Secret Sweetheart Read online

  He’d always felt like the tarnished version of his brother Logan. Where he had bright green eyes, Knox’s were muted. Logan could grow a healthy beard in a week while Knox struggled to even have his look good after a couple of months. Logan had charisma; Knox knew how to hide in the shadows.

  The scent of barbecue met his nose, and he suddenly wondered if he’d brought the right food. Why hadn’t Newt told him what to bring?

  He reached the door and couldn’t prolong entering unless he was willing to go on home by himself. He didn’t want to do that either, as Logan let his dogs outside and then back in, so they tracked snow and mud all over the kitchen.

  Nudging the door with his foot, it swung open easily to reveal a round card table had been set up in the middle of the open area before the stalls took over. A separate table held the food, and a few other people stood there, eating and laughing while a radio warbled country music from a higher shelf.

  “Oh, hey,” Clay said, separating from the group and coming over to Knox. “Newton said you’d be taking his place.” He looked down at the seven-layer dip in Knox’s hands. “Oh, stars alive. Flynn is going to love you.” He grinned and took a couple bags of chips from Knox. “Guys, Knox is here. He’s playing for Newton tonight.”

  Knox said hello to Flynn Hollister, who took the seven-layer dip and said it was all for him. At least Knox knew he’d earned one friend.

  Another cowboy—still dressed in his jeans, boots, hat, and belt buckle—Wyatt Barlow grinned and stepped out of the way so Knox could see the last man.

  Except it wasn’t a man at all.

  Betsy stood there, stirring something in a Crock pot that wasn’t plugged in anymore. She tucked her gorgeous red-tinted blonde hair behind her ear before she looked up at him. “Hey, Knox.”

  He could’ve fallen over with the level of flirtatiousness in her voice. Instead, he simply stared. If anyone else noticed the exchange, they didn’t say anything.

  Clay clapped him on the back and said, “We start in five minutes. So everyone get your food, and let’s get this game going.”

  “I hope you boys are ready to lose tonight,” Betsy said without taking her eyes off of Knox. “I’m feeling real lucky.”

  The other cowboys laughed, and Knox startled when he realized he’d fallen into a trance. He joined his half-hearted laughter to theirs, loaded up his plate, and took the last seat at the table.

  It happened to be directly across from Betsy, and he wondered if he was torturing himself on purpose. She felt so out of his league. Completely off-limits, as she was his boss’s sister and his brother’s girlfriend’s sister.

  But, oh, how his heart ricocheted around in his chest at the very sight of her. Tonight, she wore a blouse the color of blueberries, and it went so well with her hair. He rarely saw her wear it down, and as she scraped it together into a ponytail, he mourned the loss of it.

  She cracked her knuckles and picked up her barbecue pork sandwich. “All right. Let’s play.” She shuffled the cards like a pro, and that made Knox’s pulse accelerate even more.

  He managed to eat while keeping one eye on her while she dealt, all the while wondering how he could be the one to take her back to the homestead when the game ended.

  Chapter 3

  Betsy contained the excitement at seeing Knox by shuffling extra hard and then practically throwing the cards around the table as she dealt. Knox Locke, sitting right in front of her. It was like God had heard her thoughts and listened to her prayers, and then answered them.

  Thank you, Lord, she thought as she finished dealing and picked up her own hand. She was exceptionally skilled at poker, and everyone but Knox knew it. She felt them all watching her, but she pretended like she didn’t.

  She moved one card over, and then another one to the front before looking up. “Bets in.” She reached for the bowl of peanut M&Ms in the middle of the table and took a handful for her own betting bowl. Everyone else did too, Knox the slowest and last to figure out that they used the candy to play.

  Clay picked up the bowl of chocolate and set it by him, and if Betsy didn’t watch him like a hawk, he’d eat it all before the night was through. Everyone put one piece in to play, and then the real fun started.

  She’d been playing poker with these guys for a few years now, and she had all their tells memorized. She could see Wyatt’s bluff from a mile away, and called him on it in the second round.

