“Great.” She spread her hands wide, the rag dangling from her fingers. “What is my next assignment?”
“I need you to go up in the hayloft and get the moldy hay out. There was a leak in the roof, and apparently a bunch of it in the back got wet. I patched the leak the other day, but...”
“Great. I would love nothing more than to clean up mold.” She got up from where she was sitting and crossed the space, beginning to scale the ladder. And for some reason, he found that he couldn’t look away.
She climbed with rage-driven determination, the muscles in her shoulders and arms clearly defined. Her waist was long and lean, and her ass looked damned cute in her Wranglers. He didn’t care what anybody said, he would always like what those jeans did for a woman’s body. He was a cowboy. He liked everything that went with it, and that included cowgirls.
It was just that Elsie wasn’t his typical cowgirl type.
But Elsie wasn’t typically anything. Not the least of which someone he should typically look at. She disappeared up into the hayloft, and he felt a surge of relief.
“You sure you don’t want food?”
“No,” she said, invisible now. It was just her angry voice floating down from on high.
“See you later, then.”
“I hope not.”
And as he shut the barn door behind himself, he gritted his teeth, determined to forget what had just transpired. Not his conversation with Lachlan, not his fight with Elsie, but that moment when he had allowed himself that visual tour of her body.
She was Elsie Garrett, and he had to remember that. No matter what had happened in Vancouver, no matter how she infuriated him, it didn’t matter.
Lachlan was right. The Garretts were his family. As close as his own, if not closer in some ways. After his mother had gone it had seemed easier. Hell, it had been necessary because for a while there... For a while there, looking his brothers in the face had seemed an impossibility. Making himself scarce at McCloud’s Landing had been the easiest thing to do. Obviously, he took his responsibilities on his family ranch seriously. And he was a horseman, at the end of the day. He had never found beef to be a particular calling, so he had never felt compelled to go work at the Garrett Ranch.
But then, it was sort of funny that Elsie was in his.
He pushed that out of his mind too. He pushed everything away.
He was going to go eat some lunch, and the way that Elsie Garrett spent the rest of the day was not his problem.
CHAPTER NINE
ELSIE WAS SWEATY and filled with rage by the time the day finished. She had kept thinking that she might mellow out as the hours wore on, but she hadn’t.
She had thought that maybe her guilt would take over. Because she had been mean to Hunter. That was undeniable. She should not have said all that to him about his father. It had been over a line, and she knew it.
But she couldn’t shake her own completely understandable anger over the way that he had ignored her.
And the fact that she didn’t want to overthink it, didn’t want to consider what it might mean that she felt the way that she did...
It was much easier to stay angry.
And so, angry she stayed, all the way to the bitter end of her chores list. But she had done everything perfectly. He would not be able to complain about a damned thing. The leather was oiled beautifully, the stalls were brilliantly mucked and she had cleared out the loft, leaving not a single speck of nasty, moldy hay behind. She was muggy, and she stank to high heaven, had pieces of straw wedged into her hair, and wood slivers beneath her fingernails, and all she could think of was that she deserved to jump into the swimming hole.
She kicked her shoes off and started walking down toward the creek. She walked gingerly, shoes in hand, enjoying the feel of the cool earth shaded by the tall trees beneath her feet. If she could focus on the earth, on the world around her, then her anger became much more distant. The sound of the breeze in the trees, the blue of the sky above. The sun felt less like an enemy then, and more like her companion, warming her skin rather than trying to heat her up from the inside out and cook her alive.
Perspective, she supposed, was everything.
As was being finished with her annoying to-do list, instead of just starting out.
She looked around and didn’t see anyone, then unsnapped her jeans. She had a pair of athletic shorts on underneath, she just didn’t really want anyone to watch her stripping off.
She shoved them down her legs, leaving only the little purple shorts behind. She had on a white tank top that she knew would likely be see-through after her jaunt in the water, but she figured she wouldn’t have an audience. She stood on the edge of the jagged rock formation that lined the creek, ready to make the ten-foot jump down into the watering hole below. She knew that this time of year the water went well over her head so there was no risk jumping.
She was just about to go in when she heard a voice behind her. A very unwelcome voice.
“Did you finish everything up?”
And she didn’t think. Not even a little bit. She turned and saw a fully clothed Hunter McCloud standing only a foot away from her, and then he took a step toward her. And she launched herself at him, wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled them both off the edge of the rocks.
They plunged down into the water below, which was a hell of a lot colder than Elsie had been anticipating. But clearly she had amnesia.
And the added weight of Hunter, who she was still connected to, dragged her down farther and faster than she had anticipated.
He was so densely muscled he was not as buoyant as she was.
She released her hold on him, and sputtered up to the surface, just as he popped up behind her.
“What the hell, woman?”
She started swimming away from him, frog kicking her way toward the opposite bank. “Elsie,” he said. “I swear, I am going to skin you alive, you evil little rabbit.”
He was swimming, but slower than she was, likely owed to the fact that he was still in his boots. His hat had surfaced and was floating somewhere next to him, and he grabbed hold of it, putting it on his head, even though it was wet.
But he kept up his pursuit.
“My boots are full of water.”
“And you’re full of shit,” she sputtered back. “Seems fair.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does to me,” she called back.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“What do you think you’re going to do when you catch me?”
She scrambled up out of the water, but he was very close behind her, and grabbed on to her ankle as he hauled himself up behind her. Then he took hold of her waist and brought her down onto the grass, heaving himself up over the top of her. He wasn’t touching her, his palms planted on either side of her, his knees to the left and right of her thighs. Water was dripping off the brim of his hat, onto her nose, and his angry eyes were blazing into hers. “What was that?”