Part Time Cowboy

“I had to improvise,” she said, her voice small.

He leaned in and examined the makeshift stopper she’d wrapped around the pipes. A shirt, a pair of sweatpants and...a black lace bra winding it all together.

“I was about to get in the shower, so I was already naked, and then there was water and so I had to stop it, and then I had to...tie it off. With something. I think that bra is toast.”

He cleared his throat. “Probably.” He reached out and started unwinding the bra, and tried not to think about how this was the first time he’d touched a woman’s underwear in seven—okay, maybe it was more like eight—months.

It was Sadie Miller’s bra. He should focus on that. On the fact that he remembered what a gangly, hissing little miscreant she’d been back when she was a teenager. All long limbs and blond shaggy hair, smelling like booze and cigarette smoke as she kicked at him while he’d tried to put her in handcuffs without breaking her slender wrists.

Sadie Miller’s bra should hold no interest for him. And neither should her breasts. Or her innuendos.

* * *

ELI UNWOUND THE STRAP a little bit more and the rest sprang free, spraying his face with water.

Sadie bit her fist to keep from whimpering as she watched Eli Garrett, on his hands and knees, fiddling with her bra. She was so mortified she wanted to flush herself down the toilet. It would be preferable to this nightmare.

She was just one giant explosion of embarrassment after the other tonight. The whole pipe euphemism? What was her problem? Why did she say things like that around him? Good gravy.

She was good at talking to people. She did it for a living. Spoke with calm authority and with self-control, and with carefully chosen words.

And here she was pointing out every innuendo and dying a million tiny deaths—not in the good French way—like some extra awkward high school geek she’d never been.

What was it about Eli that caused regression? It was a mystery to her. He made her feel flaily. And kind of...horny. And that was just stupid. Cracking lady-wood over a cop said nothing good about her deep emotional issues. She was a therapist. She really should have a better handle on this.

Though she wasn’t really a therapist at the moment. She was a bed-and-breakfast owner who was sinking her life savings into a place with leaky pipes, populated by grumpy, muscular men. Who said she didn’t make good life choices?

He unwound all of her clothing—thank God she hadn’t used her panties. She was just really, really thankful. Then he stood up, the sodden garments in his very large hand, his dark brows drawn together. “This isn’t a quick fix. You will need a plumber. Which my brother will pay for.”

“He said he wasn’t sure where all that fell in the agreement.” She reached out and took the ball of clothes, water dripping onto the floor.

“But I am,” he said, his voice hard. “It’s BS to act like he won’t pay for a burst pipe. Obviously that had nothing to do with your improvements. My brother is just being a lame landlord. Trust me, he’s not doing it on purpose. He’s just...nonfunctional right now.”

Sadie’s heart squeezed tight. “I’m sorry about his wife. I... If he ever needs to talk...”

“He would rather shove barbed wire under his fingernails. And I’m being literal.”

“Okay, then, so maybe vouchers for my services wouldn’t go over well in exchange for this debacle.”

“Connor isn’t a talker,” Eli said.

“Well, big surprise,” she retorted, dumping the wet clothes into the sink and walking out of the space that really was way too small to be sharing with a man of his stature.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It just seems like it runs in the family, that’s all.”

“Meaning?” he asked.

“You’re a little uptight,” she said, walking near the bed and feeling a sudden surge of heat and self-consciousness. Dear Lord, it was like she wasn’t even an adult anymore. Internally jittering because she was standing near both a man and a bed and they were alone.

“If by uptight you mean responsible for a shit-ton of stuff, sure,” he bit out, “I’m uptight. Do you need water?”

“I have some,” she said. “All over my floor.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” he said, his civility clearly almost at an end. “You’re going to need...coffee in the morning at least, I assume, and you need to shower.”

She lifted a shoulder. “It wouldn’t hurt.”

“Either Connor will get his ass in gear and try to fix this tomorrow, or we’ll want to call out a plumber. Either way you don’t have water tonight, because the main has to stay shut off since the pipes are so old. And it means you don’t have water until midmorning tomorrow. So, would you like to come to my place and shower and get a couple gallons of water?”

