LITMIR.BIZ

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dodged to the side and the mom nudged at him with her head, bellowing and generally trying to intimidate him. He sidestepped her next attempt at butting him.

      Eli turned his focus back to the calf and grabbed him, fitting the applicator to his ear and punching as hard and secure as he could, holding the animal’s neck and head still with one arm while he finished the job with the other.

      “Got him!” He released the little black calf, who now had a yellow tag on his ear and seemed none the worse for wear.

      “Then haul ass,” Connor said, moving through the trees and back to his horse. Eli did the same, and fortunately the cow was now just focused on her baby, who was making a low bawling sound.

      “He’s playing it up now.” Connor wiped his forearm over his brow. “Trying to make his mom even madder.”

      “I don’t think she could possibly get much madder,” Eli said, trying to catch his breath.

      “Probably not. I’m going to ride back out for a minute,” Connor told him. “Just to check everything over. You want to meet me back at the barn?”

      “Yeah, sure.”

      Eli mounted his horse again and rode back toward the barn. One of the ranch hands, a high school kid Connor had hired to help with menial stuff, looked up from mucking stalls as he entered.

      “Hey, Mike,” Eli said. “Mind taking care of Sable for me?” He got off the horse and patted her neck.

      “Got her,” Mike said.

      “Great, thanks.” Eli walked around the barn, Connor’s most prized acquisition. They’d poured all the money from their father’s life insurance settlement into it.

      Eli braced one hand on the solid wood wall, arching backward. Damn. He had a hitch in his back. He was too young to get old.

      And he had to work a shift for the force in the morning, which meant he didn’t have time to be sore. Double duty was a bitch. But he couldn’t ever give up either job.

      Connor lived and breathed the ranch, but Eli appreciated the break.

      Because, when it came right down to it, he’d rather chase bad guys than be chased by a damned cow.

      Though, being sheriff potentially meant doing a lot more paper pushing, and a bit less bad-guy chasing. But it also meant the chance to effect some good change in the county. Sure, some of it was down to the fact that he was a control freak, and the chance to take total control of the filing system was almost irresistible, and some of it was even ambition, but mainly he wanted to be sheriff because he loved Copper Ridge and the surrounding areas. And serving in law enforcement was the best way he could think of to show that love.

      He heard a loud crash, followed by several more crashes and a shrill curse word. He started toward the noise without even thinking, because that was what he did. If there was something wrong, he went toward it, not away from it.

      He walked down the path toward the din. Toward the Catalog House. And he already knew that whatever he was going to find there was going to make him very, very grumpy.

      When he came through the trees he saw her, across the driveway in front of Kate’s truck. Sadie was standing at the end of it, holding a bundle of crown molding or trim of some kind that had to be ten feet long at least. And in front of the tailgate, down by her feet, were various pieces of hardware and what had probably been a light fixture before it had met an untimely demise on the gravel driveway.

      And here was the distraction he just didn’t need.

      “What are you doing?” he asked.

      “Oh.” Her head whipped up, her blue eyes wide for a moment, before they narrowed, her expression turning into a scowl. “You have to stop sneaking up on me. I’ve been in town less than twenty-four hours and I think you’ve scared a grand total of twenty-five minutes off my life.”

      “Somehow I think you’ll be fine without them.”

      “Says you. That’s an entire sitcom’s worth of life you just cost me. Now my plans of watching one final episode of Friends before I go to meet my maker are completely dashed.”

      “Do you need help?” he asked patiently.

      “Do you ever laugh? Because that was funny.”

      “Rarely. Not as rarely as my brother. But rarely.”

      “Maybe it’s a male Garrett thing. Your sister is more fun than you are.”

      “So much fun that you stole her truck? Are you already adding to your list of felonies?” Eli asked, making his way over to the truck and surveying the small disaster around Sadie’s feet.

      “You of all people should know I was never charged with a felony, Deputy Pedantic, so let’s not be dramatic.”

      “Just looking out for my sister.” And he meant it. Because Kate was too sweet. Too trusting. And Sadie was someone he couldn’t predict. The combination made him nervous.

      “Kate stopped by and offered her pickup truck. Because she’s very, very nice.”

      “Too nice,” he said, still looking over the items that had spilled out onto the ground. “And you figured you’d unload this all by yourself?”

      “Well, the trim isn’t heavy. It’s just unwieldy. But I didn’t realize the guys had packed my bags up against the gate, and they had one tangled in the trim and... Anyway, I had a momentary disaster, and I have a broken pendant light. But it will be okay.”

      “I could help.”

      “Helping me wouldn’t make you burst into flame?” she asked.

      “Depends. Are you planning on lighting something else on fire?”

      She let out a growl. “I told you. I did not light anything on fire. I knocked a lantern over. There is a difference.”

      “You started a fire. It was an accident, but you did, in fact, light an entire barn on fire.”

      “I feel like intent should matter here.”

      “All right, then, I intend to help you. Maybe you could stop trying to make everything so difficult and let me get to it.”

      * * *

      SADIE WATCHED, AND TRIED not to let her mouth hang open, as Eli came closer, shirtless and muscular and just im-damned-possible not to stare at. He had dirt on his chest. His hairy, masculine, muscular chest.

      He’d looked so clean in that uniform of his. Like he ironed it directly onto his body so that it would form straight to his physique and never wrinkle. And he looked good in it.

      But never had she imagined that there was something so raw and manly underneath it all. He was downright...rough and uncivilized beneath all that law and order.

      She suddenly realized she was staring. Pretty much at his nipples. It didn’t get more horrifying than that.

      She cleared her throat and looked back up at him. Met his brown eyes, which was the socially acceptable thing to do.

      “Thank you,” she said.

      And all her good intentions fell like a Jenga tower when he grabbed the middle of the trim and crown molding bundle she was holding and lifted it up, out of her hands, to hoist it over his shoulder.

      “Where do you want it?” he asked.

      Her brain was taking in too much stimulus to compute the exact question. He was standing there, every muscle outlined to perfection by the stance and the weight of the items he was holding. He just looked so damned capable. Standing there and holding things that had been almost impossible for her to manage, like they weren’t anything at all.

      Actually, that part was really freaking annoying.

      But it looked great. And she couldn’t refrain from letting herself have

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