Nick scowled. He supposed he ought to be grateful that he’d had his first boner in months. A sign he was healing physically; it damn well had nothing to do with Lissa Wilde.
As for his attitude toward the ranch…the accident had changed that, too. Not that he’d suddenly developed warm feelings for it. No way. It was just that when it came time to leave the hospital, he’d had a place to go, a place that hardly anybody would ever associate with the Nick Gentry who owned a house in Malibu, a penthouse in Manhattan, a beachfront hideaway on Maui.
That made the ranch the perfect place to dig in until he got his life sorted out.
And, goddammit, why was that important now?
He had a storm to ride out, men and animals to worry about, and where in hell was his cook? His for-one-night-only cook and Christ knew if she could manage even that.
As if in response, the ancient grandfather clock in the corner wheezed out the time.
Five-fifteen.
Dinner, the Wilde babe had said, would be at six. Really? She was going to get into the kitchen, find what its freezer and pantry held, put together a meal for a bunch of hungry men in forty-five minutes?
He raised his eyes to the ceiling.
Far as he could tell, she wasn’t even on the move yet.
He’d have heard her. Or maybe not. One thing about old houses. The walls, the floors were made of the thickest tight-grained lumber a rustic sawmill could turn out. And if she’d gone for the room he figured, the one at the ass-end of the hall, he probably wouldn’t hear her stomping around up there at all.
Ten to one that was precisely the room she’d chosen.
The one farthest from his.
Nick rolled back his chair, automatically started to put his feet up on the desk and caught his breath at the sharp pain that radiated from his hip straight down to his ankle. Goddamned bones. And muscles. And tendons. And who knew what else. He’d broken or torn virtually everything that had once made his left leg usable.
He had titanium rods and steel pins and plastic in it now.
“Superman,” one of the therapists had joked.
Right. He was a fucking superman, except last time he’d checked, the Man of Steel had not limped, had not needed to hobble around on a crutch, had not been reduced, at the beginning, to getting up in the middle of the night to swallow one of a dozen different pills to quiet the pain that tormented him.
“You can start getting around with a cane soon,” the last physical therapist he’d seen had told him.
“What the hell’s the difference?” Nick had snarled. “And I don’t need advice from you.”
A cane. Crutches. What the fuck was the difference? He was a cripple, and it was a damn good thing his temporary guest had taken a room nowhere near his.
The last thing he needed was to have a woman hear him moan, not in the throes of pleasure but in agony.
Still, this was his house. Why had he left the choice of a room to her? He should have told her which to take. And yes, it damned well pissed him off that she’d make a selection based on its distance from his.
Did she think he’d try to seduce her if she slept one wall away?
Nick snorted.
The lady had a high-flown opinion of herself. She’d turned him on, sure, but that at this point, so would a store mannequin.
And that attitude.
Was it him she didn’t like? Or was it men in particular? She wasn’t a lez; the vibes she gave off were pure female.
Maybe what she needed was a man.
The bra-burners would kill him for such a thought, but he’d been around. He knew it was true. He knew that beautiful women—because, OK, the truth was that the Wilde babe was beautiful—sometimes needed reminding that they were women. Not goddesses. Not untouchables. Not royalty.
Just women, made for pleasure.