Country Desires (Collins Ranch - Book Two): Collins Ranch, #2

Country Desires

Andrea Collins thought New York City would be everything she'd ever dreamed. What she didn't anticipate was the pleasures of small town life coming back to haunt her in the big dog-eat-dog world.

A bad break-up with her boyfriend leads her back to Heighly, the town of her youth, after many years. Now she must try and mend the bonds she broke so long ago.

One thing she didn't count on, however, was slick new ranch manager Kyle Hammond and his judgmental stare. His dark blue eyes both arouse and infuriate her, and it doesn't take long for frustration and passion to come to a head...

Kyle Hammond has made a mistake. But, once he's touched the gorgeous, complicated Andrea Collins, he can't help but want more. When Andrea spills her innermost secrets to him, they form a truce cemented by understanding and the hunger they have for one another. However, after the greatest day she's ever had, Andrea finds herself faced with a dangerous accident that threatens to turn everything she's learned about Kyle upside down.

Country Desires

He'd gone and done it now.

Leaning against the doorframe in his small cabin on the Collins ranch, Kyle frowned, staring out into the night. There were no streetlights this far out of town, but the round, full moon provided enough illumination for him to gaze over the huge expanse of Collins land. Stars twinkled like diamonds scattered in the inky darkness of the sky and a low breeze rustled through the grass.

As much as he tried to distract himself with the beauty of the property, however, Kyle's gaze was inextricably drawn back to the main house, and its single lit window in the night. It was her bedroom, and he knew it. Kyle could traverse the house in his mind when he closed his eyes and hers was the only room he'd never entered.

It was well past midnight, and Andrea was still awake.

For at least ten minutes, he watched her illuminated window, hoping guiltily to catch some glimpse of her. When, instead, the light simply extinguished, he cursed lowly.

What the hell was wrong with him?

This woman was trouble, pure and simple. She was hot-headed and emotionally conflicted – far more so than any one he imagined himself capable of dealing with. She'd decked him, for God's sake, and his jaw was still sore.

But then, she'd let him slide his hand down the front of her jeans and find her hot, wet and wanting. She'd let him plump her nipple to his lips and suckle as he explored the heat of her with his fingers and drove her to her peak. Remembering the way her lips parted, her cheeks flushed and how she'd shuddered as she'd come against his palm...

Kyle groaned lowly.

He'd known the moment he'd set eyes on the woman that she would complicate things; he just hadn't known how much. Andrea Collins seemed to have forgotten everything she had learned growing up; and that knowledge wasn't just limited to riding horses and bringing in crop yields – she'd forgotten how to respect her parents, how to talk to people and, most of all, how to relax.

The slack, ecstatic expression on her face after she'd climaxed was the most open he'd seen her since she'd arrived; and even that vision had been quickly stolen from him. It seemed like the moment the door to her emotions began to swing open, she clammed up again. Women who'd experienced an orgasm as powerful as she as the one she'd experienced didn't usually recede into themselves so quickly.

And she'd been so adamant in declaring that he'd never touch her again.

Tumbling, she'd called it.

He couldn't help but smirk at her disdain. She certainly hadn't had any complaints when she'd been writhing up against the wall, trapped between his body and the stable wall.  

As quickly as his lips had quirked, however, his smile faded. Andrea was a piece of work all right. She seemed determined to try and connect with her past, but was going about it in all the wrong ways. She'd nearly scared her childhood horse into trampling her and barely spoke to her parents over dinner. She was convinced that learning to do chores, that proving herself capable on the ranch, would open up the door to her re-acceptance.

But even he knew that it was going to take a lot more than that.

The question was: Why did he care? If some stuck up city transplant wanted to run herself into the ground trying to prove she could find her inner country, why not let her? Shaking his head, Kyle turned to slip inside his cabin, closing the door behind him.

The interior was small, but he'd worked to make it comfortable. His work boots always stood at the ready near the door and his pressed work shirts hung up over the desk he did his figuring on. Not that he needed to do a large amount of head work, but when the computer wasn't available, he ran numbers at night on his own. It was soothing to him, and sometimes helped him nod off.

He flopped down on his bed beneath the window, his mouth turned downwards. Why did he care? Because Andrea was a part of Shirley and Hugh. A misplaced part, to be sure, but still a part. And if they were willing to accept her back into the fold, he would have to accept the change she brought to the ranch.

