LITMIR.BIZ

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      It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her Larkville wasn’t his hometown, but she didn’t say it to start a conversation, she said it to end one.

      He moved to the door, surprised at how his own feet dragged, and whistled for Deputy. ‘Sleep well, Ellie.’

      His buddy hauled himself to his feet and paused in front of Ellie for the obligatory farewell scratch. She just stared at him, no clue what he was expecting, but then his patient upward stare seemed to encourage her and she slid her elegant fingers into his coat and gave him a tentative rub. She released him, and Deputy padded to Jed’s side and preceded him out the door.

      Jed stared after the dog, an irrational envy blazing away as she closed the door behind him. He pulled the collar of his shirt up against the air’s bite and hurried back to his house. It was ridiculous to hold it against a dog just because he’d been free to walk up and demand she touch him. Her sliding down his body earlier today was a heck of a lot more gratuitous than what just happened in the barn.

      Yet… The way her fingers had curled in his dog’s thick black coat… Her eyes barely staying open. It was somehow more…intimate.

      Deputy reached the street first, then paused and looked back at him, a particularly smug expression on his hairy black, tan and white face.

      ‘Jerk,’ Jed muttered.

      Who or what Ellie Patterson touched was no concern of his. She was the last kind of woman he needed to be staking a claim on, and the last kind to tolerate it.

      But as he put foot after foot up that long pathway towards his dog, he’d never, in his life, felt more like rushing back in there and branding his name on someone—preferably with his lips—so everyone in Larkville knew where Ellie Patterson was coming home to at night.

      Stupid, because the woman was as prickly as the cactus out on the borderlands. Stupid because she lived in New York and he lived in small-town Texas. Stupid because he wasn’t interested in a relationship. Now or ever.

      He turned and stared at her door.

      But it wouldn’t be the first stupid thing he’d done in his life.

      Deputy looked at him with disgust and then turned back to the front door of the cottage and waited for someone with opposable thumbs to make it open.

      Not half the look Ellie would give him if she got even the slightest inkling of his caveman thoughts. This was just his testosterone speaking, pure and simple.

      Men like him didn’t belong with women like her. Women like Ellie Patterson belonged with driven, successful investment bankers who made and lost millions on Wall Street. Men like him belonged with nice, country girls who were happy to love him warts and all. There was no shortage of nice women in Hayes County and a handful had made their interest—and their willingness—clearly known since he arrived in Larkville. And right after that he’d made it his rule not to date where he worked.

      Don’t poop where you eat, Jeddie, his gram used to say, though she generally referenced it when she was trying to encourage him to clean his room. But it was good advice.

      His gut curled.

      He’d ignored it once and he’d screwed everything up royally. Sticking faithfully to this rule had seen him avoid any messy entanglements that threatened his job or his peace of mind ever since he’d arrived in Larkville three years ago.

      But abstinence had a way of creeping up on you. Every week he went without someone in his life was a week he grew more determined to only break it for something special. Someone special. That bar just kept on rising. To the point that he wondered how special a woman would have to be to meet it.

      Deputy lifted his big head and threw him a look as forlorn as he felt. It was exactly what he needed to snap him out of the sorry place he’d wound up. He flung himself down onto the sofa, reached for the TV remote and found himself a sports channel.

      In the absence of any other kind of stimulation, verbally sparring with an uptight city girl might just be as close to flirting as he needed to get.

      If she didn’t deck him for trying.

      CHAPTER THREE

      GIVEN how many five-star hotels Ellie had stayed in, it was ridiculous to think that she’d just had one of the best sleeps of her life in a converted hayloft.

      She burrowed down deeper into the soft quilt and took herself through the pros and cons of just sleeping all day.

      Pro: she wasn’t expected anywhere.

      Pro: she wouldn’t be missed by anyone. No one would know but her; and possibly the sheriff, although he’d almost certainly be out doing sheriffly duties.

      When was the last time she just lay in? While all her classmates were keeping teenage hours, she’d spent every waking moment perfecting her steps, or doing strength training or studying the masters. Even when she was sick she used to force herself up, find something constructive to do. Anything that meant she wasn’t indulging her body.

      Now look at her. Twelve hours’ rest behind her and quite prepared to go back for another three.

      What had she become?

      Her deep, powerful desire to pull the blankets over her head and never come out was only beaten by the strength of her determination not to. She hurled back the toasty warm covers and let the bracing Texan morning in with her, and her near-naked flesh protested with a thousand tiny bumps. Even the biggest log she’d found in the woodpile couldn’t last this long and so the little room was as cold as…well, an old barn. Bad enough that she’d broken a cardinal rule and gone to bed without eating anything, she’d stripped out of her clothes and just crawled into bed in panties only, too tired to even forage amongst her belongings for her pajamas.

      More sloth!

      She pulled one of the blankets up around her shoulders and tiptoed over to her suitcases, the timber floor of the raised loft creaking under her slight weight. The sound reminded her of the flex and give in the dance floor of the rehearsal studio and brought a long-distance kind of comfort. They may have been hard years but they were also her childhood. She rummaged to the bottom of one case for socks and a T-shirt and dragged them on, then slid into her jeans from yesterday, her loose hair caressing her face.

      No doubt, the people of Larkville had been up before dawn—doing whatever it was that country folk did until the sun came up. There was no good reason she shouldn’t be up, too. She looped a scrunchie over her wrist, pulled the bedspread into tidy order, surrendered her toasty blanket and laid it neatly back where it belonged, then turned for the steps.

      Downstairs didn’t have the benefit of rising heat and it had the decided non-benefit of original old-brick flooring so it was even chillier than the loft. It wasn’t worth going to all the trouble of lighting the fire for the few short hours until it got Texas warm. Right behind that she realised she had no idea what the day’s weather would bring. Back home, she’d step out onto her balcony and look out over the skyline to guess what kind of conditions Manhattan was in for, but here she’d have to sprint out onto the pavement where she could look up into the sky and take a stab at what the day had in store.

      She pulled on the runners she’d left by the sofa, started to shape her hair into a ponytail, hauled open the big timber door…and just about tripped over the uniformed man crouched there leaving a box on her doorstep.

      ‘Oh—!’

      Two pale eyes looked as startled as she felt and the sheriff caught her before momentum flipped her clean over him. All at once she became aware of two things: first, she wasn’t fully dressed and, worse, her hair was still flying loose.

      Having actual breasts after so many years of not having them at all was still hard to get used to and slipping them into lace was never the first thing she did in the morning. Not that what she had now would be of much interest to any but the most pubescent of boys but she still didn’t want them pointing at Sheriff Jed Jackson in the frosty

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