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Nico didn’t seem to be able to keep her hands off his chest, and he was having the same challenge with hers. He’d always been highly sexual, but Nico shot him into a whole different stratosphere.

“I think we’re nailing fun and pleasure,” Nico noted playfully.

“Did you bring a swimsuit like I suggested?”

“I didn’t bring one with me, and the western wear store where I bought my clothes for the week didn’t have any,” she admitted. “Besides, I’m sure the water is cold.”

“Lucky me,” he said. “Skinny-dipping, it is. I’ve always wanted to do that here. A teenage fantasy checked off.” He kicked off his boots.

“Bodhi Ballantyne.” She put her hands on her hips while her voice was stern though her eyes brimmed with amusement. “Don’t try to fool me that you haven’t brought dozens of girls and then women to this so-called swimming hole. I doubt much swimming happens here.”

“Swimming is all that’s happened here as far as I know,” he said, his hands stopped at his belt buckle. “I’ve been with a lot of women, Nico.” He wouldn’t try to deceive her about that or anything if he could ever help it. “But I’ve never brought a woman to the ranch. Not ever.”

“Why?” Her demeanor changed, and she took a step toward him.

He suddenly felt on very shaky ground. “I…” He had to swallow hard as his spit had all but dried up. “My cousins and I grew up in Denver. We only came to the ranch for the summers, Christmas and some school holidays. When we were here, it was all about family, working with Granddad, learning the life. Later, in college and on the tour, I came alone or with my cousins. I had a lot of women,” he admitted again, and why couldn’t he just shut up about that? “But never anyone special. Beck’s brought Ashni a bunch of times of course. And sometimes a group of kids from the summer rodeo program would all pile in trucks and come out, but I haven’t brought a woman alone here, ever, and I don’t think Bowen has either.”

“Why me?”

“Because,” he avoided, feeling eight again and up against his mother or a teacher or the principal. “We’re…” He struggled to find the right word. One that was true but didn’t reveal too much.

“We’re pretending,” she said filling in the void. “But sometimes it starts to feel a little real. We’re having fun and getting to know each other, and you might want to protect yourself even as you try to protect me, Bodhi.”

Admiration swelled. She’d just laid it out there.

“I’ve never had anything special,” she admitted. The late-afternoon breeze kicked up and started to roll down Copper Mountain, ruffling her hair. “You have the ranch. It’s you. I can tell the ranch is sacred, Bodhi. You don’t have to share all these special places of your past and your heart just to make your plays in the Rodeo Bride Game. We can do things together in town. It seems pretty easy to start rumors and gossip there. People are friendly and like to chat. I probably already got a few stories started,” she confessed.

“I want you here,” he said starkly. “I want you on the ranch. With me.”

She saw too much. Stripped him bare.

“Why?”

She wanted to understand him in a way he didn’t want to be understood.

Bodhi took the coward’s way out and ripped off his buckle and shucked off his jeans in one easy move. And why not? He was an expert taking off his clothes, and a lot of times he didn’t even bother to do that. He turned from her and, naked, cleaved into the welcoming arms of the swimming hole.

*

Such a fascinating,complicated man.

She’d scared him.

He scared her.

And wasn’t that what she wanted, to face down her fears and her doubts and live an honest, purpose-filled life? She hadn’t yet found her new purpose, but if she could slay a few ghosts—hers and Bodhi’s—and gain a new perspective on life, learn to be more comfortable with her body and enjoy sex, no way would she back down from that.

Bodhi surged up, shaking his sleek head. She’d not really seen him without his Stetson. He had dark hair, and now that it was wet and slicked back from his face, it looked even longer than she’d initially thought.

“Planning to join me?”

“Is it cold?” Of course it was. Every nerve ending in her body shivered in protest.

“The river is, but the water rolling down here from that grouping of boulders above us is part of an underground hot springs network, so it heats up the swimming hole. It’s not a hot tub, but in summer it’s like a heated pool, and if you swim close to the rocks it’s like a bath.”

“Promise?”

He grinned. That quick smile had probably shed a lot of panties over the years. “All that experience is going to be a boon to me this week,” she said under her breath, her core clenching hard just remembering what he could do with one hand.