Seducing the Bachelor (The Bachelor Auction Returns Book 3) (10 page)

“Talon. I will.”

“Really?”

Her doubt was another one-two punch. He knew what it was like to never quite belong. To move around so much early in life, have no control. The army had given him a home. Jenna and Parker had given Talon a home, but she’d lost Jenna. Still not security, but she kept getting back up, and he respected the hell out of that.

His throat felt too closed to speak so he resorted, like he almost always did, to action. He wrapped an arm around her waist. “Hold on.”

With his other hand, he reached up, giving her a little time to freak out, but she surprised him. No, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed her body tightly against his. Her eyes stayed on his, and he actually felt more connected to her in that moment than he had last night when he’d been kissing her.

Their air mingled and he didn’t try to hide his desire. Her eyes darkened when she realized, and her breathing changed. God, they were so attuned to each other. How was that even possible? They were so different. No history. Somehow, with Talon, he felt like some of his inner grime was scraped away, making room for a shaft of light.

“One more.” He told her.

He did it again and she buried her face against his neck. Her warmth seemed to seep inside of him and her lightly floral scent made him want to unsnap the buttons on her western shirt and inhale her. Reach up, and pull.

“No tank today?” He couldn’t keep the question back.

“No.”

And he just got harder. Colt wished the platform had been quite a bit higher, like on top of Copper Mountain, so he’d have an excuse to keep holding her. He angled himself, gripped her hips, letting his fingers linger and brand, and lifted her to the edge of the open part of the platform so she was sitting on the edge. He forced himself to let go.

In the dappled light, he could see her irises, really see them up close. Flecks of darker blue, and a bit of grey, which gave them an almost eerie look as if a light were shining out of them, seeing him, really seeing all the way into his soul, or where his should have been.

“God, you’re beautiful.” He couldn’t help the words.

She looked stunned, and then her face lit up, first with happiness and then doubt. He’d never seen so many expressions flit across someone’s face. So open. Nothing hidden. “Really? For real? Or are you just…”

He placed his finger over her mouth, not able to silence her doubt with words. He wasn’t good with them, but he didn’t want her to express such self-doubt. It was too raw. He didn’t want her feeling so exposed, especially to him.

Her bottom lip was so plump, naturally dark pink, which distracted him immediately, especially when her lips parted. She inhaled quickly, which went straight to his groin.

“That’s one way to cause a different reaction,” he said, striving for self-derision. “Now I have an entirely different problem.”

“Really?” the husky, breathy voice made him want to bury himself in her silky heat of her mouth with a fierceness that astonished him.

He’d been with a lot of women, quick and casual, entirely physical, because he always made it clear he had one foot out the door already, but this was… this was…he had no idea what this was. And he didn’t have anywhere he had to be for four weeks. Four weeks! He’d never taken so much leave, but on his last mandatory psych eval, the doc had strongly worded that Colt should get stateside and take some time off, completely away from base.

Yeah, yeah. He’d heard that before and had ignored it, as had his CO, until this time. He’d been told to take the time, settle up his uncle’s so called estate and not re-sign until after his leave had expired and his family’s affairs were in order.

“The last thing we need is someone like you wigging out,” his commander had said.

Not his name. Not his rank. “Someone like you.” And he couldn’t deny that the job had started to change for him. No, he had started to change. To think.

“Colt?”

She nibbled on her bottom lip. Her blue eyes were anxious but also sensual as they met his. For the first time, he was not sorry he’d stepped up to help coach. Standing on that makeshift stage, looking and feeling like an idiotic, tongue-tied hunk of meat just might be so totally worth it, if he could hook up with her for the short time he was here. But she wasn’t a random woman, looking for some quick, dirty action for a night. And she had a kid.

Talon was a blinking neon sign for
Not-A-One-Night-Stand
. And that was all he’d even been by choice and design.

So get your head out of your pants and back on your neck
.

“Told you.” He hopped up beside her and sat down. “Can.”

“That was so cool. Like Tarzan.” Parker ran around from the other side of the platform stared at him, mouth and eyes rounded in awe.

And then Colt shocked himself by yodeling the Tarzan yell.

“Even better.” Parker approved. “Can you swing from the rope?”

Colt looked at it.

“No,” Talon said. “Definitely not. Don’t even encourage him.”

“Can.” Colt mouthed and was rewarded with her eyes widening and her delectable lips, which he could barely resist tasting, parting.

“No. Way. We are climbing down. Now.”

Although Colt noticed she looked nervously at the ground as she said this. “Stairs would have been nice.”

“I was nine,” he said. “Maybe ten.”

“Can’t we stay up here, mom? Look at the view? I can see Copper Mountain through the trees.”

“It is beautiful,” she said, her voice full of an imminent ‘but.’

“I want us to finish it,” Parker said, his lower lip trembling. “Like Mr. Meizner wanted.”

“Honey, he was too sick to work on it,” she said. “I know you and he took walks around the property before he got too sick, and he told you about the cattle drives. I’m sure he wanted to finish the tree house, but his body was giving out.”

“But he really wanted to finish it.” Parker, hands on hips, looked determined.

Colt couldn’t remember ever speaking back to an adult like Parker was, especially his uncle, at least not after the first few slaps that would knock him to the ground.

“He wanted to tone. I want to hear the music, too.”

Again the weird word. Colt stared at Parker, thinking he really shouldn’t care, but he felt curious. And bad that the kid obviously was in for a big disappointment.

“Ah, honey.” Talon sighed. “Atone. It means doing something to try to make up for a mistake in the past. He wasn’t trying to hear a song.”

And Colt felt as if the platform just whooshed out from under his feet.

She looked at Colt. “Why didn’t you and your uncle finish it when you were nine or ten?”