  Her cards won, and she swooped all the candy toward her with a cackle. Clay dealt next, and Betsy didn’t get great cards. She traded out a couple of them and decided to play with what she had, though it wasn’t win-able. She could tell by Clay’s sniff that his weren’t great either, and Flynn’s ducked head meant that he was trying to decide if he should even play the hand.

  Knox she hadn’t figured out yet. He still looked a bit like he’d been hit in the face with a frying pan, his eyes a bit wider than normal and constantly scanning the table, watching what everyone else was doing.

  She actually admired that, because he wasn’t loud or obnoxious. Of course, she’d never seen him speak louder than necessary, and he emanated a cool, quiet strength she really liked given her family’s loud, tense nature.

  Sure enough, Flynn folded and Wyatt kept driving the bid up until Clay dropped out. Knox did just after that too, and Betsy studied Wyatt to see if he really had something or not. He stared back at her with his dark eyes, giving nothing away.

  Which totally gave away that his cards could beat hers. “Fold,” she said, and he whooped. He placed his cards face-down on the table, and Clay immediately grabbed for them.

  “A pair of eights,” he said with disgust, throwing the cards toward Wyatt, who was still scooping his winnings toward him.

  Betsy shook her head. She couldn’t have beaten a pair of eights, but Wyatt had tricked her into thinking he had something really good. So she’d watch him closer. Bluff back.

  Her eyes moved to Knox, and she couldn’t bluff her way out of the blush that heated her face when she found him watching her too. Their gazes locked, and she probably wouldn’t have known if the Yellowstone geysers blew up and started melting the planet. It would still just be her and him in this moment, because she saw something in his eyes she’d never seen before.

  Maybe she hadn’t been looking. Maybe he’d been really good at hiding how he felt. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  But no matter what maybe she landed on, Betsy could definitely see that Knox held an edge of heat and desire in his eyes. The same desire she felt flowing through her blood like liquid lava.

  A card landed in front of her, breaking their connection. She cleared her throat under the louder noise of Flynn saying he better get something good this time and picked up her cards. She’d always loved her time in the east stables, playing poker. It got her out of the homestead, for one. And for another, she always felt like she was worth more than the last dish she’d prepared.

  Sure, the cowboys loved what she brought to poker night, but she’d also been known to drive into town and buy several bags of candy and call it good. They were okay with that too.

  As the game continued and she won again and then again, Betsy couldn’t help thinking about the homestead. What would happen when her father retired for good and Rhodes wanted to move into the house where she and all her sisters lived? What if he met someone and fell in love, and they wanted the homestead to start raising their own family in?

  Betsy had always known she wouldn’t be able to live in the homestead forever, but a certain level of fear had started to constrict inside her whenever she thought about leaving it. Mostly because she had no idea where she’d go or what she’d do.

  “I’m beat,” Clay finally said, throwing down his last hand. “And my stomach hurts.”

  Betsy looked at the empty bowl of ante and started laughing. “You’re such a pig, Clay,” she said through her chuckles, and everyone got up and started cleaning up the table.

  “Does Rhodes know you guys play poker ou
t here?” Knox asked as he sidled up next to her at the table.

  “Oh, sure,” she said. “He doesn’t care, as long as I bring him some of the spoils.” She grinned up at him, momentarily blinded by his good looks and close proximity. It may have been her imagination, but her voice sounded full of only breath when she said, “That’s why I took him his own container of pulled pork earlier this evening.”

  “Smart.” Knox smiled at her, and that moment came flaring back to life. “Do you need help getting all of this back to the homestead?”

  “Yeah,” she said, seizing onto the opportunity to spend some time alone with him. “That would be great.”

  He moved away, leaving a cold space at her side, to help with the table and chairs, and before she knew it, everything was cleaned up and everyone was ready to go.

  The other cowboys loaded up in their trucks and left while Knox was still helping her put the leftover buns and the Crock pot half-full of meat in her backseat. Depending on what she brought, she sometimes walked from the homestead. But not with pulled pork, and certainly not in the winter.

