Cowgirl Fever (Novak Springs Book 1) (15 page)

Dallas had finished feeding the horses in the barn and started stacking some bales of hay when he heard a group of female voices chattering outside. He had lost track of time trying to get as many chores done as he could before having to deal with the scavenger hunt Emma had planned. The only bright spot in the situation was that he had guaranteed that Ginnifer would be on his team. The night he had spent with her wrapped in his arms had to be the best night of his life. If he got his way, she would be there every night. He stopped as he thought about that. Yeah, he wanted her there every single night. Not just while she was on vacation at Novak Springs. It shocked him to realize how much she had begun to mean to him in a very short time. He still wasn’t ready to make any commitments. The last time he tried that it had been a disaster. When he proposed to Melody, he had believed she was the love of his life. He was blinded by her beauty and energetic personality. He wasn’t sure what he felt for Ginnifer. The only thing he was certain of was he was nowhere near ready for things to end between them. There had to be a way for them to continue seeing each other. He tabled that idea, a bale of hay still in his hands as he turned to find four women approaching from behind. He didn’t get a clear look at the other three. Dallas had eyes for only one of them. Ginnifer was leading the pack with a grimace on her face. It took everything he had not to laugh at her expression. Apparently she wasn’t too happy with the chattering females behind her. If he had any doubts about how perfect she was for him, that look erased all doubt. There was no one else he would rather spend time with than her. Dallas admired her for her beauty and charm. Ginnifer was brilliant and full of spunk. It also helped a great deal that she was willing to try just about anything. Gin was his equal in every way.

Ginnifer stopped directly in front of him and tilted her head, gesturing to the group behind her as she said in a mocking tone, “We’re ready for you to lead us, oh Great One.”

Dallas laughed at her sarcastic remark. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her. Unfortunately he knew she wouldn’t allow that in front of the other women. The only thing really stopping him was he didn’t know how it would make her feel. Not at this stage of their relationship anyway. They were still on very shaky ground in this tumultuous liaison; they were embroiled with each other. He looked over at the three females and dropped the bale of hay he had been holding. A beautiful woman with dark-black curly hair was practically bounding around in front of him. Her curves were endless, and her breasts were as perky as he remembered. He had only one thought before she threw herself at him. What the fuck is Melody doing at Novak Springs?

Melody wrapped her arms around him and brought his head down for a kiss. Dallas was too stunned to stop her. He stood there immobilized for what seemed like an eternity before he was able to push her away. He was baffled because he had no clue how to deal with his ex-fiancée standing in front of him. If someone had asked him the last person he thought would ever show up on the ranch, Melody would have topped the list in bold letters and triple starred. When she ended their relationship, she had made it obvious she never wanted to see him again. She had made it clear in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t made out to be a rancher’s wife. All she wanted to do was open her own studio and teach yoga. Dallas groaned as he remembered exactly what the name of his sister’s program was, fucking Cowgirl Yoga. There was no way he could have ever foreseen this possibility. Emma had no clue that Melody was his ex-fiancée and probably hadn’t thought twice about hiring her. They had never been introduced, and Dallas refused to talk about her. Her name never left his lips once it had ended between them. Hell, he hadn’t even asked her who she hired to help with her program. Wes was the only one that actually knew his ex-fiancée’s name. Melody knew everything about his family, though. Dallas talked about them all constantly with her. He had wanted her prepared to meet them when he introduced her to his family. It was important to him that she understood his family and gained acceptance. Melody had been his everything back then. So she had probably used her knowledge of his family to get hired for the Cowgirl Yoga program. It wouldn’t surprise him if she hadn’t bothered to inform Emma of her previous relationship with him. There was no way Emma would have hired her if she had known exactly who Melody was.

He tried to block her out, but Melody’s energy was infectious. It couldn’t be ignored, even when that was all you wanted to do. She was bouncing around in front of him, her mouth going a mile a minute. Dallas hadn’t heard a word she said while he was lost in his own horror. He stopped when he heard her say, “It’s so good we are getting back together, Dallie. I’m so glad I found you again. I’ve been on this ranch for days, and you’ve been nowhere to be seen.”