She blinked. “I...uh...”

“It’s a simple question.”

“I just didn’t expect you to extend me hospitality,” she said.

“I’m not a complete asshole.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“You say that like you don’t believe me.”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, Eli, but whenever you’re around I get a tension headache. Or I end up in handcuffs. So, suffice it to say, I’m not entirely convinced that you aren’t a total asshole. Sorry.”

And she also wasn’t convinced she wanted to go to his house and get naked when he was in a nearby room. And run her hands all over her wet, slick skin, which would inevitably feel really good. And with his image so very large in her mind...

Yeah, well, again, she regressed in the company of this man. What grown woman worried about this stuff? It was...prurient. And juvenile. And things.

She needed both a shower and some water and the man was offering. So she should stop sweating, and stop insulting him, and just go with it.

“That would be great, actually,” she said. “And I’m sorry about the asshole thing.”

He put his hands on his lean hips and she took a moment to admire him. His uniform conformed to every muscle in his body; the tan shirt and dark brown tie, along with the gold-star-shaped badge honest-to-coffee did things to her insides that were unseemly.

Obviously she needed to buy batteries for her long-neglected vibrator. Dammit, how sad was it that her vibrator was neglected. A sex life, sure. People had crap to do. Who had time to go around hooking up and sweating and making walks of shame? She certainly didn’t.

But she barely took the time to orgasm anymore. And when she did, she had to kick Toby out of the room, because it was awkward, and then it sort of felt like she was announcing her masturbatory intentions to her cat, which felt even weirder. There was something unspeakably sad about the whole thing.

But that was the reason Eli’s presence had her so shaken. That was her story, and she was sticking to it.

“Whatever,” he said. “Come with me.”

He certainly didn’t make a big song and dance about graciousness. He almost seemed burdened by inescapable chivalry, which was sort of hilarious, or would be if she wasn’t so busy marinating in her embarrassment.

“Let me get some clothes,” she said. “You can wait downstairs.” Because she would probably fizzle into an ash ball and blow away in the wind if he watched her pull a new bra out of a drawer.

“Fine,” he said, walking out of the bedroom and swinging the door partway closed. She waited until she heard his footsteps on the stairs before rummaging for new clothes. She pulled out a long-sleeved thermal shirt and a pair of black yoga pants, and a new bra and panties. And then she got a duffel bag to conceal it all in.

She stuffed the clothes inside and walked downstairs to where Eli was waiting, standing there staring at Toby, who was still on the table, looking defiant.

“I’m ready,” she said. “Do you have jugs at your place?”

“Yes,” he said. “We always save a bunch for target practice, so that won’t be a problem.”

Holy hell, she really wasn’t in San Diego anymore. She was in Oregon, no question at all. “I should have guessed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, holding the door for her.

“Nothing. I just forgot the kinds of things you good ol’ boys get up to in your spare time. I’ve been living in a city, if you recall.”

“You’ve been gone for how long?” he asked, walking down the front porch steps. She followed him closely, clutching her bag to her chest. Looking at his dark brown pants, which seemed to be giving his butt a hug while shouting, “Look at it! Look at it!”

“Ten years.”

“And where have you been in those ten years?”

“Polite conversation?” she asked.

“Why don’t we try it?”

“I’m game if you are. Okay, I went to three different schools in four years. I started in Tampa, because, parties and the beach. Which is nothing like the beach here. Turns out, I hate college parties and breathing in Florida is like inhaling soup. So I lasted a year there. I basically toured the South.” She increased her pace to keep up with Eli’s long strides, following him down the darkened driveway. He pulled a flashlight off his belt and used it to light up the bark-laden ground. “Louisiana, North Carolina, and after I graduated I went to Texas, which you really don’t want to mess with, just ask the locals.”

“After that you went to California?” he asked.

“Nope. After that there was New York, Chicago and Branson.”

“Branson?”

“Missouri. It’s Las Vegas for families, Eli. Incidentally, I also lived in Vegas, but not for long. Then I went to the Bay Area and quickly discovered I couldn’t afford to live there unless I wanted to donate a kidney to science, and then I went to San Diego. And now I’m back...here.”