He barely heard the question. He stared blankly out through the leafy oak as the years rushed past in vivid, graphic detail.

Colt stood up. “Your mom said time to go, Parker. I’ll spot you on the way down, and then I’ll come back and help your mom.”

He didn’t know what he’d do if Parker argued. He’d used his military team leader voice.

Parker got up. “I can do it by myself.”

“Show me.”

*

Talon walked back
to the house more slowly than Colt and Parker. Thinking. He was a puzzle. He held himself so still and silent, yet he’d made a joke, and had done the silly yell, seeming to surprise himself as well as her. And then when he’d helped her up the tree, it had been like he’d been trying to connect with her. It had seemed so sexual, and when she’d felt herself instantly responding, for a second, she felt like she’d seen a flash of something more.

His relationship with his uncle had obviously been painful. She’d heard from Meghan that Colt hadn’t attended prom or walked graduation or attended the grad party. He’d left town without telling anyone, not even Coach or his friends.

It was so sad. Talon couldn’t imagine ever wanting to leave Marietta. She hadn’t had a hometown, but Marietta was going to be hers, and it was going to be Parker’s. She wished she could find a way for Colt to feel connected to his roots. But how?

She absently twirled her finger through one of her curls, caught back in the bandana. What were his secrets? She felt like she knew him, but she didn’t, and what she did know was sketchy. He didn’t talk about himself or his job or his past, but when she looked in his eyes, when she touched him, she felt like they belonged. And to someone who had never really belonged anywhere, but had kept trying, that feeling was something she didn’t want to let go of, at least not without a fight.

She smiled. So typical. She wanted to dig roots and settle down in Marietta so she started falling for a hometown boy, who didn’t want to come home, settle down, or connect with her, except sexually. Although that part would be fun. But she knew herself. She couldn’t keep it physical. She would always want more. Crave it.

She walked by the barn, which was still in fairly good shape, a few worn spots in one corner of the roof. She stopped and took in the sight as she always did. It seemed so quiet now. Her steps slowed and then stopped. Every time she looked at the barn, she’d feel a wave of longing sweep through her. Up until six months ago, there had been a herd of twenty Nubian goats that had seemed to make Mr. Meizner happy since he had sold off his cattle a year into his liver cancer diagnosis when it became clear he couldn’t beat it.

Then the goats had been sold since Talon was too busy taking care of Mr. Meizner with the help of the hospice nurse. She still missed the goats, and she’d missed Mr. Meizner. He’d been a bit like a dad, worrying about her. Curious about her life. Insisting she use the truck when she went into town. Telling her to stay at the cabin until his son came home.

She was really going to miss this place. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d dreamed of buying the ranch after she became a vet, which was years away. Still, Talon sighed and scraped her boot toe in the dirt, she loved the small farm house and had put in a lot of elbow grease to make it shine and look welcoming, and the barn and the outbuildings that probably in the happier days of the ranch had bunked ranch hands, would be perfect for her ultimate fantasy project, an animal rescue facility where teens, or vets, or anyone needing the healing touch of animals could volunteer, benefiting both.

Now the farm only had Muriel, the emu who strutted around the property keeping fairly close to the house. She wouldn’t be a good therapy animal as she liked to charge if anyone got too close, although Muriel did like it when Talon sang to her.

She shook off her dreams and tucked them back into her future drawer just as Parker ran back towards where she’d lingered.

“Mom, mom, mom.” Parker ran into the barn yelling. “Colt needs help.”

“W
hat?” Adrenalin flooded
her body. “What happened?” She looked Parker over carefully. “Are you okay? What’s wrong with Colt?”

“He needs wire cutters,” Parker said breathlessly then ran away from the barn again.

“Parker wait.” But even as she called out, she hurried over to the tack area of the barn where she’d seen a lot of tools before.

She grabbed the wire cutters and then strode after Parker, who’d taken off the across the field near the house and to the fenced in former vegetable garden.

“It’s the dog wolf mom,” Parker shouted and then hopped from one foot to the other, clearly agitated. “The one we’ve seen in the field the past couple of weeks. It’s stuck.

Talon approached the backside of the garden that had been deer fenced long ago. Her heart sank. The dog was caught under the deer fencing, the broken bits, digging into its back, and it had already done a lot of damage trying to free itself. It alternated between snarling at Colt, who clearly was trying to figure out a way to approach the dog to free it, and whimpering.

“Parker, go get my bag,” she whispered. “And a blanket.”

Parker ran off.

“Your dog?” Colt asked.

She shook her head. “Stray. I’ve been leaving food out in a live trap, trying to catch it to see if it’s chipped, but she’s too smart for that. Raccoons and skunks not so much.” She approached quietly. “She’s definitely a Great Pyrenees mix. Probably a livestock dog that went missing. I left a notice in town at the feed store and Big Z’s, but nothing yet.”

She watched the dog carefully. “Don’t get too close,” she said, tucking her hands behind her back. “She’ll try harder to escape.”

“Isn’t that the point?”

“I want to treat her wounds. And she’s far too skinny. Probably needs antibiotics.”

“What do you need me to do?”

Talon liked that he was going to help, that his first instinct had been to help. And the fact that he was deferring to her, definitely earned him points.

“You need to stop being so perfect,” she said.

“Not an issue.”

It was definitely an issue. A serious one.

“Parker’s going for my bag. First thing is the cone of shame,” she said.

“Poor bastard,” Colt said eying the dog.

“Actually, she’s a bitch,” Talon said. “And then I want to sedate her just a little and restrain her so I can treat her, and then I’d like to pen her in the barn once we can nail up some extra boards so she’ll stay put. Maybe once she’s fed properly and feeling better, she won’t be so feral. Maybe I can find her family.