Page 13 of The Billionaire Land Baron

Jake stared at Shelby for a moment. Her hair had been pulled up into a bun, but half of it had come loose and hung over her shoulders and back. Sweat beaded on her forehead and she was breathing heavy. She shouldn’t, but somehow did look adorable. One of the straps from her camisole had fallen over her shoulder and without realizing he was going to do it, Jake righted it again, his fingers grazing her collarbone. At his touch, she shivered slightly. And for the first time seemed to take in his body.

Jake had started blushing when he straightened her tank top. It grew as her eyes traveled from his wide shoulders down his broad chest and his abs. He felt self-conscious under her gaze, but reminded himself that he wasn’t that kid wearing husky jeans and an oversized T-shirt to hide his stomach. Plus, he could see the appreciation in her gaze. When they reached his hips, she caught herself and dragged her eyes back up to his face. The echoes of self-consciousness rose up.

“You—” She shook her head as though trying to clear it. “When you blush, it goes all the way to your chest.”

“I know,” he said. “I hate it.”

“You shouldn’t,” she said, her eyes skating away from his. If it were possible to blush more, he would have.

“If you don’t mind, can you tell me why you named that alligator? And why T-Ball?”

“He got his name after he ate several of the balls from our T-ball league.” She pointed past the lake off to the right of a garage behind the small house. He could make out a chain link fence for a dugout, a pitching mound, and a worn dirt path led around the bases.

“We do baseball now,” she said. “He likes those balls just as much. Doesn’t discriminate. But T-Ball had already stuck, so there it is. Anyway. He’s been here almost as long as we have. Showed up one spring, looking like he’d been in a fight. He’s got a nasty scar on his face if you get close. Thought he’d lose the eye but he didn’t.”

“You, uh, got close enough to see his eye?”

She shrugged. “He wasn’t so big back then. He’s never been aggressive or anything. He likes to come sit out here when I do. Kind of like a big, quiet, mostly wild pet.”

He glanced out again at T-Ball, who was silently cutting through the water away from them now, the ridges of his back more visible. Water rippled away from the long strokes of his tail. It gave Jake another shot of terror to realize how powerful the giant reptile was and how quiet.

“He’s…terrifying.”

“He’s faithful.” She was glaring again and he found himself grinning. He wished he could take a picture of her right now: her face adorable with anger, the butt of the pistol making her shirt ride up past her belly-button. He tore his eyes away from her and looked back at the alligator.

“Do you feed him?”

“No! Are you crazy? That messes up their metabolism and also takes away their fear of humans. Then they start thinking of people and food together, which is not the thing you want.”

“Oh,” he said.

Bill’s voice shouted from the house. “Shelby! You save that boy yet?”

“Yes, Daddy!”

“How about those eggs?”

“Okay, Daddy!”

She sighed and patted her head and then froze as though realizing suddenly how she must look. She pulled down her pajama top over the gun and crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’ll have eggs ready in ten minutes if you want to join me and Daddy for breakfast.”

“You got coffee?”

“Yeah, City Boy. We got coffee.”

He couldn’t seem to stop smiling at her. “I’ll be there.”

“Just be sure you shower first. No telling what kind of bacteria you picked up in that water.”

The grin faded. Alligators, bacteria, gorgeous women waving pistols—he’d be lucky if he made it out of this town alive.

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