Bedded then Wed

“Ready to go?”

She nodded, grabbing her purse from the picnic table and following Mitch to his dark blue truck, shining near-black in the moonlight. He held the door open while she climbed in, then slammed it behind her and walked around to the driver’s side. After he’d gotten in behind the wheel and started the engine, he adjusted the air-conditioning to cool the inside of the cab and turned on the radio so that a familiar country tune played in the background.

“Thanks again for this,” Emma murmured softly when she realized he didn’t intend to carry on a conversation. “I had visions of spending the night curled up on that picnic table. If I’d known Pop planned to stick around playing cards all night, I’d have suggested we take separate cars.”

“No problem. I was headed in your direction, anyway.” He graced her with a quick grin that creased the corners of his mouth.

“Yeah. If I’d thought of that, I probably would have asked you for a ride hours ago.”

Mitch’s ranch, the Circle R, bordered her father’s property. There were plenty of acres in between, but for all intents and purposes, they were next-door neighbors.

“So, what were you doing hanging around the celebration this late? I’d have expected you to hightail it out of there at the first opportunity.”

Mitch was a hometown favorite and more than willing to help out any time Gabriel’s Crossing needed him, but ever since his divorce from Suzanne four years earlier, he’d become quiet and withdrawn. He spent most of his time alone on his ranch, going into town only when he needed supplies, or for an event like tonight’s—the town’s annual Independence Day celebration. But even then, he usually only made a brief appearance before disappearing again, back to the Circle R.

“Chase took Mom home after the fireworks, but since he was in charge of the sound system he needed someone to stick around and dismantle everything.” He hitched a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the equipment piled into the truck bed. “I’ll have to drop that stuff off in the morning.”

“Why didn’t you take your mother home?” she pressed, knowing that would have been Mitch’s choice over staying to the very end of the town-wide party.

Even from where she was sitting, on the opposite side of the bench seat, she could see the wry twist of his lips.

“Because my family thinks I’m becoming a hermit and need to get out more. And that if I stuck around long enough tonight, I might have met a nice girl and gotten married again.”

His tone told her how enamored he was of that idea, but she couldn’t help the tiny flicker of awareness that bloomed to life inside her.

She opened her mouth to speak, then had to clear her throat before she thought the words would come out as more than a squeak. “Did you? Meet a nice girl, I mean.”

“No,” he answered without reservation, and with the slightest hint of an edge to his voice. “But then, I wasn’t looking for one.”

The flicker in her belly sputtered and died. She shouldn’t be surprised. It was no secret that Suzanne’s infidelities and the divorce had hit him hard. He’d never been the most outgoing guy to begin with, but after the divorce he’d become noticeably more sullen. Nothing anyone said or did seemed to shake his sour mood.

And he had never looked at her as anything other than a neighbor and friend—no matter how much she might wish he would.

Not that she’d ever done anything about it. She could have flirted a little, or come right out and told him she had the hots for him. Instead, she’d kept her feelings to herself while pining after him from afar.

She was such a coward. Maybe if she hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have married Suzanne in the first place and wouldn’t be so miserable now.

Swallowing uncomfortably, she rubbed her palms along the tops of her jean-clad legs and breathed a sigh of relief when she realized they were nearing her house. Getting home would mean an end to the awkward silence filling the cab.

Mitch pulled up in front of the pale yellow, ranch-style house and cut the engine.

“You want me to walk you to the door?”

Considering the walk would take all of about two seconds and ten steps, it was a gracious but unnecessary offer.

“Thanks, but I need to check the livestock one last time before I go to bed, anyway.”

She released the latch on her seatbelt and opened the passenger side door. When she turned from closing it, she was surprised to find Mitch moving toward her in that long, lanky stride of his.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her mind drawing a complete blank as to why he’d bothered to get out of the truck at all.

“Helping you with the livestock.”

“That’s all right, I can handle it.” It might not be her favorite pastime, but she’d grown up pitching hay, mucking stalls and grooming horses, and—along with several ranch hands—still helped her father on a daily basis. Checking water buckets and tossing out a little extra grain by herself would be child’s play.

