Page 36 of One Lucky Cowboy

“It was good you were here,” he replied.

“Thanks. It was good to be here.” She laughed, unable to help herself.

He seemed to wrestle with that, his lips forming soundless words. They had to be better than what she’d come up with.

He sighed and raked a hand along his cheek. He moved into the doorway, blocking half the exit with his strong, muscular frame. She could still leave, but did she really want to? His hand rested above him on the doorframe, and Jill almost choked on the last sip of her wine.

“Pop quiz,” he said.

“I hate those,” she murmured. It wasn’t entirely true, but it did aggravate her that he knew just what to say to get under her skin. “You’re going to help me amortize the inventory tomorrow?”

Anything to pull focus from the ridiculously ripped cowboy looking like a calendar model as he languidly relaxed into the frame.

“True or false?” he asked, ignoring her. “The necklace isn’t broken.”

She gasped, and her hand flew to her neck. It hadn’t felt right to keep wearing Liam’s name on her chest when she hadn’t loved the man in more than a decade. But she’d never taken it off. Not until the night she tried to kiss Jackson-freaking-Marshall. But how could she tell the free spirit that she wanted him to stay still enough that she could learn the freckles on his cheeks by heart?

“It’s late,” she said by way of reply after she found her voice again. “I should get home.”

He released his hold on the oak doorframe but didn’t move. She slid sideways to pass him, their knees touching. All she’d need to do was lean up on her toes and he’d be hers. But neither wanted that. This was just the wine talking. Apparently, she couldn’t be trusted with anything but lemonade from now on.

“I’ll walk you.” He dipped his chin, and his voice grew deep and husky.

Jill swallowed hard. “That’s okay,” she said, slipping past Jax with minimal contact. “I’ll be fine.” She walked out, hoping very much that it was true.

Because whatever way that cowboy made her feel, fine wasn’t it.

Chapter Five

Jax sighed and looked away from the computer screen. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, but the numbers were still a blur.

“I have no idea what I’m looking at,” he said to himself.

Yeah, because all you’re thinking about are yellow spaghetti straps on bronze skin, the space between her collarbones where the necklace used to be—

Shut up, he told his subconscious, who was dangerously close to the truth. Dinner had been nice, bordering on fun even, so why did that leave him even more unsettled than if it’d gone to shit, like he’d expected?

He glanced out the window. The large sycamore tree in the front yard had born its autumn fruit last week, giving birth to thousands of brownish softballs he used to love to lob at his brothers. It was the Texas version of a snowball fight, and sometimes the neighboring kids had come over for epic faceoffs. The wide, jade-green leaves danced in the gentle breeze Jax could almost feel. Gander gathered some of the fallen sycamore balls in his mouth and made a pile out of them.

Jax couldn’t help but smile.

Though he caught only a whiff of the vanilla plug-in from the hallway, his brain conjured memories of the ripe, earthy musk of fall in Deer Creek. All he needed to do was step outside and smell the fresh hint of moisture from the creek, the rustle of leaves above him, the shadows of the tall cypress trees bordering the canyon that marked time as much as his grandmother’s clock above the brick fireplace for himself.

Right now, those shadows said he’d spent too long looking at a flat screen and too little time outside. He pinched the bridge of his nose. The sooner he finished up, the sooner he could go for a swim in the creek.

In his head, he calculated the numbers on the email Jill sent him. They were right, but also … off somehow. He scratched his chin and tried to go over them again. No dice. It wasn’t the math—that he was good at; hell, he could’ve gone back for a master’s degree in the stuff. It was the fact that to do this job, he had to ignore the pulsing need for fresh air, for adventure, for the road that thrummed beneath his rib cage.

“Eff it,” he muttered.

He closed the window and walked outside to stretch, taking his phone. It was a nice enough morning he could work outside on the smaller device. It might be slower going, but being trapped inside wasn’t getting anything done, either. At least out here, he could let the ranch distract him rather than thoughts of his neighbor in a sexy sundress.

Gander walked past him with a blanket in his mouth.

“Where you going with that, buddy?”

Gander ignored him and trotted toward the canyon at a clip.

“Alright, buddy. Take care of yourself,” he said more to himself than the dog that was already out of sight. The mutt hadn’t been around at all for almost two weeks now. Jax turned his attention back to the spreadsheet on his screen.

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