Page 22 of Take Me Away, Cowboy

“I asked what the hell that was back there and you kept on walking.”

“Keep up if you want to talk. I’ve got to get my tools together before your brother gets here.”

“Seriously?” she hissed at him. But she didn’t slow down. If anything, she sped up so that she could glance back at him, look in his eyes. She looked cute all mussed up from sleep, when she wasn’t ready to start a war, that is.

For a split second he imagined what she might have been dreaming about that he’d interrupted, hoped it was him, but then he got to his barn, and became all business again.

“If you couldn’t tell, I’ve got a little bit on my plate.” He didn’t mean to sound gruff, but she wasn’t very good at contextual clues, was she?

“Yes, but if you don’t recall, you kissed me last night, and then this morning there’s not so much as a hello from you.”

“I said hello.”

He had, hadn’t he? He honestly couldn’t remember.

“Barely. I’m getting whiplash trying to track your mood swings, is all I’m saying.”

Owen wheeled on her; his finger extended like he was about to lay into a lance corporal for fucking something up.

“Listen. Last night was its own thing. I like you. I think you’re attractive. This morning, none of that’s changed.” He took a deep breath, aimed his knife-hand at the offending property he was headed to. “But I’ve got a downed fence, hopefully not an injured bear, but a bear just the same, roaming my property unattended. Whether or not I kissed you isn’t relevant right now, wouldn’t you say?”

Paige stopped dead in her tracks, throwing him off as he got to the back of the barn, examined the coil of wire. He turned back to her, her face scrunched up like she’d stepped in cow shit, not an entirely unlikely scenario. One more thing he’d handle later.

Her arms crossed over her perfect chest. He knew enough about women to know she was pissed, but he was light-years away from having a clue what to do about it.

Dammit. Why couldn’t just one thing go right that morning?

“No. It isn’t.” She turned on her heel and stalked out.

He wasn’t an idiot—he assumed there was so much more she wanted to say to him, but he was glad for so many reasons she’d elected not to. The last thing he wanted to do was make things worse with her.

Ticking her off wasn’t part of his plan today. In fact, he’d woken up expecting the opposite to happen. Though part of farm life included rolling with the unexpected and reassessing the situation as it presented itself, he still didn’t like how he’d treated her. Either way, horseback riding was out, fixing his fence and finding a loose bear was in.

There was his staple gun, too. Right on his work bench. He needed to make a more concerted effort to organize his stuff the way he’d had to in the Marines. This not knowing where he stored shit was going to piss him off and could be dangerous down the road. Maybe he’d ask Brad’s dad how he managed to keep everything together when there was just so damn much of it.

The door opened again and Owen turned to explain himself a little more to Paige. He could give her a second now that he’d found the immediate things he needed to get started. Instead, Brad walked through the door, looking uncannily like his sister after waking up. Just a much taller, less feminine version.

Damn.He should have been more patient with Paige, talked her through his thoughts this morning instead of snapping at her. It wasn’t her fault a bear ran amok on his property.

He’d fix that break later. Fence first.

“Hey,” Brad said. “Rough morning, huh?”

“You know it.”

Owen was somewhere between pissed and impressed. By his account, every day he woke up was a good one, but that didn’t mean starting that blessing off by finding a rogue wild animal hell bent on destruction of his property was good as well.

“I asked my pops. We’ve seen some crazy winters that have claimed more than their fair share of crops and livestock. We’ve also had an idiot or two who got too close to the border fences with their ATVs and knocked themselves and some posts out in the process. To his recollection, there’s never been a bear break-in, aside from the Marshall’s ranch that I told you about.”

“I’m just the lucky one, eh?” Owen laughed, a sardonic chuckle that shook his chest.

“Seems that way. Hey, why’d I see Paige tearing out of here like a bat outta hell on fire?”

“I don’t know,” Owen lied. He didn’t mean to mislead Brad, had a lot of respect for the guy, actually, but he didn’t think getting into the “I kissed your sister on a whim” part of the story would be a good idea with power tools in play. “Probably bummed I woke her up this early.”

He laid out his tool belt, outfitting it with enough hardware and machinery to build a shed on the spot.

Brad bought his lame excuse, even laughed.

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