“Wait a minute, what?” He couldn’t have heard her right. Did she say they were back together? Had the woman lost her fucking mind since they broke up?

Melody kept rubbing herself all over him and petting his chest. She was doing her best to gain his attention. Unfortunately it was working, just not in the way she was hoping it would. Her breasts jutted out as she leaned back to show them at their best advantage. “I’ve missed you sooo much. Aren’t you glad to see me?”

He couldn’t deal with her right now. Dallas needed to put as much distance as he could between the two of them before he did something he would regret. Melody hadn’t changed at all. She was as selfish as she was beautiful. It was like watching a cobra and waiting for it to strike. Its beauty was as mesmerizing as it was deadly. Staying clear of its poison was almost impossible. Once you allowed yourself to be sucked in, the venom would destroy your soul. All Dallas could think about as he looked at her was he hoped the scavenger hunt got over in record speed. This shit storm was about to become one for the record books.

He pushed Melody to the side and asked the group in general, “Who’s got the list?”

Ginnifer stepped over and handed him the scavenger hunt list. The look of betrayal in her eyes seared him to his soul. Dallas couldn’t deal with her any more than he could deal with Melody. He needed space to breathe—to think. This damned scavenger hunt needed to end and fast. He gritted his teeth and took the list from Ginnifer. Looking over the list, he turned away from the group and barked out orders to them. With irritation filling his voice he said, “Okay, ladies, follow me. I don’t have a lot of time for nonsense.” He started to walk away, hoping they were following him because he wasn’t stopping to make sure.

***

When Ginnifer had first walked into the barn, Dallas’s face had lit up when he saw her. For a brief moment she felt her heart skip a beat as it hoped his feelings mirrored her own. So it was a disappointment to her core to witness his reaction to Melody. Her heart sank to a bottomless pit as she watched him interact with Miss Chatterbox. His face had lost all of its color when she had entered his sight. Melody didn’t notice her effect on him or she didn’t care. She threw herself into his arms and started kissing him. Ginnifer wanted to rip her hair out, but she knew she didn’t really have a claim on Dallas. Her chest hurt, and she rubbed her hand over it trying to make the agony go away. Dallas didn’t contradict anything Melody was saying or bother to stop her or correct her assumptions about getting back together. Ginnifer thought, maybe he had really loved the woman. She had not thought it was possible until she saw how he reacted to seeing her. Melody had meant something to him. What she was unsure of was if the little sneak still meant something to him.

When Dallas had ordered them to follow him, there wasn’t anything she could do but follow his orders. She could have taken the easy road and detoured back to her cabin, but Ginnifer never did do things the simple way. She faced her problems head on and wasn’t about to change now when her heart was being ripped from her chest. The only time she gave up was when it was obvious that fighting would be a wasted effort. It was starting to look like she was heading down a path to nowhere. Going on a scavenger hunt was one thing, continuing to smash your heart to pieces was the act of a masochist. Ginnifer had never been overly fond of extreme pain and wasn’t about to find pleasure in it now. If only she had some answers about how he felt about Melody, this whole situation would be so much easier. The pain stinging her heart wasn’t lessening any. If anything, it grew more excruciating the more time she spent in his company.

No, she would follow his lead on the scavenger hunt, but then she needed to step away and never look back. Ginnifer continued to follow Dallas to wherever he was leading them. He was their group leader, after all, and knew the ranch better than they ever could. Melody had skipped ahead and wrapped her arm around Dallas’s. She was chirping away as they walked, talking about everything and anything. Ginnifer tried to block her out as she stayed back with Cassidy and Shelly. She tried to numb her feelings. Nothing was working to make the ache go away. A piece of her soul had been ripped out of her body. That kind of hurt didn’t lessen with a few deep breaths and a will to make it stop. Ginnifer shrugged her shoulders and braced herself with all of the energy she could muster. It was going to take everything she had to not kill Dallas and his strumpet.

