Lovers at Heart (35 page)

Chapter One

REX BRADEN AWOKE before dawn, just as he had every Sunday morning for the past twenty-six years—since the Sunday after his mother died, when he was eight years old. He didn’t know what had startled him awake on that very first Sunday after she’d passed, but he swore it was her whispering voice that led him down to the barn and had him mounting Hope, the horse his father had bought for his mother when she first became ill. In the years since, Hope had remained strong and healthy; his mother, however, was not as lucky.

In the gray, predawn hours, the air was still downright cold, which wasn’t unusual for May in Colorado. By afternoon they’d see temps in the early seventies. Rex pulled his Stetson down low on his head and rounded his shoulders forward as he headed into the barn.

The other horses itched to be set free the moment he walked by their stalls, but Rex’s focus on Sunday mornings was solely on Hope.

“How are you, girl?” he asked in a deep, soft voice. He saddled Hope with care, running his hand over her thick coat. Her red coat had faded, now boasting white patches along her jaw and shoulders.

Hope nuzzled her nose into his massive chest with a gentle
neigh
. Most of his T-shirts had worn spots at his solar plexus from that familiar nudge. Rex had helped his father on the ranch ever since he was a boy, and after graduating from college, he’d returned to the ranch full-time. Now he ran the show—well, as much as anyone could run anything under Hal Braden’s strong will.

“Taking our normal ride, okay, Hope?” He looked into her enormous brown eyes, and not for the first time, he swore he saw his mother’s beautiful face smiling back at him. The face he remembered from before her illness had stolen the color from her skin and the sparkle from her eyes. Rex put his hands on Hope’s strong jaw and kissed her on the soft pad of skin between her nostrils. Then he removed his hat and rested his forehead against the same tender spot, closing his eyes just long enough to sear that image into his mind.

They trotted down the well-worn trail in the dense woods that bordered his family’s five-hundred-acre ranch. Rex had grown up playing in those woods with his five siblings. He knew every dip in the landscape and could ride every trail blindfolded. They rode out to the point where the trail abruptly came to an end at the adjacent property. The line between the Braden ranch and the unoccupied property might be invisible to some. The grass melded together, and the trees looked identical on either side. To Rex, the division was clear. On the Braden side, the land had life and breath, while on the unoccupied side, the land seemed to exude a longing for more.

Hope instinctively knew to turn around at that point, as they’d done so many times before. Today, Rex pulled her reins gently, bringing her to a halt. He took a deep breath as the sun began to rise, his chest tightening at the silent three hundred acres of prime ranch land that would remain empty forever. Forty-five years earlier, his father and Earl Johnson, their neighbor and his father’s childhood friend, had jointly purchased that acreage between the two properties with the hopes of one day turning it over for a profit. After five years of arguing over everything from who would pay to subdivide the property to who they’d sell it to, both Hal and Earl took the hardest stand they could, each refusing to ever sell. The feud still had not resolved. The Hatfields’ and McCoys’ harsh and loyal stance to protect their family honor was mild compared to the loyalty that ran within the Braden veins. The Bradens had been raised to be loyal to their family above all else. Rex felt a pang of guilt as he looked over the property, and not for the first time, he wished he could make it his own.

With a gentle kick of his heels and a tug of the rein in his right hand, Hope trotted off the path and along the property line toward the creek. Rex’s jaw clenched and his biceps bulged as they descended the deep hill toward the ravine. The water was still as glass when they finally reached the rocky shoreline. Rex looked up at the sky as the gray gave way to powdery blues and pinks. In all the years since he’d claimed those predawn hours as his own, he’d never seen a soul while he was out riding, and he liked it that way.

They headed south along the water toward Devil’s Bend. The ravine curved at a shockingly sharp angle around the hillside and the water pooled, deepening before the rocky lip just before the creek dropped a dangerous twenty feet into a bed of rocks. He slowed when he heard a splash and scanned the water for the telltale signs of a beaver, but there wasn’t a dam in sight.

Rex took the bend and brusquely drew Hope to a halt. Jade Johnson stood at the water’s edge in a pair of cutoff jean shorts, cut just above the dip where her hamstrings began. He’d seen her only once in the past several years, and that was weeks ago, when she had ridden her stallion down the road and stopped at the top of their driveway. Rex raked his eyes down her body and swallowed hard. Her cream-colored T-shirt hugged every inch of her delicious curves, a beautiful contrast to her black-as-night hair, which tumbled almost to her waist. Rex noticed that her hair was the exact same color as her stallion, which was standing nearby with one leg bent at the knee.

Jade hadn’t seen him yet. He knew he should back Hope up and leave before she had the chance. But she was so goddamned beautiful that he was mesmerized, his body reacting in ways that had him cursing under his breath. Jade Johnson was Earl Johnson’s feisty daughter. Jade Johnson was off-limits. She always had been and always would be. But that didn’t stop his pulse from racing, or the crotch of his jeans from tightening against his growing desire. Fifteen years he’d forced himself not to think about her, and now, as her shoulders lifted and fell with each breath, he couldn’t stop himself from wondering what it might feel like to tangle his fingers in her thick mane of hair, or how her breasts would feel pressed against his bare chest. He felt the tantalizing stir of the forbidden wrestling with his deep-seated loyalty to his father—and he was powerless to stop himself from being the prick of a man that usually resulted from the conflicting emotions.

