Learnin' The Ropes (35 page)

“Well, what about ya?”

“It’s… I don’t…” Ty stood and paced back and forth by the counter. “I just can’t talk about it. For Lexi’s sake, though, I need to keep our relationship strictly professional.”

Swede cackled at him, shaking a gnarled finger his direction. “It’s way too late for thet, pard. Way too late. In case ya ain’t noticed, ya both have fallen in too deep to try and go back now. If’n it were me, I’d keep right on swimmin’.”

“You don’t understand.” Exasperated, Ty wanted to hit something. “Lexi’s association with me isn’t ever going to be beneficial for her.”

“Who are ya to decide thet? Did the boss tell ya thet?” Swede asked. When Ty shook his head, Swede continued. “Thet is for Lex to decide, not yerself or nobody else. Give her the choice. Yer breakin’ thet sweet lil’ gal’s heart and I can’t hardly stand to watch. She cares for ya, son, more than ya realize. Don’t let what others think influence yer decision. Sometimes ya jes got to follow yer heart. Believe in yerself and follow yer heart.”

Swede got to his feet and ambled to the door. “Jan saved ya some dinner and a big piece of pie, if yer of a mind to come get it.”

“Thanks, Swede. I’ll be right in.”

Follow his heart.

Ty mulled over that idea as he finished cleaning up for the night and closed the shop door. It was much easier said than done because following it would lead him right to Lexi’s arms.

On a sweltering afternoon a few days later, Ty worked in the shop making repairs to the older farm pickup the ranch hands used to run around the Rockin’ R. Cal, who seemed to be particularly hard on equipment, busted a tie rod that morning and they needed the truck back in service sooner rather than later.

The opportunity to pound out his frustrations in repairs suited Ty just fine. He turned up his music, playing John Waite’s
Missing You
over and over, missing Lexi more each time the song repeated.

He was nearly finished with the repair when Baby barked outside. Wiping his greasy hands on a rag, he stuck his head out the door but didn’t see the dog anywhere.

After the encounter at the pond, he carefully avoided being around Lexi if at all possible and knew she was staying close to the house today. He didn’t want to run into her, but Baby’s insistent barking urged him to hurry.

He followed the sound of her barking to a small shed behind the ranch house where Lexi kept garden tools and the lawnmower. Baby stood in the open doorway, barking and whining.

“Baby, I told you to hush,” Ty heard Lexi caution. “I’ll get myself down just fine.”

Ty peered inside and saw Lexi’s jean-clad legs hanging over the edge of a small loft. With no windows in the building, he didn’t know how she could see anything up there with the minimal amount of light that came in through the door.

The footstool she’d used to climb into the loft had tipped over, leaving her trapped. He righted the stool and turned his face up toward Lexi as the door banged shut, leaving them in darkness.

“Oh,” Lexi said, startled by the sound and the lack of light.

Ty placed his hands on her feet, causing her to scream. “It’s just me Lexi Jo. I’ve got you.” His hands slid upward. She stopped screaming, turned over, and scooted to the edge of the loft trusting Ty to catch her as she pushed herself off the small landing.

She held her hands out, catching herself on his strong shoulders as she left the loft. Slowly sliding down the length of him, she held her breath and thought she might pass out from the sensations rocketing through her. When her feet touched the floor, he let her go.

“Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, taking a step back. Despite his efforts to open the door,  it wouldn’t budge.

“Thanks. I didn’t expect the door to slam shut.” Lexi reached toward the door and found it fixed in place.

“It appears to be stuck,” Ty commented.

Lexi pounded on the door. “Baby! If you’re blocking this door, you’re going to be in so much trouble. This is not okay, Baby. Move!” She pushed against the door and pounded it again. If the dog was on the other side of the door, she didn’t make a sound.

“Well, what do we do now?” Ty asked, afraid to move. There was barely room for one body to maneuver around in the small shed and everything from rakes to shovels hung on the walls on pegs. The riding lawnmower, a rototiller and weed eater took up what little floor space was available.

