Read Online That Night With the Rich Rancher by Sara Orwig - Free Book Online Page B

continue.”
    She squared her shoulders and fussed with the sheet. Then she cleared her throat and spoke. “My wells are running dry and I figured you’ve replaced your old pumps with bigger ones that are drawing on the aquifer and depleting my groundwater. I can get bigger pumps, too, but that might take water from other neighbors and I don’t want to do that.”
    He held up his hand. “I told you, Lindsay, I do not have bigger pumps.”
    “Well, for some reason, my water is dwindling away to almost nothing.”
    “It’s a record drought,” he said, as if having to explain the obvious to a child.
    “I’ve asked Cal Thompson and he doesn’t have bigger pumps. Neither does Wendell Holmes. I figured it was you.”
    “It is not. According to the weather experts, this is the worst drought in these parts in the past almost sixty years—before you and I were born, much less before we became owners of neighboring ranches. I told you the solution to my problem. You can do the same. Just dig deeper wells and you’ll have much more water. Then when it rains, the aquifer will fill back up again. If you don’t want to dig deeper, buy water and have it piped in. That’s what Wendell is doing.”
    She stared at him thoughtfully in silence for several minutes. It was difficult to keep his attention on her water worries while she sat beside him in bed, naked, with only a sheet pulled up beneath her arms. He couldn’t resist reaching out to caress her throat again, letting his hand slide down and slip beneath the sheet to caress her bare breasts. It took an effort to sit quietly and wait when all he wanted to do was take her in his arms and kiss her thoroughly. Well, that wasn’t all he wanted to do.
    The instant his fingers brushed her nipple, he saw a flicker in her eyes.
    “You really had them dug deeper?”
    Thinking more about her soft skin and where his fingers wanted to go, he hung on to his patience. “Yes, I did. When we get home, come over anytime and I’ll show you my old pumps.”
    When she merely nodded, he felt a streak of impatience with her for being so stubborn. She didn’t seem convinced he was telling the truth, and he suspected she wasn’t going to take his advice. With every passing minute he could see her sliding back into her serious, stubborn self, stirring up conflict unnecessarily. Lindsay seemed to thrive on conflict. Except for last night. For that brief time she had been sexy, appealing, cooperative and wonderful. Now they were drifting back to reality and he had to hang on to his patience once again.
    “I might do that.”
    As his gaze ran over her, it was difficult to think about anything else except how sexy she was and how the minutes were running out on this brief truce. She looked incredibly enticing with her bare shoulders and just the beginning of luscious curves revealed above the top of the sheet. How could she be this appealing and he had never noticed? He knew his answer, but it still amazed him that he hadn’t had a clue about her beauty. In the past, once she started arguing he couldn’t see beyond his anger. He saw now.
    He was unable to resist trailing his fingers lightly over her alluring bare shoulder, looking so soft and smooth. If his life depended on it, he couldn’t stop touching her or looking at her. He wanted to pull away the sheet, place her in his lap and kiss her senseless. They were wasting their last few moments together talking about the drought, when he had other things he wanted to do.
    He leaned forward to brush a kiss on that perfect shoulder.
    “Tony, you’re not even listening,” she snapped, her voice taking on the stubborn note he had heard her use too many times. Right now, he didn’t care, because he knew how to end her annoyance.
    He trailed kisses to her throat and up to her ear while his hands traveled over her, pulling the sheet down as they set out in exploration. Suddenly, she pushed him down and moved over him to sit astride him. She had