The Mistletoe Kisser: Blue Moon #8

by Score, Lucy

  Sucking in a breath of lung-stabbing, icy air, he tromped toward the barn. The boxy, white structure looked like it could use a few coats of paint and maybe a new roof. A rusty tractor and a jumbled collection of metal farming implements resided in the open bay to the far right. The frozen ground was uneven and rutted with patches of gravel and weeds popping out of the melting snow.

  Farming seemed like a dirty, disorganized job. Exactly the opposite of what he was comfortable with.

  Sammy whistled for him from the door. “Nice hat,” she called with a grin.

  Not everyone could look like her in the morning. He refused to be charmed by the picture she made. Lavender blue eyes framed by those honey blonde waves under a green knit hat. She wore a scarf—more green—around her neck. Her vest was a pop of red against the gray-white of the barn wood. Just looking at her made him feel warm, which then annoyed him.

  Pulling his stupid rainbow hat lower over his brow, he plodded toward her, toes scrunched at the ends of the boots. “Reluctant farmer reporting for first and last duty ever,” he grumbled.

  With that saucy grin, she tweaked the puffball of his hat. “It’s a good look on you.”

  He batted her hand away, well aware of just how ridiculous he looked. Not that it mattered since she’d already seen him muddy, drunk, and naked. If this were a relationship, it would have taken him at least six to eight months before she saw all of those sides of him.

  She dragged the old door open and he followed her inside, boots scuffing on the relatively clean concrete floor. There were stalls to his right and a bigger enclosure on the left. More rusty implements of questionable purposes hung on the far wall above a workbench of sorts. Bare lightbulbs hung from alternating rafters, casting light into the murky darkness.

  Stan, his sheep buddy, clamored at the door of a stall, looking thrilled to see him.

  “Hey, pal,” Ryan said, reaching in to scratch the sheep’s head.

  Stan baa-ed a sheepish greeting.

  “He really seems to like you,” Sammy noted.

  Ryan grunted, not wanting to acknowledge that it was kind of nice being greeted enthusiastically just for walking in the door. Maybe that’s why people got dogs.

  A flurry of activity in the enclosure caught his attention when Sammy pried the lid off a plastic bin. A dozen of the scraggliest chickens Ryan had ever seen clucked and pecked behind the wood of the fence.

  “What’s wrong with them?” he asked, eyeing them in horror.

  “Nothing now,” she said, shoving a metal scoop into a bin. “At least, nothing a little TLC won’t fix. They were rescued from a neglect situation a few towns over. Carson’s keeping them here for me until their permanent home is ready.”

  He eyed a particularly bedraggled chicken perched in the corner. It looked groggy, as if life had just delivered a surprise one-two punch. Ryan could relate.

  “Pellets in the morning,” Sammy lectured as she dumped the full scoop into a metal trough on the floor of the enclosure. The chickens reacted like kids after a broken piñata. “Just in case the snow is still too deep for hunting and pecking.”

  She pointed at the smaller bin outside Stan’s stall. “Give our sheep friend a scoop of those in his feed bin. He should have plenty to graze on in the pasture with the snow melt, but we don’t know how long he’s gone without regular meals and this’ll top off his tank for the day.”

  Because it was easier than arguing, Ryan obediently did as he was told. In the stall, Stan muscled him out of the way and shoved his face into the bucket after the pellets. “Now what?” he asked, watching as a dozen googly-eyed chickens squawked and pecked at the trough through the wooden slats in their enclosure.

  “Now we put the free in free-range,” she said, securing the lid on the chicken feed. “We’ll let the chickens and your woolly pal out to pasture. They can graze and forage for the day.”

  “Is that safe?” he asked.

  “It’s a small pasture with double fencing. They’ll be fine,” she explained. She pointed to the side door. “Open that, will you?”

  He tromped over to the door in his too-tight boots, and after a few false starts, managed to shoulder it open. A small, square pasture rolled out before him, running between the back of the farmhouse and the tree line. The sun cast a pinkish-purple glow on the icy crust of snow. Tall blades of grass broke through the surface in tufts.

