Bad Boy, Big Heart (Heart of the Boy Book 1) Read online

  K.C. leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “What gets into men? Jamie…he must be able to get enough women without having to drug them! Why do you think…why do you think you can just grab women and do what the hell you want?”

  Chay drew air into his lungs. “I know you’re putting me in the same category as Jamie; I know it was wrong to steal that kiss the other night. It was just…it was just….”

  “I was there? I asked for it? What? What do you think, girls are just asking for it all the time?”

  “No! Not at all. It was the night before the guest season officially started, and I had the dumb skateboard, and we were all laughing and playing around, and then you came in and looked so damn beautiful and, it just…it just happened. That’s all. It was a kiss, for chrissake. It wasn’t, like, a tumble on the floor or something. It was just a kiss.”

  “Well, next time you want to kiss someone, ask first.”

  Chay could hear what he thought might be a giggle. He smiled to himself. “I’ll remember that, K.C.” he asserted, “I’ll keep that in mind.” And he would. He would take things slow, court her, woo her, win her. And ask….

  * * *

  K.C. kept her eyes ahead as Chay pulled into the parking area nearest the women’s bunkhouse. As he pulled the key out of the ignition and turned to her, she felt an emptiness flow through her veins, a sudden questioning if she had done the right thing coming here for the summer, if she knew what she really wanted. Mulling this over, she said nothing, Chay’s gaze steady on her, waiting.

  “Do you want me to get Breezy? Maybe you ought to be with another woman?”

  “No. Breezy’s probably asleep by now and, anyway, Breezy’s a bit—”

  “Too breezy?”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” She looked at the bandana in her hands. “I’ll wash this for you.”

  “It’s all right. You can keep it. Though I hope you don’t need it again. Unless you want to go for a ride one day.”

  “Maybe.” She tucked it into her pocket then, noticing her shirt was still open, pulled it closed. “Bastard popped all my buttons off, I think.” Embarrassment crept over her, and she pulled the shirt tighter.

  “It’s all right, don’t worry about it. I’m not looking.” He smiled.

  K.C. exhaled a near laugh. “Breezy tried to warn me, I think. I’m not sure, but maybe she had heard rumors, too.” She turned to him and her heart suddenly jumped. Boy, had she made a mistake. She should have gone along with the joke last Saturday night, enjoyed the kiss, and given back as good as she could. Instead, she had acted like a stuck up, cold, snooty little girl, and look where it had landed her. Chay probably would never make another try, even if it were just for the summer. Better to have a relationship with him for a time than no relationship with him at all. “I shouldn’t keep you,” she said at last.

  “K.C.” He reached across and gently took her chin, turning her head toward him. “You stay here as long as you like, as long as you need.”

  She managed a small smile. “What will you tell Bob?”

  “The truth. He has to know.” He hesitated. “I don’t suppose you want to press charges?”

  “Oh, no. Not unless you think he’ll press charges against you or something. But if not, it’s just best left alone. I don’t want my parents to know. They’d just ask me to come straight home. You know….”

  “But you’re…what? Twenty-one? Twenty-two? Surely you make your own decisions?”

  “I do. But it isn’t always that easy. They’re paying for my education so I don’t have a student loan; it gives them an amount of…of rights, I guess, to ask me or at least suggest certain things.” She turned her purse over in her hands. “I don’t want them to know,” she repeated firmly, “but I don’t want him to do it to some other girl either. Maybe we can just tell everyone and make it widely known?”

  “All right. I’ll tell Bob and see what can be done.” He glanced toward the women’s bunkhouse where the darkness spelled emptiness. “I guess Dakota is still in town with the men. Saturday night, they won’t be back ’til late.”

  “I’ll be all right.” She released the handle on the door and slid out.

  Chay got out and walked around to gaze down at K.C., bedraggled and dirty, clothes ripped, hair a mess.

  “I….”

  “Tell me,” he spoke just above a murmur. “Tell me what you want to do and I’ll do it.”

  K.C. looked up into Chay’s face, somehow managing to smile. Up above, a full moon, joined by a white spill of stars on this clear night, glinted off the truck and cast moon shadows on the ground. Somewhere off in the distance a coyote howled, and an owl flew out of a tree making K.C. jump. She looked back at him once more.

