Page 106 of Dallas

“Yep,” he said, his throat suddenly tightening up too. Oh good, his whole body was staging a rebellion.

“Get along, little doggy!” she said to Poppy, weaving back and forth in the snow, making uneven footprints. Poppy pranced behind her, lifting her feet higher, clearly excited by Samantha’s exuberance.

And he couldn’t blame her. Samantha had that wayabout her. She was infectious. She’d always made him smile, even when there’d been nothing in his life to smile about.

She still did that to him. She did everything to him.

Dammit.

“Calm down, cowgirl,” he said. “We’ve got to saddle up some horses.”

Five hours later, Samantha was muddy and exhausted, and so was Poppy. And Jace still wasn’t done working.

“We’re going to head back to the house,” she said.

“Right. I’ll be behind you in a bit.”

She nodded and strolled from the barn back to the two-story home. She’d spent the whole day in the cold with Jace and his hired hands. And they’d eaten cheese and mayonnaise sandwiches, and her cheeks hurt from smiling so much.

Her butt hurt too, from riding the horse for so long. And she was pretty sure she would be walking funny in the morning. She didn’t ride very often, and she’d never shadowed Jace on the ranch before.

It was incredible. To see what his hard work had earned him. To see how hard he worked every day. And it made him even sexier. To see him get dirty. Sweaty. To see him like she never normally saw him.

He really wasn’t joking. He didn’t mind getting dirty; he just cleaned up after.

He was like a walking fantasy. Tough and masculine, yet deeply involved with soap.

It wasn’t fair.

She let out a breath and opened the door to the house,cringing when Poppy bounded in and left several paw prints in the entryway.

“No,” she whined, grabbing Poppy’s collar. “Hang on.” She marched the dog into the laundry room and got a towel to clean her paws. “You need a bath,” she said. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Samantha wiped up the floor on her way back by the entry door, then marched Poppy up the stairs and into the guest bathroom, right next to the room she’d claimed as her own for the duration of her stay.

“Okay, chica, let’s get this mud off you.”

A half an hour later, she had a clean and mostly dry dog snoozing at the foot of her bed. And she had a bathtub with a dirt ring to contend with.

She grabbed the flexible shower head and started to spray along the edge of the tub until most of the ring was gone. Now there was just a bit of black hair sticking to everything. That was always the problem with bathing Poppy. The water drew out enough hair to build a whole new dog.

She hummed as she sprayed the tub, jumping when she heard Jace’s voice.

“Did you bathe your dog in the house?”

She flipped the switch on the shower head and stopped the flow, diverting the water to the tub. “What? Yes. Did you want me to leave her muddy?”

“I bathed her in the stable yesterday. I didn’t bathe her inside.”

“Oh, for crying out loud, Jace. Unclench,” she said, a rush of anger washing over her. Anger directed at him for being such an ass about the house. And for being so sexy. And so off-limits. And anger at herself for wanting him when she knew it wasimpossible.

She was suddenly very angry about all the things and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop it from leaking out.

“It smells like wet dog in here.”

“Does it? It’s about to smell like wet cowboy.” She flipped the switch on the sprayer again and aimed it at his chest, making a nice little damp spot right in the same place she’d smacked him with batter the other day, then turned the water off again.

“I can’t believe you did that,” he said.

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