  “Heads-up,” Sammy called. He jumped back as two NBA teams’ worth of poultry raced past him.

  “Poor idiots,” he said, watching them scatter into the open. “They think they’re free but it’s just a bigger cage.”

  “Think of it this way,” Sammy said, “that bigger cage keeps them from being fox or coyote food.”

  “Nature is fucked up,” Ryan mused.

  “Nature doesn’t do anything for personal reasons. It’s not purposely cruel. But people can be. Someone out there purposely starved these guys, kept them locked in a dark pen twenty-four hours a day,” Sammy pointed out.

  “People are fucked up,” he said.

  “A small minority,” she said, watching the chickens flutter and race around in the open.

  He caught a glimpse of something glittery on her face but before he could take a closer look, Stan bleated plaintively from his stall.

  “Want to do the honors?” she offered, nodding toward the sheep.

  “Sure,” he said, then paused. “Wait. Won’t Stan eat the chickens?”

  Sammy’s laugh was as bright as the early morning sunshine. If he weren’t still hungover he might have appreciated it. “That’s adorable,” she said. “And no. Sheep are herbivores.”

  “Will the chickens organize and attack him?” The sheep had been through enough trauma, in his opinion. A sneak chicken attack would just be adding insult to injury.

  “They’ll be fine,” she promised.

  He opened the gate to Stan’s stall and watched the sheep trot for the door. Once his hoofed feet hit the snow, the woolly little guy jogged in an enthusiastic circle.

  “I’ve never seen anything frolic before,” he observed.

  “Look how happy you made him,” she said, stepping into the pasture.

  He followed her, and they stood shoulder to shoulder watching the sheep and fowl enjoy the obscenely early morning. She was grinning and he guessed it probably felt pretty good to liberate animals from horrible situations and watch them thrive. To be the one on the front lines, instead of the one in the conference room or behind the computer screen. But there was room for all kinds of heroes in life. Some of them were just more… heroic.

  “I still think he would have been happier and safer in your care,” he said, resisting her upbeat mood. He had his own work to do here and taking care of farm animals hadn’t been part of the deal.

  “I told you. The clinic doesn’t have the space to keep farm animals. Besides, I don’t even work there,” she said.

  “Does this town let anyone walk in off the streets and treat Chihuahuas?”

  “Very funny,” she said dryly. “I was filling in for the food-poisoned doctor. I’m a livestock vet.”

  “There’s more than one kind of veterinarian?” he asked, only half kidding. Growing up, his mother had stuck firmly to her no pets rule. In fairness, the woman already had five kids. Adding an unruly dog would have only added more unnecessary chaos.

  “Just like I imagine there’s more than one kind of accountant,” she said, nudging him with her elbow. “I work mostly with farms.”

  “What a remarkable coincidence. Stan just so happens to be a farm animal. He can stay at your place,” he suggested.

  She was already shaking her head, sending her curls bouncing. “I moved in over the summer, and it took me this long to get the house livable. The barn and the pastures are next on the list. It’s kind of a whole thing.”

  “He could stay in your house,” he decided. “Problem solved. I’ll help you load him up.”

  She put her gloved hands on his shoulders and
looked up at him. “Ryan, Stan is staying here until I can find his owners or a foster farm. You can handle the fifteen whole minutes a day it will take to feed and pasture him while you’re here.”

  “I’m not staying,” he reminded her.

  He felt her eye roll was a bit excessive. “You’ve mentioned that,” Sammy said dryly.

  Across the pasture, Stan pranced up to two of the chickens and then backed off when they ran at him. But something else caught his eye. Sammy was glittering again.

  “What?” she asked, when she noticed him watching her.

  “You’re sparkling,” he observed with a frown. He leaned in. The gold glints dusted one cheek and down her neck.

  Her eyes widened and he realized they were practically in an embrace. “I’m what?” Her hands slid off his shoulders, but he caught them and held her still when she tried to back away.

