He couldn’t let the kid down.
With Luanne on one side of the boy and Aug on the other, the trio navigated the front yard’s uneven terrain and made it to the safety of the covered porch. Sebastian stood at the railing, calling for them to hurry.
The urgency in his son’s voice cut right to his heart.
“Sebastian’s safe! Let’s go,” Libby called, taking off like a shot.
He followed a step behind, trying to get hold of himself. Sure, he was concerned about the animals, but that wasn’t the only thing on his mind. He couldn’t seem to untangle the memories of Meredith that swished around in his brain, colliding with images of Libby and Sebastian.
In the blast of light, it was as if Mere was there. He’d half expected to see her, standing on the mountainside, giving him that smile that meant it would be all right—that there was nothing they couldn’t do if they did it together.
His pulse kicked up, and it wasn’t because he was sprinting down a mountain trail, dodging slippery rocks, water-logged ruts, and protruding branches. No, he was a bloody mess, thanks to the insanity that had ensued from the second they’d arrived in this mountain town.
Whatever remnant of balance he’d had left had been obliterated.
From the pun-chi-yoga pandemonium to his stubborn donkey farting up a storm to watching the plonker Zen Dougie drool over Libby to two bloody lightning bolts damn near hitting them, he wasn’t sure if he could discern up from down or left from right. What he did know was that he had to pull himself together and find the donkeys. What the hell would he say to Sebastian if the animals were injured, or God forbid, killed? Ice crackled down his spine.
The donkeys had to be okay.
Sebastian didn’t deserve more heartache.
Mere, show me the way.
He’d never asked her for anything from the great beyond. He’d barely allowed himself to indulge in her memory. But he couldn’t let Sebastian down—not for what must be the millionth time.
“We can do this, Raz. We’ll follow their hoof prints. And look, the lines from the lead ropes are there, too,” Libby called, then glared at him from over her shoulder. “Is that all you’ve got, beefcake? Can you pick up the pace? We can’t let the donkeys careen off a cliff.”
Is that all he had?
Was that a challenge?
He barked an arrogant laugh and did what he seemed to do best, morph into beefcake mode.
Was it a jerk move?
Absolutely.
But who did she think he was, some couch potato? Some weekend gym warrior? He was bloody Erasmus Cress—a professional athlete, a heavyweight champion.
He was no knobby slowpoke wanker.
A surge of jealousy laced with a confusing sense of betrayal worked its way into his bloodstream. Anger permeated his every heated breath. Who was he mad at? Himself? Libby? Dougie, the yoga wanker?
Yeah, it had to be the yoga wanker.
Hardening his expression, he kicked up his speed and matched Libby’s pace as they sliced by a wall of fluttering aspen trees, dancing in the pouring rain.
They passed one of those stacks of rocks, indicating they were on the main trail, and she glanced at him. “I can feel beefcake waves coming off of you.”
“Are you sure it’s not you, plum? You might be hot and bothered over your yoga-loving Zen Dougie?” he fired back, giving her the full beefcake treatment.
“What are you talking about?”
“You didn’t seem to mind Dougie hitting on you?” he bit out, and bloody hell, Libby Lamb kicked up her speed. Forget the notion of her having trouble keeping up with him. This woman could run like the wind.
“That’s why you’ve been acting like a giant jerk? You’re mad about Doug inviting me to meditate with him?”
She was no idiot. She had to have known what the wanker was doing.
“He wasn’t talking about meditating, and you know it. Even Sebastian picked up on the guy’s sleazeball factor,” he replied between tight breaths.
They passed another stack of rocks that accompanied a slew of hoof prints.
They were in donkey hot pursuit—but the pursuit had nothing on the crackle of agitated energy ping-ponging between them.
“You could show a little gratitude,” she replied as another bolt of lightning punctuated the sky.
“For Zen Dougie? You want me to be grateful for that twit!” he exclaimed.
“He helped you get Beefcake out of the trailer,” she shot back, barely winded. Maybe there was something to her Pun-chi yoga regimen. She had killer endurance and an amazing body. She was a beast wrapped in tiny yoga pants that hugged her in all the right places.
Don’t imagine her perfect backside in those leggings.
He focused his agitation on the Zen cowboy. “I didn’t ask that wanker, Dougie, for any help. I was doing fine on my own,” he lobbed back as they side-stepped, left, right, left, down a steep incline.
“Zen Dougie’s arrival doesn’t account for why you couldn’t show a speck of interest in your son’s excitement to care for the donkeys.”
There they go. With that remark, she’d opened the flood gates.
“Are you bloody joking?”
“No, he was so excited about the burros, and you just stood there, rebuffing his enthusiasm.”
Did she have a point? Had he been acting like a sullen git?
Perhaps.
But he wasn’t about to cop to it.
“Plum, like I said, I have a lot on my—”
“You have a lot on your mind, blah, blah, blah. I’m the fancy boxer Erasmus Cress, blah, blah, blah,” she interrupted, prancing from foot to foot like a nimble jaguar to avoid a slick spot in the center of the trail.
“It’s the truth,” he answered, sounding like a surly schoolboy.
“You sure seem to have room in that beefcake brain of yours to obsess over Doug.”
“So, you do like him?”
She glared up at him. “I don’t dislike him.”
He ran his hand through his hair, swiping back the errant dripping locks as the trail curved around a sharp bend. They pushed past a cluster of evergreens, and the needles scratched his forearm as he lifted a low branch for Libby. As if they’d been tandem running for ages. She buzzed under his arm, then leaped over a trio of large roots crossing the length of the trail.
He needed a zinger worthy of the most beefcakey of the beefcakes. He copied her jump and ran alongside her as the path widened and a whopper of a retort shot out of his big mouth. “Dougie should be your final Mr. Benchmark screw.”
Bloody hell! What had he unleashed?
“My what?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. There was no going back now.
“The guy you pick to see if some random bloke can get you off,” he tossed back and shit. In a grand effort to be an asshole, he’d bloody cut off his nose to spite his face. The thought of Zen Dougie laying a hand on her had his blood boiling. Surely, she’d tell him he was crazy.
Her posture stiffened as she flitted across a series of flat rocks. “That’s not a bad idea. Maybe Doug should be the final benchmark test subject. You’re already planning to get rid of me. What would you care?”
Yes, he was an arrogant, selfish ass, but he’d never mentioned sacking her.
“What are you talking about?”