Page 14 of At the Rancher's Pleasure

“Probably because you were hanging over her desk and flirting again,” Brett muttered.

Jules lifted his hands in a “what can you do” gesture. “It’s what I do best,” he admitted and Sarabeth had to smile at his confidence.

“Only matched by your ability to bug the hell out of me,” Brett told him. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“I came to see you, idiot.”

Brett narrowed his eyes, suspicious. “Why?”

“I’ve got a barn owl with a hurt wing. I need you to look after it for a spell,” Jules replied.

Brett sighed and exited the vehicle. He followed the officer to his truck and Sarabeth admired his longs legs, his excellent butt and his graceful stride. God, he was gorgeous. Panty-melting, bone-shaking hot.

She couldn’t wait to kiss him again...and not only his mouth. Nibbling those cords on his neck, sliding her tongue over those muscled shoulders, taking a bite out of those huge biceps...

“I spoke to Brielle but she can’t look after him. She’s slammed,” Jules told Brett after shaking his hand. “And I thought since you are back, and bride free, you could help me out.”

“Has Brielle looked at the bird?” Brett asked.

“Mmm. The X-rays show that the wing isn’t broken. She thinks its soft tissue damage. It just needs a safe space to rest and recover. It also looks a little undernourished.”

Brett nodded. “Let’s take a look.”

Sarabeth opened her door, hopped out and followed the men to the back of Jules’s big black truck. “Who’s Brielle?” she asked as Jules dropped the tailgate.

“She’s the local vet,” Brett explained as he reached for the pet carrier and pulled it forward. Sarabeth caught a glimpse of big yellow eyes and speckled feathers and noticed a wing tucked very close to the bird’s body.

Brett bent down to look inside the carrier. “It’s a female, not a male and she’s pretty young, maybe a year. She’s definitely underweight. She’s also got an eye infection.”

Jules bent down to look into the carrier, and two sets of massive male shoulders blocked Sarabeth’s view of the bird. “I didn’t notice that,” Jules said.

“Brielle would’ve. Did she give her any antibiotics?”

The officer stood up and shrugged. “I was rushing between calls so it was a bit of a hurried conversation.”

“I’ll call her,” Brett told him, not taking his eyes off the bird. He placed both hands on the tailgate, his eyes on the owl. “Hey, honey, you’re sick and scared, aren’t you? I’m going to take such good care of you,” he crooned. “You don’t know it yet, but you’ve checked into a great hotel. Let’s get you settled, okay, gorgeous girl?”

His entire focus was on the owl, and Sarabeth smiled as he easily lifted the carrier off the tailgate and walked it toward her SUV.

Sarabeth caught Jules’s smile. “He’s such a sap,” he stated, affection in his voice.

“Is this something he does often?” Sarabeth asked as Brett opened the back door of her vehicle and gently lifted the carrier inside.

“All the time,” Jules replied. “He emptied out his rehab barn because he was taking a honeymoon, but there’s normally a menagerie in the old stable block.”

Interesting. Yesterday, she would not have thought that of Brett—he seemed too tough and macho to have such a strong reaction to the weak and wounded. But, after hearing about his mom, his “save everything” streak made sense.

As long as he didn’t think she needed rescuing, they’d get along just fine. Sarabeth didn’t expect or want a white knight rushing to save her; in fact, she couldn’t think of anything that would annoy her more. She’d walked through hell and back to become the strong, self-assured woman she was today, and she’d never let any man take away her hard-won independence.

Jules glanced at Brett and folded his big arms across his chest, looking hard and remote and very, very tough. They both looked at Brett, who was watching the bird, their conversation too low to reach him.

“He’s a good guy, Ms. Edmond, and if you want to screw his brains out, I’ve got no problem with that.”

Wow, where the hell had that come from? Oh, maybe because he’d caught them with their mouths fused and Brett’s hand down the back of her pants.

“Good of you,” Sarabeth sarcastically replied. “But I’m trying to work out what, exactly, anything we do has to do with you.”

“I’ve known Brett since we were kids, and he’s my oldest friend,” Jules snapped. “I’mfamilyand we’re close. So if you start to play mind games with him, asking for money, for presents, for a new car, a break on your rent, I will find out.”

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