Page 77 of Take Me Away, Cowboy

After she thanked him, of course. She might be pissed, but she wasn’t rude.

One thing was for certain, though.

The pie was off the table.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Offer

He heard herbefore he saw her. Her boots crunched through the dry grass that had shot up sometime in the past week, yellowed even more recently. He admitted he was a little preoccupied, hadn’t noticed much about his land in the past few days.

Well, that was about to change.

She wasn’t using the path they’d inadvertently made over the summer, instead blazing her own. The result was not unlike a rhino charging towards him out of the brush when she finally emerged, looking wild-eyed and pissed as hell.

Okay, a baby rhino. He bit back a grin.

Paige charged up to him, her finger extended.

“You fixed my doorbell,” she accused, the finger waving in his face.

“No charge, ma’am, just doing my civic duty,” he said, the smile breaking free. His weight rested on a shovel he’d been using to tend to a small patch of land he wanted to turn into a fall vegetable garden.

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you,” she shot back, her hands on her hips. Now he let the smile take over, showing teeth and all. He liked needling her, couldn’t really say why, except she looked like hell and he thought he might know why.

“I disagree,” he said.

He flexed his pecs, his biceps, as he crossed his arms over his bare chest. The shovel fell to the ground with a light thud, but she didn’t flinch. Instead, her eyes never left his chest.

Owen knew he looked good, that the summer of hard work on even harder land had fleshed out his muscles, but to see it etched on her face, her jaw open while she unapologetically stared, was too much. He almost laughed aloud.

“You made it too loud, too… something,” she said, shaking her head, apparently recovering from his purposeful torture. She wasn’t looking at him anymore, instead stared at the ground like the pumpkin seeds he’d just planted had sprouted around her feet.

“I think what you meant to say was ‘thank you.’” She squirmed, crossed and uncrossed her arms, kicked at the dirt. “If you don’t mind, there’s some pumpkin embryos under there I don’t want messed with too much.”

“Sorry. Thank you. I meant to say that first, but you distracted me.” Was he right in thinking that her apology sounded a little like a growl?

“You’re welcome. And sorry for the distraction. I’m just working on my garden.”

He shrugged like it was no big deal, picked up the shovel and stuck it in the ground point first. She flushed crimson, no longer paying any attention to the gardening tools. He was moderately pleased at the inadvertent accident of running into Paige the first time after breaking up while he was wearing his tightest work shirt. It beat being caught in the sweats he’d worn the first full day.

“So, um, you’re growing pumpkins?” She was back to avoiding looking him in the eye. Or the chest. He bordered on smug as he watched her fidget.

“Yep. Spaghetti squash and kale. Ooh, and brussels sprouts.”

“Brussels sprouts, huh? I didn’t peg you for a veggie kinda guy,” Paige said. Her eyes raked over him now, a shy smile twitching the corner of her lips. Dammit if it didn’t remind him of her looking down at him like that, her small, strong legs straddling him, both of them naked and engaged in a tug-of-war of who’s-on-top.

He hoped he could pass off the color in his cheeks from the heat, but there wasn’t anything he could do about the bulge pressing against his jeans.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. He hadn’t meant for it to come off so serious, but his chest constricted as he thought about all he’d lost. He’d wanted to share so much about himself for the first time, but now, he shoved all of that back into the corner of his brain under the sloppily scrawled heading of “forget-and-move-the-hell-on.”

“Owen,” Paige started, but he cut her off with a brusque clearing of his throat.

“Anyway, how’s your dad?”

“Fine, thanks. They’re keeping him overnight for observation again, but he should be released sometime tomorrow. He’ll be on light duty for a little while. Couple weeks most likely.”

“I’ll take care of the farm while he’s out of commission.”

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