“Well, then, I don’t have any answers for you,” I said, shrugging.
Carter seemed sincere enough, but I didn’t owe him a damn thing. He didn’t know I was behind the social media stuff, but even if he knew, it didn’t matter. Allory deserved all the bad press they were getting and more.
“I swear I’m not the man you think I am,” he said.
“Then prove it.”
“Tell me what to do”
I grinned at him. “How good are you with a shovel?”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant to anything,” Carter said, looking at me with suspicion in his eyes.
“Look, if you want to tell me how great you are and how you’re not a soulless ghoul looking to take advantage of another small farmer, you have to talk while we work.” I gestured around generally at the farm. “I’m a one-woman operation and chicken shit won’t shovel itself.”
“Now wait a minute,” he said.
“Backing out so soon?” I shook my head. “Pathetic.”
Carter’s brow furrowed and fire lit his green eyes. “Hey, no one’s backing out. But I’m not wearing the right clothes for farm work. I finally got myself some work boots, but everything else is delicate. If I get mud on it, it’s not coming out.”
“I can lend you some gloves,” I said, enjoying myself more than I should have, but screw him. I was a firm believer thatevery CEO needed to get their hands dirty every once in a while to remind them what regular folks have to do to get by.
It was Carter’s turn, if he didn’t run away.
“Fine,” he finally said. “Give me those gloves and let’s go.”
With the gloves on and a shovel in hand, I led him to the worst of the chicken pens. I had moved the ladies out earlier so I could muck the stall, which it desperately needed. “There you go, CEO,” I told him. “It’s all yours.”
“What am I supposed to do?” he asked, frowning at the soiled hay, filled with crap, feathers, feed, and general filth.
“Put all that into this wheelbarrow, and once it’s filled, I’ll show you where to dump it. Then we’ll scrub the floor down, refresh the hay and bedding, and we’ll move to the next one.”
“There’s more?” he asked, eyes wide.
“How the hell are you in charge of buying farms when you have no idea how any of this works?” I asked, shaking my head. “That’s the problem with CEOs. They have more money than sense. All you see is numbers on a page, with no clue what the guys who do the real work actually go through.”
Carter’s hands tightened on the shovel so hard, the wood creaked. I could tell he wasn’t used to anyone talking to him the way I did, but that wasn’t going to stop me. If he didn’t want to hear my opinion, he could fly his ass back to LA and go choke on an avocado.
To his credit, he kept his temper in check. “I’m here and I’m admitting I don’t know how this works. Now can I get to work already?”
“Sure,” I said. “If the smell makes you throw up, you have to clean that up too.”
Carter took a whiff of the pen and shrugged. “Compared to Tyler’s truck, this smells like potpourri.”
I smiled at that. “Then get shoveling, Allory.”
He set to work and I leaned against a post to watch. Carter was built like a Greek statue, but I couldn’t imagine how long it had been since he’d worked like this. He seemed the type who hired people for everything, considering his time too valuable to be wasted on normal things like tidying up the kitchen or scrubbing the toilet.
His technique wasn’t great and he missed the wheelbarrow half the time, but damn did he look amazing doing it. Sweat made his white shirt cling to his muscles, which flexed hypnotically with every movement. I didn’t know whether to get popcorn or start taking pictures. I could sell tickets to this and retire young.
He paused to roll his sleeves up his corded forearms and my knees nearly gave out. Those strong hands might suck at farmwork but I had a feeling they were very talented in the bedroom. I was certain the rest of him was just as skilled.
I had done some research on him since he came to town, and Carter had a reputation in LA as a partying playboy, making the rounds with the ladies, never getting serious with any of them. He was not the kind of man you settled down with, but he would probably be a hell of a fun ride for a night or two.
I took a deep, shuddering breath to get my rampaging sex drive under control. Dating options in Ferris were slim pickings. People paired off early, and while I had been in Oklahoma learning how to run a successful farm, all the regular people got hitched.
Casual hookups weren’t really a thing either, since it was inevitable you would run into each other again. Which meant my bedroom had been empty and my needs had been going unfulfilled for a long time. It was making me a little crazy.
