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Chapter Twenty-One
Nash propped open the door to the guest section of the house while Emily guided Lizardman to the door as they returned from a long day at the lake. The puppy’s head lifted, and he galloped over the threshold. Nash let out a surprised sound.
You’d think there was steak on the other side of that.
“Well.” Emily shook her head at the bedraggled puppy as they watched him settle on the end of the couch inside. Her dark hair swung over her shoulders. “I guess he knows where it’s warm.” Hesitating outside on the porch, she rested her palm against Nash’s back, sending prickles of awareness through him at her every touch. “I’m exhausted.”
“You are?” He turned and captured her waist. Her hazel eyes met his. The porchlight highlighted every speck of brown and green hidden in those gentle depths. Her freckles against her rosy cheeks were like embellishments that immediately brought his attention back to her eyes. Her lips parted with a quick intake of breath as she watched him in return.
Yeah, she was crushing on him every bit that he was on her.
“I think I should probably carry you then.” Before she could argue, he tossed her over his shoulder.
She let out a laugh as he hauled her through the spacious living room. This part of the house made a perfect romantic getaway with how secluded it was from the large ranch house. Millie’s daughter had once lived here with her husband as newlyweds. They were in Jackson presently, though their son, Dakota was visiting for the summer.
And they were still happily married.
He wouldn’t mind following in their footsteps.
Nash threw Emily on the couch next to Lizardman, and followed that with himself. “You warmed up yet?”
She wriggled under his arms, since she knew very well how that had become their code for romance. “I think you planned for me to never warm up. That lake was a strange kind of frigid.”
“You guessed my evil plan.” Man, her lips looked luscious. He kissed her again, taking his time. Finally they were on the same page on making this real. How did he get past those strong defenses? He then got busy kissing each freckle, like he was claiming them as his own.
And her brother was going to kill him if he didn’t slow down.
Groaning, he found her wrists and sat up, bringing her up to sit next to him. “Welcome to the crew,” he told her, trying not to notice how much he’d messed up her hair and how he wanted to go to work at straightening it back down—which would only set him off to kissing her again.
Yeah, being the man that she needed was hard!
“Thanks for being my wingwoman on the ranch today,” he said. “Now what do you want to do for the rest of the night?”
She laughed. Nudging him back with her arm, she searched through the drawers on the coffee table by their knees. “Do they have any video game consoles? I play a pretty mean game ofMoondoogle.”
“You would.” He gave her a challenging look of his own. “I’ve been known to dominate with my collection of chickens and llamas.”
“I have peacocks,” she announced.
“Oh, I need to see that,” he said. The game was about setting up your homestead on your world, with only occasional attacks from the neighbors and strange ghouls. Nash found the remotes and game playsets, helping her to hook up everything that they needed. They’d worry about food later.
As soon as everything was in place, they sat companionably side by side… well, she rested her head on his shoulder, looking more peaceful than he’d ever seen her. Occasionally, one of them had to bend down to wrestle the ball from Lizardman’s jaws. Nash tried to throw it as far as he could without making the sociable creature lose interest, because then their new game would end up being endless dodging from the teething pup.
“I had no idea what you were doing in Nashville,” Emily said while she designed her virtual farm. “Frankly, when you said that you’d worked with West, I imagined all sorts of shady business deals, but this—this is good, honest work.”
He shifted, still not sure. Was he missing something? West and Lynch’s argument earlier made it clear that West had worked the deal to a certain point and trusted his brother to come up with a good price that would make both parties happy. Still, he didn’t want to ruin this moment with his concerns. Nash shrugged. “I try.”
A killer goat that he’d raised to attack the other players found Emily’s character and sent her screaming while she tried to get away. That translated to her scrambling up against Nash while she tried to move her remote. Eventually, the goat came out the victor.
“Ah!” Emily threw her head back against the cushion, and Nash kissed her. He’d unofficially made that her penalty for losing to him, though she often returned that with her own sweet kisses. “Well.” She turned to him. “Millie seems very happy that you’re here. I bet a lot of people try to take advantage of a widow living out here all alone.”
He bit his lip, his need to be honest with her forcing his tongue to move. “I think this job definitely has its downsides.”
“How so?” Her character dropped back into the game, and she resumed building up her peacock farm.
She’d stumped him. How much could he tell her? The shadiest part about working out a deal with Millie was that their investors didn’t want the land for ranching, but what else could they do? Casinos were illegal in this state. Could it be that West’s people knew what laws were coming down the pike before even regular Tennesseans did?
He cleared his throat. “I can’t control what the investors do with the land once they purchase it, so… it’s not perfect. I’ll try to offer the fairest price for it, but anything could happen and Millie might think I’ve cheated her.”
