And those weird dots all over its shell weren’t symmetrical.
She took a hesitant step back.
The armadillo took a bold three steps forward.
She scrambled farther back. Her heel banged into an old railroad tie. It bordered the small alcove where Jackson kept his garbage cans. Maybe she could flip one onto the armadillo. She eased up onto the railroad tie, then slid the lid off the closest can, grateful to find it empty and smelling of grass clippings. Jacksonwasa bachelor, after all.
Balancing the pie in one hand, she reached for the handle on the garbage bin with the other.
Barking exploded on the driveway. Anna turned with a gasp. She teetered on the railroad tie. The pie tilted. She spun back, reached to steady it. The armadillo jumped straight in the air. Anna shrieked and tried to retreat. Radish bore down on the armadillo. Anna’s heel slipped, she lost her balance, and suddenly she was tumbling backward, fighting to keep the pie from flying out of her hands.
She had a moment to process one thought—This is going to hurt—when her rear end thumped into a hard object and instead of falling, she was sliding, butt-first, into something round and plastic and grassy-smelling.
It wobbled, then everything stopped. Her feet stuck out of the garbage can. The rim of it dug into her back. Her arms were cocked at a weird angle.
But by God, she’d saved the pie.
A shrill whistle broke the stillness. Radish growled, but she didn’t seem to be eating the armadillo. It gave a sniff, then backed away. Radish stalked it until it was out of sight.
Anna gave a heave with her arms and legs, but instead of leveraging herself out of the garbage can, she sank deeper intoit, legs akimbo, still clutching the damn pie.
Too bad she hadn’t baked her dignity into it.
Jackson ambled into view. He wore running shorts and a ratty Bama T-shirt that dripped with sweat. His face shone with perspiration, and his chest heaved.
Anna squeezed her thighs and tried to pump her legs for momentum to get out. No dice. She was stuck. Stuck and bent in half. “Urg!”
He peered at her over the pie. His lips twitched once, then settled into a serene, gentlemanly expression as if he pulled women out of his trash cans every day. “Need some help there, Anna Grace?”
“Oh, I’ve got it. Thanks.” Her cheeks flamed. She was an idiot. An idiot holding a pie in his garbage can. He probably thought she was a stalker. Or crazy. She tried to leverage out with her legs again, but she couldn’t move.
With the dangerous armadillo gone, Radish wandered over and sniffed at the pie.
“Back, girl,” Jackson said. Radish whined, then thumped onto her haunches. He folded his arms. His eyes went cobalt and crinkly. “Wouldn’t be any trouble if you needed a hand.”
“I’m good,” she insisted. Or she would be, if he’d take the damn pie and leave her alone. She threw her weight back and forth, to get the can rocking so it would fall over and she could scoot out.
Because really, did sheneedto addpulling me out of a trash canto his list of things he’d done for her?
“How about I take this here from you.” He lifted the pie away. She tried to lower her arms, but she was past armpit-deep. Instead, she flapped, shimmying left and right. She hadn’t thought she could sink deeper, but she did. The angle was compressing her lungs.
Crap. She had to ask for help.
He peeled back the aluminum foil and sniffed the pie. “Mmm, cherry. You do a pie proud, Anna Grace.” A muscle inhis cheek twitched. “Sure I can’t give you a hand?”
She tried rocking the can again. Because if she could get out, then she could crawl into a hole and hide until he went inside.
She swung her upper body right, then left, then right again.
The trash can didn’t move.
Jackson seemed to choke on something. Despite the ornery gleam in his eyes, she hadn’t caught a glimmer of a smile. He set the pie on another can, then gripped her under the armpits and hauled her out in one smooth motion.
Her heart gave one of those weird thumps she was getting used to, and suddenly she was nose-first in hard, sweaty Jackson chest.
She hadn’t been near a sweaty male in months.
She hadn’tlikedit for longer.