“What’s the first thing we are going to find, Dallie?” Melody asked.

Lord help her. If she keeps calling him that, Ginnifer wouldn’t be able to help herself. The woman would become a bloody mess lying at her feet. Dallas must have had a similar thought because he looked at Melody and practically growled his displeasure. “Stop calling me that. It’s annoying.”

“You never minded before.” A full pout developed on Melody’s face.

“It never bothered me before, Mel. Let go of me, I need to get a look at this list.”

Well, that was a little better. At least he stopped her from hanging all over him. Is this day ever going to end? Ginnifer had serious doubts that it would. She was seriously in hell. One of the fates surely hated her for subjecting her to this torture.

“Most of this stuff is over in the barn we use for the rodeo roundup camp. Follow me. We can get more than half of this done in thirty minutes. The rest will require a hike out to the back pasture,” Dallas told the group.

They all tromped behind him as he led them to the barn. He was right; a lot of the stuff listed was in the barn. They quickly took pictures of it all and checked it off of the list. Ginnifer sincerely hoped the rest of the list would go equally as fast. All they had left was a pasture, goat, horse, and barbed-wire fence. There were the bonus point items, but they didn’t have to find those. Once they were done with the items inside of the barn, he told them to follow him. They had a bit of a hike to make it to the pasture with the horse and goat in it. Ginnifer geared herself for the hike with the hope she would only be subjected to their company for no more than an hour.

The trek to the back pasture didn’t take more than twenty minutes. The items on the list took less than five minutes to catalog and take pictures of with Ginnifer’s phone. The only things left on the list were the stupid snake, a wolf, and some plant she had never heard of. As she made sure the pictures she had taken were saved on her phone, she felt something slither across her foot. She looked down and screamed as a huge snake was winding its way around her leg. Ginnifer stood still as fear spread throughout her body. She couldn’t move if she wanted to, afraid of what would happen if she did. The snake that was crawling all over her leg was at least six-feet long with dark reddish-brown spots on its yellow back. There was a dark stripe running from its eye around its jaw. Underneath it looked like it had a yellow belly with more dark spots.

When she screamed, Dallas turned to look at her. When she hadn’t moved, he must have thought it was serious because after a few minutes he started walking over to figure out what the problem was. When he looked down and saw the snake twining around her legs, amusement glowed from his expression. His laugher floated around her like a strong wind enveloping her whole body. “Looky here, Gin found you guys a gopher snake. Take a picture of that so you can add it to your bonus board.”

Her group stood there with their mouths gaping open. All three of the women were in as much shock as Ginnifer was. They gained their composure quicker, though. They didn’t have the experience of having the damned snake crawling all over them. Ginnifer was still stunned by the experience and didn’t move an inch. When he instructed her to take a picture of it, she couldn’t move to save her life. Snakes and her did not get along. She hated the damn things, and there was no way she was moving until it was no longer wrapping its body around hers. Dallas shook his head at her, took her phone out of her hands, and snapped a picture. After the picture was taken, he put the phone in his back pocket and reached down and untangled the snake from Ginnifer. He walked away and placed it on the other side of the pasture. When he turned around, he saw that Ginnifer still hadn’t moved from the spot she was standing in.

Dallas strolled over to her to her side. “It’s okay to move now. That snake isn’t going to come back here to bother you.”

With eyes still glazed over in shock, the only word she could get out was, “Promise?”

A soft smile crossed his face. “Absolutely.”

With that Ginnifer allowed herself to relax for the first time in several minutes. She started to shake with relief, and Dallas pulled her into his arms. He hugged her close until she no longer felt the tremors overcoming her body. “Ssh, it’s okay, Gin, the big bad snake is long gone.”

A laugh escaped her mouth when he whispered those words in her ear. She looked up at him with a wobbly smile. “I’m okay, thank you. I’m petrified of snakes.”