  “Are you wearing glitter?” he asked, turning her face toward the sun. Since he was there, he took his time perusing the rest of her face. Those almost purple eyes were wide and nervous. Her cheeks were flushed pink. Her lips were full and unpainted. A point in her favor since he’d never understood the need some women felt to cover everything up.

  “Dammit,” she groaned, bringing her gloved hand to her cheek. “I thought I scrubbed it all off.”

  “You’re actually wearing glitter?” He couldn’t imagine any of his female co-workers—ex-coworkers—showing up to the office sprinkled in bits of gold sparkle.

  “Do not even think about making a stripper joke,” she warned him.

  “The thought never crossed my mind,” he lied, picturing her in green pasties and a tasteful thong.

  Mistake! With the hangover still present and accounted for, he felt light-headed the second his blood cruised south. Abruptly, he released her and took a self-preserving step back to think about sheep. Dirty, woolly, smelly sheep.

  “I was crafting,” she sniffed haughtily.

  He shot her a skeptical look. “I could see you dancing before I could see you scrapbooking.”

  She frowned. “I’m not sure how offended I should be by that.”

  “Sorry. Hungover. My internal filter isn’t working yet. What were you glittering?” Despite the throbbing headache, he was surprised that he had the energy to be curious.

  “Holiday wreaths.”

  “Oh, God. I knew you were one of those obsessive Christmas romantics,” he accused.

  “Lighten up, Grinch. It’s for a fundraiser. I fell asleep at the table on some dumb glitter explosion bow. Woke up looking like I’d gotten in a fight with TinkerBell.”

  “It’s not a bad look on you.”

  Her eyes narrowed in his direction. “You’re imagining me in pasties right now. Aren’t you?”

  He sucked in a breath of sharp winter air and choked.

  “Wow. I was just kidding,” Sammy laughed.

  “I was thinking about… how I need to find someone named Rainbow so I can get out of this sparkly holiday hallucination.” He’d most definitely been imagining her in pasties.

  “Rainbow Berkowicz?” she asked with an arch of her eyebrows.

  “Is there more than one Rainbow in this town?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “No. I don’t think I would,” he countered.

  “She’s bank president. Are you trying to get a meeting with her?” She started for the fence and he followed.

  “Not trying. Succeeding,” he insisted. “One meeting with this Rainbow person and I’ll be whining about being hungover on a cross-country flight.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Sammy said. Then she wrinkled her perky nose. “Except she’s not taking any meetings until after the holidays.”

  “That’s ridiculous. No one runs their business that way,” he scoffed as he fell into step with her.

  She shrugged. “Her mother-in-law is coming into town for the holidays and it takes Rainbow a few days before and after the visit to prepare and recover.”

  “Are you related? Does she live with you?”

  She laughed. “No. Why?”

  “I find it disconcerting that you know that much about someone you don’t live with.”

  “Welcome to Blue Moon, where everybody knows everything about everyone else,” she quipped.

  “It sounds unhealthy. I don’t even know the first names of everyone in my department at work,” he told her. “I’ve only met three of the neighbors in my building.”

  “That’s depressing,” she said, strolling toward the fence with her hands in her vest pockets.

  “That’s not depressing. That’s normal. It’s called having privacy.”

  “Or is it called being too wrapped up in your own agenda to bother getting to know anyone?” she asked. “Around here, we care about each other. We lend hands and bake casseroles and do favors.”

  He smirked. “You sound like a docent at a visitors center.”

  “Would a docent wear pasties under her vest?” The sound of her unzipping that vest and the ludicrous possibility that she wasn’t teasing him distracted him enough that he nearly impaled himself on a fence post. The air left his lungs on a grunt.

  “Serves you right,” Sammy teased. She climbed up on the fence and swung her leg over the top. “Can you get out this way or do you need me to open a gate for you?”

  He would prefer walking through a gate like an adult. But he felt certain that the sparkly doctor would judge him for it. “I can handle climbing a fence,” he scoffed.

