*****
Tanner’s mind went blank the moment Zoey’s skin touched his. If he was honest, he had been struggling to think ever since he turned the bend and saw her sexy body stretched out on the porch steps. She looked like a fifties pin-up in cut off blue jeans and a blue tank top that made her ocean blue eyes look dark and mysterious. Her jet black hair hung in a solid sheet of straight satin down her back, and he ached to wrap it around his fist and pull her up against him.
He was all too aware of the fact that his own mouth ruined his chances with Zoey Carson. When she made a play for him at Robin’s all those years ago, he had assumed she was joking. She was only twenty at the time, and to his twenty-eight-year-old mind, that had been an incomprehensible situation. She was na?ve, and way too innocent for a kinky pervert like him, so he did what was right instead of what his cock wanted, and he shut her down. If only he had found a more delicate way of doing it, maybe they could have had a chance later.
Shaking off his wandering mind and his dirty thoughts, he pulled his brain back into the moment.
“Thanks. I’ve adjusted. I had to hire a few hands to help on the ranch, but otherwise everything kept moving forward just like always.”
He ached to turn his hand over and link his fingers through hers. What would she say? Would she freak out, or get angry? Knowing Zoey, she would punch him in the nose.
Abruptly she stood, giving him and eyeful of her sexy legs, and her sweetly curving backside. Her hips were made for a man to hold onto, and his cock wanted him to be that man.
“I better say my goodbyes and get home. It will be dark soon.”
Tanner stood and turned to face her. He was two steps down from her, so their faces were nearly level, and his eyes zeroed in on her mouth out of habit. Her lips parted and he saw her sharp intake of breath as she swayed on her feet slightly. It took all of his strength to shove his hands in his pockets and step to the side breaking the tension.
A sharp whinny followed by a man’s howl of pain startled them both, and Tanner stopped thinking. He turned on his boot heel and ran for the barn. It wasn’t until he skidded to a stop and felt Zoey plow into the back of him that he realized she followed. His arm went out to instinctively catch her up against him so she wouldn’t fall, and her hands caught his waist clutching at his t-shirt.
The erection in his pants wasn’t deterred one iota by the terrible scene in front of him. Sawyer Brooks was sprawled out on his back in the middle of the barn alley, one leg twisted at a disturbing angle, and blood running down his face.
“Sweet Jesus! Sawyer, what the hell happened?”
“I’ll go call for help!” Zoey said, and Tanner gave her a nod as he dropped to his knees next to his friend. She was out the door in a flash, her black hair swinging behind her.
Sawyer groaned, “I was saddling that new mare we just got, Clover, and she got spooked by something. When I tried to calm her down she started bucking and kicking to get away from me. She kicked me clear across the barn and I felt my knee pop before it twisted underneath me.”
Tanner looked up when Parker ran into the barn from the corral entrance. “Damn, Sawyer! What the hell did you do to yourself? I just saw Clover shoot out of the barn and figured something was wrong.”
“Stupid fu-cking horse, whose dumbass idea was it to buy that one?” Sawyer’s face was pale and his jaw was clenched with pain as he reached up to his forehead to feel the wound.
Parker grunted, “I hate to say it, but it was yours.”
Sawyer cursed again, and made a move to sit up only to let out a groan of pain when his bent leg shifted.
“Stay put until the ambulance gets here. You’ve done something bad to that knee, and if you try to move you might make it worse.” Tanner looked around for something to press on Sawyer’s bloody head to stop the bleeding. In the end, he just tugged his own t-shirt off and pressed it to his friend’s forehead. “This cut will need stitches too. I can see your skull, but lucky for you, not your brain.”
Parker snorted, but his face remained drawn with tension. “He has no brain to see. Sawyer, I thought we agreed to wait on Clover’s training until we could put her through her paces together a few times?”
“Yeah, well you were busy, and I had time to work on it today. We needed to get her going,” Sawyer said, groaning when Tanner moved and brushed his injured leg.
“It’s not like I expected her to freak out like that.”
The barn door creaked loudly as it was thrown open and Rachel came barreling in with a bundle full of blankets and baby. Her eyes widened in horror as she took in the situation. Tanner watched a myriad of emotions cross her face before she set her jaw in determination and nudged him out of his place next to her husband.
“Sawyer Brooks, what have you done to yourself? Have you lost your mind getting hurt? This will not, I repeat, will not get you out of changing diapers, do you hear me?”
Tanner was stunned to find her pushing the infant into his arms so she could focus on Sawyer’s injuries. For a heart stopping moment, his inner bachelor freaked out at the tiny bundle of future he held in his big hands, but with everyone focused on Sawyer, he was able to get his nerves under control pretty quickly. Rising to his feet, he stared down at the little girl and he was pleased to see her smiling back at him. She really was adorable.
Rachel and Parker were taking care of Sawyer, so Tanner backed up and took a seat on a stack of hay bales holding Juliet close to his naked chest so he wouldn’t accidentally drop her. It was then that he noticed Zoey standing nearby watching him with a smile on her face.
“What?” he asked with a frown. Juliet seemed to sense the change in his mood because she whimpered a little, triggering an instant shushing sound from his mouth and a little bouncing movement from his arms. He hadn’t even known he could do that.