  “I just want to be held,” she said quietly. “I just want to be held.”

  Chapter Six

  K.C. was licking her lips over a piece of cheesecake when Breezy ambled over.

  “I heard,” she said in an undertone. “I’m so sorry, K.C. I really didn’t know or I certainly would have told you. All I knew was Jamie could be very unpleasant but nothing like that. You know, spoiled brat unpleasant.”

  K.C. gulped down another mouthful. “Well, he certainly was ‘unpleasant’ and a ‘spoiled brat.’”

  “Are you all right? You know if you ever want to talk about it or need a shoulder, mine is at the ready. And you know where to find me, though I suspect you have another shoulder in mind.” She tipped her head toward Chay, who had just come in and was chatting with one of the guests.

  K.C. glanced across as he squatted down to speak with a little girl, tilting his hat back off his face and giving the child a wink as he rose again. Her stomach did a back flip.

  “So how do you like the cheesecake?” Breezy was saying. “It’s my own recipe—chocolate mocha cheesecake. You seem to be doing pretty well with it but, of course, you may only be eating it to be polite.” She sauntered off in a stream of giggles.

  And then a second fork was coming from above into that cheesecake.

  “Do you always just take what you want?”

  “Oh, shit, I’m supposed to ask! Sorry.” Chay slid into the chair opposite her at the long refectory table. He looked her in the eye. “May I please have a bite of your cheesecake?”

  “Why don’t you get your own? In fact, shouldn’t you be starting with lunch and then dessert?”

  “Had a sack lunch and got in earlier than expected.” His fork dangled threateningly over the waiting slice before he swung the fork like a pendulum.

  “Oh, go on then. I guess you deserve it.”

  Chay shoved a forkful into his mouth, having obvious difficulty chewing as he was smiling so much. Finally he got it down, stretched to grab a napkin from another clean place setting, and gave a wide grin to K.C. “Am I your hero, then? Riding in to save the day? How are you?”

  “I’m fine. Thanks. Fine, but reluctant to keep telling everyone I’m fine.”

  “Okay then, message received.”

  K.C. studied him for a moment, melting at his pale green eyes. She suddenly reached across and gently poked the small dimple in his chin. Oh dear, what was she going to do about this man?

  “You’re supposed to ask, aren’t you? You can’t just go around poking people in the chin, can you?”

  “Golly. What have I started?”

  “I don’t know. What have you started?” The smile was replaced by a very direct look.

  “I…I’ve been told things about you. I don’t want to be a summer romance. And I do have to leave at the end of the summer, and the summer is fast fading.”

  “It’s only June, K.C.” He hesitated before, “What sort of things were you told?”

  K.C. looked around to make sure they weren’t being overheard. “That you like to…to date the girls who work in the office because we leave at the end of the summer, and it makes for a clean break.”

  “True.”

  K.C. blinked at his honesty.

  “But it doesn’t mean it w
ill always be the case.” Chay fidgeted on his chair. “What time do you get off? Let’s go for a ride. You do ride, don’t you?”

  “I ride…English.”

  “Oh, yeah. Bob said something about that. That can be fixed. So what time?”

  “Five-thirty weekdays, Saturday noon as long as the check-outs are complete. Sunday is hit or miss; I work virtually all day until all the check-ins are done.”

  “Hmmm. I’m taking out a pack trip tomorrow, back Friday. Meet me down at the barns as soon as you’re off Saturday.” Chay swung out of the chair and stood, then leaned in and stabbed one more bite of cheesecake. “Saving you calories,” he said. “You’d be amazed at what goes into this.” And with that, he stuffed the piece in his mouth and was off.

  K.C. sat there, turning over Chay’s words in her mind: ‘It doesn’t mean it will always be the case.’ Yet the fact was, her Master’s degree meant two years…oh, what was she thinking? That was way ahead and, while she knew she was deeply attracted to Chay, it didn’t necessarily mean…. She stared at the remaining cheesecake on her plate, then pushed it away.