“I know you can,” he told her, catching an arm around her shoulders. “But things will go faster and you’ll be able to get to bed quicker if we both do the work.”

She couldn’t argue with his logic, so she said nothing as they made their way across the grass-sprigged dirt yard to the big gray barn.

One half of the large double doors was propped open. They walked inside, and Emma flipped a switch to her left to turn on the lights. The uncovered bulbs dangling high above their heads weren’t very bright but illuminated enough of the building so that they could see what they were doing.

Mitch had spent so much time at the Double D as a child that he knew where everything was. The horses nickered at the interruption to their rest, and Mitch patted more than one equine nose as they passed.

While she shook a bit of fresh hay into each horse’s feed trough and checked to make sure they had clean water, Mitch hauled a bale outside. She knew he would carry the hay out a ways into the field, then spread it on the ground for the cattle to find during the night.

They finished at nearly the same time. She was wiping her hands on the seat of her jeans when he strolled back in, the leftover baling twine clutched in one hand. He hung the strings on a nail sticking out of a nearby beam, then turned to face her, hands on hips.

“All done?” he wanted to know.

“Just about.” Moving farther into the wide open space of the barn, she wrapped her fingers around the sides of the ladder that led to the loft and said, “I want to check on a new litter of kittens before we leave.”

She scurried up the ladder in a matter of seconds, creeping quietly across the straw-strewn floor in search of the kittens. The light up here was even weaker than down below, but she could still make out the shapes of stray bales and—hopefully—tiny bundles of fur.

A second later, a board squeaked behind her and she turned her head to see Mitch standing at the top of the ladder. Her stomach did another one of those queer flip-flops at the sight of him, then settled down to a dull simmer.

“You didn’t have to come up,” she whispered.

“I wanted to,” he said just as softly, but didn’t elaborate.

Deciding Mitch pretty much did what he wanted, whenever he wanted, she went back to looking for the kittens. She found them tucked together in a tight ball, nestled into a pile of loose straw in the corner. They were adorable, and so small she thought she could probably hold the entire brood of them in the palms of both hands.

There were five in total—two tabbies, one calico, one white, and one black with white feet and a streak of white on its nose. She’d been playing with them on an almost daily basis since she’d discovered them. They were old enough that their eyes were open but young enough that they still wobbled when they tried to walk.

Not wanting to disturb their rest, she intended to simply back away and leave them be, but then the mama cat appeared, rubbing between Emma’s legs before moving to her babies and lying down to let them feed. They immediately woke up and started nuzzling around their mother’s belly, and Emma took the opportunity to stroke their soft little heads and backs.

Most barn cats were afraid of people because they didn’t get handled as much as house cats, but from the time she was old enough to toddle around in her father’s footsteps, Emma had loved the odd collection of felines running around the property. Her father used to tell her to be careful or she’d stroke them all bald, but so far that hadn’t happened. Instead, they had a barn full of friendly cats that often came running when they heard the doors open and would pester for attention while you were trying to work.

“Cute,” Mitch murmured just above her left ear, startling her.

She straightened, covering her heart with her hand. For a moment, she’d forgotten he was there but wondered now how she ever could have made such a grievous error. His tall frame and broad shoulders filled the space around them like a sponge in a glass of water. His presence alone seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the air and make her short of breath.

“Well,” she said nervously, backing a step or two away, “I just wanted to see how they were doing. We can leave now.”

Instead of heading for the ladder to climb back to the main floor of the barn, Mitch moseyed over to a couple of bales of straw stacked against the far wall and sat down.

“What’s your hurry?” he asked, leaning back on his elbows until he was nearly lying flat. “If we wait for the kittens to fill their bellies, you might get to pet them again.”

Stuffing her hands into the hip pockets of her jeans, she rocked back on her heels. She could play with the kittens anytime, which he probably knew perfectly well. But he seemed to want to hang around a while longer, and she didn’t get the chance to talk to him very often anymore, especially alone. Besides, as tired as she’d been only half an hour ago at the picnic area, she didn’t feel at all sleepy now.