He stopped walking, the flashlight beam still directed at the ground. “I can’t imagine picking up and moving that much.”

“No?”

“I’ve got too much to pack up and bring with me. You know, Connor, Kate, all their stuff. The cows. Plus, there’s this land. Our family land.”

“Yeah, well, it’s just me and Toby. We travel light.”

He started walking again, continuing on straight down the drive. “I’ll regret asking this, because...I shouldn’t care. But what the hell did you expect to find moving from place to place?”

She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. Everywhere is so different. I managed to trick myself into thinking that I’d find a place that made me different. And to a degree, it’s true. Every place changes you a little. When I was doing therapy, I was a crisis counselor, so I always dealt with people going through the worst things possible. Every patient I spoke to changed me in some way. Every home I lived in, every restaurant I ate at... But...the one thing I’ve never done is go back to a place. I’ve only ever gone somewhere new. I thought I would see what it was like.”

“And?”

“No magic yet. But I do think I’ve finally realized that it doesn’t really matter where I live. I’m not going to find a perfect place that makes me perfect. So I figured I’d come back here and wrestle demons.”

“What kind of demons are you wrestling?” he asked.

It was said drily. Insincere. And yet she found she wanted to answer. She found she wanted to talk to him about the demon she’d met head-on the night he’d arrested her. The night she’d nearly been killed.

She didn’t blame him for that. Not really. She knew dimly that some people might. But she’d never put her father’s actions onto Eli Garrett’s shoulders. Because it had started long before then. Because she had a feeling that night was inevitable. Regardless of what date it fell on, regardless of what triggered it.

And it had been the reason she’d gotten into her car and driven away. And never once looked back. Until now.

“This way,” Eli said, pointing his light toward a cluster of pine trees off to the left. “We can cut through here. It’s faster.”

She followed him through the trees and into a clearing. There was a house up the hill, surrounded by trees, the porch light on as if someone inside the two-story wooden cabin was waiting for them. Wide steps led up to a wraparound deck with a glass door, and large windows dominated the front of the place, making the most of the location, set deep into the trees and far away from any roads.

“No wonder you’ve never left,” she said.

“Well,” he said, “not much point when you have a house ready and waiting for you, is there?”

“Sure there is,” she said. “If my parents had given me their house I still would have run. Happily for me, they never offered. I think the house ended up with the bank when they went to Coos Bay.” She felt like the statement was a little more revealing than she might have liked, but oh well.

“Well,” he said, obviously uncomfortable. And obviously unwilling to say more, even though the well held a wealth of meaning. He was really, at his heart, a decent man, even if he was reluctant in his decency.

“Well,” she said, matching his tone, “my parents’ house was essentially the crap cherry on top of a landfill, so for that reason alone I wouldn’t want it. Thank you for being too nice to say that.” She hopped over a tire rut that was filled with muddy water and continued following him down the road.

“I wasn’t thinking it.”

“Bull, and ten points if you can guess the word that follows.”

“I wasn’t, Sadie. I’ve been to a lot of houses like that. I’ve seen a lot of things. People have hard circumstances. And I don’t like to think of their living situations that way.”

“Why not?” she asked. “They do. Trust me. I mean...we do. We know.”

“I don’t judge people based on where they live.”

“Is that honestly how you feel? Or are you just throwing out some...good-guy line?” she asked, as they came to the end of the road, where it narrowed and led up to his house.

“Honestly?” he asked, turning to face her. “I care about this place. I care about Copper Ridge. And I care about Logan County. This is my home. And the people here are my responsibility. It’s not my job to look down my nose at anyone. It’s my job to protect the people here.” He continued walking, turning away from her again, his broad back filling her vision.

Her heart jammed up against her sternum. Anger mixed with a strange kind of longing that she didn’t want to apply to him. That she didn’t want to apply to anything or anyone, really.

“And you do a damn fine job, I’m sure,” she said, following him up the steps and waiting for him to unlock his door. The man locked his door. In Copper Ridge. Dear Lord.

“I know,” he said. “I haven’t exactly been hanging out for the past ten years so my first arrest could tell me that, but now that you have, it’s sort of nice and circular. I could use it for my campaign.”

