“I do. I’m the ranch manager.”
She stopped beside a small, beat-up car. Even with just the security light to guide the way, he could tell it was a heap of junk.
It wasn’t a car he would ever allow his woman to drive. If she had to drive somewhere without him, then she’d be in something safe.
Not a tiny death trap that looked like it should have been scrapped years ago.
“This is what you drive?” He couldn’t keep the disapproval from his voice.
“Yes,” she said quietly. She opened the trunk and he stuck the containers inside. He was aware that her shoulders had slumped again.
“Hey, I didn’t mean to insult you. It’s just that even in the dark I can tell this car needs some work.” He ran a hand along the side of it, feeling the dents and scratches. Had someone used it as a damn rally car?
“It’s my aunt’s,” she confessed. “I’m just borrowing it.”
Her aunt let her drive this?
“Thanks for carrying my stuff and for, uhh, rescuing me before.”
“No problem,” he replied easily. “You ever need a knight in shining armor. Or a hero in cowboy boots, you know where to find me.”
She laughed. She obviously thought he was joking.
If only she knew, he was very serious.
Miss Marisol hadn’t seen the last of him.
Marisol had a new hero to fill her dreams. She still couldn’t believe that he’d come to her rescue the way he had, sweeping her up as though she was a lightweight when she definitely was not.
The man had to have muscles on muscles. He’d definitely felt very firm. Of course if she was actually dreaming, he wouldn’t just let her drive off. He’d flip her over his shoulder and carry her away to his cabin in the woods, lock the door and ravish her. Then spank her ass. Then cuddle her.
And repeat.
A sigh escaped her lips. A girl was entitled to dream, right?
Of white knights and damsels in distress.
Or maybe a hero in cowboy boots and a curvy nail technician?
“Urgh, Marisol, you have no chance with that guy,” she muttered to herself as she pulled out of the driveway of Sanctuary Ranch.
Her aunt had been thrilled when she’d been asked to come out here for Charlie’s bridal shower. Sanctuary Ranch was owned by the Jensen family. Apparently, they were a big deal around here. Wealthy. Connected.
Marisol had been worried that the women tonight would all be stuck-up snobs. Sometimes she found that she was treated less as a professional and more like a maid at these sorts of parties. She was there to do nails and facials, not serve food or clean.
But the women tonight had all been lovely. Fun. Friendly.
A pang of loneliness hit her. What would it be like to have friends like that? Who would dance and laugh and be there to support you?
Marisol had always been painfully shy at school, it had been hard for her to make friends. She’d been looked down on. The poor orphan. Pitied. Ridiculed.
But Charlie and her friends hadn’t been like that tonight. She’d spent the evening painting nails and doing facials after a full day of working at her aunt’s day spa and as fun as it had been, she was exhausted.
All she wanted to do was go home, shower then curl up with one of her Daddy Dom books in bed. She had a new one from CJ Bennett she was dying to dive into. Pretty much all of the small wage her aunt paid her went to buying books.
They were her escape.
Only, she knew she wouldn’t be dreaming about any of the heroes in her books tonight. Nope, she’d be dreaming about a broad-shouldered cowboy with a voice like sin. A voice that had made her insides dance, even when he scolded her.