“Aidan,” I hear Shane call out behind me. I turn to watch him cross the distance between the guesthouse and the place next to the barn where I park all the equipment.
He’s wearing one of his fertility outfits again. Tightish retro USMC t-shirt. Dark jeans. Red Wing boots. The name is fitting since my uterus starts spring cleaning every time she sees one, removing cobwebs and fluffing pillows, diligently preparing the place where his children will live for nine months. If he continues looking this good, she’ll start naming all ten.
He holds his cell phone up when he reaches us. “Jules needs to speak to you about an offer…”
I’d forgotten that Aidan doesn’t have a phone on him, per the judge’s order. His face brightens, his excitement barely contained. As fun as this has been, it was only a matter of time before Aidan would get bored on a farm. Monkeys like adventure. Collies not so much.
He hops down from the tractor and takes the phone from Shane. “Thanks,” he says, and walks away for privacy.
Shane looks down at me and the tension escalates. I climb the tractor and sit in the seat, ready to do what I always do: a “man’s job.”
“Hazel looks like she’s doing better,” he says out of the blue.
I stop what I’m about to do––start the engine––because…did he just admit to checking on Hazel?
“You checked on Hazel?”
He places a boot on the tractor tire and leans. “Seemed like the decent thing to do,” he tells me, all blasé. I have to bite my bottom lip to stop myself from smiling. It takes serious effort.
“Billy, my one-eyed dwarf goat, has stolen her attention now that Pepper’s gone.”
“How soon they forget…” he says drily, musing out loud. A smile follows and I nearly jump him right then and there in broad daylight.
Needing something to do, I turn the ignition on the tractor and it makes a strange sound.
Donkey dung.
“Try it again,” he tells me and I send him some serious side-eye. What are we back in 1920? I’ve been doing this alone for far too long for him to show up and give me orders. He walks around to the front of the tractor and pops the hood like he owns it.
“You know what you’re looking at or should I call my guy?” Dexter knows how to fix this thing. I pull my phone out of the front pocket of my short overalls, ready to dial. Shane pokes his head out from under the hood and scowls at me. “Sorry, Colonel, had to be sure you weren’t a poser.”
“Can you get me a tool box? Make sure you have a torque wrench.”
I jump down and head to the maintenance shed where I keep all the gadgets.
When I return, automotive tool kit in hand (thank you very much), he’s removed his t-shirt and hung it on the waistband of his jeans. These Hughes boys sure like to get naked.
“Got it,” I announce, very proud of myself, and hold up the kit. Taking it from me, he places it on the top of the tire and opens it up. Meanwhile, I watch him like I’m getting paid to do it properly. Grabbing a few tools, he ducks back under the hood and starts working.
“How long you gonna stand there and watch?” drifts out from under there two minutes later.
“Why? Is there a time limit? Do you charge by the minute?”
I can’t help myself. I really can’t.
He ducks out again from under the hood and finds me sitting on the tire. His lips twitch, almost risking a full-blown smile, eyes narrowing as he scrutinizes my blank expression. “I think I liked you better when you were stuttering around me.”
“That wasn’t stuttering. That was breathing in between letters.
“That was stuttering.”
I shrug. “First impressions eventually wear off.”
Amusement fills his big brown eyes. Shane doesn’t want to have fun, but he can’t help himself either. God, why fight it so hard?
“Yeah? What happens after that?”
“Reality sets in.”
This is beginning to look a lot like foreplay. Better yet, am I the only one who thinks this feels like foreplay? Probably.
He’s taken, you dipshit! my conscience screams.
He watches me for more time than I’m comfortable having that level of scrutiny directed at me. No doubt to remind me why I should be intimidated. But we are way past that point. Or are we? I’m definitely starting to sweat.
“I charge by the second,” I tell him. Then he laughs. A strong burst of laughter that resonates deep in his chest.
“Start the tractor, wise ass,” he murmurs once he’s done. I try turning the key again and the tractor turns on.
“Woo-hoo!” I shout with my arms raised. He comes around to my side and I hold out a fist to bump. “Fist bump! C’mon Colonel, don’t be such a downer.” Which he doesn’t. “Okay, never mind.” I laugh (at myself) and the grin he’s been fighting since I’ve known him breaks free.
Is this our turning point? I hope so. But the question is… is it a good one?
Shaking his head, Shane grabs the t-shirt from his waistband and pulls it over his head. In the meantime, I try to remind myself that he’s taken.
“Blue Baldwin, it’s your mother speaking—Athena Baldwin,” she says as if there was any doubt. “I’m in town and I’m dying to see you. Call me.”
She’s in town? So soon?
This is not how I like to start my day, but I wasn’t given a choice. My phone is never on silent, just in case Mona has an emergency and she needs me.
Kicking the covers off, I drag my now-annoyed self to the bathroom. As I’m passing by the window, however, I catch sight of something I thought to never ever see in my lifetime. A full moon courtesy of Shane Hughes.
It looks like Shane has set up an outdoor shower and is, in fact, showering outdoors… outdoors where no one ought to be able to see him in his naked glory. And yet here I am, seeing him. All of him. Every muscle. There are too many to count. Every dent in his butt. Exactly two. Every hanging dick surrounded by dark hair. One, thank God.
Lord, why do you test me so?
My conscience debates this for all of a second. I grab the binoculars and, in Mona’s exact words, spy on the man. Unfortunately, by the time I focus, he’s wrapped a towel around his waist and is heading inside. Major missed opportunity. Damn you, conscience.
I’m downstairs walking into the kitchen twenty minutes later. After my mother’s cryptic and rather unsettling phone call, I know it’s time to pay my father a visit.
“Go, sweetie. Go see your father. Darby and I will look after the animals today,” Mona tells me after I explain what happened. Not the part about me spying on Shane. The part about me not knowing what to do about my mother and asking my father for advice.
I don’t doubt the animals will get looked after; Mona is nothing short of brilliant in that regard. She taught me everything I know, and she learned everything she knows from her father, a storied horseman, who owned and operated a working cattle ranch for five decades. Mona’s the one who decided to stop breeding red Angus for human consumption.
The issue, as I sit at the kitchen counter and stare at the two of them over the rim of my coffee cup like a suspicious parent at a couple of errant teenagers, Mona with a silly smile on her face and her I-just-got-nailed-to-the-wall hair and Darby looking like he could take a ten-hour nap, is that I’m afraid they won’t make it outside, let alone to the barn.