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It hit the floor and slid down between her feet, stopping against the wall.
    She growled and bent down, picking it back up, ignoring the pounding of her heart and the shaking in her fingers.
    The shower was supposed to wash Jack off her skin. He was not supposed to follow her in.
    Another jolt zipped through her at the thought because right along with it came the image of Jack and his overbearing presence sharing this small space with her. Bare skin, wet skin...hands on skin.
    She turned and rinsed the soap off her chest, then shut the water off, stepped out and scrubbed her skin dry with her towel, much more ferociously than was warranted.
    She needed to sleep. Obviously, she was delirious.
    If she didn’t know better, she would think she was a breath away from having a fantasy about Jack freaking Monaghan.
    â€œHa!” she all but shouted. “Ha ha ha.” She wrapped her towel around her body and walked to her room before dropping it and digging through her dresser for her pajamas.
    She found a pair of sensible white cotton underwear and her flannel pajama pants that had cowboy hats, lassos and running horses printed onto the fabric.
    There could be no sexual fantasies when one had on cotton panties and flannel pants.
    With pony pajamas came clarity.
    She pulled a loose-fitting blue T-shirt over her head and flopped down onto her bed. Her twin bed. That would fit only one person.
    She was sexual fantasy–proof. Also sex-proof, if the entire long history of her life was anything to go by.
    â€œBah.” She rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow. She had arena dirt, pounding hooves, the salty coastal wind in her face, mixed with pine and earth. A scent unique to Copper Ridge and as much a part of her as the blood in her veins.
    She had ambitions. Even if she was a bit cautious in them.
    She didn’t need men.
    Most of all, she didn’t need Jack Monaghan.

CHAPTER THREE
    J ACK ROLLED INTO the Garrett ranch just after nine. He’d finished seeing to his horses earlier and was ready to ambush Kate with coffee and a plan. It was her day off, and he knew she wasn’t still in bed lying low while the sun rose high. It wasn’t her way. Which meant he would have to track her down on the vast property.
    But that was fine with him. He didn’t have much else happening today.
    His equine operation had gotten to the point that it was running so smoothly he often felt as if he didn’t have enough to do. He had people who worked on the ranch seeing to all of the horses’ needs and a housekeeper who took care of all of his needs. He was forging great connections in competitive worlds. Both the Western riding community and dressage. And he was very close to signing a lucrative deal to breed one of his stallions to a champion hunter jumper, Jazzy Lady.
    Now that all that was falling into place and he wasn’t traveling with the rodeo, he was left with a lot of free time.
    His mother had said idle hands were the devil’s workshop, usually before she booted his ass outside so he’d stay out of her hair. But then, he’d never had much use for worrying about things like that. In part because he never worried all that much about the devil. He’d gone to church once when he was a boy with a friend from his first-grade class. The pastor had said something about Joshua the son of Nun. And after the service the boy who had been his friend when they’d walked into the building had decided Jack the son of Nun was a fitting nickname for him since he didn’t have a daddy.
    Jack had punched that little son of a bitch in the face and had never darkened the doors of any holy institution from there on after. He hadn’t stayed friends with the kid, either. In fact, the only people he had stayed friends with were the Garretts and Liss. He’d raised too much hell over the years to keep many other connections.
    Hell, he’d taken to it as if it was his