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Another huff, and even Charlotte didn’t buy her own line. She rubbed Princess’s ears and felt a little better. The dog was sweet…when she wasn’t running around like a crazy wolf puppy.
Charlotte shut her laptop with a sigh and got up. “Let’s get this over with,” she grumbled and headed out the front door.
With the Wyoming sun shining a soft yellow in the early-morning breeze, she rode out to the grove of pear trees.
A massive orange tractor was waiting for her.
She hesitated before rounding the last row of trees. Sure, she had on her new jeans and boots and a solid pink tank top—an outfit perfect for picking pears…and trying not to have sex with Tripp. But this was becoming a habit for them. A little privacy and a nearby vehicle and she’d ditch her panties for the cowboy. It was ridiculous, really.
“Get your head in the game,” she muttered to herself. She needed to focus on her endless to-do list. She was keeping up on the garden, though she’d started making a list of her own, things the property needed, like a better sprinkler and some chicken wire to put around the tomatoes. Wynonna was getting easier to milk. Just this morning she’d been able to squeeze a whole gallon out of her.
Charlotte took a deep breath to settle herself, and the prairie air sank into her lungs like it belonged there. Different from the air back in California, Wyoming air was richer and cleaner and made her feel awake. Alive.
She could do this.
Parking the four-wheeler a few yards away, she eyeballed the massive tractor. It had a giant bucket thing on the front that looked like it could do some serious damage to a field. Was she supposed to get in that thing? When she climbed off her machine and moved closer, the monstrosity jolted to life and started rising.
She shrieked and someone laughed. She peered around the bucket and saw Tripp, looking hot as ever, in the driver’s seat, grinning.
“Good morning to you, too,” she called.
He killed the engine and hopped down. He had on the standard cowboy flannel shirt and jeans, but today, he wore a baseball cap instead of his Stetson, and good God he looked amazing. The several-day-old stubble on his face was sexy. She wondered how it’d feel against her chin, her cheeks, her thighs…
Apparently a few days of cooling off didn’t help a damn thing.
“It would be a better morning if I’d gotten any sleep the last few nights,” he said, walking casually toward her.
“Hmm, that’s too bad for you. I’ve been sleeping great.”
Lie.
He grinned. “Oh yeah? Because I can’t get the taste of you off my tongue.”
She opened her mouth to remind him that he didn’t taste her the other night. Then she thought of how he consumed her mouth, then licked his own finger after using it on her. And her skin was back to a thousand degrees again and her entire core ached at the memory.
“Well, we’re casual neighbors who are working today. So I hope you have your professional hat on,” she said.
“No, ma’am, I have my casual hat on.”
She
looked him over. He looked plenty capable, like he could handle her, this machine, and an entire ranch in the blink of an eye. But today was her turn to show him she could handle Grammy’s farm.
“Well, just because we came to an agreement on your equipment doesn’t mean I need your constant help. Everything is running great under my watch.”
He nodded once. “Well, I’m happy to oblige you with any needs of my equipment you have.”
She crossed her arms. “So I see flirty Tripp showed up today.”
“Same Tripp every day.”
She laughed. Honest to God laughed. “Same Tripp, my ass! You’re the king of 180-degree personality shifts. Or do you just reserve those for me?”
“When anything involves my daughter, I tend to look at things…differently,” he said, his serious gaze turning hotter as he scanned her body. “And I’d rather talk more about your ass, as aforementioned.”
She blew past his flirting and stayed on track with her point. “So, what is your angle?”
He frowned. “Angle?”