  Gripping the top rail with his mittened hands, he dug the stunted toe of his boot into the chicken wire above a fence rail and climbed up next to her. Gingerly, so as not to crush his balls, he swung one leg over.

  She winked. “Look at you being all farmy.”

  “Farmy. Just what I want all the ladies—” Something floppy flew at his face, knocking him off balance. “Shit!”

  He tipped sideways, mittens clawing uselessly at the wood. The last thing he saw was a wide-eyed Sammy reaching for him. He felt her hands close around his biceps, but he was twice her size, and gravity was already working its magic.

  The blue sky and white snow swapped as they toppled off the fence. He twisted at the last second, shifting so his body hit the ground first.

  She landed on his chest with the sound of a bagpipe deflating.

  Ryan gave serious consideration to just giving up and lying there. Staying down for the count. Waving the white flag. Then he realized that an attractive woman was straddling his hips, and life seemed a little less stupid.

  “Are you okay?” Eyes bluer than the sky above peered down at him. Efficient hands patted his arms and torso. From this angle, he could see even more glitter along her throat and wondered what her skin would taste like there. “Did you break anything?”

  “Don’t know. Have to wait ’til I thaw out,” he wheezed. He closed his hands around her arms. “Are you okay?”

  Snow clung to her, making her look like a mischievous snow angel. “I’m fine. You broke my fall.” She shifted her weight, forcing him to think very inappropriate thoughts as her crotch slid over his.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked, hoping the snow bath he was taking would calm the raging erection before she accidentally discovered it under the sweet curves of her ass.

  “Chicken,” she said.

  He thought for a split second that she was calling him a chicken, wondered if that meant she wanted him to roll her over and kiss the hell out of her. Then the googly-eyed, mangy beast he’d stupidly felt sorry for mere moments ago wandered past clucking.

  It paused next to his face and pecked at his puffball.

  “I think she likes you.”

  “I’d like her better if she came with fries and a dipping sauce,” he said, batting the chicken away.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked him. “I mean, your grouchiness is intact, but I’m worried about your spleen.”

  He’d be hard-pressed to come up with a less “all right�
� moment in his life.

  “I’m fine,” he gritted the words out.

  “Good. I’d hate to derail my entire morning by running you to the emergency department.” Without warning, she shifted her weight back and down. Accidentally sliding over the exact wrong—or right—spot.

  He gripped her hips hard to keep her from moving. But he wasn’t fast enough. He caught the exact moment she realized he was hard under her when those eyes went wide. The friction and the perfect O her mouth formed didn’t help his predicament. His stupid dick flexed shamelessly under her.

  “Don’t. Move,” he growled, squeezing her hips harder when she opened her mouth to speak. “Just… be quiet and give me a minute.”

  Rolling her lips together, she froze in place and avoided looking directly at him. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of unsexy things. Like spreadsheets and googly-eyed chickens.

  “So, silver lining. Your equipment still works,” Sammy said cheerfully. “Big life stressors like getting fired can mess with erections—”

  “For the love of God, Sam. Stop. Talking. About. My. Cock,” he enunciated.

  “Right. Sorry.”

  It took longer than a minute before he was certain he’d regained enough control not to throw her under his body and thrust against her like a mindless beast.

  “Okay,” he said finally and lifted her carefully off him. She didn’t run away like she should have. Instead, she leaned down and offered him a hand up.

  When he was back on his feet, she stayed where she was, his hand still in hers. But her eyes were on his crotch.

  “Sam,” he said finally.

  “Huh? What?” she asked, tearing her gaze away from the hard-on he was trying to will away.

  “What do we do now?” he asked.

  “What do you want to do?” she asked. Her voice was breathy which didn’t help Operation Exorcise Erection at all. At least her dazed attention made the situation a few degrees less embarrassing. He was an adult with superb self-control. He didn’t go around getting inappropriate hard-ons.

  “About the chicken,” he said, pointing to the derpy bird pecking at a fence post.