She laughed. “It’s not a problem, you know. I can maintain a respectable distance.”

“I don’t want you at a distance. I want you next to me.”

“Where you can keep an eye on me?”

He stopped, turned to her. “No. Where I can touch you and look at you and drag you into a corner somewhere and kiss you.”

“I like the sound of that.”

She’d thought he was joking, but as they got near the side of the house, he pulled her down the walk, toward the back of the house. No one was back there, and he cupped the side of her neck and put his lips over hers, kissing her deeply, thoroughly, until she was dizzy. She raised up on her toes and wrapped her arms around him, drawing him closer.

And when he pulled away, she saw the heat of desire in his heavy-lidded eyes.

She blew out a breath. “Wow.”

“Yeah. Too bad there are hundreds of people here, because right now I’d like to drag you up to my bedroom and—”

“Oh, Logan, how are you?”

He quickly put Des in front of him as a woman appeared in the backyard. “Mrs. Springfield. Thanks for coming today. This is Desiree Jenkins. Desiree, this is Bonita Springfield. She and her husband, Ralph, own a farm nearby.”

Des felt the hard evidence of Logan’s erection against her backside. She smiled. “Very nice to meet you, Mrs. Springfield.”

“Oh, call me Bonnie. I was looking for Martha. Have you seen her?”

“No, ma’am. I haven’t. You might check inside.”

“I’ll do that. Nice to meet you, Desiree.”

“You, too, Bonnie.”

Mrs. Springfield went inside, and Des exhaled, then turned around to face Logan. “That’s what you get for dragging girls behind the house to steal kisses.”

“It was worth it.”

He was right about that. He took her hand and they made their way toward the front of the house again.

“So tell me about your visit with Emma.”

“She introduced me to her friends, Jane and Chelsea. They’re awesome. They want to plan a girls’ night out sometime while I’m here.”

He rolled his eyes. “That sounds . . . interesting.”

“I’m seriously contemplating it. I don’t have a lot of girlfriends.”

“What about . . . what were their names again? Callie and Sarah?”

“They’re mainly friends of Tony and Colt.”

“I see.”

“Yeah. So, anyway. They talked about going into Tulsa and having a spa day followed by a night on the town.”

“And you’d like to do that.”

“I’d like to do that. Like I said, I don’t have a lot of friends, and Emma seems really nice.”

“She is really nice.”

“In Hollywood, most of the women I know are actresses. So, of course, all we talk about is being a working actress, and what role we’re auditioning for, and blah blah blah. It’d be nice to be with women who aren’t actresses or in the industry.”

“They’ll probably ask you about your work, though.”

“I don’t mind, because we’d be able to talk about their work, too. Which isn’t acting.”

“I can see your point.”

“I’m sure you like talking with your friends about things other than cattle ranching, right?”

“True enough.”

“Or do you even go out with your friends?”

“Not really.”

She paused, turned to him. “Why not?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Days are long on the ranch, and then I go to bed.”

She shook her head. “Logan, you’ve got to get out more. Life is short, and meant to be lived. You have to get out and party. Get laid.”

He raised his brows and gave her a direct look. “I am getting laid.”

“Yes. And I’m sure I’m not the only woman you’ve been with in years, so obviously you get out some.”

“Okay, I get out some.”

“Or do women come knocking at your door just to get a piece of you?”

He didn’t say anything.

“You have got to be kidding me. Your prowess is that well known?”

“I don’t even know how to respond to that.”

As Des looked around while they resumed walking, she noticed they got looks from a lot of women, something she hadn’t paid attention to before. So maybe Logan was a popular guy. A single rancher—owner of a very big ranch, as a matter of fact. A guy who didn’t spend a lot of time hanging out at bars and doing a ton of womanizing. That would make him quite the catch in a small town like Hope. She’d just bet women were clamoring for a piece of him. Mysterious men were always attractive, and a quiet, incredibly handsome and sexy-yet-keep-to-himself kind of guy like Logan would be very attractive.

“So . . . what do you do, exactly? Go down a list of available women and just call one up when you need some action?”

“No.”

“Then tell me how it works. They call you up and you decide if you’re in the mood to get laid? Oh, scratch that. You’re a man. You’re always in the mood to get laid, right?”

He frowned. “I’m not having this conversation with you.”

She laughed and slipped her arm through his. “I’m seriously curious, Logan. What it must be like to be in such demand. Do they line up at the gates at the end of the workday and you walk up there and choose the one you want?”

“Now that’s just ridiculous. They take a number. First come, first served.”

She tilted her head back and laughed. “I’ll bet there’s a long line, too.”

He crooked her a devilishly sexy smile. “Darlin’, you have no idea.”

Judging from the lingering looks cast in their direction from many of the women at the party, she could imagine there was a line of women waiting to get to Logan. Not that she could blame them. She counted herself lucky he chose to be with her at the moment.

Not that she’d given him much choice, since she’d cornered him and thrown herself at him. Then again, he could have said no and pushed her away, right?

She couldn’t resist her smug smile. Today, at least, he belonged to her, and she intended to enjoy every second with him.

They ate amazing barbecue, and she stuffed herself on Martha’s potato salad, ate copious amounts of fruit salad, then made a mess of her face eating corn on the cob. Logan helped her out by wiping corn pieces from the side of her mouth with his napkin. They’d found Colt, Tony, Callie, and Sarah and had grabbed a long table along with Emma, Luke, Bash, and Carter, and after introductions had been made, they’d all bonded and had traded stories of life in a small town versus life in Hollywood.