What a Bride Wants (5 page)

Ella had
wondered if she’d been imagining the deep kick of lust in her belly she’d felt when she first set eyes on Sawyer last night.

She
’d wondered if the lust had been a fleeting thing.

Nope.

“How much do you know about cattle, Sawyer?” she asked when he reached her. He was dressed for winter – as she was. Thick coat and gloves, waterproof boots with thick grip rubber soles. Winter gear tended to swamp Ella. It didn’t swamp him.

“
You’re the second person to ask me that today. Why do you ask?”

“
I wondered if you were one of those rugged Australian Snowy Mountain men.”

He grinned at her.
“No.”

Sham
e. “So how did you get your, um—” she waved her hand in his general direction. “—physique?”

“
Hard labor and genetics. Hey, I bought us lunch. Well… it’s either our lunch or my dinner, depending on whether you have any suggestions as to where we can eat it. I like the outdoors. Having said that, finding a picnic spot in Montana in the middle of winter with the ground under four foot of snow is a little more challenging than finding a picnic spot in Australia. I brought a picnic blanket though. Waterproof.”

“
You’re really not from around here, are you?”

“
No. Are you trying to tell me that you’ve never picnicked in the snow?”

“
Sawyer, I have never picnicked in the snow.”

“
Would you like to?”

Ella studied the cloudless blue sky. It
was
a very fine winter’s day.

And Sawyer
had such very tempting dimples. And when he reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out a big bag full of Sage’s chocolates, Ella was sold.

“
You’ve discovered one of Marietta’s best kept secrets,” she said as Sawyer tugged on the ribbon around the cellophane. “Sage Carrigan is a world-class chocolatier. Which ones did you get?”

“
The salted toffee with dark chocolate swirled into it.” The cellophane opened to reveal a generous supply of it.

“
I’m liking this picnic a lot already,” she told him, as she plucked a chocolate from his hand and popped it in her mouth.

Which finished the conversation for quite some time
given that the toffee was chewy, the chocolate dribbly, and the salt crystals just made the mix perfect.

Sawyer didn
’t seem to mind. He just took her hand in his and stomped his way through squeaky, part-packed snow – leaving yeti tracks behind him – until he found a spot that spoke to him.

Hard to know what it said.

He withdrew a blanket from the pack on his back and spread it out. He took off his gloves, held his hand out and helped her be seated and then sat opposite, set the chocolates in front of her and started pulling more food from his pack. A loaf of crusty bread. Crumbly cheese from the deli. Two locally made beers. Spicy avocado dip and crackers, two containers of rare-roast-beef pasta salad from Ginny’s Café. Two containers of apple crumble, also from Ginny’s Café – and there was another Marietta culinary experience to savor.

Ella loosened her scarf but decided against taking her woolly hat off, no matter that she
’d spent an inordinate amount of time straightening her hair this morning in anticipation of having to do just that and not wanting to look a complete mess when it happened. If Sawyer wanted to picnic outside he would just have to deal with her staying bundled up.

“
I’m glad I’m hungry. Are you hungry?” she asked, kneeling up and then sitting back down again, this time with her padded coat between the snow, the thin blanket and her butt.

“
Yes. Do I get to eat the apple pie first?”

“
I ate the chocolate first.” She reached for another one of Sage’s confections. “And second. Is Sawyer your first name or your last one?”

“
Last.”

He sounded as if he was going to leave it at that, but she gestured for him to keep going and then nudged his leg with her fo
ot when he missed that cue.

He nudged her back but he did offer up more.
“My first name’s Cameron. Got a few people who call me that. My mother. A couple of aunts. A few more people call me Cam. Here in Marietta, it’s just Sawyer.”

“
What does your father call you?”

Sawyer tensed, then deliberately reached for a take
out container full of pie and the plastic spoon that went with it. “Nothing. We haven’t spoken for a while. Family rift.”

“
Is it mendable?”

“
No.”

“
Do you talk to your mother?”

“
On rare occasion.”

“
Brothers and sisters?”

“
I have one brother. We don’t get along. Told you I had experience when it came to alienating family.” He eyed her steadily, and those eyes were even more amazingly green in the daylight than they had been at the bar. “What about you, Ella of the twenty questions? What’s your background?”

