Rugged Cowboys (Western Romance Collection) Read online

  "I called them, there shouldn't be an issue. You're saying they're still holding up payment?"

  "Yes, sir. I know that it's not an ideal time for you, but—"

  "No, I understand. You need to get paid. Same as anybody."

  Callahan runs his fingers through his hair. "So what's the damage?"

  "Don't worry about that, Mr. Callahan. We're going to keep trying with your insurance, and if that doesn't work, then we'll set up a payment plan with Mr. Reed."

  The idea of Randy being saddled with upwards of a hundred grand in debt turns his stomach over. Injured on the ranch, and the insurance company won't pay. Refuses, even after he called and talked to his rep and they assured him that they were going to send payment through.

  His teeth grit together, his jaw tightening nearly to the breaking point. "Thank you, miss."

  Her face still shows every ounce of nervousness that she's no doubt feeling, but she nods and walks off.

  Twenty thousand would do it for taxes. It'd do it easy. Fifteen would be cutting it a little close.

  But God damn if it would cover a week-long hospital stay, plus the cost of x-rays, plus all that. If insurance wasn't going to pay, then there was no way he could help cover it.

  And there was no way that Randy Reed was going to pay for it, neither. He didn't have that kind of money, and he didn't really have that kind of money coming in, neither.

  Philip's jaw tightens. There's only one way he could possibly get that kind of money. A possibility that, up until now, he's barely even entertained. He's only got one thing worth that much.

  Something he's never thought of selling before in his life.

  But if it's going to make the world of difference to the only thing close to family that Callahan's got left…

  His chest hurts, and he can feel the weight of the world crashing down on his shoulders. But there's no question what the right thing to do is.

  He'll wait until tonight, but he has to call. He'll do it as soon as he leaves the hospital, but first, he's got to go see the boys. He's got to make sure they're doing alright.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Morgan noticed Brad's absence in the way that one notices that a chronic pain has gone away. It's not immediately obvious, because even though it has been a constant for years, it feels as if it's the natural state of things.

  But once she noticed, sure enough, she couldn't remember seeing him in days. Almost four days had gone by since he'd decided to last come in for work, as far as she'd been able to tell.

  Maybe he was at the other location. There was work to be done there, no doubt. But if he was, the man hadn't called her. She stands up and walks over to the punch-in cards. Sure enough, it shows that he's been punching himself in. And he's been punching himself out, too, at the end of every day.

  So it's hard to believe, to say the least, that he's not coming in. And yet, she hasn't seen him. What that means, she's going to have to find time later to unpack. Right now isn't the time for it.

  She takes a deep breath. There's a number on her desk with a circle around it. The circle goes around and around, three times, before crossing back across itself. Like if she circles it enough times, it'll be a number she's happy with.

  There's a phone right by the pad of paper. She could call any time. But she won't, not today. Maybe not tomorrow, either. She hasn't decided yet. But she's going to have to decide at some point.

  She's going to have to figure out what she's going to do with him. It wasn't supposed to have been a concern at all. She was there to buy his property. Nothing more. Then things had gotten a little more complicated. Then they'd gotten a lot more complicated.

  Now it seemed like he was practically all she had time to think about. It was one thing to say that it wasn't effecting her work. She was a professional. Of course she wasn't letting it affect her work.

  But that didn't mean that she could lie to herself about the situation. Her head hadn't been in her business for two weeks now. For two weeks, she hadn't been doing her job because she was too unsure about this god damn ranch, and about the guy who owns it.

  Her father was fond of a saying—shit, or get off the pot.

  Well, she'd been waffling for two weeks, and it was time to make the decision, before it up and walked away. There weren't going to be infinite chances to make this deal without hurting one or both of them.

  In fact, she might already be past that point. It wasn't hard to imagine that he saw their relationship as more than just friendly. Morgan couldn't deny that she saw it in about the same way.

  If she could make the deal, and she could do it without screwing him over, without spitting in his face, maybe that could continue. Maybe they'd have something together.

  Which is why she's not calling.

  Five-fifty is a screwjob. It's practically an outright attack. But she's looked at the numbers. She's looked hard. It's the only starting point she can offer. If the conversation pushes the number higher, she can offer more. Not much more.

  Beyond that, she's hurting herself. She's hurting her company. But that's business.

  Six wasn't what she wanted to offer. It was low of what she wanted.

  Seven was low, and it would have hurt bad enough that she can't afford to have them come to that number. Not unless she really can't make the deal without it.

  She takes a breath. Nothing to debate or decide any more. She's got to make the call, and she's got to do it before she gets in any deeper with Phil Callahan.

  The ringer goes off right as she's trying to get her breathing slowed down, as she's trying to wrangle her twisting stomach into something resembling confidence.

  She picks the phone up. It's Philip calling. A picture of him, his face surly and somehow looking just terribly like him, shows on her screen.

  She wants just five more minutes. But she can't have five minutes. Her thumb flicks the button and she puts the phone to her ear.

  "Hello?"

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  "I'm ready to talk about a potential offer on the ranch."

