“By buying you breakfast. Then lunch. Then dinner. Then breakfast again.”
The implication is clear, and Callie’s face flames red. But she doesn’t step back. Doesn’t slap him. Instead, her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and all three of us track the movement.
“I can’t,” she says finally, but the word comes out as almost a whimper.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both.”
Jesse’s grin fades slightly, and I feel something that might be relief. Or disappointment. I can’t tell anymore because all I can focus on is the way her shirt rides up when she reaches for another feed bag, exposing a strip of skin that makes my hands clench with the need to touch.
That’s when Boone, who’s been loading his own cart, decides to show off. He tries to carry too many bags at once, flexing obviously in Callie’s direction. One of the bags falls, followed by the others, sending feed scattered across the ground.
“Shit,” he mutters, then louder: “I meant to do that.”
I look at the mess, then my brother’s sheepish expression, and shake my head. “Boone.”
“They were stacked wrong.”
“They were stacked fine until you tried to show off.”
“I wasn’t showing off. I was demonstrating proper lifting technique.”
“By dropping everything?”
“It’s a process.”
I catch Callie watching this exchange with amusement, her eyes dancing, and when her gaze meets mine, I feelthat same jolt of awareness I felt yesterday. Except stronger. Hotter. Her gaze drops to my chest again, and I swear I can feel it like a physical touch.
“Bad news,” I mutter under my breath, but I’m not sure if I’m talking about her or the way my body responds to her look.
“I heard that,” she says, with something flirtatious in her tone.
“Good. Maybe you’ll take the hint.”
“The only hint I’m taking is that you McCoys have a serious problem with lifting technique. Among other things.”
“What other things?” Jesse asks, leaning against her cart in a way that flexes his arms.
Her gaze travels over him slowly, deliberately. “Impulse control comes to mind.”
Boone laughs as he starts picking up the scattered bags. “She’s got you there, boys.”
“Nobody asked you,” I growl, but I move to help him anyway, needing to do something with my hands before I reach for her.
I’m crouched down, helping clean Boone’s mess, when I hear Callie ask, “Need help?”
I look up and immediately regret it. From this angle, I can see straight up the line of her body, and the view makes my mouth water. “We’ve got it,” I say quickly, my voice coming out rough.
“I don’t mind?—”
“We’ve got it.”
The words come out sharper than I intended, and I seeher take a step back. But not before I catch the way her eyes darken when she looks down at me on my knees.
“Right. Of course. Wouldn’t want to contaminate your feed bags with Thompson germs.”
Jesse steps closer to her, close enough that their bodies are almost touching. “Ignore him,” Jesse says quietly, intimately. “He’s grumpy in the mornings. Especially when he’s wound tight. Which is all the time.”
