My plan to ignore the doorbell—which was probably someone trying to sell me something I didn’t want or need—wasn’t working. I’d let the first round go. And the second. But the third was insistent, like the person on the other side had been hired specifically to annoy the hell out of me.
I’d promised myself I wouldn’t get up until the invoices were done, but clearly, the universe had other plans.
At some point, I needed to outsource my billing because every year it got more complicated. When my parents had run this place, it’d been mostly angora goats with the occasional longhorn cow. Now it was fallow deer, Watusi cattle, blackbuck antelope, Babydoll Sheep, oryxes, and the random nilgai. It had taken years, but I’d finally managed to turn this place into something rooted in conservation and stewardship instead of a commercial operation to sell fiber, which didn’t pay for shit unless you were huge. And we never had been.
Sadly, that also came with mountains of paperwork.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
“I’m coming. Lay off the damn doorbell,” I yelled as I approached the front door and wrenched it open. My question started as a yell and ended in a strangled whisper. “What the hell are you doing?”
“You say that a lot to me. Why do you suppose that is?”
Holy hell, what was this man wearing? He was in shorts again—but this time they were ancient cutoffs with fringe ends and strategic cuts that made me think dirty, filthy thoughts. The T-shirt was vintage, featuring an army soldier riding a unicorn, and his flip-flops had been switched out for woven river sandals with rainbow lacing. If he was going for casual, effortless sexiness in a pocket-sized body, he’d nailed it.
“No answer for me?”
“You can’t come in.”
“Oh, am I interrupting something?” He gave me an appraising look, head to toe, then peered around behind me. “I hope it was something fun.”
“I was working.”
Jasper’s plump lips pursed, then curved into a smile like a cat tasting cream. “What’s the wink for?”
“I’m just glad there’s no competition for you this morning.”
Another wink. It forced me to stare at his eyes—pale green, fringed with lighter-tipped lashes. He looked like he’d spent the last few days in the sun, the freckles across the bridge of his nose standing out against his pinkened skin. I doubt his blond curls were capable of being tamed.
“Like what you see, hon?”
“Huh? I don’t get it.”
“Of course not,” Jasper said with a sing-song laugh. “It’s fine. I’ll let it slide this time.”
“Why are you here again?”
Jasper ducked around me and entered my house like he’d been invited. He wandered into the living room, eyeing the knick-knacks and pictures.
“Are these your animals?”
“They were here, but they weren’t mine. They belonged to research facilities or zoos.”
“Why were they here?”
“Mostly because schools and labs don’t always have the facilities to keep their subjects on-site. Zoos might not want breeding pairs on display or have room or whatever. They stay here until they’re moved somewhere else or returned.” I paused and added, “Why are you here?”
Jasper circled the room, inspecting the photo and fully ignoring my question. Finally, he said, “I thought game ranches were usually hunting-focused.”
“How do you know I run a game ranch? But to answer your question, most are. I wanted to go in a different direction.”
He ignored my question and kept up his inspection.
It finally struck me that Jasper was balancing a pan covered in foil on a heat pad. “What’s in the pan?”
“Oh, it’s for you!” Jasper lit up and crossed the room to stand directly in front of me like this was a completely normal morning. “I was experimenting with a banana coffee cake and wanted to get your opinion on it.”
Was this a trap? It felt like a trap.
