by Carly Bloom
Chapter Twelve
Twenty minutes late! All because she’d had to chase a bunch of cows off her property. She marched across the area where the backyard was going in and blew through Anna’s French doors to find JD and Travis shooting the shit like they had nothing better to do.
She was going to light into Travis about his fences. Set his ass on fire. Toss him into a volcano of burning lava—
He smiled. Blue eyes. White teeth. A dimple she hadn’t noticed before, just above the beard, only on the left side. Her heart flopped over like a fainting pygmy goat on a YouTube video. Maybe it wasn’t professional to chew him out in front of JD.
“Good morning,” he said.
His voice was low and echoed in the big room—the great room, as Anna insisted on calling it—vibrating its way through her bones, snaking its way up and down her spine, and generally making her feel warm and tingly all over. Which was mighty inconvenient and vaguely familiar. Every time the man spoke, she had an uneasy sense of déjà vu. Her head spun for a moment.
“Sorry. I’m late because I was…I was—”
“Trying to decide what to wear?” JD was grinning like an idiot. “Because you sure look nice today.”
She glared at him. “I was reevaluating my initial plan to install agarita bushes. Thinking about going with Anocacho orchids instead. It’ll do better here, and it won’t attract as many deer as the agarita.” This was technically true. She had recently made this decision.
“Why don’t you want to attract deer?” JD asked.
“Probably because they’ll destroy the landscaping,” Travis suggested.
“That’s partially it,” Maggie said. “It’s also because I suspect Anna hates anything furry and cute with doe-eyes. She wouldn’t think twice about eating Bambi.”
JD laughed. “I would only eat Bambi if the Martinez Meat Market turned him into sausage first.”
“Chicken-fried venison steak is the best way to eat Bambi,” Travis added, rubbing his extremely flat and presumably hard stomach.
“Mm,” JD agreed. “Or Polish kielbasa.” He took to rubbing his own Mr. October abs with delight.
Maggie fanned herself with her landscaping plans. It was getting very warm in this room.
“Sausage talk getting to you?” Travis asked.
JD laughed. “It’s getting to me.”
Maggie raised her eyebrows slightly. “Oh, really?”
JD stopped laughing, and then blushed furiously.
Maggie snorted. “Keep going. You’re doing so well.”
“Nothing like a good, thick ring of sausage,” Travis said with a wink.
“Y’all are awful.” Maggie refused to blush. She literally willed the rising red tide creeping up her chest to stop at her neck. “And I’m not the slightest bit embarrassed by this banter, so you can stop trying.”
“I don’t know what you think we’re talking about, Maggie,” Travis said with a grin that indicated the opposite. “We’re merely discussing the merits of venison in its many delightful forms.”
Maggie grabbed his sleeve. “JD is already being a bad influence on you. Let’s get to work.”
The cool autumn air felt good on Maggie’s flushed skin. She closed her eyes, stretched, and inhaled the scent of cedar and sage. When she opened her eyes, Travis was standing there with his mouth hanging open. Did the man not know how to dig up rocks? “Just start at the house and work your way out.”
Travis blinked, and seemingly snapped out of whatever trance he’d been in. Who knew what ridiculous nonsense was going through his mind? Probably chicken-fried venison.
“Sure. I’ll do that.” He gave her a sharp salute, and then yanked up a pickax.
Maggie got right to work marking off plots. Within a couple of minutes, they were comfortably laboring side by side. Maggie measured, hammered in stakes, and strung lines while Travis dug up rocks, loaded them into his wheelbarrow, and piled them up at the edge of the site.
“I’m going to use some of them for terracing,” she called to Travis. “So separate the good ones.”
“That’ll look real nice,” Travis said. “And it’ll be a good way to deal with the steep slope.”
Yep. That’s why she’d planned terracing. She didn’t need him mansplaining her own business to her. She started to say as much but managed to bite her tongue. If they were going to survive the duration of this project, she’d have to keep a lid on the snark; the gate notes were bad enough.
