“It’s your lucky day, baby.” He grins, sliding his palm up and down my bare calf in a soothing way; something about feeling his skin on mine is grounding. “So, what evil schemesdid you get roped into over here this morning? It looked like there was a lot of sinister plotting happening.”
“A pregnancy pact.” I shrug nonchalantly, and Cassidy spits out her drink, narrowly missing Hazel.
“Sheesh, Cass.” Denver stares at her wide-eyed. “Are you in on this?”
“God, no.” Cassidy pulls a face.
Denver returns his focus to me. “But you are?”
“What if I was?”
“Okay.That’s my cue to leave.” Cass stands up, shaking the water droplets off her legs from her accidental mouth-sprinkler incident. “You kids make good choices.”
I snort. “Rich, coming from you.”
She flips the middle finger over her shoulder, then strolls over to where Red’s filling two plates with food.
“So, hey,” Denver says. “Want to take a drive with me when we’re done here?”
“And leave Jonas—”
“Got it covered. He and Colt have something potentially delinquent planned, so he’ll give him a ride.”
I open my mouth to protest, and he puts up a hand to stop me. “It’sfine.Colt’s been managing Jonas with his chores all summer, and so far nobody’s gotten seriously injured or thrown in jail. They’ll be okay.”
With an exhale, I nod. No sense in arguing when I know he’s right—from what I know about Colt, he’s not going to do anything that would put a kid in danger.
“I’d love to go for a drive. Where do you have in mind?”
“You’ll see.” He adjusts his Stetson in the sun and hops to his feet. “Back to doing more hot cowboy shit for your viewing pleasure.”
“You’re never going to let it go that I said that, are you?”
“Never.Just like I know you love a backwards hat.” He flips his cowboy hat around. “Is this working for you?”
I toss my head back with a breathy laugh. “You’re a dork.But please wear it exactly like that, so somebody other than me can make fun of you, for once.”
“Just sayin’, if this makes you want to ride me, I’ll put up with some heckling.”
“A cowboy hat thewrongway is definitely not doing it for me. You look like a city boy at a rodeo for the first time.”
He leans in, putting his hands on my thighs. “Like Mark with his bitch-boy hands?”
“Precisely.”
He contemplates his words for a second, then chooses to continue with the Mark discussion, for some ungodly reason. “I mean, you liked him enough to get engaged. Which is more than you can say about me.”
His laughter does little to ease the bruising blow of his words.
“Are you jealous of a fictional man? You realize how insane that sounds, right?” I tilt my head, giving him a look.
“Well, I’m pretty sure these rough hands”—he glides his work-worn palms up my thighs—“make you come better than his fancy surgeon fingers could.”
“Correct.Becauseagain,he’s fictional.” I grab his face, middle fingers falling into the divots of his dimples. “Please turn the cowboy hat back around and go do some good work, because you know whatreallyturns me on? A competent, hardworking man.”
“You’ve single-handedly convinced me to work the hardest I ever have. Bet the ranch can pay you, if you want a side-gig watching me work.” He winks. “I’m gonna be such a good boy for you.”
“You already aresucha good boy.”
