“Semantics. One-pointer, or your middle name.”
“Gonna make me break a sweat here.”
She doubted he ever sweat over anything. But he wrapped the one-point line. Anna was up.
“Need a three-pointer,” Kaci called. She bounced on her feet. “Let’s show these boys what for.”
Three points. No pressure. She could do it.
And then she’d let Jackson off the hook on the chocolates, and tonight would be all fun, no consequences.
She’d keep hanging out with Kaci and the rest of the girls, and things would be cool and comfortable whenever shehappened to run into Jackson. No pressure. Just some fun.
She lined up her shot. She swung the bola back and forth. Three points. She could hit a three-pointer.
She started to let go.
“It’s a real big kitchen,” Jackson said.
The bola slipped out of her hand and whipped across the yard to the ladder. It wrapped around Jackson’s two-pointer and knocked it to the ground.
“Twenty-one,” Lance called.
Kaci swatted his arm. “Nuh-uh. She’s got two tosses left. Don’t you be counting your balls before Anna’s done with ’em.”
Jackson’s chuckle rumbled low and deep. “Beautiful.”
Anna gritted her teeth. Two tosses. She could tie the score, or she could try to knock his other bola off.
Or she could completely miss and end up owing Jackson a clean, organized kitchen.
On the one hand, she didn’t need to get any more attached to him.
On the other, she did love putting a big mess away.
Were there Hail Mary passes in redneck golf?
She tossed her second bola, and it draped itself neatly over the two-point line. Twenty-one to twenty. If she knocked Jackson’s bola off and hung hers on the one-point line at the same time, she and Kaci won.
If not—the kitchen.
“Long shot there,” Jackson said.
Anna wiped her hands on her shorts. “Mm-hmm.” Staring down that ladder was like staring down thermo.
“You can do it,” Kaci called.
The night insects chirped happily, completely oblivious to the stakes riding on Anna’s toss. A few stars had popped out overhead. The ladder glowed eerily in the yard lights. With a long, slow exhale, she wound up her toss, and let the bola go.
The middle of the rope smacked the one-point rung. Jackson’s bola wobbled there, but didn’t fall off. Anna’s two-pointer, though, slid off its rung and plopped to the ground,followed neatly by the bola she’d just tossed.
She’d knocked herself off the board. Lost the toss. Lost the game. Lost the bet. She owed him. And owing him sent various parts of her a-tingling that no longer a-tingled for any man. Her a-tingle meter had to be off, because she was quite certain it’d never a-tingled that high.
Maybe he’d go shirtless while she paid up.
Lost the bet? More like lost her mind.
She squared her shoulders and faced Jackson. “Looks like I’ll be needing your address.”