“Hold up,” she said. “Campaign?”

“Yes. I’m running for sheriff.” He bit the words out as if sharing them with her was a monumental task.

“Oh, really?” she said, eyes widening. She couldn’t help but be...intrigued by that. Maybe intrigued was the right word. Because Eli Garrett seemed to be a few things to her, and none of them were overly diplomatic. And it seemed to her, not that she was an expert, that a person running for any sort of elected position needed to behave, at least some of the time, like he didn’t have a stick lodged in his rear.

But that was just her take on it.

“Yes,” he said. “Really.”

“Well, color me intrigued. What all does this entail?”

“Right now? I was the top finisher in the primary, and the final election is in November. My lead was pretty strong, but I still need to keep campaigning. Make more signs. I have a few months to prepare for a community Q & A,” he said, pushing the door open. “This is the house.” He swept his hand in a broad gesture across the living space. It was open, and neat, very different from his brother’s place, which had an air of sad neglect about it, every bit of dust and dirt a fingerprint of grief. Eli’s home had no fingerprints at all. Which, in and of itself, she found fascinating.

“Wow. Connor should hire you,” she said.

“Because I’m not at all busy,” he said. “I mean, obviously I’m not. I’m here getting water for you and letting you use my shower.”

“Because you care for the members of the community,” she said. “Which I am, at this moment, grateful for. Much more so than that time you cared for the community by handcuffing me and putting me in the back of your patrol car.”

“That seems to come up a lot.”

“It’s our cute meet, meet cute, whatever they call it. It’s part of our story,” she said, watching the tension between his brows intensify with each word. There was no doubt, she disturbed him. And he was growing even more disturbed having her in his house.

“Right. So, the bathroom is upstairs. Feel free to take as long as you need in the shower. I’ll get the water ready for you to take back.”

She cleared her throat, annoyed with herself for finding sincerity so hard. She was a basket case. Why anyone took her advice on anything was a mystery to her, particularly when she acted like this. “Thank you. Honestly. I know that I’ve sort of crashed into your life sans finesse here, and I appreciate you...well, I’m glad you haven’t found a reason to arrest me again and I’m very grateful for the chance to shower.”

He nodded slowly. “You’re welcome.”

“I’m going to go and...shower now.” And she was going to hope that she could do it without thinking too much about his proximity. Or without thinking about him at all. Yes, not thinking about Eli Garrett at all—in the shower or out—would be the ideal thing.

If only she could manage it.

CHAPTER FIVE

ELI GRITTED HIS TEETH and hunched his shoulders, trying to ignore the sound of the running water. Trying to ignore any and all thoughts of Sadie in the shower.

It was hard, no pun intended, because there hadn’t been a woman in his house, in his shower, in...possibly ever. It had been so long since he’d had an actual relationship, he couldn’t remember. Longer still since a relationship had mattered, since every actual girlfriend he’d had sort of faded into the distant past like a soft hazy dream.

The kind he had no desire to revisit. Because girlfriends were a whole level of responsibility he didn’t want or need. At this point, with Kate still unsettled and Connor deep in his grief, Eli couldn’t fathom taking on much more.

Which is why it’s obviously the best time to increase your workload.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath, before dropping his hands back to his sides and stalking to the fridge. He was going to drink a beer. And he wasn’t even going to bother to go back for the poker game. They’d all do fine without him.

He pulled a cold bottle out from the back and popped the top off with the magnet opener he kept stuck to the freezer.

Yeah, it was a terrible time to take on more. Connor needed help on the ranch, and he always would. It was their legacy, and Eli had to take part in it. Then there was the emotional aspect of dealing with his family.

On top of that, Sadie being in residence was adding another layer to his to-do list that he did not need. Because for all Connor said he was going to handle it, here Eli was, freaking handling it.

Not a huge surprise and not much he could do about it, either. Five years. Five years of Sadie and foibles that would undoubtedly be similar in nature to this. Sometimes he wondered if he’d been an ax murderer in a past life and he was destined to spend this one atoning.

But then he remembered reincarnation was bullshit and took another drink of his beer.