By eleven o’clock the cool autumn air was long gone, and it had taken Maggie’s sunny disposition with it. Sweaty and uncomfortable in her dumb clothes, she was seriously regretting her life choices. She ditched the black sweater and rolled up the long sleeves of her T-shirt. She’d ditch the boots, too, if she could. Both of her sweaty feet had blisters. The damn things were made for two-stepping, not for squatting and measuring gradations. They also weren’t very flexible, and when she swatted at a gnat, she lost her balance and ended up on her bottom with a grunt.
Travis looked up. Because if you’re going to squat, swat, and fall, you should do it when a handsome man is around to see it.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. She gave him her best why do you ask look. “Taking a little break.” Right here. In the middle of this pile of dirt.
“Do you need to sit in the shade for a few? It’s getting warm, and it’s humid as all get-out.” To demonstrate his discomfort, Travis dropped his hoe and grabbed the hem of his shirt.
He was going to take it off.
With the leisurely air of a stripper—not that Maggie had ever seen one outside of the movies—he slowly pulled the DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS shirt over his head. Oh, hello, snake, falcon, dragon…
“What did you say?” she mumbled. Or maybe she thought it. It was hard to know, because her mouth no longer seemed to be connected to her brain, which was probably a good thing.
“I said it’s getting hot, and you’ve been working hard. Do you want to take a seat in the shade for a minute?”
Maggie managed to work her eyes up to his. They were so incredibly blue against the Texas sky. Maybe she did need to sit in the shade for a bit. “Shade sounds good.”
Also, your eyelashes are unreasonable.
“I’ve got some tea in a cooler.”
Cooling down sounded good, too. “You’re going to get sunburned without a shirt.”
Travis looked down at his lean, tanned torso. “Nah. I work outside like this all the time. You, on the other hand, could use some sunscreen on that pink nose.”
Maggie started to get up, but the damn inflexible boots threw her off and she sank back into the dirt. Travis plucked her up like a dandelion, and she suddenly found herself smashed against his bare chest, eye to eye with the falcon.
“Oops!” Her fingers involuntarily grazed his abs on their way to his chest, which she only touched in order to push her face away from his warm, salty skin. It was a hard, unyielding chest. Pretty decent, as far as chests went. Her fingers might have lingered a moment. She might have pretended she needed the contact to steady herself as her head spun.
“Sorry,” Travis said, lowering his eyes to where her fingers still rested.
The sight of a blushing lumberjack did nothing to help matters. She removed her fingers without looking to see if they were on fire, and then followed Travis to where his cooler rested beneath an ancient live oak. He opened the lid and grabbed a thermos. Then he snapped the cooler shut, brushed it off even though it was spotless, and invited her to sit on it as he lowered himself to the ground with a groan. Gosh, why did he have to be so—
“Sweet?” he asked.
“Pardon?”
“I hope you like it sweet.” He held the thermos up. “Sweet tea. It’s all I brought.”
“That’s fine,” she said, hoping her ears didn’t appear as bright red as they felt.
“Your ears are getting pink, too,” Travis said.
Dammit. She was an ear-blusher. An
ear-blusher with super short hair so everyone who witnessed her falling on her ass and then damn near kissing a bare chest could also witness the aftereffects on her ears.
“You should probably put some sunscreen on them. And that cute, upturned nose.”
Did he just call her nose cute?
The ears. They were literally on fire now. She was like the “extra” version of Rudolph.
Travis poured tea into the thermos lid and handed it to her. “Bottoms up,” he said with a wink.
Why didn’t her voice work? Not even a squeak. She tapped her cup to his thermos and took a sip. It was good. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she’d been. Travis must have been thirsty, too, because he tilted his head back and greedily drained the entire thermos.
“Hits the spot, doesn’t it?” he said, wiping his bearded chin on the back of his hand.
There was definitely a spot she’d like him to hit.