“Wait, I guess.” Conflicted, Lexi didn’t know if she should be annoyed or pleased with the dog. She could think of worse things than being locked in a shed with Ty. “Since we aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, how about we finish our talk from the other day?”

“I don’t think so.” He tried to distance himself from Lexi, knocking a garden hoe from the wall in the process. Before it maimed either of them, he caught it.

“Well, I happen to think it’s a great idea.” She leaned against the lawnmower. Enough light trickled in around the edges of the door that she could make out Ty’s form even if she couldn’t clearly see his face. “Talk to me, Ty. Tell me what I did so wrong that you can’t stand to be with me anymore.”

“Lexi,” Ty groaned, unable to stay away from her any longer. Softly, he rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “You didn’t do anything, babe. It’s all me.”

“What’s you, Ty. Please, tell me what’s wrong so we can make it right,” Lexi pleaded, stepping closer to him. “I miss you.”

Her scent filled his senses, her warmth seeped into his soul, and his resolve weakened. He hadn’t counted on being this close to her. Resisting her when she was so real, so inviting, was impossible.

“Warm in here, isn’t it?” Ty ran his hand through his hair, on the verge of suffocating. In an effort to cool down, he steadied himself against the door and yanked off his coverall. It didn’t help at all. His temperature spiked even higher when Lexi leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and holding on.

“Ty, just talk to me,” she whispered, absorbing his strength, his vitality, his very essence. Every deliciously carved muscle called to her through the thin, damp fabric of his tank top. “Please?”

“You need to forget about me, Lexi. And if I have to leave for that to happen, then I’ll move back to Portland. I have to let you go,” Ty said in misery. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want Lexi to let go of him. Not ever.

“Why? Why do I need to forget about you Ty? Tell me why. There must be some reason,” Lexi asked, desperate to know what had driven this wedge between them.

“It’s me, Lexi. Can’t you just leave it at that?”

She glared at him through the darkness. “No, I can’t. Everything was fine until we were on our way home from the rodeo. Did Uncle Rob say something to upset you?”

Ty sighed and ran his hands through his hair again, even though Lexi still tightly held to him.

“No. No one in your family said anything,” Ty assured her. “None of the guys said anything.”

She looked up at him. “Then who did? Who upset you?”

Trapped like they were in the shed with Lexi’s persistent questioning, Ty decided to tell her the truth. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You have to know.” She couldn’t make sense out of what he said.

“I overheard two guys talking outside the café when I went to get my phone. What they said wasn’t very nice about you and me… us.” He forced himself not to get angry all over again as he recalled what the men said. “I don’t want people to think I’m dating you because of who your dad was or how much money you have. The rumor seems to be that I charmed my way into your good graces just to get an easy ride. That isn’t true, Lexi. I don’t care if you’re penniless. I …”

“You what?” Lexi asked, pressing closer against him.

“I wouldn’t do that.” Still not ready to reveal his heart to Lexi, he held back. There’d be no turning back if he admitted his true feelings and he just couldn’t do that to her. He didn’t want her to feel obligated to say she felt the same way about him.

“I know you wouldn’t.” She hugged him and rested her head against his chest. His heart pounded in a fast rhythm beneath her ear. “I never thought you would, Ty. Why are you wasting so much time and effort worrying about what other people think? It isn’t any of your business what they think about you, anyway. The only person you need to worry about is you.”

“I know that, but what other people think can sure make things hard or easy on a person. I don’t want things to be hard for you.”

Lexi took Ty’s face in her hands and breathed in his scent. “Look, buckaroo, if I’m hearing you correctly, you’ve spent the last month making us both miserable in some gallant, though completely idiotic effort to protect me from gossiping nitwits?”

“When you say it like that it sounds stupid,” Ty said, agitated. He needed out of this shed. He needed Lexi out of his arms. He needed… to kiss her so very badly.

