“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you by being alive.” I drew my shoulders back. “But I’m not some damsel in distress who needs rescuing. Between the two of us, if anyone gets that title, it’s you.”
His green eyes blazed and he took a step toward me. I couldn’t help myself. I backed away until I bumped into the wall.
He leaned over me, seeming ten feet tall in that moment. “I was worried about you. That’s not a crime. You don’t have to push me away just because I care.”
For a second, I thought he might kiss me. I was a little sad when he didn’t.
“No one asked you to care about me,” I said, meeting his gaze. “I know how to take care of myself, and as you can see, everything on the farm is going perfectly fine.”
The power went out right then, plunging us into darkness.
Carter’s quiet chuckle sounded loud in my ears. “You were saying?”
I sighed. “Let me find a flashlight.”
CHAPTER 14
CARTER
Ireached for Shelby in the inky dark but she was already somewhere across the room.
“The grid out here sucks,” she said. “But they’re pretty good about getting things reconnected and running again. That being said, I have lots of flashlights.”
“Candles would be more romantic,” I said.
“Until the house burns down.”
“Are you always so practical?” I caught glimpses of her shape when the lightning flashed through the windows. I had suspected she was hiding a killer body under her bulky work clothing, and she didn’t disappoint.
The moment I had noticed her panties, I forgot who I was and why I had rushed into the rain. I forgot my name, my birthday, and my social security number. My mind could only think of one thing right then, and it was burying my face between her legs to taste her. It was almost worth risking my life.
Mother Nature had intervened, which was probably for the best. My control had been slipping. Shelby made me feel things I hadn’t felt before. I viewed women like casual entertainment. They were fun for a while and then I moved on. Moreimportantly, I never went out of my way to change my behavior to impress them.
Hell, I never tried to impress them at all. It just happened naturally. Women chasedme, not the other way around. But for Shelby, I was fighting savage ducks and building sheds like I was raised Amish. All to show the cute as hell farmgirl I was serious about making amends.
Sure, I wanted her to be a part of my social media campaign, but that was no longer my main priority with Shelby. The more I learned about what she had gone through—because of my father—the more I wanted to help her. To protect her. To save her.
I couldn’t admit that to her without Shelby biting my head off. Just coming over today to check on her in the rain had pissed her off. If I told her I wanted to protect her, she’d probably whack me in the head with a frying pan and feed me to the ducks.
I couldn’t really blame her, either. Shelby could clearly handle herself. She was tougher than me when it came to farm work, and she lived all alone out here, running a one-woman show. EvenIhad a whole company of people helping me. I couldn’t imagine doing it all by myself.
A harsh beam of light cut through the darkness, blinding me. I raised a hand to shield my eyes, squinting. “I guess you found a flashlight.”
“Here,” she said, thrusting another flashlight into my chest.
I let out a surprised breath and took it. I clicked it on, and the first thing I noticed was that Shelby had put on pajama pants. They also had bunnies on them, but mostly I was noticing how they hung on her hips, leaving a pale strip of stomach visible.
She shone her light in my eyes again. “Look, I appreciate that you were worried about me, but you shouldn’t have come out here.”
“There’s a tornado warning, and no one had heard from you,” I said, feeling defensive and a little self-conscious. “And for the record, it wasn’t me who was worried about you. It was Mrs. Presley and Lila.”
“But they didn’t show up here,” she said. “You did.”
“That’s right, and I would do it again.”
Shelby went quiet, like she didn’t know how to respond to my kindness. The last few years had been rough for her. She still had friends in Ferris, but she also had plenty of judgmental assholes who wanted to make her feel bad for something she had nothing to do with.
People like that wanted an easy answer to their problems. They wanted someone to blame. They didn’t want to hear that Whitaker Farms had been struggling. That the Whitakers would have never sold the farm if it had been profitable. No one cared that Allory had also been losing money once they took over.
