She tugged her shirt a millimeter lower. “We’d bemostgrateful if y’all would be willing to share a few pointers with little ol’ us.”
The flyers all shared a glance.
A guilty glance, in her opinion.
“Sorry, miss, but it’s proprietary,” the fresh-faced one said.
She fluttered a hand to her chest. “Oh,thatkind of proprietary?” she whispered.
“What kind of proprietary?” a new voice said.
She turned. A tall, lanky, dark-eyed man with barely-within-regs jet-black hair had his legs spread and his arms crossed while hestared her down. He was in the same black T-shirt as the rest of the crew but, unlike his buddies, he had his dark gaze trained on her eyes with an authority and a confidence that seemed to be daring her to look away.
Her stomach dropped.
Bad enough they’d taken her girls’ trophy.
Buthewas on their team? Mr. Kiss-and-Run? Mr.In-Town-Today-Only? Mr. Left-her-with-his-tab?
This wassonot her day.
She subtly shifted her posture to make her breasts stand perkier and waved a hand at the fresh-faced guy. Hell if she’d letthisflyboy see her sweat. “I was just asking your boss here if you strong, capable men might be able to help my little ol’ group make our pumpkin thrower thingie better.”
His lips twitched. Barely a fraction of an inch up, but it was enough to make her ovaries sit up and notice. Something hot pulsedbetween her thighs, and her brain train stuttered to an emergency stop.
Traitorous body.
“Aren’t you with the Jim Bob team?” His accent was subtle—Southern in a Momma’s-in-the-Junior-League way, rather than thick country hold-my-beer-and-watch-this—and his eyes had game. Take-no-prisoners, accept-no-bullshit, jump-right-in-and-play-along game.
Just as they had the night she’d first met him. Theonlynight she’d thought she’d ever see him.
“Second place by a landslide?” he prompted.
The man needed to quit talking before her feminine parts overruled her brain.
He’d been adamnfine kisser. Until he ran away. Which was probably best for both of them, but she’d had a bad day.Sheshould’ve been the one leavinghim. “Oh,sugar, a man like you surely understands there’s no glory in second place.”
“Sure isn’t. But you get a monstrosity like yours to fling a gourd that far, don’t think you need any help from us.”
“My momma always taught me it was proper to be sociable with your competitors.”
His gaze dropped to her chest. And he didn’t have to say a thing, but she heard the message anyway.Your momma teach you to always use your boobs to get your way?
It wasn’t often that Kaci blushed—at least, unintentionally—butthisman calling her out on using her feminine wiles spiked the temperature in her face.
As if he were innocent in the wiles department. “I’m doing my darnedest to deal with all y’all politely, but there ain’t no way in hell that last pumpkin was normal.”
“Because we busted the first two?”
“Because that eyesore of a catapult isn’tphysically capable ofnotbusting a pumpkin on takeoff unless that pumpkin was juiced.”
His lips finally spread into a full smile, but it wasn’t a nice smile. “It’s not an eyesore. It’s mine. And it’s physically capable of anything in the right conditions.”
“Aha! You admit you greased your gourd.”
He took one large step toward her, let his hands drop to his sides, spread his shoulders wide, and aimed a don’t-insult-my-pumpkin-chuckin’ warning glare at her. “I admit I made a better pumpkin chucker than you did, and that’s it.”
“By cheating.” She clenched her thighs together and told herself the excitement building in her chest was from the thrill of a challenge. Not from an irrational, sexually-charged memory about what those large, long-fingered hands had felt like on her body, or how his smoldering brown eyes had looked in the dim bar.