  “I’ll follow you over,” he said, stepping over to his truck. Betsy got behind the wheel of her car and inched down the road, her nerves firing like someone had poured red ants into her brain.

  “Calm down,” she told herself. “He’s not going to kiss you or anything.” She wasn’t sure if she swooned or blacked out for a moment at the very thought, but the next thing she knew, her car drifted and then full-on slid into the snowbank. A horrible, metallic crunching sound met her ears, and she got thrown over the steering wheel.

  Once she’d come to a stop, she blinked out the windshield into the darkness, trying to figure out what had happened.

  And then the man she’d been dreaming about kissing opened the door and peered inside. “Are you okay? There’s a really icy patch right there.”

  Yeah, sure. An icy patch. Betsy nodded and got out of the car, sticking her hands in her coat pockets so they didn’t freeze. “Will you just take me home?” she asked. “I can have the boys deal with this in the morning.”

  “Sure thing.” Knox walked with her to the passenger side of his truck and helped her up and into it. Then he returned to her car and collected the food before joining her. “How often do you guys play poker?”

  “Once a month,” she said, taking a deep breath of this space that was so full of the smell of him. Cologne and pine and burnt metal. She’d never get enough of it. “Did you have fun?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Surprisingly, I had a great time.”

  “Surprisingly?”

  “Yeah, well, monthly poker night isn’t really my thing.” He barely moved the truck down the icy roads, and they were probably going five miles an hour.

  “I thought you did great.”

  He chuckled, the sound sending tremors through her body. “Are you kidding? By my count, you won all but two hands.”

  “You counted?”

  He cut a quick glance at her, and dang if that didn’t light her up like Times Square. Not that she’d ever been to Times Square. But she knew it had a lot of lights. “I’m just observant,” he said.

  “Sure, okay,” she teased, liking this tether between them. Her phone lit up, distracting her, and she groaned when she saw Rhonda Drexel’s name on the screen.

  “What?” Knox asked.

  Betsy turned her phone over and looked out the window. “Just something for the Valentine’s dance.” A completely fantastical thought entered her mind. “Hey, you should sign up for the bachelor auction for the festival.”

  He belly laughed then, and the sound was so bright and cheerful that Betsy couldn’t help smiling. “I just said I didn’t really do poker nights. And you want me to get up in front of women and be bid on?” He shook his head and chuckled some more. “You’re out of your mind.”

  “You don’t think people would bid on you?”

  He turned down the road that led to the homestead, and Betsy sensed her time with him was almost up. “No, Betsy. I don’t think the women of this town would bid on me.”

  I would. The words filled her mind. Screamed in her ears. She swallowed, trying to hold them in. Knox parked in front of the homestead and unbuckled his seatbelt.

  “I would,” Betsy blurted before he could get out of the truck. “I’d bid on you, Knox.”

  His attention swung toward her, almost in slow motion, while she tried to figure out what she’d just said. His eyebrows went up. “Yeah?”

  She nodded, suddenly desperate to get out of the truck. She grabbed the package of hamburger buns between them and opened her door. He met her at the front of the truck with the Crock pot and walked up the steps with her to the front door.

  Inside, she said, “Just set that on the counter,” which he did while she tossed down the buns and started to unwind her scarf. She hung her winter clothes on a hook in the mudroom, noting the silence and stillness in the homestead that night.

  Either poker had gone later than she’d thought or her sisters were downstairs watching a movie. Betsy was glad it was quiet, that she didn’t have anyone to tell about the night’s events quite yet.

  Knox waited for her in the kitchen, and anticipation squirreled through her. “Do you want to stay for coffee?” she asked.

  “It’s almost ten-thirty at night,” he said quietly, those foresty eyes delving right into her soul, learning all her secrets.

  “Oh, right. I—” She went mute when he stepped into her personal space and took her hand in his. She looked down to see their fingers joined, and she enjoyed the river of heat as it cascaded over her entire body.

