Allie furrows her brow. “We’ve only been here two days.”
I purse my lips. “Ahhh, right.”
“Give me at least a week,” she says. She winks at me, which lets me know she’s saying that in jest.
I hope.
“But, back to you … what are you going to do with Cowboy Ken?” Allie asks.
Leo laughs into his glass. “Cowboy Ken?”
“Duke’s new nickname.”
“I’d say that suits him,” Leo says.
“So what are you going to do?” Allie insists.
I close my eyes and exhale. “Nothing. Ignore him until I have to interview him and not let him get to me.”
faraday, we have a problem
DUKE
My chest is still tingling.That’s the first thing I notice when I come back down to Earth. I’m not sure how long I’ve been standing in the hallway after the door was slammed in my face. My whole damn body is still buzzing. Like something cracked open inside me and started leaking heat straight into my bloodstream. I’m forty-two and acting like I’ve never been kissed before. Damn, that woman.
Who the hell does she think she is? I came up here to apologize, and she answers the door in a robe that leaves little to the imagination. Then she grabs me and kisses me?
No buildup, no hesitation.
Just full lips on mine, hot and confident. She hit me like a summer storm—fast, startling, gone. Now I’m left soaked in heat and stunned stupid. It was all I could do not to charge right back through her door and finish what she started.
Instead, I stalk down to the barn, muttering under my breath the whole damn way. Maybe tossing hay and mucking out stalls will calm me down. I grab a pitchfork, start cleaning like I’m trying to dig the memory out of my head.
Doesn’t matter how hard I work, I can’t shake her. The taste of her. The way she grabbed me like she meant it …
Okay, nope. This is not working.
Not even cleaning out the pigpen could scrub my nose of the way she smelled. Citrus and vanilla. Like some kind of shampoo that made me think of summer nights and bad ideas.
Soon the dinner bell will sound, and I’ll have to face her. I need to calm down and act like the kiss didn’t affect me even though I’m still trying to catch my breath. Forget calling her Sunshine—that woman is one hundred percent Trouble.
I’m halfway to the house when Jameson’s bark echoes from the porch. Rusty and Topper are there, papers spread across the table, pretending to work while the bulldog raises hell at a bird perched on the fence.
“Um,” Topper says when he sees me. “Why are you soaking wet?”
I sit down in a huff. “Dunked my head in the horse trough.”
“I appreciate you wanting to save water, boy,” Rusty says. “But we still have good snowpack so feel free to shower.”
“How did the apology go?” Topper asks.
I scratch my head. “It went …”
Topper’s expression sags. “Oh no, what did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. I tried to apologize … then she started yelling at me and then … she kissed me.”
Topper’s mouth falls open. “She kissed you? Then what happened?”