Zoey moved closer and reached out to stroke her finger over Juliet’s tiny fist. The fingers stretched out and then curled around her index finger like a cuff linking the three of them.
“I’ve never seen you holding a baby before. You seem to be a natural.” Tanner lifted his eyes to hers and he was surprised to see longing in their depths. It must be a female thing to find men holding babies sexually attractive because Tanner didn’t feel sexy in the least. However, he wanted Zoey just as much as her blue eyes seemed to want him, so it made for an awfully fascinating cluster fu-ck of feelings in his chest.
“This is the first time I’ve held one in years. I didn’t even hold her when she was born.” He heard the words coming out of his mouth, but he wasn’t in control of them.
Zoey glanced back over her shoulder as the sound of an ambulance siren wailed down the drive to the house.
“You’ve done a bang up job on yourself, Brooks.” Silas White was an old school mate of the guys, and Tanner was actually relieved to see him and his partner coming through the door. There was no better paramedic than Silas.
Within moments they were assessing Sawyers injuries and relaying information back to the 911 operator. Somehow in those brief seconds, Zoey had managed to plant herself right in front of Tanner like a human shield between the tiny being in his arms and the painful situation for her father.
“Is he going to be okay, Si?” Rachel asked from her place against Parker’s chest. Despite her initial confidence, the pallor of her skin proved she was freaking out like the rest of them.
Silas looked up at her with a smile, “Of course he is, Rachel, but he’s going to have to go to the hospital in Austin. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say he’s torn something in that knee. We can patch up his head and give him something for pain at the clinic, but then we’ll have to transport him to have an MRI done.”
Rachel looked up at Parker and then back at Sawyer before her eyes landed on Tanner and her daughter. “I can’t leave Juliet.”
“Yes you can, I’ll watch her,” Zoey responded firmly, and just like that, the tiny woman took control of the situation. “I’ll stay here with Jules, while you two go to the hospital with Sawyer. Where are Rogan and Hudson at?”
Parker’s eyes came up to meet hers, and Tanner could see the concern in his glazed expression. “Austin. They went to take care of some business and won’t be back until late. They can meet Rachel at the hospital. I still have the evening chores to do and the animals can’t wait, but I would be grateful if you could stay to watch Jules.”
“I’ll stay with them so you can go, Parker. You need to be with Rachel and Sawyer, and I can handle your evening chores.” The words spilled off Tanner’s tongue before he could stop them, and the relief on Rachel’s face was blinding.
Zoey frowned, and for just a moment Tanner wanted to laugh at the annoyance on her face. So Miss Carson didn’t want to spend the evening with him. Well that was certainly a change from her words years ago. He wondered if he could change her mind.
“Thank you, Tanner!” Rachel said, pausing just long enough to press a kiss to her daughter’s forehead before she followed Sawyer and the paramedics out of the barn.
Parker stepped over and ran his finger over Juliet’s tiny head. “Thank you both. Rachel looks like she’s keeping her cool, but she’s falling apart inside. Knowing you guys have it under control will keep her a little calmer. Oh, and Tanner, you can help yourself to a shirt when you get in the house.”
He tipped his hat at Zoey and then disappeared out the door leaving Tanner and the two females alone listening to the sounds of vehicles leaving.
“Well that was a lot of excitement for one day,” Zoey said with a heavy sigh.
Tanner watched her as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “He’ll be okay, you know. If it’s torn they might have to do surgery, but it will heal up in a couple of weeks.”
Zoey’s smiled tightly, “Yeah, I know you’re right. I guess we better get Juliet back inside before it gets much darker.”
Tanner glanced toward the corral doors to find the sun was almost completely set already. “Alright, you take her and I’ll get the chores done as quickly as possible.” He passed Zoey the baby. Her gasp startled him, but the heat in her eyes as she stared at his naked chest had his cock hard as iron behind his zipper. Her gaze stroked over his wide shoulders to his light pink nipples and followed the line of dark hair that split his pecks and led the way to the waistband of his jeans. The moment her view tipped to stare at the bulge behind the denim, he stopped breathing.
Zoey still wanted him.
There was no denying the flames in her blue eyes, or the flush that crept up her high cheekbones, and inside he was a mass of confusion. Physically, he wanted to eat her up. To fu-ck her until she was hoarse from screaming his name. But nothing had changed. He was still too old for her, and way too perverted. Hell, the first time he told her to get to her knees and suck his cock, she would probably bite it off. No, Zoey wasn’t for him. No matter how much they physically set each other on fire.
He cleared his throat, and her blush darkened. “I better grab a shirt first. Can you manage her without me for a bit?”
Zoey tossed that curtain of black hair arrogantly and glared at him. “For your information I’ve been babysitting since I was twelve. I can handle one tiny human without your assistance, Superman.”
“Good, because I left my cape at home,” he called out as she left with Juliet clutched to her shoulder. Tanner sat for a moment in the cooling evening air willing his erection away before he went into the house to grab a shirt. The sounds of Zoey cooing to Juliet in the nursery burned into his brain and made his hard heart clench.
He had already decided that Zoey wasn’t for him. Now he just needed to keep his distance. Even as he thought it, his inner voice scoffed.