The heat loosens the muscles in my neck and shoulders, the day’s work washing down the drain. It takes a minute, but I finally start to relax.
Right up until…
“You look tense, cowboy.” Her voice shatters what little peace I had just found.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” What the fuck did I do to deserve this kind of torture?
I cut my eyes to her, finding her leaning on the door frame, but she isn’t looking at my face. She’s looking at my cock.
And it doesn’t get the memo that she is the literal devil, hardening under her watchful gaze.
“Get the hell out, Elena,” I growl at her, turning somewhat so she’ll stop staring at it. It’s been a while; I don’t have time for women or even my own damn hand.
“I can help with that,” She shrugs, as if offering sex to a man you’ve known a day is just an ordinary thing to do.
“You’re the last person I’d stick my dick in,” I snap.
A smirk pulls on her plump mouth, “No need to be so salty, Carter, I was offering sex, not a marriage proposal.”
“Get. Out.”
She gives a simple shrug and then turns, wandering out of the bathroom. I loosen a breath and give my dick a tug, there ain’t no fucking way. Ten years ago I’d have chased a woman like her, used the charm my momma gave me and talked her into bed. I’d have kissed and licked and fucked until the sun came up and then did it some more. But then life screwed me up and everything changed.
Leaving my dick neglected, I scrub my skin clean and wash the dirt from my hair before switching off the water and get out, reaching for the towel on the rack. I just need some sleep, hopefully it’ll give me more damn patience.
Knotting the towel around my hips, I use another to dry my face and hair and head out into the bedroom.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I growl under my breath when I see Elena curled up in the middle of my bed, fast asleep.
A vein in my forehead throbs.
It isn’t going to be the ranch life that takes me out, it’s going to be her. I can tell already, she’s bad for my blood pressure. Hell, my health in general, and I’ve only known her twenty-four hours.
And I’ve got two months of this.
Yeah… Hindsight is a real bitch.
CHAPTER 7
“We’ve got to move him,” I grumble to Chase as I turn to the bull, Ralph, in the pasture. He’s a damn mean one. A fantastic breeding bull, but fuck, he has a temper. An injured worker and yearling this morning has left me no choice but to separate him from the herd ahead of the drive in two weeks.
I’m moving fifty of my hundred herd onto the pasture slightly up the mountainside, with the height of summer coming, maintaining every pasture on this ranch becomes too expensive and when the grass dries up, supplementing their feed to ensure they don’t lose weight ahead of sale at the start of fall sucks my money dry. The pasture, about fifteen miles from the ranch, will take a day to get to and an overnight camp. With my staff numbers slashed in way more than half, I can only take one from theteam and Chase, leaving two to man the ranch while I’m gone.
It’s only a day, but a lot can happen in twenty-four hours. It’s required several times a year, but it doesn’t lessen the anxiety when it needs to be done. At the end of the summer, they’ll be driven back onto the ranch and sold, but without moving them, their weight will drop and their worth plummets. I can’t afford the risk.
“He’s a mean one,” Chase winces toward the bull blowing dirt, its wide eyes set on a young bull getting too close to one of his females. He’s our prime breeder, but if he keeps injuring the other cows, I’ll have to rethink the position.
“Grab Sal from the stables,” I order. “He can help with this one.”
“You sure you want to do that?” Chase quirks a brow. “That boy shits his pants whenever he goes near the fence.”
“If he wants to keep his position here, he will.”
Chase opens his mouth to say something when something behind me catches his attention and his mouth drops open.
I know without turning around, but I do anyway.
Elena stands on the porch, Judge sat like an obedient puppy by her side as she cradles a mug and looks toward us. Her raven hair, caught in a beam of sunlight so it looks somewhat blue over themidnight black it usually is, is tossed to the side, and her frame is drowning in another one of my Carter Cattle Ranch tees. It falls to the mid-thigh, hiding the injury, but even from here, I can see the edge of the bruise peeking out from the bottom.
