“I told Tony he needed that inspected,” he mutters as he grips my elbow and makes me turn so he can spray my front.
“I’m pretty sure Uncle Tony’s favorite phrase was It’s fine.”
Flint’s grip tightens.
So do his eyes.
But for the first time, I don’t think it’s bitterness toward me for not being here more often when Uncle Tony was alive.
I think it’s grief.
“Thank you for being a good friend to him,” I whisper. “He was a good man. I’m glad he had friends here. Especially after the rest of the family cut him off.”
His eyes lift and meet mine before settling back to his task, which now involves cleaning my boobs. “We were a good fit.”
“Everyone needs a friend like that.”
He grunts, swipes mud water off my chest, and pretends he doesn’t notice that my breath is getting shallow and my nipples could cut glass.
“I was on the phone with a well company in Laramie when Earl showed up,” I blurt. Anything for normalcy. “I know when I’m in over my head, and I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to dig a new well here, and that is definitely over my head.”
He grunts and aims the hose lower, and oh my God, I haven’t had a man shower me there since I was a newlywed.
I’m in jeans too.
I shouldn’t be having a reaction to a cold stream of water aimed at my pubic bone over thick denim.
But I very much am, and no small part of me wants to spread my legs and ask him to get up between my thighs.
“I set an alarm on my phone so I wouldn’t miss Junie’s game,” I blurt to cover my discomfort, which might not be discomfort at all. “I don’t know why I didn’t hear it. But it has to be somewhere back in the mud. I was on the phone when Earl showed up, so I must not have dropped it down the well. And I must’ve set the alarm wrong. I didn’t realize how late it was getting. That happens when I’m hip-deep in a project, which is why I set the alarm. Unless I forgot to set the alarm. Or maybe I set it for a.m. instead of p.m., and I’ll be getting a rude awakening about three thirty tomorrow. And—”
“Maisey.”
“Yes?” Oh God, he’s getting my thighs. He’s spraying and stroking my thighs. My quads. My hamstrings. Inside my thighs above my knees. That ticklish spot on the outside of my thighs.
Breathe breathe breathe, Maisey. Breathe.
I’ve threaded my hands through his hair, and I’m hanging on for dear life and pulling his face to my crotch.
“You’re not the first woman I’ve hosed down. Cool your jets. You’re fine.”
I unclench my fingers and leap back from him. “I should go check on Junie.”
“You’re dripping wet, and your ass is still covered in mud.”
“I’ll strip in the laundry room.”
Our eyes connect, and oh. My. Holy. Smolder.
Flint Jackson wants me.
Because he’s a horndog and wants anything with breasts and an ass?
Or because he wants me?
He clears his throat and leaps to his feet. “Here. Almost done. Finish yourself. I’m late. For—something.”
He shoves the hose at me and leaves me standing there on the side of my house, gaping at the new mud hole that we’ve made while trying to clean me off.
My teeth chatter.
Goose bumps pebble across my soaked skin.
Flint’s truck roars to life, and a moment later, I hear tires spinning out on gravel.
Like he can’t get away from me fast enough.
There’s a screech and the sound of tires sliding over gravel at the exact moment that I remember his aunt is inside with my daughter.
“Opal!” His voice echoes across the ranch. “Time to go! I’m late.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, sigh, and head for the back door and the laundry room.
I knew coming here would be hard. I knew there would be wrenches thrown in the works and hiccups I never saw coming.
But even in my wildest doom predicting, it never crossed my mind that I’d be hurting over being rejected by Junie’s cranky math teacher.
Chapter 11
Flint
She’s doing it again.
Maisey Spencer is making my life hell.
After a very long weekend of soccer games, working on clearing out the last of the dying vegetables at my own little garden at the Wit’s End gatehouse, ignoring the hints from Opal that if I’m attracted to a woman, I should see where it goes, and helping Kory with a couple of calves, I’m back at school Monday morning expecting the usual stuff.
And I get some of it.
One of my first-period kids catches me before I walk in the building and asks for an extension on the homework they were supposed to turn in this morning.
One of my fifth-period kids stops me in the doorway of the old brick building to ask for a college-application recommendation letter.
One of my third-period kids gets to me before I’ve made it halfway down the hallway to ask when they can go back out to ride horses at the ranch.
June Spencer is tagging along with two of my soccer players, and all three of them clam up and walk past me as they head toward the cafeteria, which is where most kids hang out before classes.
All normal.
Until Maisey.
She’s taken over the teachers’ lounge, casually sitting on the counter next to the sink, and she’s charming the pants off my colleagues.
“I was so busy working the past few years, I didn’t even realize how much Junie loved to bake,” she’s telling Libby Twigg, the social studies teacher, as she waves a hand at the other half of the counter, which is covered in plates and platters of baked goods.
I know the plates and platters.
They’ve been in storage in Tony’s house for years. He’d use them whenever he’d pretend he baked the cookies he bought from the bakery to bring to cookouts and socials, and they were among the things no one wanted during the estate sale Maisey contracted out before she got here.
“We spent all afternoon yesterday with her showing me how much she’s learned about baking over the years,” Maisey continues. “Have you tried that oatmeal-cranberry-walnut cookie? It only has honey in it for sweetener, so it’s healthy breakfast food. Dip it in milk and you’ve hit all the food groups.”
My brain needs to go to a place where I turn around, walk out of the teachers’ lounge, and head to my classroom to get ready for the day.
Instead, it continues the nonstop assault it’s been making on me since I found myself hosing mud off her Wednesday night and conjures images of her soaking wet, fresh out of the shower, barely wrapped in a black silk robe, feeding me oatmeal-cranberry-walnut cookies freshly drizzled with honey.
I wasn’t this horny back in high school.
Or maybe I was, and I was less sophisticated about it.
“Oh my God, Flint, try this muffin,” Libby says, turning to me and shoving a treat at my face. “I never understood why you loved banana-nut muffins before, but this—this is utter heaven.”
I grab the muffin just to get her hand out of my face, then take another cautionary step back.
As if that’s enough to stop the barrage of suggestions my hormones have for what to do with the muffin now in my hand.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Maisey says to her. “I had no idea Junie had this level of talent. And I still have half a trunk full of what she made yesterday, so I should head off to the hospital and drop those off too. Don’t want to make you all late for class.”