Page 62

LOVE, LIES, AND LUGGAGE

Damon

I'd faced down angry bulls, broken up bar fights, and once had a rattlesnake slither into my sleeping bag.

None of those experiences had prepared me for Claudia Parsons.

And I hadn't even met the woman yet.

I stood near baggage claim at the airport, checking the arrivals board for the third time in five minutes. Her flight had landed. That was the good news. The bad news was that I was starting to sweat. Not because of the temperature. The airport was air-conditioned to a degree that suggested the management had a personal vendetta against human comfort.

Nope.

I was nervous.

Me.

Damon Lockhart.

Nervous about meeting a woman who probably weighed a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet.

In my defense, when I'd spoken to her on the phone the night before, she'd managed to interrogate me, issue several thinly veiled threats, and arrange for me to pick her up at the airport in under three minutes.

The woman was efficient.

I had to give her that.

I glanced at my watch. Again. Then my mind wandered back to that morning. To waking up with Mikayla beside me.

I'd woken up before my alarm, which wasn't unusual. Years of working on the ranch had programmed my internal clock to go off before the sun had the decency to show its face.

What was unusual was the woman sleeping in my bed.

I'd rolled onto my side and found Mikayla facing me, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, her bonnet still in place. She'd been wearing an oversized T-shirt and sweatpants. Not exactly the stuff of men's fantasies. Except apparently it was. Because I'd never seen anything more beautiful.

Her lashes rested against her cheeks, her lips were slightly parted, and there was a little crease between her eyebrows that made me wonder if she was still trying to solve problems in her sleep.

I'd wanted to smooth it away with my thumb.

I'd wanted to pull her closer.

I'd wanted a whole lot of things I had no business wanting.

So I'd stayed right where I was. Watching her. Which sounded considerably creepier than it had felt at the time.

The truth was, I'd never woken up beside a woman in my bed before. I'd dated plenty. I'd even had a few relationships that lasted longer than the expiration date on a carton of milk. But I'd never brought a woman home to stay the night.

My house was my space.

My sanctuary.

The place where I didn't have to be the charming Lockhart brother or the guy everyone in town thought they knew.

I'd always figured sharing it with someone would feel like an intrusion. Like wearing boots a size too small. But waking up beside Mikayla hadn't felt uncomfortable. It had felt like finding something I hadn't realized was missing.

Which was a hell of a thought to have before six in the morning.

When her eyes had finally fluttered open, she'd looked at me with a sleepy, confused expression. Then she'd smiled. A small, unguarded smile.