“What’s stupid is you letting this go on for a month when we could have had this conversation the day you got upset.  Now that I have assured you the gossiping doesn’t bother me at all, are you done sulking?”

“I haven’t been sulking,” Ty snapped. He turned around and knocked a shovel and rake off the wall. He caught the handles before they smacked into Lexi. It was dangerous to be in the shed locked up in such close proximity. The danger had little to do with garden tools and much more to do with his ability to maintain his cool around Lexi. “And I can’t date you anymore.”

“Why not? Do you find me that disgusting? Unappealing? Annoying? What is it about me that’s driving you away?” Lexi yelled, slapping at Ty’s chest. She’d been down this road with men before. Eventually, something turned them away from her. The last time, the excuse was her heritage, although she wouldn’t expect that from Ty. “What, Ty? Just tell me!”

“Nothing, babe,” he rasped. Tossing aside everything but how much he needed her, he gathered her into his arms and yielded to his desire to kiss her, just one more time. He devoured her lips, drank deeply from the honeyed sweetness that was all Lexi, and grew drunk from the experience. Finally breaking the contact, he put a hand to the back of her head and pulled her against his chest, holding her close. “There isn’t a single thing about you that I don’t find appealing. You drive me wild, Lexi Jo Ryan. Every laugh, every smile, every toss of your raven hair, every swing of that perfect posterior, every touch from your hand, and definitely every kiss. You make me forget anything else exists.”

“Ty,” Lexi breathed his name on a whisper, on a prayer. “Then what’s the problem?”

“Me. The problem is me.” He released a long sigh. “There isn’t a single thing, not one, that I can ever give you that you don’t already have or can’t buy yourself. I can’t provide for you. I can’t offer you anything. Except me.”

“That is the only thing I’m ever going to want from you, Ty. Just you. I don’t care about that other stuff. All I want is you.”

His lips claimed hers again while his heart neared the point of surrender.

 “Ty, I think I’m falling in love with you,” she whispered, giving in to the temptation to bury her hands in Ty’s hair.

He hugged her close again, pressing hot, moist lips to her neck. “I don’t have to think, Lexi Jo. I already know I’m in love with you.”

“You are?” She pulled back, trying to see his face, read his expression. “Really?”

“Yes, really. Do you think I would say it if I didn’t mean it?” Ty pulled her flush against him. The heat between the two of them might soon cause the shed to combust in flames.

“Generally, you say what you mean.” She rested her head on his chest again. “I’m so glad, Ty. I never expected to feel like this with anyone.”

“Me either.”

“So what are we…?”

Whatever Lexi wanted to say was swallowed by the urgent, passionate kiss Ty delivered to her willing lips. Wrapping his hands around her waist, he drew her so close, only a breath of space separated them. A spare garden hose slithered off its hook and twined around their feet.

Ty smiled against her mouth. “The first thing we are going to do is bust out of here if I have to drive the mower through the door. It’s hotter than a barbecue in Lucifer’s backyard, as Swede would say, and I’m going to be beaten to death by your garden equipment if we don’t leave soon.”

Lexi laughed and stepped back into the rototiller.

Ty stood at the door and tried to decide if the dog was still sitting in front of it. “Baby, I’m coming out so you better move. I’m not kidding around,” he cautioned before giving the door a hard shove. It flew open and banged back against the front of the shed. Fresh air flooded over him and he sucked in a big gulp.

He held a hand out to Lexi. She grinned and took it, tugging him toward the house with the promise of some iced tea and cookies for his trouble.

In the kitchen, Ty washed up while Lexi filled glasses with ice and poured tea. He sat down at the counter on a bar stool while she put cookies on a plate. When she tried to sit down beside him, he pulled her onto his lap and nuzzled her neck.

“I don’t want you that far away,” he whispered in her ear, making her limbs languid.

She held a glass of tea to her throat, trying to cool herself down. With Ty alternately nibbling cookies and her ear, it was difficult.