However, that didn't mean that he was going to turn a blind eye to her disregard for ranch regulations. She needed to be more careful with the colts. She had to stop spooking the animals, and most importantly, it was imperative that she stop avoiding other people like the plague. The other ranch hands already viewed her as an impassive, strange intruder to their way of life and she was only making it worse.

Of course, they didn't know her like he did.

He was sure that those brilliant green eyes of hers didn't haunt them. They didn't dream about lush curves and creamy skin beneath their fingers.

Kyle's frown only deepened. It was hard for him to accept that when it came to the issue of Andrea Collins, he was torn. He wanted her – that much was a proven fact; and she wanted him. But did he approve of her? Did he think her return to the ranch would prove good for Shirley, Hugh, and the operation itself.

On that, he was still pretty firmly in the negative.

At least for now.

He could only hope that she would open up to someone, and soon. If she didn't, she'd continue to wander around the ranch, a lost city girl smack in the middle of a place she didn't belong – and that could only last so long.

For everyone involved.

**

It had been a week.

One whole week and Andrea still found herself nervous about leaving the house. Gone was the courage she'd shown when she'd wanted to prove to her mother that she was still worthy to carry the Collin's name. Gone was the fortitude with which she'd first faced the hands and the animals.

Now, she was terrified to go out, for fear that she'd run into him.

Scowling, Andrea chucked a pillow across her room moodily. She was angry – both at herself and the slick cowboy who had somehow caught her unaware. Her breath caught and her body heated when she remembered what he'd done to her in the stables.

She wanted his hands on her again.

The need was an ache, low and hot, that plagued her night and day.

A need that she certainly could not contend with at this juncture. She was supposed to be re-orienting herself to her home. She was supposed to be making amends to her parents and rediscovering the ranch she'd once loved.

Instead, she was hiding away in her room, nervous around any and everyone – especially Kyle Hammond. In one stroke, he'd stolen all of her confidence – proven that his dark blue eyes and dexterous hands could undo her.

And she had no idea what to do about it. The man reigned supreme on the ranch. As the manager, he was her parents' go-to man on every issue they faced, as well as – she had noted with growing dismay – a very close friend. They were perhaps more familiar with the burly cowboy than they were with their own daughter. Her father often pulled the man into huge bear hugs and shared beers with him and the other ranch hands. Her mother delegated the choicest bits of dinner to him, and always served him huge helpings of dessert.

It was as if the man had usurped the place that should have been hers; and though Andrea knew she was being childish, she couldn't help but think it unfair. She'd returned to Collins ranch seeking the comfort that had once pervaded her life and, instead, she merely felt like a stranger.

What was she doing wrong?

Well, besides letting the ranch manager diddle her in the barn, of course. That seemed rather obvious. Kyle had implied that she didn't belong here – that a stint on the ranch would send her scurrying back to New York with her tail between her legs. What he would never understand was that she couldn't return to the city.

She wouldn't.

New York had sapped everything from her – her hopes, her happiness and her spirit. Returning simply wasn't an option. She would have to make things work – and she wasn't accomplishing that hiding in her room like a rat in a cellar.

Rolling onto her side, she gazed out her window and over the front veranda of the farmhouse. It was almost eight in the morning, and the ranch hands would be long up and working at the morning chores.

Sure enough, Paul and Ronnie were feeding the chickens close to the horse pens while Travis exercised two colts in the paddock. The young horses were frisky and playful, nipping at one another as the slender man led them around the pen. Despite her frustration, Andrea felt a smile curving her lips upwards.

She loved horses – always had. It was the one detail of her life that she'd never been able to forget. Even as she'd waited tables, started her first desk job and let David indoctrinate her into his way of life, she'd never been able to quell her longing to mount a horse and ride through an open field, the sun in her face. New York had offered few opportunities for her to do so, and David had never liked animals; but the few docile mares she'd traipsed through Central Park had only made her miss home all the more as the years had gone on.

To come home and find Pride, the stallion she's loved beyond compare, spooking at the very sight of her? It had been a harsh blow.

Her mother had implied once, over an awkward dinner, that if she wanted a refresher on horse riding that Kyle would be willing to help her. Though Andrea had pasted a stiff smile on her face at the suggestion, she had known that she had no such option. Interacting with Kyle meant that she would be forced to face him and remember in vivid detail how he'd touched her.

And how she'd enjoyed it.

Besides, she'd rather eat manure than seek out the sarcastic, judgmental ranch hand. He seemed insistent in his opinion that she didn't belong on the ranch, but that hadn't stopped him