“
I was born here. Raised here, and sometimes raised in Texas because we have a couple of ranches there as well. I like horses, I breed arguably the best stud Angus cows in three states, and I raise fat cattle. I lost my mother to cancer when I was a kid. My father never quite got over it, or found another love. I did get over it eventually, but some of the side-effects took hold and they’re a part of me now. I stick close to home because I like living in a familiar world where the people don’t come and go every five minutes. I like waking up and looking out the window and knowing the mountains are always going to be there. Could be I’m slightly set in my ways. But I’m aiming to shake that up. I may even go traveling for a while.”

“
Where to?”

“
Don’t rush me.”

Sawyer grinned around his spoon
ful of pie. Ella stripped off her gloves and reached for the beef salad and added a hefty sprinkle of Sawyer’s crumbly cheese. The bread really couldn’t be ignored either. Maybe she could make a roast beef salad sandwich without making too much mess.

Turns out she could.

Sawyer eyed it hungrily, so she rolled her eyes, handed it over and started making another one. “
This
one’s mine.”

“
Never said a word.”

“
No, but you
looked
.”

“
You’re ornery.”

“
So I’ve been told. How do you do it? Travel around all the time?”

“
I like seeing new faces,” he told her. “New places.”

“
Don’t you miss home?”

“
No.”

She studied him thoughtfully. Hard to say if he really did mean that.
She didn’t know him well enough to tell. “Where
is
home for you?”

He wa
s silent a long time. “Sydney, probably. It’s where I spent a lot of my childhood. But my mother’s American and I have dual citizenship, so… big place, North America. Takes a while to get around it.”

“
Have you ever thought about settling down anywhere?”

“
Once or twice.”

“
What stopped you?”

“
Guess it wasn’t what I was looking for.”

C
onversation lapsed as they ate haphazardly. Good sandwiches. Sweet and cold beer.

“
Your father came to see me this morning,” he murmured.

“
How’d he know where you live? I don’t even know where you live.”

“
I’m staying in one of the bunkrooms at Emerson’s Transport.”

Ella grimaced.
Yep, that’d do it. “What did he want?”

“
Meet and greet.”

“
What did he
say
?”

“
Not a lot.”

“
C’mon Sawyer, spill. I need to know whether to berate him or not. I’m thinking yes, just on principle.”

“
He warned me against chasing you for your money.”

“
Are
you planning to chase me for my money?”

“
No.”

“
That’s a relief. Are you planning on chasing me at all?”

“
I’m not sure yet.”

“
You’re not exactly crazy about me, are you?”

There were those dimples again. He should register them as a lethal weapon.
“Don’t rush me.”

She laughed because he was playful and
smart and those dimples encouraged laughter. “Where’d you go to college?”

“
What makes you think I did?”

“
Gut instinct.”

“
See, if I told you, you’d put me in a different box. And I like the box I’m in.”

“
The international man of mystery box does have a lot going for it,” she said agreeably. “Apart from making me feel downright home grown.”

“
They do grow many fine products around these parts.”

“
You said products. The minute you start talking supply and demand, I’m going to call you a marketing major.”

“
Did you get a tertiary education, Ella?”

“
I went to University of Texas for a year. I tried business. Pulled some good grades, probably because I’d already learned a lot about business from my father. Maybe I’ll go back one day and try a few more subjects but right now I’ve no plans in that direction.”

“
Because your father knows it all?”

“
Because I have a really good life here and I don’t want to leave it.”

“
So you have everything you want right here?”

“
Well, my father would say I need a husband, and while I’m not wholly opposed to the idea I’m not entirely convinced that I
need
one. I could do want
and
need, I guess. Best of both worlds. And I really want to do lust, husband or not.”

His eyes smiled down at her, as if he found her highly amusing.
“Have you ever
been
in lust?”

“
No, but I’m ever hopeful. You’ve no idea how long I’ve waited to feel the lust.”

He was sitting on the picnic
blanket, leaning back on his hands, pure sun-spelled, lounging male. “There’s a chance I could teach you something about that.” His voice had roughened. Best bedroom voice ever.