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“I am not afraid.” Her voice vibrated with irritation. . .and humiliation.
He lifted his hands in surrender. “Sorry. Honest mistake.”
At her glare, he tried to stop smiling, but it didn’t work, and his lips quirked up at the corner. She folded her arms over her chest and let her eyes narrow.
Shaking his head, he seemed to relent. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Really. Just tell me which way he went, and I’ll see if I can get him out of here.”
“I didn’t see which way he went,” she answered, looking at him as if he was insane. “The damn thing slithered right over my hand, and I was out of there.”
Making a sudden gagging sound, she stared down at her fingers in horror. “Oh, God. I need to wash my hand.”
As she raced inside, she heard Grady’s laughter follow her.
“Bastard,” she muttered, dashing to the sink.
Grabbing up the dish soap, she poured half the bottle over her fingers and commenced to scrubbing the skin raw.
****
Still chuckling, Grady shook his head again. For a full-blown tomboy, the woman had a healthy set of lungs on her. He hadn’t heard such a high-pitched scream since Caine had put a spider in his sister Emma Leigh’s hair when she was ten.
The prospect made him feel a little lighter. B.J. was such an independent, self-sufficient woman, he liked knowing she’d actually need him for something every once in a while. Hey, maybe if he was lucky, she’d “dislike” spiders too, and he’d get to play hero even more often.
Searching the ground for a long black slithering object, he thought back to B.J. at breakfast. She was definitely something else. One minute, she could be a seductive vixen, driving him out of his mind with what she could do with her mouth. Then she was shrieking her head off over snakes, only to switch back into the ultimate tomboy a second later, acting too tough to be scared of anything.
He enjoyed the mix. He enjoyed B.J. The woman was a breath of fresh air. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed companionship until she’d crowded her way into his life. But he liked having her around. And he liked catching her unaware when she paused in a room to look down at her still flat stomach in wonder, like she couldn’t believe there was a little human in there.
Amy had talked constantly about her pregnancy, how her body was changing and what she was thinking. But B.J. remained quiet, hardly ever mentioning the fact she was carrying.
He found himself wanting to know what was going on her mind when she laid a protective hand on her stomach and stood there lost in thought. He wanted to know what her body was going through and what emotions she was experiencing, because he had a sneaking suspicion the baby secretly delighted her.
Still lost in thought, he almost missed movement out of the corner of his eye. Jerking around, he watched something slither across the lawn away from the flowers. Surprised such a small thing had made her let out such a big scream, he picked the snake up by the back of its head. It was hardly even a foot long.
He laughed. She was afraid of this little worm of a thing? It didn’t seem possible. But as the front door opened and she appeared in the doorway, he lifted it to show her. She pulled to an immediate stop.
“Found it,” he called.
“Good,” she said. “So. . .go kill it.”
He frowned. “I’m not going to kill it. Snakes are good to have around. They eat mice.”
“I don’t have a problem with mice. The mice can stay.”
He was half-tempted to tease her about being so scared. He probably would’ve if he didn’t fear getting a black eye for his trouble.
“I’ll just carry it off then,” he relented, grinning.
B.J. folded her arms across her chest. “Do whatever you want. I’m going to start supper.”
“You don’t want to finish weeding?” he couldn’t help but ask.
After sending him a dirty look, she spun around and slammed her way back inside.
He took off across the yard, chuckling. After finding the snake a new home, he returned to the flower garden. It was only half weeded. Deciding to take up where she’d left off, he knelt in the dirt and pulled at a dead plant. It’d been nearly three years since he’d done this.
Amy had possessed a black thumb. She’d killed everything she’d ever tried to plant. After a while, Grady had banned her from gardening all together, claiming she was a hazard to the flowers. He’d been the one to keep the plants nice because his wife liked how they looked. But after she’d died, he’d forgotten about them for a good year, too distraught to bother with flowers. When he finally noticed all the weeds, he didn’t see the point in rep
airing them because there was no one to grow them for.