  The words don't feel right coming out of his mouth. He should've found another way, or he shouldn't have let the boys get hurt, or… something. Anything. But instead, he's already decided that with this little bit of trouble that he's having, it's time to sell the ranch.

  His stomach turns, but it's what he has to do. The boy's future is more important than the ranch, no matter how much she offers. As long as he can skim the extra off the top, it doesn't matter.

  "Are you sure about this?"

  Her response almost makes him feel worse.

  "Don't ask me that, God damn it all. Just. Can we meet somewhere?"

  "Okay." She offers to meet him at the ranch. It's as good a place as any, he supposes. And it's getting late, so he ought to be heading home in the first place. It'll be time for bed in only a couple of hours.

  But first, he's got to finish business of the day, and today's been a busy day already. Callahan slides into the truck and starts it up. His body moves automatically, taking him home even as his brain is too tired for even one more thought.

  He pulls up beside the red car that's already in his yard and clambers out of the truck. His head feels like someone drove a wedge right through it, but he keeps his head on straight as best as he can.

  She's waiting for him by the door.

  "Are you feeling alright?"

  No, he's not. "I'm fine."

  "You don't look so good. We can do this any time. It doesn't have to be tonight."

  "Sure it does."

  She stops arguing. It's the right decision to make, he thinks. Don't argue, just accept that he's going to do what he wants to. What he has to. And if she gets what she wants out of it, then that's good for her. Good for him, too, because he needs the payout.

  "I need a number, Morgan." He's too tired for this negotiating stuff. The mood he's in, he could use something to get him cheered up. That, and a cup of coffee.

  He undresse
s her with his eyes as he sits. And yet, his mood is sufficiently sour that it's almost hard to enjoy.

  Almost.

  "I was talking with some of my associates, and—"

  "A number."

  "We're prepared to offer you five-hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

  "You have another plot, you could sell me? Right? You mentioned something about a plot a bit north of here."

  "Um, let me just—"

  "What's that change the total to?"

  She closes her eyes a minute like she's doing math, and then reaches into her pocket and pulls out a piece of paper.

  "The land was valued by our surveyors at around five hundred thousand, but—" She takes a breath and closes her eyes again. Then she's straightened out again. "I could give it to you, plus a hundred fifty thousand, if you agree to let us have this property. We could move your wife's—"

  His jaw gets tight. "What about my wife?"

  She looks surprised, like she hadn't realized that she might be stepping on toes, and in all likelihood she hadn't realized it.

  "I'm sorry, I just—your wife's marker—I saw it, on the hill—"

  His eyes slide over, as if they're seeing through the walls. He hadn't forgotten about it, but damned if he wanted to discuss it right now. Least of all with her—either as a woman that he's seeing on the side, or as the owner of the business that's buying his property.

  "Don't talk about my wife right now, Morgan. We'll sort out the details in the morning."

  She nods. "But the number is fine?"

  "Why, are you prepared to offer more?" He should have waited for the morning. He knew it, knew it before he'd even made the call. But he couldn't afford it.

  "Not at this time."

  "So I should wait a while?"

  A smile worms its way onto his face, his amusement overcoming the pain of his splitting headache and his exhaustion.

  She blinks, her eyes wide. "I should stop talking, shouldn't I?"

  "Maybe, just this once."

  "I'm serious, Philip. Are you okay?"

  "I'll be fine," he says. And he will be. In the morning. "Especially once you've got that suit off."

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  It wasn't the first time that he'd seen her naked. It wouldn't even be the worst that he'd done to her. If she was going to get bashful all of a sudden… well, that ship had sailed.

  And yet, as he sat down, his legs splayed out in a way that suggested getting down between them—even though it looked as natural as can be—something inside her burned. Was he really asking her to strip? Was she going to do it?

  Her hands don't move, even when she tells them to, some part of her body sensing that she's not sure how serious she is about the instruction herself. She's not sure how serious he is.

  Until he repeats the instruction. "Go on. Off."

  She shudders at the sound of his voice, low and edged with a threat that she doesn't know for sure he won't follow through on. She's not sure what he's threatening her with, and she's not sure what she'd be the most afraid of anyways.

  Maybe it would be something usual—but maybe it would be something real simple. Maybe she'd go home without the relief that her body had already awoken to the need for. She'd been worried about him.

  Worried, and nothing more.

  But now that she was there, now that he'd taken that tone with her, her body responded like a computer—he pushed the buttons, and she did as she was told.

  Her hands move slow, like she's moving through water, but no matter how she tried she couldn't make it go faster. Her fingers worked the buttons on her suit jacket, slipping it back and off her shoulders.

  He raises his hand an inch off his lap, but the movement was enough to stop her. "Slow down. It's not a race."

  Morgan takes a breath and tries to get her hands to stop shaking. Tries to get her head on right.

  She sways her hips side to side, moving to the rhythm of a song that neither of them can hear. She closes her eyes a moment. Her hands have no trouble finding the buttons on her blouse. She undoes the bottom one and holds the shirt open a little, showing a little peek at her belly button.

