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Boone opened his mouth, clearly intending to continue his scolding, but then he squinted at me and leaned down to see me better, frowning. “What the hell is on your face? And what’s that smell?”
I patted my face and belatedly remembered the anti-wrinkle mask I’d put on. “Oh. The SiO Sparkle BrowLift patch. I’m not sold on it yet. Mondo swears by it, but he still has a full set of Louis Vuitton under his eyes, so I’m not sure he should be the one handing out anti-aging suggestions.”
Boone stared at me like I was speaking Russian.
“Eye bags,” I clarified.
He blinked several times as if he didn’t know what to do with that information. He was cute when he was flustered. I decided I should try to fluster him as much as possible.
He shook his head as though forcing himself back on track. “Get your ass out of bed and into the kitchen for breakfast. You now have seven minutes to chow down before your ass is mucking stalls. Got me?”
As he turned to stride out of the room, I muttered, “I wish I got you. Or at least that tight ass of yours.”
He froze for half a beat before continuing down the hallway with a grunt of displeasure. I smiled to myself at having riled him up, and then I sighed and lay back down on the bed for a minute to catch my breath, twitching my eye mask back into place.
The next thing I knew, I was being woken out of a dead sleep by a drenching of icy-cold water. I sucked in a breath as my body seized from the sudden shock.
“What the fuck?” I screeched, lurching to my feet with my fists raised to fight off my attacker.
“Are you… wearing a nightgown?” a voice asked.
“Shit, son. Ain’t no one ever taught you how to make a fist without breaking a finger?” someone else remarked. “You gotta pull your thumb out.”
“Now, that’s a pun if ever I heard one,” a third person muttered. “Lazy city boy needs to pull his thumb outta his ass and get to work.”
I ripped my sodden eye mask over my head and glared at the pack of feral dogs standing in my room. “Out!” I screamed, still struggling to catch my breath. “Get out of my room!”
It probably would have been more effective had my teeth not been chattering.
The older man I recognized as the foreman, Jed, gave me a look every bit as stern as Boone’s but without an iota of Boone’s sex appeal. “You got three minutes to get your ass outside, ready to work. You missed breakfast, so you better hope you don’t faint before lunch.”
The sexy cowboy I recognized as Harrison looked me up and down with noticeable appreciation. “Naw, not a nightgown, just a real big shirt. Doesn’t hold up to water at all though, does it?”
I glanced down and moved my hands down to cover my junk with a squeak. The white silk was as transparent as cling wrap at this point.
Jed cuffed Harrison lightly on the back of the head and pushed him toward the door. “Move it along. We’ve got work to do and no time to be standing around.” Jed gave me one last hard look, making sure I knew I was included in that statement.
“I’ll have you know, this happens to be a three-hundred-dollar 22 momme silk nightshirt!” I called after them.
As soon as they were gone, I stood for a moment, still waiting for my heart rate to calm and my breathing to return to normal. My breath puffed out in a soft white cloud in the early morning air, and I was already shivering in my wet nightshirt.
God, Oscar would chortle with glee if he could see me now. That thought alone was enough to motivate me to start moving. Grumbling the entire time, I stripped the wet sheets off the bed, washed my face in the sink bolted to the wall, and applied moisturizer and sunscreen.
I took a moment to consider my options before selecting a comfortable but sexy pair of jeans and a Wythe New York moleskin pearl-snap shirt over a Cotton Citizen Presley Tee. It gave just a hint of cowboy with the pearl snaps but was also nice and warm. I could already tell it was freezing outside. Spring must not mean the same thing in Wyoming as it did in New York.
After putting on a Brunello Cucinelli down gilet over the top and sliding my feet into my favorite Alexander McQueen calf-hair boots, I was ready to face the day.
With a deep breath, I squared my shoulders and reminded myself that I could do this before sweeping out of my room and down the hall leading outside. The moment I stepped into the frigid morning air, I hesitated, wondering if I should have also donned a beanie and mittens. Before I had a chance to dither too long about it, Jed began barking at me to follow him into the barn.
