Page 90 of A Forever Kind of Rancher

Well, so was she. Because, suddenly, she didn’t want to tear herself away from him.

“Well, me, too. But I promise I won’t boil your rabbit or anything similarly inappropriate.”

“What about my fox?”

She wrinkled her nose as she wiggled back into her skirt. “Think I’ll keep him. Maybe he’ll be worth something someday.”

“Like after I cut my ear off and die?”

She laughed. “Well, I killed you so...the market value on your work will have gone up exponentially in just the past few moments.”

“I’ll alert the media. Or rather, I’ll tell Marsha to.”

“Great. Sounds like a...thing. So... I’m going to go.”

“Don’t forget your phone,” he said.

For a full thirty seconds, she had no idea what the man was talking about. Then the memory trickled in slowly. Her phone. What she was there for. The thing she was addicted to. That didn’t seem to matter so much now.

“Right. Phone.”

He rummaged around the bedsheets. “Here it is.”

“The things it must have seen,” she said, holding her hand out, her stomach lurching as he placed it in her palm, his fingertips brushing her skin.

“Yeah, true. I feel like maybe it didn’t see quite enough.”

That made her stomach free fall into her toes. “Oh. Well. I...”

“Just a second.” He got up and walked out of the bedroom, totally unconcerned with his nudity, then returned a moment later with his phone, then he handed it to her. “Call yourself. With my phone.”

She typed in her number with a shaky thumb and hit the call button. A second later, her phone started playing a piano riff. She hit Ignore.

“Now you have my number,” he said. “If you want...something...again, call me.” He took his phone back and threw it on the bed. “If not, don’t. No pressure.”

“Right,” she said. “No pressure.”

“This was good,” he said.

That was the understatement of the century. “Yeah.”

“Maybe I’ll see you.”

“Sure. Maybe we’ll grab the same cab.” She wouldn’t call. She wouldn’t be that weak.

“Stranger things have happened,” he said.

“They certainly have.”

Like her whole day. Her whole crazy day. A day that she had a feeling had changed something in her forever.

Chapter Five

Zack thought he felt his phone buzz. He shoved his hand in the pocket of the ridiculous dress pants he was wearing, but his phone was still.

Another phantom buzz.

She’s not gonna call, moron. Tell your downstairs brain to chill out.

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