Page 21 of My Secret Santa Dallas

“Hardly,” she said. “I leave for a few days, and when I come back, it’s a brown lump of dead bush. I am pretty sure the guys at Home Depot know to expect me every couple of months.”

The punch McClane gave to one of the Germans made me wince. “Ever thought of getting a pet?”

“Good god, no,” Blair shuddered, and this time, I heard her southern drawl come in. “If I am that bad with a plant, how much better would I be with a living, breathing thing?”

“I dunno,” I kicked my feet up on the nearby ottoman. “Maybe they can feed on the souls of the business uninclined like you do.”

“Oh, kiss my ass,” she said lightly. “I can assure you that if you were on the front lines of a global deal from here to Australia and back again to Europe, you’d be just as firm and kick-ass as I am.”

I shifted to arch my hip. “I’ve known you for less than a week, and I am ass-kicked free.”

“That’s because I’d been wearing my red-bottom Louboutin,” she said. “Not my mud-stomping boots.”

Drinking the last of my coffee, I replied, “Why, Miss Blair, I think you’re flirting with me.”

That line undoubtedly came at the wrong time because she had just taken a sip of her tea and swallowed in an improper manner. Coughing over the arm of the couch, she slapped her chest a few times. I reached out to help, but she stopped me with a waving hand.

“You okay?”

She slumped back against the back of the couch. “Flirting with you? I think I’ve been insulted.”

“Oh, I dunno,” I said. “I’m a catch. Probably better than the preppy guys in chinos and cashmere sweaters you’ve dated. I bet they can broker a deal, but ask them to fix a sink or hammer a nail in place, and they’d call the handyman instead for fear of breaking a fingernail.”

Blair tucked her legs tighter to herside. “You’re telling me you wrestle bears and catch fish with your teeth, blindfolded?”

“And take down mountain lions with a well-placed punch,” I added. “It all comes with the DNA of being a country boy. So, tell me, what was it like being a country-belle?”

Chapter Seven

Blair

“My great-granddaddy made peach moonshine in the prohibition,” I said. “He made a fortune, and that was before he stumbled upon a stretch of land rich in iron and copper.

“He switched to mining and then established a manufacturing company that supplies copper and iron products for transportation, building, and construction.” Credits started rolling on the TV, but I didn’t mind. “Grandpa took over, made it go country-wide. He got into the medical industry, and when Daddy took over, we got into the tech industry with robots and car chips.”

I got distracted by the way Dallas was slowly tracing the rim of his cup with an extended middle finger, so slowly I wondered if he knew that he was doing it.

There were circles under his eyes, stubble on his cheeks, and his hair was all over the place as if someone had run their hands through it. He was also shirtless— did he know that too?

God, I wanted to lean forward and touch him, run one hand down his muscled chest, pull up his shirt, and lick his abs. Instead, I fixed my gaze on the TV, certain that while the house was motionless, someone would walk by the moment I made a move.

His belly was concave with the way he was so lazily inclined on the couch, but that didn’t hide the corrugated abs and deltoids on him. His arm, stretched across the back of the couch, was muscled too, but under his armpit… there was something…

“Wait,” I shifted in my spot. “Do you have a tattoo?”

He lifted his arm, and there on his side was the stylized outline of a rearing horse. Its head and front hooves were in dark ink, but its body faded into swirls of smoke. I wanted to touch it—but I didn’t.

“I got it when I was twenty-one,” he said. “It’s mostly a reminder of where I came from and a visual promise to return one day. This was not how I’d imagined my return would be, though.”

I twisted my lips and looked down at my cool tea. “I haven’t seen anyone lining up to draw and quarter you, though. Not even Warrick looks mad at you.”

“He should be,” Dallas said. “Wouldn’t you be pissed if your older brother disappeared one night and never talked to you for over ten, fifteen years?”

“I’ll jump and scream for joy,” I laughed. “Is there a way I can sign up for that? My brother Wentworth is a supercilious dick with two brain cells fighting for third place.”

A laugh punched itself out of Dallas’ mouth, and he dropped his head to the back of the couch. I liked it when he laughed, like actually laughed, not all those sarcastic snorts and derisive grunts he was known for.

“Have you told him that?” he asked.

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