Cowboy Outcasts (7 page)

“What are you
going to do to me?”

His eyes cleared
for a moment. “Don’t flatter yourself, little girl,” he said. “When my daddy
was alive, do you know what he did when we misbehaved? He gave us the belt.” He
used one hand to secure her wrists above her head and used the other to slide
his thick leather belt from his Wranglers.

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“You think
there’s something good in me? You’re wrong. And I’m about to prove that.”

Her heart raced
as he made a loop with the belt. She’d never been spanked in her life, but
she’d always been an obedient child. He fought to unbutton her jeans and she
struggled to stop him. Once unfastened, he attempted to roll her to her belly.
No way would she willingly let him hide her ass.

“Stop, Callum!”
She was exhausted, near tears from frustration. His burst of energy appeared to
quickly diminish after she said his name, his movements sluggish. She could
feel some of his weight over her, the heat of his breath against her neck, and
his fingers interlocked with hers.

“You should
leave,” he whispered.

“No.”

He growled, an
exasperated sound of a man pushed to the edge. His hand travelled from her
hand, up her arm, until he reached the side of her neck. He stroked her skin
with his thumb. “I’m a monster,” he reminded.

“You’re not.”

When he dropped
his head again, she kissed his neck as he’d done to her in the morning. It felt
right. It also unleashed a floodgate of desire she didn’t realize resided
inside her. She continued to kiss him, nudging his face with hers, needing
more. The passionate release of emotion, combined with their physical exertion,
created a ripe atmosphere to explore their desires.

“Hailey…” He
relaxed his grip on her. She immediately began to touch his body, having craved
to feel his muscles every time she saw him. He was hard and toned, all male.
She slid one hand under his tank top, skin to skin.

“Kiss me,” she
begged. The air snapped with erotic tension. If he chose to fuck her right
there in the hay, she’d welcome it. Her body felt like a furnace, liquid heat
threatening to escape any minute.

When he turned
his face to hers, she licked the seam of his lips, but he didn’t give her
access. Why was he so reluctant? Was she alone in her desires? Had she pegged
him wrong all along and he really did hate her?

His breathing
was heavier but he still refused to act, finally pulling off her body and
standing. “Trust me. You don’t want a man like me.” Then he climbed down the
stairs leaving her achy and wanting.

****

Refusing Hailey
had been the hardest thing in the world for Callum to do. His cock was
painfully hard, every cell in his body screaming within him to take her, to
drown in her heat. Her pink lips were full and tempting. He wanted to feel them
brush against his, to know her entire body intimately.

When she had
first shown up, he didn’t even bat an eye. After only two days he’d already
developed a physical attraction to the girl. His fondness continued to grow, a
dangerous prospect for Callum. Men like him didn’t have families. They survived
on the fringe of society.

He’d been
humiliated at the market, ousted for his differences, brought down several pegs
in front of the only girl that mattered. She’d looked at him like a regular
man, treated him normally even when his Tourette’s got out of hand. It had been
a dream all along. Jeremy’s attack only proved a relationship would never work.
He was ashamed of who he was and would never be accepted by others, no matter
how much he wanted to fit in. Hailey deserved a normal life with a normal man.
He had a dark history, one filled with painful memories beginning when he was
just a young boy. One girl couldn’t undo decades of damage with sweet words and
promises of sex. He was a lost cause.

He kicked off
his boots after entering the kitchen. His symptoms were driving him nuts,
always acting up at the most inopportune times. Some days he’d scream as loud
as he could out in the fields, other times he’d punch a wall so hard his
knuckles would bleed. It was all in vain. His Tourette’s had no cure, no magic
pill, and nothing he did would ease the symptoms. His curse, one passed down
from generation to generation of O’Shea men, was his whether he deserved it or
not.
Arden
had
been lucky to escape unscathed, as normal as any other person. But he squandered
the gift of normalcy Callum yearned for, drinking his life away.

Callum crashed
onto his bed, hot, bothered, and angry with the world. He was used to Jeremy
and all the other assholes who felt they had the right to bring him down.
 
He’d learned to ignore them. Hailey was the
problem. In only a couple days she’d given him hope, made him dream of a life
that was never meant for him. He was better off before she showed up on his
doorstep.

He combed his
hands through his hair, staring at the ceiling. What if it took Hailey a month
to conduct her research? He had to avoid her at all costs. She was confused,
pumped up on the adrenaline from the earlier chaos. But once the dust settled
she’d realize what a loser he was, and what a mistake it would be to invest in
him. He may be a fuck-up, but he wouldn’t take advantage of a woman’s trust.

Chapter
Six

For the rest of
the week Hailey found fresh fruit and vegetables on the kitchen counter every
morning. She never saw Callum. He left the house before the sun rose and he
avoided her at every cost. She’d thought things were just starting to go well
between them…now she didn’t know what to think. She had to return to treating
the assignment as the research it was. Daydreams and fantasies about the Irish
cowboy would only serve to dampen her spirits.

She’d made minor
progress in tracking the hogs’ lifestyle, their eating and sleeping habits, and
preferred diet. She was testing sound deterrents, natural scents, and other
known wildlife inhibitors.

Hailey was boiling
some pasta late one afternoon when the screen door whacked shut. She jumped,
turning around in a hurry, nearly knocking over the pot.

“Why didn’t you tell
me you saw
Arden
at the market?” Callum’s voice was deep and irate. His accent was always more
defined when he was mad. This was the first time he’d acknowledged her
existence in days, and even though the attention was negative, she was glad to
hear his voice. She didn’t know how he handled the loneliness for a year alone.

