How To Rope A Rich Cowboy (Silver Springs Ranch #2) - Anya Summers Page 0,35

she climbed out of bed and padded into the kitchen. She started the coffee in the coffeemaker with the real ground beans, not the instant stuff she carried with her on her travels due to lack of available coffeemakers in remote locations, and marveled again at Colt’s generosity.

He’d gone all out in filling the fridge and pantry. Avery wasn’t used to having this much of a selection. There had to be easily three hundred dollars’ worth of food that he had purchased. Yes, he had eaten from the supply, but there was just so much of it, like he had been worried that she would starve.

This wouldn’t have been the first time she lived off packs of ramen noodles—nor would it be the last. And yet he had cared enough to make sure she had other things to eat.

Perhaps she could cook for him tomorrow night when he visited. She could make chili with the beans and ground beef, or even a meatloaf. He seemed like a meat and potatoes type of guy. But it would be a way for her to show him she appreciated what he had done for her, covering for her so that his boss didn’t toss her off the property.

Too bad he wasn’t coming back tonight. She sighed. She had already formed an attachment to him, and missed having his big body to cuddle with overnight.

Stupid of her to get attached this way. Destructive, too.

She just wished he was coming back that night. But there had been a mumbled excuse about a work event that he couldn’t avoid, and that it would be late before he was done.

He’d promised to return tomorrow night though. Perhaps, along with dinner, she could set a romantic stage, seduce him, and make him fall for her. She had one matching set of bra and panties—a red, lacy set—that had been known to drive a man wild. Not that the two of them needed any help in that department, they had a hard time keeping their hands off each other. But it could be fun, seducing him, making the big Dom her love slave.

She worried that she was getting her hopes up, that she would pull out all the stops, and it wouldn’t matter because he wasn’t looking for complications.

Avery was developing feelings—big, scary, life-altering feelings—for Colt that made her want to keep him, that made her wish she was the type of woman willing to settle down in the middle of Colorado, and keep the home fires burning while her man went to work. But they were her feelings, not his.

For all she knew, this affair could be purely sexual on his part. They were having sex. Really great, best she’d ever had, break the bed sex. After their adventure in the stream yesterday, they had made it back to the cabin and ended up in the shower together, and then in her bed.

That might be the extent of his feelings for her. She had to accept the possibility that she was falling alone—much like she did everything else in her life.

For her, it wasn’t all about the sex, she thought, contemplating the forest beyond the cabin, clutching her cup of coffee. She liked Colt. He could be surly and bossy, but was also thoughtful and generous. He turned her inside out with a heated look. Avery had been on her own for so long that having someone else care for her wellbeing churned up long dead dreams of a husband and family, that she wouldn’t be alone her whole life. He made her want to believe there really was someone out there for her. Her penguin, the man she would mate with for life.

And he brought her a sense of calm and stability that was absent in her life.

Yes, she was scatterbrained, with a hefty dose of Attention Deficit Disorder, and that, added to her desire to learn everything, to explore the world around her, made her ability to focus or decide what to focus on difficult at times. But his presence seemed to center her, make her stop to catch her breath—at least the ones he wasn’t taking away with his kiss.

After a breakfast of a blueberry muffin and banana—which were a virtual feast in her world—and a quick shower, where she sadly washed away traces of Colt’s scent from her body, she donned a pair of clean jeans, and a tee shirt depicting the game rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock. Then she headed outside with a