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Nova let out an impatient snort.
“Okay, I get it . . . hold your hor—,” he heard himself, saw Trudie smother a smile, and corrected, “Hang on a sec, Nova. I’m getting there. Sheesh. Pregnant females!”
Trudie actually giggled, even though she’d never, to his knowledge, been pregnant herself.
The dog was still going crazy, though the sound was a little closer now. Ned tossed another forkful of hay into the manger, then walked to the open door and whistled loudly enough that Diego, the buckskin, let out a sharp whinny. “Copper! Come!”
Trudie said, “He’ll come in when he’s good and ready.”
“I know, but . . . he’s not usually out this late.”
“Neither are you. We. It’s our fault,” she said, and she wasn’t wrong. They’d had dinner in town, and traffic had been slow. A two-hour trip to Kate’s Steak House had lengthened to well over three. Darkness had fallen in the meanwhile, but at least the rain had stopped, leaving the air smelling fresh.
Ned always enjoyed this time with the horses, doing a familiar job he’d started when he was eight or nine, feeding the stock in a warm stable that always smelled of dust, hay, oiled leather, and horses.
However, the last few days, he’d been tense. Worried. And he didn’t need a shrink to know why.
It was all because of that damned book.
“Come on, Copper, knock it off!” he yelled again, with a little more bite than usual. He pulled the wire clippers from his back pocket, cut open the remaining bale, and, after pocketing the clippers, restarted the feeding.
Trudie didn’t move a muscle to help him with the chores, but that was their arrangement. He dealt with the outside stuff, keeping up the livestock, outbuildings, and exterior of the house. Roof repairs, painting, raking and mowing, gutter cleaning—those were all his jobs. She took care of the inside of the house. Period. But she was a helluva housekeeper, and she never nagged him about his filthy clothes or leaving things lying around. They shared cooking, but only because he was better at it than she was, something they both understood but never mentioned. All in all, they were both happy, or at least he was, and she said she was, until she’d got that wild hair about the book—that had come unexpectedly, out of the blue, and she couldn’t be talked out of it. He knew. He’d tried.
“I wish this whole thing
was over,” he said, meaning the book. She knew what he was talking about. “We should never have agreed to be a part of it. Anything to do with Didi always turns into a disaster.” He looked at her. “I’m talkin’ from personal experience.”
“I know, but it’s a little too late for cold feet.”
“It’s gone too far. That’s all I’m sayin’.” He tossed hay into the next manger. “That woman is dead.”
“She jumped,” Trudie said. And then again, “Nothing to do with us.”
“Hope you’re right.”
“I am.”
He took a break, leaned against the pitchfork. “So, why would she do that? I mean even if you wanted to take yourself out, fine, okay, as long as you don’t take anyone with you, but why make such a big show of it?”
“Some people are like that. Didi was.”
He pronged another forkful and dropped it into the last stall, where the buckskin nickered and shook his head, halter rattling, his black mane shimmering nearly blue under the fluorescent lights.
“It doesn’t feel right. Too much of a coincidence with the publication of the book.”
“I know, honey,” she said, and there was a hint of empathy in her voice. “But you know, there’s nothin’ you can do about it now. And really, nothin’ you could have done about it before, right?” She climbed off the grain sacks and closed the distance between them. “Let it go, cowboy,” she advised in her sexiest voice as he hung the pitchfork on a hook near the door. “Are we done here?” She wound her arms around his neck and pushed her hips into his. A small smile played upon her lips. “Because I have plans for you.”
“You think you can turn around my thinking with your body, is that it?”
“I know I can.” She stared into his eyes in that way that turned his brain to mush, to the point where all he could think about was one thing: sex. She had always known how to silently convey the fact that she was ready, and to prove it, she kissed him on the lips so hard, his heart immediately started knocking and he felt his damned cock begin to take notice. Man, she could turn him inside out.
Still.
After all these years.
“Okay, okay, I get the hint . . .” He walked her backward, never breaking the embrace, bits of hay fluttering in their path until she fell onto the very stack of bagged oats upon which she’d recently perched.
“What?” she giggled, her eyes bright. Her voice was breathy, her eyebrows arched coyly. “Right here? With everyone watching?”