  What was ‘the case’?

  * * *

  Chay waited patiently mending some tack until he heard K.C.’s call. Striding out of the barn, he was hit by the loveliness of this girl, kitted out for a western ride, her long hair now tied back in a pony tail, and his bandana around her neck.

  “So, western, huh?” She mock-scowled at him. “Am I up for this, I wonder? Oh, and Breezy made us these two lunches.”

  “Brilliant Breezy.” He took the bags. “You’re going to be up on that horse there in a minute. Get yourself over the fence or through the gate if you prefer.”

  K.C. clambered onto the fence and dropped down the other side.

  Chay couldn’t help admiring her curves in those jeans, and then wondered how he was going to keep his hands off her. Trying to keep himself under control, he followed K.C. into the meadow, jumping down off the fence and facing her. “So, I’m riding Dusty,” he said with a sweep of his hand toward his horse, “and you’re riding Butt-buster,” he said with a smirk.

  K.C. put her hands on her hips and regarded him. “What is his real name?”

  There was a momentary standoff while Chay considered continuing the ruse.

  “Widow-maker?”

  She shook her head ‘no.’

  Nope, she obviously was too smart for those silly dude ranch jokes. “Really?” he said at last. “His name is Sprint.”

  “Uhhh…”

  “And his name is Sprint because he’s slow and gentle. That’s the way we do things…here in Wyoming.” Suppressing a smile, he went to put the lunches in his saddlebag before tightening the cinches on the saddled horses. When he looked back at her, she was smiling. “I’ll give you a leg-up.”

  “I think I can manage, thanks.”

  Chay held the horse while K.C. swung herself into the saddle, then handed her the reins. “Not two-handed, one hand. How could I rope if I had to hold the reins separately?” He looked at her feet. “I’ll adjust the stirrups; these are too short.”

  “But….”

  “Western! Remember?”

  Chay finished the adjustments, stood back to make sure they were even, and then swung onto his palomino.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To one of the finest views in the Tetons. Follow me!”

  Popcorn clouds spotted the blue of the sky in an infinite expanse, as if millions of mirrors reflected the same billows again and again. The scent of the pines drifted on the wind, a perfume Chay loved.

  He felt at home here, happy, at peace with himself. His life may not have turned out exactly the way he wanted, but when he looked around at the fortress of mountains that encircled his home, he couldn’t help but be content. He slowed his horse to a walk and waited for K.C. to come up. “How do you like it?”

  “Pretty amazing, pretty darn good! Is this what you wanted me to see?”

  “This is part of it, but we have a ways to go yet.”

  They rode on until Chay led them down a small coulee the river wound through. In late June, the water was still high with the snowmelt, but Chay knew where they could ford, and K.C. followed him. Then they rode the horses up the other side, and the plain opened out before them.

  “Wow!” K.C. gasped.

  “Pretty good, huh?” The two horses were alongside, and Chay badly wanted to lean over and steal another kiss. “Shall we have lunch here? Near the river?”

  “All right.”

  * * *

  Disappointed he hadn’t just leaned in and kissed her, K.C. knew that privation was her own damn fault. Ask before you kiss, indeed! What the heck had she been thinking? Now her body was screaming ‘kiss me, kiss me’ for all it was worth.

  They dismounted, and Chay loosened his horse’s cinch before leaving him ground-tied. K.C. studied Chay—the lanky, muscular body, the quick and purposeful way his hands moved and when he turned….

  He handed her the two lunches before looking after Sprint, then went back to untie a blanket from his saddle. “How about here? So we get some shade?” He nodded to the tree, and K.C. stood back as he flung out the blanket and lay it on a patch of grass. “After you, madam. Or miss….”

  “K.C. will do, thanks.” She sat cross-legged with the lunches in her lap and watched as Chay folded his full length to sitting.

  He removed his hat and laid it beside him, then ran his hand through his hair.

  K.C. felt her heart fluttering in her chest. As he looked at her with those sea- green eyes, the color of a shallow pond, she noted the little half circles around his mouth that made his smile so enticing. She turned away to look at the view, feeling he could read her mind.

