Page 36 of That Rush

“And now you’re helping me move yearlings.”

“I’m wearing clean boots.”

“Poor planning.”

He mutters something about family exploitation, but he lifts the latch while I guide the last two animals into the adjoining pasture. Once they’re through, Axel swings the gate closed and leans against it while I secure the chain.

“There. You survived.”

“My boots didn’t.”

“They were ugly anyway.”

He looks down at the mud splattered over the leather. “These cost more than anything you own.”

“I own cattle.”

“You know what I mean.”

I pull out my phone to check the time. Josie is with my parents for the afternoon, which gives me another two hours before I need to pick her up.

It also gives me two hours to think about the title I memorized from Paige’s paperback.

Four days should have been enough for the memory of her standing in that aisle to fade. It hasn’t.

I open the search page I abandoned earlier. The cover appears beside a description that stops me cold. According to the blurb, the male lead spends roughly four hundred pages alternating between brooding introspection and, apparently, an almost athletic dedication to a woman’s pleasure. The reviews confirm it. One commenter gave it five stars and simply wrote: *my husband is so confused about why I keep sighing.*

“Are the cows reading romance now?”

I lock my phone, but Axel has already moved close enough to see the screen.

“No.”

“Researching techniques?”

“Go home.”

His grin widens. “Was that Paige’s book?”

I shove the phone into my pocket and start toward the equipment shed. “You have work to do.”

“I did my work. Then my brother forced me into unpaid ranch labor while secretly shopping for dirty books.”

“I wasn’t shopping.”

“So you admit it was dirty.”

One marked sentence was enough to make Paige blush and challenge what a real man could deliver. I’ve replayed the exchange all week, especially the way she held my gaze while a flush climbed her cheeks.

“I wanted to know what she was reading.”

Axel falls into step beside me. “Why?”

“Because she’s interesting.”

“You say that like it hurts.”

“She’s also difficult.”