“You haven’t exactly
spoken with me since.”

He paced the kitchen
until the door opened again. “That’s not the homecoming I was expecting,” said
Arden
. He watched Hailey
from across the room and it felt as if he undressed her with those narrowed
blue eyes.

“You left! What right
do you have to waltz back in after a year on the road?” asked Callum.

Arden
was the
opposite of his brother—calm, controlled, and confident. “I believe it’s my
name on the deed, little brother. Now stop being such a baby and welcome me
home proper.”

“I won’t. I’ve been
busting my balls on this ranch since you left. Not even a damned phone call
from you.”

They faced off as if
she wasn’t in the room. She felt like an outsider looking in.

“You think I want to
live like this, preserving a relic from the past? I want more from my life than
horse shit and lonely nights. You’re the one dead set in not selling, and
throwing your life away,” said
Arden
.

“If your ideas were so
great, then why are you back? Shouldn’t you be living the high life in the
city, sipping margaritas with your classy friends?”

“What? I can’t miss my
kid brother?”
Arden
pulled out a wooden chair and sat down, leaning over his knees. “You know I’ve
worried about you every day. And as soon as I get into town I find the same
assholes trying to pick a fight with you. This town has nothing for us,
Callum.”

“It’s our home. Mom
and Dad built everything on this ranch. How could you sell something that’s
priceless?”

“It’s time to move on.
I can’t fight for you forever.”

“We’re not in grade
school anymore,
Arden
.
You don’t have to beat down every jerk who tries to mock me. I can handle it. I
have
been handling it.”

Arden
grumbled his
disagreement. Once they’d both been silent for a few minutes, quietly
contemplating, they seemed to remember she was in the room with them at the
same moment.

“That’s right… I heard
you were keeping a cute young thing with you on the ranch, but I didn’t believe
it until I saw her at the market with my own eyes.”
Arden
stood up, his leather boots creaking.
He approached her, taking measured steps as if she were a skittish green broke
horse.

“She’s not mine. She
does research for the university.”

“An educated woman,”
said Arden, his gaze taking in every detail of her face. She swallowed hard.

“I’m–I’m trying to
help with the hogs.”
 
She bit her lip to
keep from talking. The man exuded raw sexuality, it was hard not to become
affected.

“It’s dinner hour.
That mean you’re staying on?”

She nodded.

“And where would you
be sleeping?” He stared at her like a hawk. He knew she was staying in his bed,
it was written all over his face. Her senses became magnified—the sound of the
boiling water behind her, the shift in Callum’s stance, and the barn door
flapping in the distance. Could
Arden
feel her anxiousness, her desire?

There was something
magical about this place, these two men. Her life at the university was another
realm where she was a different person, a nameless face where she had to fight
to be noticed. She felt more alive here, living simply, at one with nature.
 
The desperate need to advance, to prove
herself, didn’t overpower her thoughts on the O’Shea Ranch. She was discovering
herself after a lifetime of studying and stifling her emotions. It was more
important for her to learn about Callum, and to earn back his favor. Unraveling
a complex man was more engaging than learning about wild hogs.

“
Your
room,” she whispered in reply. He wasn’t reluctant to invade
her personal space. A faint scent of alcohol and musk clung to him. He reminded
her of the great outdoors, untamed and free.

“Now that’ll be a
problem.”

“Leave her alone,”
said Callum. “You’ve been in town for nearly a week, so you’ve obviously been
staying somewhere. Maybe you should go there now.”

****

Arden
had perfected
the ability to control his temper over the years. He had hot blood from his
father running through his veins. It wasn’t easy to rile him but mess with his
family and he couldn’t hold back. Fighting came natural to him. It got him
kicked out of high school more times than he could count, and he had the scars
to prove it. The O’Shea reputation started with their father not taking shit
when local distributors tried to rip him off by paying less per ton than other non-Irish
farmers. It carried on when
Arden
refused to let the school boys tease his brother.

Callum meant the world
to him. He was the reason he’d stayed on the family ranch for so long. He felt
a duty to be his little brother’s protector, to maintain that one familial link
left in his life.

He’d tried to leave,
but he found drifting to not be all he expected. He was thirty-two now and the
cowboys he competed against in the rodeo were twenty-year olds in the prime of
their career. He couldn’t compete with that. He found he spent more time in
local pubs trying to forget absolutely everything—his parents, his brother, his
career…his loneliness.

He could tell Callum
had a thing for the little blonde. She was cute, an air of innocence
surrounding her. He usually went for confident women, experienced in pleasuring
a man. He wasn’t below paying for sex, either. It was simpler that way—no
emotional bother. But since the girl was staying in his bed, she was fair game.

“Maybe I’ll just have
to share a bed with… What’s your name, sweet thing?”

“Hailey Watson.”

“Pretty.” He ran the
backs of his fingers along her jaw, watching her quickly fall for his charms.
It was so easy. Then Callum’s heavy hand came down on his shoulder, forcing him
to turn around.

“There’s plenty of
good hay in the barn.”

Maybe little brother
liked Ms. Watson more than he expected. He’d never seen Callum act so possessively.
He usually drifted through life, trying to steer clear from everyone. The fact
he let someone stay on the ranch was shocking.

“No, I’ve come a long
way to enjoy my own bed,” said
Arden
.
 
“I’ve been dreaming about it all those nights
on the road.”