Page 91 of Hats off to Love

“Should we head back to our house for a while?”

He said our. As if he hasn’t already melted my heart six ways to Sunday, here it is, folks—complete mush.

“You know I’m not riding that horse back, right?” I ask while glancing its way. Poor thing is just standing there.

“Oh, Thorney, I do know, but I wouldn’t be opposed if you decided to ride me,” he teases, wiggling his eyebrows as I laugh. He runs his hand up under my skirt and squeezes my butt.

“Why do you call me that?” I ask, watching as he smirks.

“Because you’ve always been a thorn in my side.” He says it as if that’s the most obvious thing in the world.

My face drops to an expression of complete lack of amusement. “Are you trying to ruin this moment?”

He tips his head back and laughs, the sound giving me life. Then he grabs my face and kisses me hard.

The next thing I know, he’s on his back, and I’m on top of him. My knees are digging into the grass that’s still coming in from spring, my hands are dirty, and his clothes are surely going to look worse for wear, but the bliss in his eyes says, Bring it on.

“You know we’re getting filthy right now,” I say to him, and he just grins with his lips against mine.

“Do you think I care?” he asks. I already know the answer.

Another breeze blows by, and the leaves on the trees sway, casting different shadows across his face. I snuggle into him as his arms wrap around me, and then his palms rub up and down my back. My eyes roll back in my head at the sensations it’s giving me, but then I remember.

“So, you quit your job?”

His hands pause for just a second then resume their journey. “Yep. I had just turned in my formal complaint with possible notice the day security called about Dr. Miller.”

“Formal complaint?” I sit up to get a better look at him. “And possible notice? Aren’t they expecting like a two-week notice or something?”

“Nope. This morning I made it effective immediately, and all parties agreed. When we added the cameras to Ace’s barn, it got me thinking about my office as well. We do have them positioned here and there, and well, one call to maintenance and I now had one aimed directly into my office. Every time Suzy came in, I wrote down the date and time. Her sitting on my desk, her leaning over, her touching my arm—you name it, it’s all there, and in every one of those videos, you can see me looking extremely uncomfortable, asking her to leave, or something along those lines. Plus, they know about you. All I did was toss out the words hostile work environment, and Dean practically helped me pack.”

“That explains her murderous glare at the gala.”

“Yep. I wanted to give them a few days to review the footage. This way my complaint is valid, and they had no choice but to honor my request.”

All these things and I just didn’t know. I swear, if I ever see her on the street, she is going to get a piece of my mind. It’s completely unacceptable. He sees the frown, even though I try to hold it off, and his thumb reaches up to push on my lips.

“Tell me,” he says.

“I don’t like not being included.” It hurts my feelings, and I know that is stupid, but she was legit harassing him more than I thought, and I could have helped him.

“Never again.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. My plan was stupid.” His fingertips dig in, adding a little emphasis to his words.

I run my hand through his hair then down the center of his chest over the buttons on his shirt to ease some of his tension. “It wasn’t stupid. I love the motivation and thought you put into it. That means more to me than you will ever know, but going forward, we’re a team, okay?” I place both hands on the center of his chest then stick my fingers in his armpits to tickle him.

He clenches his arms against his body then gives me one of my smiles that I love.

“One hundred percent. You should know that Christopher is also on our team. I hired him to be the farm’s new lead counsel. Today he is setting up his own LLC, and we’ll be transferring our legal affairs from Collier, Pierson, and Bilella to him.”

“Wow, that’s great!” I tell him and mean it.

“But don’t worry, you can be the team captain.” He smiles, and little crinkles make an appearance around his eyes.

“Ohhh, I’ll need a T-shirt with a captain’s patch,” I mock.

“As long as it says Whitlock across your back, you can have anything you want.”

Whitlock—why does that sound so sexy coming out of his mouth?