  “It’s good to see you, Betsy,” he said, his voice nothing more than a husky whisper. He leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead. Cold as his mouth was, it still sent sparks flying down her spine.

  He pulled his hand away and fell back a step. Their eyes met, and that magnetic attraction between them flared to life. “I’ll see you later.” He turned and walked toward the front door as if he’d held her hand and kissed her countless times before. Not too rushed, not too slow.

  “Knox?” she called when he put his hand on the doorknob.

  He twisted back toward her. “Yeah?”

  “When will I see you again?”

  A smile touched his mouth and crinkled those beautiful eyes. “Maybe next week. I’m out at Granite Springs this weekend.”

  She nodded. He ducked his head and walked out, leaving her with the glow and warmth of his touch.

  There was no way she was going to be able to sleep tonight, which meant she’d probably get roped into doing something she didn’t want to do at tomorrow’s Valentine’s Festival planning meeting.

  Chapter 4

  Knox was bent behind a horse the first time his phone went off. He ignored it and exhaled, his breath fogging in the air in front of him. Betty Boop, this horse he currently had resting almost all of her weight on his thigh, couldn’t be given an inch or she’d kick him.

  So he didn’t flinch when his blasted phone rang again. He kept filing, finally getting Boop’s hoof into the shape it needed to be in. He’d measured her yesterday and bent the horseshoes at the smithy at Quinn Valley Ranch in the afternoon.

  They hammered on like a dream, and he released her with a pat on the rump. “Go on, girl,” he said as she huffed and walked away. “Yeah, I feel like that too,” he muttered after her, looking at his tools that littered the ground.

  He inhaled deeply and ignored the twitch of pain in his back as he bent to clean up. Betty Boop was the last horse of the day out here at Granite Falls, and he really needed something to eat before he started gnawing on his own arm.

  His phone vibrated as he moved, reminding him that he’d missed some calls. He pulled out his device and checked it, finding Logan to be the culprit. He’d even left a message, but Knox ignored that and navigated to the texts first.

  Where are you? I need you at the community center.

  Knox frowned at
the words, imagining them to be said with terseness and frustration. Instead of barking something back via text to his twin, Knox called Logan.

  “Hey,” he said easily when Logan picked up. “I’m down at Granite Falls, working.”

  “Well, I’ve got a job for you at the community center.”

  Knox blew out his breath, more perturbed with Logan than usual. He felt like his brother had beaten him to the punch—again. Gotten the girl first, even if it wasn’t the same girl.

  “I don’t need a job,” Knox said. “I’m busier than I even have time for.” He’d been contracted to work at three farms and ranches in the Quinn Valley area, and it was a juggling act to keep his trio of bosses satisfied.

  “Trust me, you want this one,” Logan said. “So you’ll be here in twenty minutes.”

  “No,” Knox said. “I’m stopping for lunch.”

  “I’ll buy you lunch.”

  Knox opened his mouth to argue but paused. Logan was offering to buy him lunch? This must be serious. Still, he sighed in a long hiss. “Fine,” he said. “But I want it waiting for me when I get there. I’m starving.”

  “You’ll have your lunch. Get here quick.” Logan ended the call before Knox could yell to him to go down the street to Bacon Boys, the best burger joint in a hundred miles, maybe more.

  If twins really did have some sort of freaky powers of communication, he hoped Logan would hear him as he said, “Double bacon stacker,” as he picked up the last of his tools and tucked them in his apron. “Candied bacon fries. The biggest Diet Mountain Dew they have.”

  His throat itched in the worst way, and he couldn’t feel his fingertips as he started for his truck. By the time he pulled up to the community center, he’d realized that he hadn’t checked in with Liam before he’d left the ranch. His boss on the small operation said he had something for Knox and to stop by the homestead before he left.

  Tomorrow, he told himself as he got out of the truck. The sky was intensely blue without a cloud in sight. Because of that, the cold that attacked his lungs felt like knives stabbing through his chest.