“Let them come,” I say with more bravado than I feel. “I’ve got an attack goat and a reputation that’s already in tatters. What else can they do?”
“Don’t tempt fate,” Jesse warns.
“Too late,” I tell him. “I’ve been tempting fate since I knocked on your door.”
“It’s just sex,” I remind myself. “That’s all this is. Great sex. Incredible sex. Life-altering sex. But still just sex.”
Rita bleats skeptically.
“Nobody asked you,” I tell her.
But she’s right, and we both know it. Somewhere between the first kiss and the fifth orgasm, this became something more than just messing around with the boys next door. Something more than just scratching an itch.
Something that’s going to end badly for everyone involved.
And I can’t seem to make myself care.
10
Jesse
“This isthe dumbest thing we’ve done all week,” Wyatt announces, standing knee-deep in the creek with his jeans rolled up and an expression suggesting he’s a man who knows how ridiculous he looks and that he does not care.
“It’s only Tuesday,” I point out. “There’s plenty of time to get dumber.”
“Rita needs a bath,” Callie says defensively, holding her goat’s lead rope while Rita eyes the water, not at all excited about it. “She rolled in something dead yesterday. Something very dead.”
“She smells like someone opened a portal to hell,” Boone says, keeping his distance.
The creek’s running high from last week’s rain, clear and cold and perfect. Rita’s planted all four hooves in the mud, leaning back against her rope with the determinationof someone who’s decided a body of moving water is the enemy.
“Come on, Rita,” Callie coaxes. “It’s just water. You drink water. You roll in mud. This is the same thing but more of it.”
Rita bleats. It’s not a friendly sound.
“Maybe if we demonstrate?” I suggest, because apparently, I’ve lost my mind. “Show her it’s safe?”
“Demonstrate?” Callie raises an eyebrow. “You want to demonstrate bathing. To a goat?”
“When you say it like that, no.”
“It sounded weird in your head too, you just didn’t notice,” Boone says.
But I’m already wading deeper into the creek, the cold water reminding me why I’ll never have a goat on our ranch. “See, Rita? Perfectly safe. Refreshing, even.”
Rita watches me with those pupils that make her look vaguely demonic. She’s not impressed.
“Your turn,” I tell Boone. “C’mon. Get in.”
“Why is it my turn?”
“Because I’m wet and misery loves company.”
“That’s not how?—”
But Boone doesn’t finish because he’s already launching himself into a cannonball that sends water everywhere. The splash hits all of us, including Rita, who bleats indignantly and tries to bolt. Callie keeps her grip on the rope, but she’s laughing too hard to be effective.
“Boone!” she gasps, water dripping from her hair. “You absolute?—”
