Page 52 of The Wounded Warrior

It was a cliché, but Rory was totally an onion or something. Peel back a layer and you got another layer. He pettedthat poor leg right below the stitches. Those muscles were tight as bowstrings. “I reckon we ought to get that Tylenol.”

“I can do that.” Rory levered himself up, limping and stumbling a couple steps before getting his balance. “You want to borrow some shorts?”

“Please? I stuffed myself into those jeans for you, but I’m not sure I’m up to them now. I’m all relaxed.” He was lucky he didn’t have baby head the way Rory had taken care of him.

“I’m on it.” Rory headed off toward the hallway, then turned back. “Thank you, huh? For coming to play.”

The words sounded young, somehow, vulnerable, which were two terms that he didn’t use for Rory.

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, babe. As long as you’ll drive me home, that is.”

“I promise I won’t leave you stranded. You have my word.”

“I believe you.” No, if Rory was gonna stop in the middle of a highway for some lost horses, he wasn’t gonna leave a guy hanging. Trust established.

Now he just had to take some Tylenol and see how Rory McConnell felt about snuggling. He was taking bets that the man was all over that shit.

Chapter Fifteen

“I’m going to fucking destroy you, boy.” Harris was screaming over the speakerphone, and Rory was enjoying the hell out of imagining the old fucker red-faced and sputtering.

“Now, now, Mr. Harris. Are you threatening me?”

“It’s not a threat! It’s a fucking promise!”

Rory chuckled and signed a sheaf of paperwork that would guarantee him another three hundred acres that penned Harris up tighter than a nun’s coochie. “That’s not very neighborly, sir.”

God, this was more fun than spinning turtles.

Lori came in to grab the papers, grinning at him when Harris went incoherent for a moment. Maybe he was having a stroke.

He gave her a thumbs-up, then went to checking his emails. “You swallow your own tongue, Harris? That would be a shame.”

“Your motherfucking whoreson. I swear to you, I will find your Achilles heel. I know you have one. Pussy boys like youalways do.”

“You know those Greek guys, Harris. They were always fucking the shit out of somebody’s ass. Have a lovely day, would you?”Click.

He spun around in his chair just tickled as a pig in slop. If Harris was this insane then the latest deal had really hit him where he lived.

“Lori, do you have the plan I asked you to draw up?” The horse operation between him and the LeBlanc place had just stepped up their plan to close down, due to the elder Lawson having a stroke. He wanted to give Matt and Luke a proposal for leasing.

“I do. Boss?”

“What?”

“Are you sleeping with Luke?”

“I’m not sure one blow job is defined as sleeping with, but that’s the plan. Why?”

“You didn’t evenmentionmy new hair-do.”

He tilted his head, studying her shorter, more fashionable… What did his mom call that? A shag? “I like it. The highlights really frame your face.”

“Yeah? It’s not too young for me?”

“Nope. I think it’s spot-on.” He loved that phrase. One of the things he’d picked up on his jaunt to the UK.

Either that or from the shows off BBC. Whichever. Oh, he wondered if Luke likedDoctor Who…

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