JADE JOHNSON KNEW she shouldn’t have ridden Flame down the ravine, but she’d woken up from a restless, steamy dream before the sun came up, and she needed a release for the sexual urges she’d been repressing for way too long.
Goddamned Weston, Colorado
. How the hell was a twenty-eight-year-old woman supposed to have any sort of relationship with a man in a town when everybody knew one another’s business? She’s thought she’d had life all figured out; after she graduated from veterinary school in Oklahoma, she’d completed her certifications for veterinarian acupuncture while also studying equine shiatsu, and then she’d taken on full-time hours at the large animal practice where she’d worked a limited schedule while completing school. She’d dated the owner’s son, Kane Law, and when she opened her own practice a year later, she thought she and Kane would move toward having a future together. How could she have known that her success would be a threat to him—or that he’d become so possessive that she’d have to end the relationship? Coming back home had been her only option after he refused to stop harassing her, and now that she’d been back for a few months, she was thinking that maybe returning to the small town had been a mistake. She’d gotten her Colorado license easily enough, but instead of building a real practice again, she’d been working on more of an as-needed basis, traveling to neighboring farms to help with their animals without any long-term commitment, while she figured out where she wanted to put down roots and try again.

She heaved a heavy rock into the water with a grunt, pissed off that she’d taken this chance with Flame by coming down the steep hill. She knew better, but Flame was a sturdy Arabian stallion, and at fifteen hands high, he had the most powerful hindquarters she’d ever seen. Flame’s reaction time to commands, and his ability to spin, turn, or sprint forward was quicker than any horse she’d ever mounted. His short back, strong bones, and incredibly muscled loins made him appear indestructible. When Flame stumbled, Jade’s heart nearly skipped a beat. He’d quickly regained his footing, but the rhythm of his gait had changed, and when she’d dismounted, he was favoring his right front leg. Now she was stuck with no way to get him home without hurting him further.

Damn it
. She bent over and hoisted another heavy rock into her arms to heave more of her frustration into the water. Her hair fell like a curtain over her face, and she used one dusty hand to push it back over her shoulder, then picked up the rock and—
shit
. She dropped the rock and narrowed her eyes at the sight of Rex Braden sitting atop that mare of his.

The nerve of him, staring at me like I’m a piece of meat
. Even if he was every girl’s dream of a cowboy come true in his tight-fitting jeans, which curved oh so lusciously over his thighs, defining a significant bulge behind the zipper. She ran her eyes up his too-tight dark shirt and silently cursed at herself for involuntarily licking her lips in response. She tried to tear her eyes from his tanned face, peppered with stubble so sexy that she wanted to reach out and touch his chiseled jaw, but her eyes would not obey.

“What’re you looking at?” she spat at the son of the man who had caused her father years of turmoil. When she’d first come back to town, she’d hoped maybe things had changed. She’d ridden by the Bradens’ ranch while she was out with Flame one afternoon. Rex and his family were out front, commiserating over an accident that had just happened in their driveway, resulting in two mangled cars. She’d tried to see if they needed help, to break the ice of the feud that had gone on since before she was born, but while his brother Hugh had at least spoken to her, Rex had just narrowed those smoldering dark eyes of his and clenched that ever-jumping jaw. She’d be damned if she’d accept that treatment from anyone, especially Rex Braden. Despite her best efforts to forget his handsome face, for years he’d been the only man she’d conjured up in the darkest hours of the nights, when loneliness settled in and her body craved human touch. It was always his face that pulled her over the edge as she came apart beneath the sheets.

“Not you, that’s for sure,” he answered with a lift of his chin.

Jade stood up tall in her new Rogue boots and settled her hands on her hips. “Sure looks like you’re staring to me.”

Rex cracked a crooked smile as he nodded toward the water. “Redecorating the ravine?”

“No!” She walked over to Flame and ran her hand down his flank.
Why him? Of all the men who could ride up, why does it have to be the one guy who makes my heart flutter like a schoolgirl’s?

“Taking a break, that’s all.” She couldn’t take her eyes off of his bulging biceps. Even as a teenager, he’d had the nervous habit of clenching his jaw and arms at the same time—and, Jade realized, the effect it had on her had not diminished one iota.

“Lame stallion?” he asked in a raspy, deep voice.

Everything he said sounded sensual. “No.”
What happened to my vocabulary?
She’d been three years behind Rex in school, and in all the years she’d known him, he probably hadn’t said more than a handful of words to her. She narrowed her eyes, remembering how she’d pined over each one of his grumbling syllables, even though they were usually preceded by a dismissive grunt of some sort, which she had always attributed to the feud that preceded her birth.

“All righty then.” He turned his horse and walked her back the way he’d come.

Jade stared at his wide back as it moved farther and farther away.
Damn it, what if no one else comes along?
She looked up at the sun making its slow crawl toward the sky, guessing it was only six thirty or seven. No one else was going to come by the ravine. She cursed herself for not carrying her cell phone. She wasn’t one of those women who needed to be accessible twenty-four-seven. She carried it during the day, but this morning, she’d just wanted to ride without distraction. Now she was stuck, and he was her only hope. Getting Flame home was more important than any family feud or her own conflicting hateful and lustful thoughts for the conceited man who was about to disappear around the corner.

She shook her head and kicked the dirt, wishing she’d worn her riding boots. The toes of her new Rogues were getting scuffed and dirty.
Could today get any worse?

“Hey!” she called after him. When he didn’t stop, she thought he hadn’t heard her. “I said,
hey
!”

He came to a slow stop, but didn’t turn around. “You talking to me? I thought you were talking to that lame horse of yours.” He cast a glance over his shoulder.

Jerk
. “His name is Flame, and he’s the best damned horse around, so watch yourself.”

His horse began its lazy stroll once again.

“Wait!”
Goddamn it
! She gritted her teeth against the desire to call him an ass and shot a look at Flame, still favoring his leg, softening her resolve.

“Wait, please.”

His horse came to another stop.

“I need to get him home, and I can’t very well do it myself.” She kicked the dirt again as he turned his horse and walked her back. He stared down at Jade with piercing dark eyes, his jaw still clenched.