“Yes, ma’am, but you ain’t.”
I gripped my lower lip with my teeth at the thought. My head pounded whenever I tried to recall what happened the moments before I reached the bridge. All I could remember was the feeling of my tire coming to a stop when it hit something and then my world tipped sideways. Everything else was blank until I woke up on Blaze’s couch. “I had slowed down for the bridge like I always do in case someone was coming from the other direction. I bet if I was going any faster—”
“You wouldn’t be standing there,” he finished. “The good news is the trailer is still holding on to the railing. It looks salvageable to me, but we’ll get that sorted out once I talk to Sheriff Nash.” He pointed behind him with his thumb. “I gotta go back down there and meet him now. I just wanted to let Blaze know.”
I stood up straight and nodded once, praying my neck didn’t spasm with the motion. “I’ll tell Blaze when he finishes in the shower. I’m sure he’ll be down to the bridge once he drops me off. I’d walk home, but my head hurts. I’m a bit tippy.”
“Maybe you should let us take you to a hospital,” he suggested hopefully, but I waved him off.
“I need to get back to the ranch. I’m sure Blaze will only be a few more minutes.”
Beau glanced at the door and back to the horse again nervously. “Tell Blaze he can raise me on the two-way. I’m going to switch out Rapunzel for the truck.”
I gave him a thumbs-up, and he headed for the barn with the horse. “Thanks, Beau,” I called, and he waved once before he disappeared inside the door of the small barn. It was more like a small shed. There were only two stalls inside, and that was where they kept Cloudy Day and Rapunzel. They were the only two horses they brought with them from Texas, and they treated them like a king and queen.
I turned toward the front door slowly since every movement made my head swim until I almost tipped over. Blaze still hadn’t reappeared, and I wanted to go home. If I stood a chance at being able to move tomorrow, I needed some more ibuprofen and a chance to put my head down for a few hours.
I checked the living room and the kitchen, but he wasn’t in either place. I walked down the hallway, staring at the photos of Blaze’s life lining the walls. Blaze winning medals in junior rodeos, Blaze and his mother, Amity, grinning at the camera while selling Stetsons, and Blaze and his father, Ash, herding steer on his ranch in Dublin, Texas.
I always teased Blaze that maybe he wasn’t Texan at all but rather a bit o’ the Irish. He certainly had the Irish temperament down pat. He was all flaming hot ego, hotter temper, stubbornness to give away, charm that could talk a girl’s pants off, and occasional wit that made you laugh out loud. I paused at the thought. No, that should be past tense. He used to be witty. Now, he was dead inside.
My finger ran along the next frame on the wall. It was Blaze and Callie on their wedding day. Callie wore a simple summer sundress, and he wore his good cowboy boots and western shirt. Callie was a beautiful woman, inside and out. She rode up here in that same pickup truck with Blaze and Beau, ready to start a new life. Callie gave up everything she had in Dublin for the chance to make her dreams come true with the man she was head over heels for.
I loved Callie from the moment I met her. I was so grateful to have another woman within a two-mile radius of my ranch—for the first time in my life—that we spent a lot of time together. Blaze and I had a bit of a love-hate relationship from the get-go though.
My eyes closed against the memories. The memories of laughing with Callie at the swimming hole as we playfully tried to drown Blaze. The memories of our campfire songs and spooky stories after we finished chores for the day.
The memories of how it all ended.
The memory of seeing her light snuffed out in the blink of an eye and with it, Blaze’s.
The damn tears filled my eyes and an unwanted sob threatened at the base of my throat. Maybe I could have helped if it hadn’t been for—
There was a sound. When I glanced up, I found I was standing in front of Blaze’s open bedroom door. And he was standing—facing me—at the end of the bed. Buck naked.
Damn. He was magnificent.
I blinked.
Was he a figment of my concussed brain? When I opened my eyes again, he hadn’t moved. He was wearing a grin and nothing else, his arms folded across his chest. Dammit. He was still magnificent.
Without a stitch of clothing on, every hard line of his male physique was open to my perusal. My gaze traced the muscles of his lanky frame from top to bottom. Muscles he had built running this ranch and working himself into the ground to forget his pain. Pain that I might have been able to prevent.
My brain was racing to catch up with what my eyes were taking in, but it was failing to send any sensible messages back to my eyes to tell them to close. Instead, they took in that smattering of chest hair that made you want to run your fingers through it. I tried to ignore those abdominal muscles that were washboard hard, trim, and rippling under my gaze. My mind refused to tell my eyes to stop dragging along the track of those obliques down to his—
“Like what you see, angel?” he drawled from where he lounged against the high footboard of the bed. He had his ankles crossed, and it gave me a full-frontal I had often dreamed about seeing. Not that I could ever have imagined what I was seeing. Ever. “Your eyes are a little dilated. Maybe you should sit down.”
I swallowed, willing my brain to come up with a witty comeback. It wouldn’t. It couldn’t. Not when faced with Blaze and all his deliciousness. Not only was my brain concussed, but it was also speechless. Everything on his body was hard. The way he stood in front of me—his eyes roving across my body like it was the first time he’d seen me—was unnerving. What was even more unnerving was—as he drank me in—his giant … um,monster, slowly hardened until it was pointing to the ceiling in a monumental display of manhood. Try as I might, I could not look away. My brain had stopped functioning altogether.
“Is that re-real?” I stuttered, my mouth working independently of my brain. My hand was waving in the direction of his groin like a white flag of surrender.
Blaze glanced down at his groin and back to my eyes. “Last time I checked.”
I took a step back. “You must be, like, six feet long.”
His bark of laughter filled the room, but he made no move to cover himself. “Not possible, sweet thing.”
I thought about what I said and resisted the urge to shake my head. “I mean—I mean, tall. You’re like six feet tall. I wasn’t talking about …” I waved my hand at his giant member that kept wagging at me, “…Mr. Monster.”