittish at first, same as when she’d avoided him at Sarah and Tony’s wedding. That didn’t worry him none. He’d been confident he could win her trust and she’d accept his help. He hadn’t imagined it would take long for their attraction to each other to lead to more. And more was what he wanted with her. Now. In the future. It was something he’d tried to deny when he heard Lucy was engaged, but he’d come to accept that without her, his life would always feel as if it were missing something.
Lucy was the something that had kept him feeling restless.
David had never paid much mind to people who spoke about love at first sight, even though his own father claimed he’d known by the end of their first date that he would marry David’s mother. It was an outdated, ridiculous idea, but dismissing it would be harder to do after today.
When he’d heard that asshole threaten Lucy, David had been filled with a rage like none he’d felt before. He’d joked with Tony about possibly having to kill someone to save Lucy, but there’d been nothing funny about how easily David would have done just that if York had lifted a hand to her. As it was, David had been hard-pressed to stop at one punch.
His fierce, almost primal protectiveness of Lucy was too real to deny. He wanted her—in his bed, in his life. She belonged with him. In his mind, it wasn’t a question of if they would be together, but of how soon.
He replayed the scene in her house as it had unfolded. He could see her standing there proudly, declaring how she wasn’t afraid of York, her long brown mane of hair swinging back and forth each time she shook her head. She was thinner than he remembered, and the faint circles beneath her worried eyes had torn at his heartstrings.
He’d fantasized about what it would be like to spend a wild night in her arms, but when he’d seen how hard she was trying to look brave, he’d been filled with an equal desire to simply hold her. Hug her until his strength became hers.
She was a woman in need of protecting, and it was hard for David to understand how trying to do just that had gotten him thrown out of her house.
Wyatt came to stand beside him. They’d exchanged only a few words before they entered Lucy’s house. That brief conversation had ended as soon as David had learned that York was inside, talking to Lucy. Berating his woman. Even though he had just met Wyatt, David had a sense of who he was. Integrity shone in the proud lines of his grizzled face. Wyatt was a man who looked a person right in the eye, spoke with a soft voice, but would likely kick the tar out of someone he felt needed the correction. “I’ll be heading out to Abilene to complete the sale for Miss Lucy. She wanted to come, but I told her to stay here. Someone needs to watch this place and make sure York’s men don’t return.”
David nodded. He wasn’t going anywhere until he knew Lucy was safe.
Wyatt said, “One of the boys looked you up on his smartphone. Seems like you’ve done well for yourself over in Fort Mavis, what with your horse training and all.”
“I do all right.”
“Said you’re in all sorts of commercials. Showed me one or two.”
David shrugged and kicked the dirt. “It’s for charity. They say my face sells tickets. I prefer working with horses. But I must have sucker written on my forehead, because somehow I keep ending up on TV.”
Wyatt looked David over again, as if assessing his character. “Doing good ain’t nothing to be ashamed of no matter how damn-fool ridiculous you look in those commercials.”
David arched an eyebrow at that comment, and Wyatt cackled. “Thank you, I think.”
“You ever think of relocating some of your business out here? This town needs a man like you—someone Ted York can’t buy and sell. Times are tough. Jobs are hard to find in these parts. The six men who came to help today feel good about what they’ve done, but that won’t put food on their tables come Monday.”
True enough. “I’ve considered getting a place of my own, but relocating here would be a bit premature.” He rubbed the cheek Lucy had smacked.
Wyatt nodded at the house. “Anything worthwhile is worth the trouble. She’s in a rough place, and I’m not sure you made things better today. York wants her property, and he thought he had leverage to get it. He ain’t above playing dirty to get what he wants, so paying off the loan won’t stop him. I keep asking myself why. I don’t know, but my gut tells me Miss Lucy ain’t safe yet. Don’t let her run you off.”
Wyatt was preaching to the wrong choir. Lucy was the one who needed convincing. “She told me to leave.”
Wyatt shrugged. “She hired me as her ranch manager, seeing how she needs someone to keep up the outbuildings and such. That’s more work than one man can handle. I considered hiring someone to help me, but Lucy can’t afford to pay anyone yet. It might be a bit of an unconventional setup, but you could stay in the ranch-hand house, ship over some of your horses to train, and possibly hire on a few men to help with those horses.”
David looked at Wyatt to assess the seriousness of his suggestion. “Isn’t that similar to the setup York had? I can’t imagine Lucy going along with that.”
Wyatt rubbed his chin and stared off across the field beside the house. “That’s because you’re not seein’ the most important difference ’tween the situations.”
“And that is?”
Wyatt smiled. “Miss Lucy never cared for York, not romantic-like, but she looks at you the same way my wife used to look at me when I was working up the nerve to ask her out. Women are complex creatures, but just like horses, if you watch ’e
m close enough, you can read them. I’ve known Lucy most of her life. She likes you. She hates you, too. If a man cared enough, he could work that through.”
David couldn’t believe he was considering Wyatt’s idea, but a better one hadn’t come to him. “So, which one of us gets the pleasure of telling Lucy I work here now?”
Wyatt gave David a pat on the shoulder. “I would, but I’m late already. I have to be in Abilene before four. Good luck to you. Hopefully you’ll be here when I get back.”
Chapter Four
From the window of her father’s office, Lucy watched Wyatt and David talking. Part of her wanted to rush outside and apologize to David before he left. The mess she was in wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t Ted with a sinister agenda.
He had no way of knowing how much I needed to prove something to myself today.
I want to be grateful, to trust, but he handed over $250,000 to Ted. Why? Because he cares about me?
That’s a lot of money to drop and not expect something in return.
He said he wants me. Did he think I was for sale? If he’d asked me, I would have turned the money down.
Wyatt climbed into his truck, and David waved good-bye, then turned to face the house. He caught her watching him, and their eyes locked. Lucy’s cheeks warmed as desire licked through her. She tried to deny it, tried to look away, but she couldn’t.
Please leave, David. Get in your truck and drive back to Fort Mavis. I’m not ready for how you make me feel.
David clearly didn’t receive her silent plea, or he decided to ignore it. With a nod in her direction, he started walking toward her house. Lucy stepped away from the window and hurried out of the room, closing and locking the door behind her. Just because I sell sex toys online doesn’t mean I’m an easy mark.
She imagined herself standing naked with David’s arms around her while he bent to tease one of her excited nipples with his mouth. She hadn’t even kissed him, but her body hummed with the pleasure it knew his hands and mouth could bring her.
Apparently, I should purchase some of those toys for myself. To take the edge off. Two years without sex can muddle the brain—makes me want to pounce on a man I hardly know.