  Then she does the next one, and the next, each one showing a little more of her soft skin. A minute later, her hips still swaying softly from side to side, her shirt slips down her shoulders, until she catches it as it falls and tosses it over the back of the easy-chair beside her.

  She turns, her hips still swaying, and her skirt unzips easily. She bends down as she pushes it over her hips, giving him as much of a show as she can manage. It feels strange, foreign.

  And yet, the possessive, aroused look in his eyes makes it all worth it. She tries to hide the pleasure that she feels at the way his eyes rake over her.

  And then he's pushing himself up from the couch. She stands back up and turns.

  "No touching," she says. He wraps his arms around her and draws her in close to him, hips-first.

  "Shhh." Her eyes flutter shut a moment at his command. She's never had anyone who took control like Philip does, and there's something about it that drives her absolutely wild. She gets to take the back-seat, when he does it.

  In her every-day life, it was unacceptable, and yet—the minute that the right man does it, the minute that Callahan does it, she can't help but go wild.

  His lips press against hers. The kiss starts sexual, and goes deeper from there. His tongue finds her teeth, but she opens them for him, their tongues dancing together. One of his hands squeezes her ass, causing her to suck in a deep breath. More of that, please.

  She lets him move at his own pace. After a moment his lips leave hers, tracing a line with his teeth up her jaw and then back down her neck, alternately scraping and biting softly down into the sensitive skin.

  "You like that, don't you," he growls. Morgan nods. "Say it."

  "I love it," she says, her throat tight. "I need it."

  His teeth bite in deeper, harder. Hard enough to hurt, but when she lets out a gasp and her body twists itself up, it's not the pain that she's reacting to. Her hips press themselves into him, his hardness pressing into her, taunting her with what she can't have yet. Because he hasn't given it to her.

  His little nibbles resume, down her body, tracing the line of her shoulder and then her collar bone. He kisses down between her breasts and continues lower until his fingers are hooking into her panties and pulling them lower to allow him more space to kiss.

  And then his kisses reach the place between her legs, the place that she'd been dying for them to go. She slips into the chair beside her and lets him begin.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  She tastes sweet and tangy and like a woman is supposed to taste. His tongue explores her folds greedily, as much about his own enjoyment as it is about hers. Her fingers, trying to find purchase in his shirt hair and mash his face in deeper, to take the last bit of pleasure, tell him that her pleasure is in no short order.

  Philip's tongue moved faster, flicking the tip across the very tip of the hardened nub, as fast as his body would let him move. Morgan mashed in harder, already lost in the pursuit of more and more pleasure.

  The feeling of arousal, of raw need, welling up inside his chest is too much. He probes a little bit lower, finding her wet and waiting hole with two fingers.

  They suck at his fingers, trying to squeeze down and get them to pull deeper inside, her body already reacting to the intrusion by trying to make sure that he stays inside her as long as possible.

  Her hips, on the other hand, tell a different story, writhing back and forth, not sure whether to try to drive him in deeper or pull back and try to regain her senses, so it does both alternately, sometimes trying to pull away and other times trying to force him deeper.

  And then, when the efforts to pull away finally fail, and he adds a third finger to his probing efforts, when he refocuses his efforts on her g-spot, her body tenses up, her back stuck in a high arch.

  Only then does she cry out, her voi
ce hoarse and shrill and rich with arousal and need. His hands keep moving, his mouth locked around her clit, his tongue working faster and rougher as she rides out her orgasm.

  He stops when her body finally relaxes, his fingers trailing out of her slowly as he stands before her; him fully clothed, while she lays on his lazy boy in the nude.

  His erection presses hard against the fabric of his jeans. Her eyes don't leave it for a moment, even as her breaths can only come in spurts and gasps.

  "Fuck, that was—"

  "You liked that, did you?"

  Her eyes drift shut, and then open again a moment later, her body too lazy and too satiated to blink. "A little."

  "Good."

  With what seems to be all the strength she can muster, Morgan sits herself forward, her hands working the zip at the front of his fly. It springs out and practically into her face. His boxers follow his jeans to the floor, but by then, no doubt, she's already forgotten about them.

  She swallows Philip's cock like she's a woman dying of thirst, like it's the only thing that's going to save her from her need.

  He holds her head still this time. Time for something different. Something more. Her head still, he moves his hips. It's slow, at first. No faster than she was doing it herself.

  She'll need to open her throat up a little, for what's going to come next. She could use the time to practice, to get used to it. To get used to his cock and get ready for what's going to come next.

  He moves faster. His fingers dig into her hair a little, holding it tight and giving her that little reminder that she's not supposed to move. His hips thrust a little faster, now—a little needier.

  And once he's sure that she can take it, he stops holding himself back. Her throat releases a choking sound with every thrust as her air gets blocked, just for a moment before he pulls back out. The tightness of the back of her mouth feels amazing, and every thrust sends a tight shiver down his spine.

  But his orgasm is approaching. He can feel it, almost on the horizon, and he's not ready to cum yet. He pulls out almost reluctantly, Morgan's face still wearing a hazy, well-fucked expression. He hasn't even begun yet.