Authors: Anne Marsh

Burning Up (27 page)

BOOK: Burning Up

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B
lackhawk Ranch was running dry. Cabe Dawson had lost one well already and now the second had slowed to a trickle. There hadn't been enough rain this winter to fill the creek the ranch got its surface water from, and the two surviving wells fought to bring the water up nine hundred feet and into the baking, skin-drying heat of California summer. Now, as he steered his battered pickup over the dark dirt road, time seemed to slow to a heated, sensual shimmer with one driving urge pounding through them all: find water. Cattle needed it. Men wanted it. Cabe Dawson would be damned if he allowed a drought to take what he'd built here.

Making a living from the land meant fighting every step of the way. Fortunately, Cabe had never minded a good fight.

He'd planned for this day, already had the solution. There was water underneath the Jordan place. He held the mortgage on the neighboring ranch. All he had to do was foreclose and the land was his. He'd drill. The cattle would drink. They could all live happily fucking after.

Instead, he was waiting for Rose Jordan to bring her sweet little ass home so he could talk things out with her. For Auntie Dee's sake, he wanted to hand Rose a check and preserve the fiction he was buying her outânot spring the news about a reverse mortgage he was calling due after the older woman's death. He sure as hell didn't want to drag this through the courts. He didn't have the six months to wait. He needed that water now and he'd get it, but he didn't have to be a bully about it.

Unless Rose left him with no other option.

He owned this particular part of California and the ranch was feudal at heart. His word was law. He had the moneyâand the landâto back it up. Rose had her time to dally only because he'd decided to give it to her. Soon, however, he'd cut her off.

His cell buzzed and he flipped on the hands-free. “You track her down yet?” As always, Seth cut right to the chase. His brother had never been patient. Hell, he was more of a heat-guided missile, constantly seeking out his next adrenaline rush. That need made him a star on the rodeo circuit, but piss-poor at waiting for one woman to make up her mind to come back home.

The turnoff for the swimming hole appeared out of the nighttime shadows. Cabe guided the pickup over, the crunch of gravel beneath his tires threatening to drown out his brother's voice and then his own response.

“You know Rose. She's not picking up.” Or answering her e-mail or the three registered letters he'd had the lawyer send her way.

There was laughter in Seth's voice now, his earlier impatience forgotten. “Yeah. She'll get here when she gets here, Cabe. Our Rose never was an early bird. Plus, if she knows how badly you want her to come, she'll just take twice as long.”

That was certainly true. Rose had spent most of her high school years tormenting him. Teasing him. Worst part was, she'd had no clue what she did to him. What he'd wanted to do to
her.

She'd seen him as an older brother.

A boring, play-by-the-rules, too-strict older brother.

“This can't wait any longer,” he growled. The pickup emerged from a tunnel of trees and he killed the headlights, just soaking up the peace of the night. The pure quiet and the heat escaping slowly from the ground. “We can't wait any longer. The ranch needs that well, Seth.”

“We've got two wells left,” Seth pointed out, laughter gone.

“We had four.” The prospect of losing one inch of the ranch had Cabe gritting his teeth. This place, this land, was
his.
He'd damn well hold onto it, keep it together. He had too many families depending on him for a living and he'd poured himself into building the ranch one acre at a time. Rose Jordan would not stop him.

Rose, he suspected, was a born procrastinator. Cabe knew the type. Sure, he hadn't been close to her before she'd up and left Lonesomeâshe'd been too damned young, for one thingâbut he'd done a little watching. She was pure trouble, but good-hearted. She and his brothers had raised good-natured hell from one end of Lonesome to the other.

“She'll turn up, Cabe,” Seth said again. “She always does.”

“She'd better.” He was bone tired from a day that had begun before sunrise and had only just ended. He was hot, he smelled like sweat and horse and probably a dozen other things as well. Right now, a swim sounded perfect, exactly what he needed to cool down and think things through.

“I'm going for a swim.” Signing off, he tossed the cell onto the seat beside him and parked. The quiet surrounded him the second he got out of the truck. After a long day wrangling the ranch, he needed that. He needed to be alone.

Except he wasn't alone. Tucked into the edge of the road was a beat-up Honda he couldn't believe had made it down the dirt track.

Christ, he was sick and tired of the trespassers who thought ignoring the signs and the fences was just a game. High school kids had always enjoyed sneaking onto the ranch for a swim. Never mind that all those kids had to do was ask and follow a few basic rules.

He'd have said yes. Scrubbing a hand over his head, he grabbed the Stetson from the passenger's seat and jammed it on. Somehow, he'd got himself a reputation for being a mean-ass, coldhearted bastard. Of course, he also didn't give a damn about what folks said, which probably meant his fan club wasn't all that wrong.

Getting out of the truck, he carefully closed the door behind him. No point in advertising his presence until he had to. Tonight's trespassers were probably just kids but, damn it, it wasn't safe to swim out here alone. He'd warned them not to come at night and never to come alone. He needed to know when there was someone on his land. Too many things could happen out here if a man wasn't careful.

It took just minutes to get through the fringe of cottonwood trees ringing the swimming hole. Older than any of them, those trees had seen plenty. His brothers had had a rope and a tire swing here. They'd spent hours whooping it up, letting go as soon as that swing got out over the center of the pond where the deepest water was. Cold as hell, too, because that water came from deep underground.

As soon as he reached the edge, his feet stopped moving; tonight's swimmer was unexpected. He'd
expected
to find a few high school kids. Maybe a cooler of beer or a couple a little too busy discovering each other.

Instead, there was a woman in the water.

A damned fine, completely bare-ass naked woman.

She cut through the dark water with slow, lazy strokes. Not too tall and real damned curvy. He could see her sun-kissed skin even in the silvery moonlight. Water-slicked hair covered her bare shoulders and back. He should have been a gentleman, should have looked away. But damned if her swimming bare-ass naked in his swimming hole wasn't the sexiest thing he'd ever seen.

She dove beneath the surface, giving him a spectacular view of her ass. From where he stood, those curves looked soft as peaches and just as luscious. He wanted to cup both cheeks in his hands. Run his hands down that skin and explore every inch of her. Even the shadowed crease between her cheeks. Yeah, there, too, if she'd let him. He'd show her every dark, sweet pleasure.

A slow grin tugged the corners of his mouth. Hell, she'd have been safer if his hell-raising brothers had been the ones to find her.

He'd never pretended to be nice. He didn't have to. He owned this ranch. This world, this place, was
his
and here she was....

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ISBN: 978-0-7582-7916-3

BOOK: Burning Up

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