He grimaced. “Only excuse I could come up with. I still didn’t know for sure that you?—”
“You didn’t know? After all my outrageous flirting?”
“I could see you liked me, but we’d known each other for like seven or eight hours, tops. I’ve never moved that fast with anyone else. That’s not me.”
“But we didn’t have weeks to get acquainted. Just looking at you across that chipped Formica tabletop did it for me. I thought about condoms, too, and wondered if you traveled with them.”
“And you’d have been fine with that?”
“I wasn’t in a mood to judge whether you did this all the time or not. Then you had to stop and buy a box, which charmed the pants off me. Literally.”
He remembered those jeans, faded from many washings, supple and easy to deal with…. And here he was fixated on the subject he’d told himself to avoid, at least until they were closer to home.
He looked in the side mirror. Still no headlights, but he caught a glimpse of his beard. “I’d planned to shave before you came over.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“But—”
“You had scruff that first night, too. I found it sexy.”
“I was younger. It was softer then. I don’t want to scratch you.”
“If you’re worried, you can shave while I go down to see Fudge.”
“I want to check on him, too.” He also wasn’t letting her out of his sight. He had no reason to think she’d change her mind at the last minute, but he wasn’t taking any chances. “I’ll just be careful how I kiss you.”
“I wonder if you taste the same.”
He groaned. “Let’s not talk about?—”
“You’re the one who brought up kissing.”
A quick glance confirmed that she was smiling. “Are you deliberately?—”
“You bet I am.” She lowered her voice. “What I have in mind won’t help your cause. You know damn well what that did to me. I’m gunning for you, cowboy.”
And didn’t that just send a jolt of lust straight to his privates? “Fair enough.”
“And when we finally get inside your cozy casita, we’re going from zero to sixty. No side trips, no fancy foreplay.”
“Got it.” Had he left lights on? He didn’t want to stumble around in the— yikes, the turnoff. He squeaked the tires as he wrenched the wheel to the right and swerved onto the ranch road.
“I wondered if you’d drive right past it.”
“Having fun?”
“I am. I haven’t had this much fun since….” Her voice trailed off.
“Five years ago?”
“You guessed it.”
He swallowed the words he wanted to say, the vision he longed to share — her clinic based here, their lives and skills woven together for the sake of the majestic animals they loved.
Pulling over to the keypad post, he put down his window and listened.
“Checking for horses?”