Silence. Talk, Mackey! How hard can it be?
“There’s supposed to be another cold front blowing in tonight,” Travis said. “We might even get a frost.”
Maggie nodded, the sound of her silence screaming in her head. This was so weird. Maybe all the blood rushing to her ears had left her vocal chords paralyzed. The same way erections caused stupidity in males. Erections. Why was she thinking about erections? She forced herself to grunt, “Uh-huh.” Which was way better than Me horny, the phrase playing on repeat in her head.
“It’s still mighty hot in the sun, though,” Travis continued.
“Uh-huh.”
“Not so bad in the shade.”
Holy cow. He was a weather rambler. A hot, topless weather rambler.
“In the shade it’s downright nippy.”
Then why did he wipe a bead of sweat from his temple?
* * *
It was all over. He’d spent the last three hours trying not to notice Maggie’s breasts, and in an attempt at conversation, he’d chosen a tried-and-true category—I’ll take weather for four hundred, Alex—and said nippy.
But damn, she wasn’t wearing a bra. His mouth watered. He knew what those delicious buds tasted like. Could she see it on his face? What if she was putting two and two together and figuring out he was the Big Bad Wolf? He yanked his cap out of his back pocket and put it on, pulling it down low. Combined with the itchy beard he longed to be rid of, it might be a passable disguise.
Or he could just tell her that he was the man she’d had sex with in the shed. Hey, want to hear something funny?
Only she was kind of being nice to him at the moment. Why fuck it up? He slipped his shirt back on, so she wouldn’t see the goose bumps she was giving him.
“When will you be finished with the rocks?” Maggie asked.
She sounded a bit breathless and shaky. The woman really couldn’t take the heat, and it wasn’t even summer. “Another day or two will do it.”
“Do you think you might need some help?”
“No. I got this.” Tomorrow would be a bitch, though. His back was already killing him, but he couldn’t afford any help. He’d bid on the project, and now he had to deliver.
“On Wednesday we can start filling in with soil. I’ll see about having it delivered that morning. Can you have a front-end loader here?”
“I’m just going to shovel it in by hand.”
“You can rent one,” she said.
“Nah.” It cost too much. He couldn’t swing it.
Maggie unrolled several sheets of plans on top of the cooler. “If you’re thinking about doing it manually, you’d better have some help,” she said, tapping the paper. “Big job.”
For the millionth time, doubt crept in. What had made him think he could go from mowing lawns and planting shrubs to doing a large residential installation with no equipment and no crew? Why had he bid on this job? Because you need the money, you idiot. And why had Anna hired him? To toy with you, you idiot.
“I can provide a crew,” Maggie said.
She might be cute, and he might know what her inner thighs tasted like—and want to taste them again—but the woman wanted him off the job. She’d been clear about that, and here he was sharing his tea and worrying about her sunburned ears. Time to toughen up. “You’re just in charge of the design,” he said. “I’m the crew. How I get shit done is up to me, and I’m going to get it done with my bare hands.”
The dark eyebrows disappeared into her blond bangs, and she crossed her arms over her still-very-nippy chest. “But you’re not a crew. You’re one man. I honestly don’t know what Anna was thinking when she split this contract.”
Okay. Now his blood was starting to boil. She wasn’t the boss of him, and she wasn’t going to steal his half of the project.
“If you want to split the labor,” Little Miss Hood continued, “I’m sure we can talk some sense into Anna.” She looked him up and down. As if the idea of him tackling this project was the most nonsensical thing she’d ever heard. Which it probably was.
Travis clenched his jaw. It was easier to ignore her hard little nipples poking through her shirt now that she was pissing him off. “You stick to your part of the bid, and I’ll stick to mine.”
Maggie stood and re-crossed her arms below her breasts, stretching the T-shirt even tighter.
Not so easy to ignore, after all.
“Just consider it. You might be in over your head here.”