And reincarnation was not the only thing that was bullshit. That there was a naked, wet woman in his house whom he could not and would not touch was also bullshit.

He’d had a permanent frown etched into his face since Sadie had shown up. He didn’t even feel like trying to fix his attitude. It was just one more thing to add to his list of things to worry about. One more thing that he had to add to an increasing, unwieldy pile of Things For Eli to Manage.

Things he knew without a doubt wouldn’t get taken care of if he didn’t do it. Because that was life. It was his life.

Which he was normally not so bitter about. But something about the addition of a woman whom he wasn’t allowed to touch, a woman he shouldn’t even want to touch, naked in his house was like jamming an injured thumb into the center of a lemon. Grabbing two empty gallon jugs from under the sink, he began to fill them for the woman he was trying not to picture naked.

He heard soft footsteps on the stairs and turned to see bare feet come into view. Bare feet with shocking pink nails. Followed by baggy black pants and a very soft-looking shirt, molded to breasts that he should not stare at—but did anyway—and then the rest of Sadie appeared.

Her blond hair was wet and piled on top of her head, tendrils falling down the sides of her face, her cheeks flushed from the hot water. Her makeup was gone. Lashes that had looked dark and heavy were now spiky and pale.

She looked damp and warm and he had no business wondering about her body temperature, or her level of dryness.

“Thank you,” she said, her feet hitting the floor. She walked to the kitchen counter and slung her bag, and her shoes, onto the granite surface. “I feel more like a human and less like a mole person, so that’s always good.” She was smiling now, effortless, friendly.

As if she hadn’t been pissy and sulky with him only a few minutes ago. As if they had no history between them whatsoever.

Fine, it didn’t matter to him. She was just a problem to check off his list. He was not going to waste time overthinking her. He didn’t have the time to waste.

“Shoes,” he said, the muscles in his back tensing from his belt line to his shoulders.

“What?”

“Take your shoes off my counter, please.”

“Sorry,” she said, pulling them from the surface that would now have to be disinfected.

“Yep,” he said. “I’ll grab your jugs for you.”

Her blue eyes rounded. “Oh, really?”

“What?”

“You’re going to...grab my jugs for me... I don’t... You’ve had sex before, right?”

Heat assaulted him, starting in his face and burning a line straight down his chest to his cock. “Yes. What does that have to do with anything?”

“You seem to be operating on a frequency wherein sexual innuendo doesn’t exist.”

Jugs. Suddenly an image of him putting his hands over her breasts and, well...grabbing them...flashed through his mind. “Because I’m not a fourteen-year-old boy,” he shot back. “And I don’t call women’s breasts jugs.” He said the last part through gritted teeth, trying to figure out how in the hell he’d gotten into a conversation about breasts with the woman whose breasts had been tormenting him from the moment she’d crashed back into town like a blonde tornado.

“Well, that’s mature of you. I don’t typically call them jugs, either. I prefer ‘the girls’ or ‘sweater bunnies,’ but even I went there.”

He about choked on the sip of beer he was trying to take. “Don’t you have work to do back at your place?”

“Nothing pressing,” she said.

He gritted his teeth. “Do you want a beer?” He didn’t want her to stay for a beer. Why was he so compulsively appropriate? Especially when she was standing there talking about sweater bunnies.

“Thank you,” she said, “that would be good.”

He laughed, even though he found nothing about any of this funny, and turned back to the fridge, tugging another bottle out, and opening it before sliding it across the counter toward her.

In spite of himself, he found he was curious about her plans for the Catalog House. Because maybe if he knew about the changes, they wouldn’t feel quite so invasive. A long shot, but worth a try.

And anything was better than talking about her breasts.

“What’s next on your list for the place?” he asked.

“I have to make the downstairs back bedroom livable. That’s going to be my room. It’s small, and part of an addition. So it’s a little damp and chilly, but with caulking and some oil heaters I won’t die. And since we’re headed into summer it won’t be bad at all. Then obviously I need to make sure the plumbing is better than it is. Flower beds are a priority, and linens and blinds. And after that, barring menu creation, I should be good to start advertising and getting special events scheduled.”