Page 5 of Saving Jared

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“You toldher she could do what?”

Incredulous, Jared McComb stilled with his hands on Chaz’s worn leather saddle. He couldn’t have heard Kinsley right. His booted foot tucked into the stirrup hanging down his horse’s side twitched.

"Jared!"

At Jude’s yell, he let his foot slip from the stirrup and fall to the ground, while glancing past his chestnut stallion’s tossing head. The parking lot in front of the ranch’s one-story, white clapboard welcome center with a red metal roof had started to fill. Next to it, his impatient twin kept his Morgan stallion steady under the shade offered by some towering Norfolk Island pines. Jude expected him to help greet their guests.

"I know," Jared muttered, waving off Jude’s get your ass here now signal, before yelling out, "I’ll be there in a minute." Jared overlooked his brother’s one-finger salute as he dismounted Hulk Smash—a ridiculous name for Jude’s beautiful, massive sorrel—while more cars parked.

Jared didn’t much care for this part of Big M Ranch life. Neither did Jude, for that matter. But from June through August, they had a part to play. Namely maintaining the ranch’s reputation as a destination vacation spot. It was also a damned lucrative side business that kept the ranch operating well in the black throughout the rest of the year. Thankfully this was the final week of the season.

Being the last and featuring the annual Big M Ranch Rodeo, it was also the busiest. So, the universe wouldn’t do this to him. He frowned up at the bright, Monday afternoon sky.

Or maybe it would.

His little sister—aka the harbinger of grief—made it no secret she’d been put on this earth to torment both her brothers. "It’s my sacred duty as your little sister," she’d say. And it was something she reminded them of and proved frequently. If he believed she had any inkling of what she was doing to him, he might think this was deliberate on her part.

He tightened his grip on the saddle horn and cast an irritated glare over his shoulder at her. As expected, his evident ire had no effect on Kinsley. She just smiled at him in that big, toothy, you know you can’t win this argument, way of hers.

“I told Willa since the main house and cottages are full up with guests, she could stay in the family wing until this whole mess with the firefighter calendar blows over with her brothers.” She brushed back bits of shoulder-length, golden brown hair whipping across her face and smirked.

Blow over?

Right.

He’d seen the calendar.

Nothing was blowing over any time soon.

Maybe never.

Heat flooded his body that had nothing to do with the near mid-afternoon sun and everything to do with visions of…

Kinsley’s raised, speculative brow was hard to miss. And since it didn’t take much to pique his too-observant sister’s curiosity, turning away from her seemed to be the best option. He dropped his clenched fist to the seat of Chaz’s saddle. This was a hell of thing she’d just blindsided him with.

Willa Taggert, under his roof like she had been perhaps hundreds of times in the past. All of those hundreds of times had been fine.

But now?

Now she wouldn’t just be Kinsley’s friend staying for a sleepover.

Nowshe would be the women he’d been unable to get out of his thoughts since the ranch’s Fourth of July celebration. He huffed out a harsh breath. The massive fireworks display they’d put on hadn’t been the only sparks flying that night.

Everything about her when she’d arrived had been the same as it had always been. So why had he been tempted to loosen her slightly damp, curly, dark brown hair from the messy bun piled on her head? Or how could he explain why his fingertips literally pricked with the need to brush over her creamy, light brown, makeup-free face. And don’t get him started on how his eyes kept straying to her long legs in a pair of casual shorts.

Hell, he’d even found her t-shirt emblazoned with Maribel County Fire Department across the front alluring.

It had been a hell of a night, where his gaze had been drawn to her over and over wherever she’d been in the crowd. He let out a long breath. She might as well have had some kind of homing device attached to her that he had tuned into, flashing, "Here’s Willa."

He’d finally given up pretending not to seek her out once the fireworks had begun. Under cover of darkness interspersed with flashes of red, white, and blue, he’d looked his fill. Her smiling lips. The graceful curve of her neck as she’d peered upward.

“Beautiful,” Kinsley had gushed, standing beside him, as she too had had her gaze fixed on the night sky bursting with color.

“More than beautiful,” he’d murmured just as Willa had turned toward him and caught him staring. He should have smiled and looked away. But he couldn’t. Because nothing going on above him was as spectacular as the woman crinkling her brow and staring back. He’d held her gaze until her breath had visibly caught and her eyes had gone wide.

In that moment he’d wanted nothing more than to taste her full, parting lips to see if they were as delicious as they’d looked. It was an impulsive thought he wouldn’t have acted on. At least he was fairly confident he wouldn’t have.

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