  “K.C.? Lunch?” he said pointing to the bags in her lap.

  “Sorry!”

  She handed one across to him and they each pulled out their sandwiches. It was quiet, punctuated by bird song and the rustle of leaves in the wind, the water rushing over the rocks nearby. K.C. had lost her appetite but managed to take small bites of the sandwich, her silence speaking more than words.

  Chay put his sandwich down and reached across, pulling her face around from the view to look at him. “I don’t want a summer romance. And ‘romance’ is…it almost implies ‘temporary.’ But I don’t know what I can offer you—I haven’t anything to offer you. I know I want some kind of relationship with you; after that, all I can say is we’d have to see how far it goes.”

  “I don’t…I don’t understand what you mean by you can’t offer me anything. I don’t want anything. I only know I have a place at NYU and I have to go back at the end of the summer. It’s two years, and, after, I’ll be hunting for a job.”

  Chay looked at her as if he were considering the situation. “My father can’t really care for himself, K.C. He’s been ill. I’m working to pay off the property taxes, utilities, heating, and so on. I don’t make much and—”

  “Why…why don’t you sell? Couldn’t he live somewhere cheaper?”

  “It’s a homestead. It’s been in our family since the 1800s. It’s not much to look at, and our livestock are all gone, but it’s our home and it’ll be mine. Right now, the land is leased out to another ranch. Anyway, I can’t move him—he wouldn’t…let’s just say he won’t move.” He picked up the paper bag, blew into it, then slammed it to burst. “So, that’s my tale of woe. That’s why I don’t, or didn’t, want a permanent relationship. Would those other summer girls have lasted in a relationship with me? I doubt it. No one I’ve ever gone around with from the ranch has wanted to stay on. Like you, they have lives somewhere else. But unlike with them, I now care. I never felt about them the way I feel about you. I care for you—very much.”

  “You don’t really know me,” she said softly.

  “I know enough. Kirsten.” He leaned in. “And one thing I know is I’m not going to keep asking if I can kiss you.”

  His face hovered so close to hers, she could see the
tiny specks in the green of his eyes, like leaves floating on a pond. She leaned slightly into him and let her lips be captured, let his hands hold her face gently so the kiss went deeper, and his tongue found the cavern of her mouth, his lips arresting her own. K.C. felt as if that kiss went down to her toes, moved through her body like some warming drink, quenching the thirst she had for him. Her toes curled with the delight of it, and her heart ached as he pulled away.

  “And the C?” he asked smiling at her, his hand resting on her shoulder.

  “The sea?”

  “K.C.?”

  “Charlotte. And the Chay? Is that your given name?”

  “Charles.”

  “So, we’re not really who we say we are.”

  He laughed. “Well…apparently my mother didn’t want me called Charlie; she thought Chay sounded better.”

  “It sounds great to me.”

  Chay rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and gazed out on the view. “Come here, you, whoever you are.” He pulled K.C. to sit in front of him, his arms about her and his chin resting on her head. “What do you think of that out there? You like that?”

  “Uh huh. Almost as much as I like being right here.”

  “Right here, huh? Right here?” He tightened his grip around her and kissed the top of her head.

  “Yup. I think I could stay here forever,” she said softly.

  Chay kissed the top of her head once again. “Glad to hear it, pal.”

  Chapter Seven

  Chay strode into the office to find K.C. surrounded by boxes of Fourth of July decorations. Streamers and little flags several inches deep covered her desk.

  “Three cheers for the red, white, and blue,” he said.

  “Oh, hi. I have to figure where I want to put all this stuff. It seems Bob bought more decorations than we need. Did you see the corrals and how nice they look for dancing with the wood flooring down? Were the horses moved way out?”

  “Yes, ma’am and yes, ma’am. All livestock way out and hopefully no stampedes possible.” He leaned in to steal a kiss just as the office door opened with a gentle tap. Turning to greet whoever it was, he was faced with a middle-aged couple, well-heeled and well-manicured, who eyed him without so much as a smile. Not recognizing them as guests, he thought it best to leave any necessary discussion to K.C., but when he turned to her to say good-bye, she was white as a Wyoming winter.