The Gentleman Rancher. Cathy Gillen Thacker

took on the familiar tilt. “What are you doing here?” Taylor demanded.

      Jeremy put up a staying hand to keep her from coming any closer. “I might ask the same question of you,” he remarked dryly, silently wishing his response to her would fade.

      “Paige said I could stay here with her for a few weeks, while her own house is being remodeled and her parents are in Montana. She didn’t say anything about you being here.”

      Jeremy shrugged. “She didn’t tell me anything about you arriving, either.”

      Still a good twenty-five feet away from him, Taylor knelt to test the temperature of the water with her hand. “Then you’re just here to swim?” She regarded him with lifted brows.

      The way she’d said that told Jeremy she wasn’t here just to get in a workout, either. Which probably meant Paige had neglected to tell them both something very important. He pushed aside his irritation with effort. He shrugged matter-of-factly. “I’m bunking here for a few weeks.”

      Taylor took her wet hand and rubbed it across the back of her neck, in a futile effort, he guessed, to cool down. The gold shamrock necklace she had been given by her late grandmother, and wore as a symbol of luck and blessing, still glistened around her neck. “In the guesthouse,” she presumed, obviously hoping to put as much physical distance between them as possible.

      “Paige has the guesthouse,” Jeremy corrected, treading water, and drifting further back into a shadowy corner so he could still gaze at her, but she could not see much of him. “I have the green bedroom in the main house.”

      Taylor approached the corner of the pool, caddy-corner to him, where the steps were located. Hand on the railing, she walked down until the water came up to the hem of her capris. “Don’t you have your own place?” She sounded piqued.

      He couldn’t blame her, they hadn’t parted well. And they hadn’t communicated with each other in the seven years since. “As a matter of fact, I do own a home.” His voice resonated with pride. “Lago Vista Ranch, on Lake Laramie.”

      She walked back up the steps, to the decorative tile edging the swimming pool. Standing there, running her foot across the surface of the water, she seemed to be weighing her next move. Ever so slowly, she directed her glance at him. “Then why aren’t you staying there?”

      Jeremy wished people would stop asking him that. It was all he’d heard for the past two years. He let his shoulders rise and fall. “It doesn’t have any indoor plumbing at the moment.”

      She strode toward Jeremy and looked at him as if he were an idiot. “You bought a place with no working plumbing?” Disbelief resonated in her low tone.

      “I figured I’d get the septic tank replaced eventually and in the meantime it has…portable…accommodations for emergencies.”

      “You have a port-a-potty on your property?”

      “It was either that or build an outhouse. This seemed more practical.”

      “I’ll bet.” She edged closer still. She seemed to be regarding him with the same fascination she would have shown an unfamiliar species in the Houston zoo. “Just out of curiosity… what was the deal-maker on the property?”

      That, Jeremy thought, was easy. He gestured expansively. “It had to be a ranch and it had to have a water view.”

      Taylor chewed on her lower lip. “I get the wanting to live on the water thing.”

      Jeremy wasn’t surprised. Water had always soothed Taylor as much as it relaxed him.

      “I don’t get the ranch.” She peered at him through narrowed lashes. “You’ve never been a cowboy.”

      Nor did he intend to raise cattle, horses or any other form of livestock. He angled his thumb at the center of his chest. “I’m a gentleman rancher. And I wanted acreage around whatever home I purchased for privacy reasons.”

      She tilted her head, considering. “Does it have a pool?”

      “It’s got a dock…and private access to the lake,” Jeremy related with pride.

      Without warning, she looked down into the water and smirked. “Nice.” She took her sweet time lifting her gaze to his. “What happened to your swim trunks?”

      Jeremy grimaced, trying to ignore the way the blood was rushing to his lower half. All she’d have to do was look down again and she’d know exactly what was on his mind—at least subconsciously.

      “They’re in the house.” He kept his voice casual, his eyes on hers. He smiled slowly, offering, “If you want to go and get them for me…”

      Contrary as ever, Taylor replied, “Can’t say as I do.” Hips swaying lightly, she sauntered back to the opposite side of the pool, began emptying the pockets on her capri pants. She set lipstick, keys, a receipt or two, and some change down on a glass-topped patio table. Jeremy’s throat went dry at the thought of her stripped down, too. He cleared his throat, regarding her steadily. “Tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing.”

      Amusement rippled in her voice. “What do you think I’m doing?”

      He flashed her a cryptic smile. “Taking off your clothes.”

      “Brilliant deduction, Sherlock.”

      Treading water—naked—while she was standing up there, observing him, was tough enough. Having her in the pool with him… A chill of intense awareness rippled through him. “You don’t want to do this,” he insisted.

      She smirked again, not the least bit dissuaded. “You only think that because you don’t have a clue how hot I am.”

      Once again, Taylor O’Quinn was dead wrong. He had always known how sexy she was. It just hadn’t been a good idea, getting romantically involved with another first-year med school classmate.

      He played it safe. Noncommittal. “I’m serious, Taylor.”

      She chose to ignore the unsubtle hint. “So am I.” She lifted her arms above her head and engaged in a languid whole-body stretch. “If the sight of a naked woman bothers you—and it really shouldn’t, given how many years you’ve been a doctor now—then turn your back.”

      And miss the show? No way!

      He studied her, not believing she would really stand there and strip in front of him.

      Then again, with the swiftness with which her capris and T-shirt had just come off… Clad only in a pale pink bra and panties that revealed a hell of a lot more than they covered, she reached around behind her.

      Blood surged, low and fast. It wasn’t that he was unfamiliar with what she was about to uncover. In medical school, they’d had to practice giving other students physicals, before they examined any real patients. Jeremy and Taylor had been in the same Introduction To Clinical Medicine section. Hence, they’d both seen each other and eight other fellow students in states of undress. The experience had been humbling and instructional. It hadn’t been arousing—they’d been learning the art of being a doctor.

      This was different. This was no classroom setting. He wasn’t in doctor mode. Nor was she…

      He swore, then reluctantly gave her the privacy she deserved and turned his head.

      Seconds later, the water splashed with the force of a clean, graceful dive. She swam along the bottom of the pool and came up, on the opposite side.

      TAYLOR WATCHED Jeremy’s eyes widen as her shoulders broke the surface and he focused on the bra straps clinging to her. She couldn’t help it, she started to laugh.

      She waggled her eyebrows at him. “Faked you out, didn’t I?”

      “It would seem I’m the only one at a disadvantage, here.”

      And Taylor wished like heck he wasn’t.

      Seeing