Why didn’t she just cut off his balls and hand them to him on a platter? He snatched her plans, rolled them up, and handed them to her. Then he picked up the cooler. “Break’s over,” he said, heading for his truck to put the cooler away.
“Just think about it,” Maggie called after him.
He could feel her eyes boring into his back. Why was he so fucking embarrassed? He’d known he was in over his head with this project. But he needed the money and was going to make the best of it. What he didn’t need was to care what Maggie Mackey thought of him.
He did, though.
He remembered the way she’d melted at the Big Bad Wolf’s touch. The way she’d acquiesced at the sound of his voice. The way those big brown eyes had looked at him as if he were the most important man on Earth. He climbed in his truck and pulled out his phone. He had a sudden desire to send a text.
* * *
Maggie stared at Travis sitting in his truck. She’d upset him. But dang it, he was going to slow down the entire project. He was behaving like a man-baby, and she had zero tolerance for man-babies. His feelings weren’t her problem. Getting this project completed was.
Ping!
It was her phone.
How is your day going, LRRH?
She stifled a squeal and hurried to her Jeep for some texting privacy. It would just look like she was checking e-mail. Pop hopped onto the seat, put his little paws on the window, and started panting. “Chill out. We’re not going anywhere.”
Maggie tried to adopt an air of professionalism as she composed her text—in case anyone was watching—but she probably looked just like Pop, all slobbery and impatient.
How to answer the question? She tried to come up with something cute or sexy, but she wasn’t good at cute or sexy, and decided to go with honesty instead.
Meh. At work.
You don’t like work?
He didn’t ask what she did. That was good. Let him think she had a fancy job somewhere sitting behind a desk in heels while everyone fell all over themselves doing her bidding.
I do. But I have a difficult co-worker to deal with.
Oh really?
Yeah. Thinks he knows everything.
Maybe he’s all bark and no bite.
How about you? Are you all bark and no bite?
You know very well that I bite.
He’d never actually bitten her. But the thought of her skin between his teeth while he held her down and forcefully—holy cow, where did these thoughts come from? The wolf had a strange effect on her. And it was not one that would make anyone’s mama proud.
You mig
ht need obedience training.
You just gave me some ideas. Are you wearing sexy underwear like a good girl?
She was curious. Where did the wolf work? She remembered the look of his suit. The feel of his closely shaven skin, short-cropped hair. The square-toe boots—dark slate, not the usual black. He probably worked in a high-rise somewhere. But he’d just posed the question she’d been waiting for.
Red lacy panties.
She glanced around. Travis was messing with something in his truck, JD had left, and Anna still hadn’t shown up. Nobody was paying any attention to her.
Little Red Panties for Little Red Riding Hood?
So very little.
Is there a Little Red Bra to go with them?
Not wearing one.
That was the truth.
Are your nipples hard?
Her face exploded in crimson.
Yes.
She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation. In her Jeep. At work. With some businessman dressed in a suit with his secretary out front. Or maybe a client in front of him.
Pinch them.
She gasped. No way! She bit her lip, trying to think of a single reason to comply with the wolf’s request. She came up with two: it was delightfully dirty, and it gave her a thrill.
Pop had caught on to the fact that he wasn’t going anywhere and started whining. Maggie opened the door and let him out. No need to expose him to the depths of depravity to which she was about to sink. And then, after another quick glance to make sure Travis wasn’t looking, she slipped her hands inside her T-shirt and did as she’d been told. The thrill was more psychological than physical, but it was intense. She fumbled for her phone.
I did it.
I knew you would. Enjoy the rest of your day.
A door slammed. Travis stood next to his truck, stretching. He glanced in her direction, smiled, and peeled off his T-shirt again.
It was going to be a long afternoon.
Chapter Thirteen
Travis had barely had time for a shower, much less dinner. Luckily, Mrs. Garza had seen fit to provide tamales. And not just enough for him and Henry. She’d made enough for everyone who was going to help with the library.