LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Right.” Emily flashed her even, white teeth and winked at him before replacing her sunglasses. “I don’t want spoiled semen on my conscience. See you later, Clay.”

      “You bet, Emily.” He headed off, cursing under his breath and trying to ignore his gut response to that smile. If he didn’t know better, he’d classify that wink as flirting; but that couldn’t be right. She’d told him once that she was a city girl who had no intention of getting mixed up with a shit-kicking cowboy, and he wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice. The perception that she’d flirted with him just now was only wishful thinking on his part.

      Stupid thinking, too. How could he have sexual feelings for a woman who continued to bleed her hardworking father for money while sneering at that good man’s lifestyle? A woman like that shouldn’t interest Clay in the least and definitely shouldn’t stir his animal instincts. Ah, but she did. Damn it, she did.

      Maybe she presented a challenge to his male ego and all he really wanted to do was take her down a peg. He was far more confident around women now than he had been ten years ago, and he realized that they found him attractive. Could be he’d like to prove to Miss Emily that a shit-kicking cowboy could ring her chimes better than any city boy.

      He wouldn’t follow up on that urge, though. Emmett had been like family. The guy was his idol. That meant Clay wasn’t going to mess with Emily. End of story.

      “CLAY WHITAKER SEEMS to have turned out okay.” Emily congratulated herself on sounding vaguely interested, when inside a wild woman shouted Take me, you bad boy! Take me, now!

      She watched Clay walk across the open area between the horse barn and the tractor barn. A girl could get used to that view—tight buns in faded jeans and shoulders broad enough to easily support a large canister of horse semen. Horse semen, of all things!

      She was dying to know how that process worked. Biology had been her favorite subject in high school, but her mother, a buyer for Chico’s, had steered her into fashion design. Unfortunately, she had no talent for it.

      Collecting horse semen—now that would be interesting. Apparently it was a sweaty job. The back of Clay’s shirt clung to his sexy torso and the dark hair curling from under his hat made him look as if he’d stuck his head beneath a faucet. The guy was hot in more ways than one, and pheromones had been coming off him in waves.

      He must have had those same deep brown eyes when he was eighteen; but, if so, they hadn’t registered with her. Today was a different story. Looking into his gorgeous eyes had produced an effect on her libido that was off the Richter scale. Either Clay had acquired a boatload of sexual chemistry over the years, or she’d been a stupid seventeen-year-old who hadn’t recognized his potential.

      She wondered if she’d been rude to him back then. At the time she’d been full of herself and full of her mother’s prejudices against cowboys. If she had been rude, she hoped he’d forgotten it by now. He probably had, after not seeing her for so long.

      “Clay’s developed into a top hand.” Emmett studied her as if trying to guess what was going on in her head.

      “That’s good to hear.” She didn’t want him to figure out what she was thinking, either. “I know you’re fond of him.” In fact, she’d been a little jealous over the years when he’d bragged about Clay, although she’d never admit that to her dad. On the other hand, knowing Emmett had Clay had eased her conscience about not visiting more often.

      “He’s a good guy,” Emmett said. “So, do you still want that coffee? ”

      “What? Oh, right! Yes. Absolutely.” At home she’d developed a midmorning Starbucks habit, something she’d confessed to Emmett during their tour of the barn when she realized she was running low on energy. But the encounter with Clay had boosted her spirits without the benefit of caffeine. Still, coffee was always welcome. She fell into step beside her father as they continued on to the house.

      “I don’t know if I told you that Clay got his degree in animal science this spring.”

      “I don’t think you mentioned that.” She knew he wasn’t comparing Clay to her, but still, she’d dropped out of college because she couldn’t see wasting the money when she didn’t know what she wanted to study.

      Her mother kept pushing retail, preferably involving fashion. Emily’s heart wasn’t in it, and finally she’d told her mother so. She’d briefly considered marine biology and had volunteered in the field, but that hadn’t felt quite right.

      Her current receptionist job couldn’t be called a career decision, either. She sighed. “When I see somebody like Clay, who has his act together, I feel like a slacker.”

      Emmett shook his head. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. Some people take longer than others to figure out what they want to do.”

      “Maybe so, but Clay’s had so many obstacles to overcome …”

      “We all have obstacles.”

      “I suppose, but you told me he spent his childhood going from one foster home to the next. That’s major trauma.”

      “You haven’t had a bed of roses, either, what with no father around.”

      “That wasn’t your fault, Dad.” She hated that he still felt guilty about the divorce, nearly twenty-five years after the fact. Before she’d been old enough to think for herself, she’d accepted her mother’s assessment that Emmett was to blame for the divorce. Gradually she’d come to see that it had been a bad match that was doomed from the start.

      “It was partly my fault,” Emmett said. “First off I let your mother take you to California, and then I only came over to visit two or three times.”

      “Yes, but Santa Barbara isn’t your kind of place.” They’d reached the steps going up to the porch and her dad’s boots hit the wood with a solid sound she’d missed hearing. She’d missed other things, too, like the way his gray hair curled a little at the nape of his neck, and how his face creased in a smile and his blue eyes grew warm and crinkly with love when he looked at her.

      She hadn’t always appreciated how handsome he was because she’d been so influenced by her mother’s assessment of cowboys as unsophisticated hicks who went around with a piece of straw clenched in their teeth. Her dad did that sometimes, but he also moved with fluid grace, and he was as lean and muscled as a man half his age.

      He blew out a breath, which made his mustache flutter a bit. “Doesn’t matter if it’s my kind of place or not. I should’ve visited more often.” He paused with one hand on the brass doorknob. “I’m sorry for that, Emily. More sorry than I can say.”

      “It’s okay.” Bracing her hands on his warm shoulder, she rose on tiptoe and leaned in under the brim of his hat to give him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ve always known you love me.”

      “More than anything.” His voice was rough with emotion. “Which is why we both need to get some coffee in us before we turn into blubbering fools and embarrass ourselves.”

      “And a Sterling never turns into a blubbering fool.”

      “That’s exactly right.” Clearing his throat, Emmett opened the door and ushered her inside.

      Although the main house didn’t have air conditioning, the thick log walls kept the rooms cool even in the heat of summer. The second story helped, too. Emily adored the winding staircase that, according to her dad, had been expertly crafted more than thirty years ago by the Chance boys’ grandpa Archie.

      Emmett had told her that Archie had been a master carpenter who’d designed every aspect of this massive home for both beauty and practicality. Even Emily’s mother, who pretty much despised anything to do with ranching, had once confessed that she found the house to be spectacular.

      A huge rock fireplace dominated the living room, and although no fire burned there, the scent of cedar smoke had worked its way into the brown

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