LITMIR.BIZ

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five-thirty, and suddenly he knew he was not up to this, to standing around making small talk with a woman who seemed to have grown less likable and more gorgeous since this afternoon.

      Maybe because some of that honey-gold hair had fallen free from the ponytail. But the evening light had not softened the unfriendliness of her, though he reluctantly noticed she did not look so scared anymore. Just untouchable. And tired, like him.

      “I’m five,” Robbie said, a conversation opener that had to be cut off quick.

      Matt brought it back to business. “I brought you a couple of bales and a sack of oats for your donkey.”

      Leave it at that, an inner voice advised him. Besides, she looked like she’d rather kill him than owe him anything. But he couldn’t. The welfare of the animal came before his desire not to get frost-burn from the ice queen.

      “He’ll need to be wormed, and have his feet trimmed soon, too. I don’t think I could do it without throwing him.”

      “Donkey?” Robbie breathed.

      Half a million dollars of horse flesh at home that he couldn’t persuade his nephew to be even mildly interested in, but the word donkey was said in the same tone usually reserved for The Rock, Robbie’s favorite wrestler.

      “Ms. Parsons has a donkey,” Matt offered reluctantly.

      “I love donkeys,” Robbie declared firmly.

      “Since when?” Matt snapped, then turned back to her before this got out of hand, “Look, since you probably don’t want me to throw your donkey—”

      “Even you can’t throw a donkey,” Robbie decided solemnly.

      “I don’t know what that means,” she added uneasily, “throwing him.”

      “It means roping his feet, yanking them out from under him.” Was he deliberately making himself sound like a barbarian? If so, it was working. His nephew and his neighbor were both looking at him with horror.

      “And since you probably don’t want me to do that,” he continued, “and since his feet and his worms are going to have to be looked after, you probably want to get a vet up here. Soon.”

      “How soon?” she said. “I mean, I think he’s been traumatized enough for now.”

      He contemplated that. A donkey traumatized. A tiny puncture in her armor, and it was for a donkey.

      “I’ll give you the name of a good vet. She can come out and do it for you. She’ll give him a sedative if he’s too difficult to work with.” He knew he’d feel guilty if he told her what it would cost, because the bottom of her jeans were worn nearly plum through, and she was driving a jeep that had probably done service in the Second World War.

      Still, if she was going to go to the trouble of having the vet all the way out here for that flea-bitten varmint, she might as well kill two birds with one stone. Or two balls with one scalpel, whatever the case might be.

      “And while she’s here,” he said, his tone so neutral as to appear casual, “you might want to have her castrate him.”

      “Castrate?” He’d been around women just enough to know arms folded over the chest like that were not a good sign.

      “It would be the kindest thing.” He said it with the full authority of a man who had spent his entire life around livestock. His tone was as convincing as he could make it.

      “Right after murder,” she snapped back, unconvinced.

      “It would improve his temperament.” He heard just a little note of irritation in his own voice. He tried to think if he’d ever struck out quite this thoroughly with a woman.

      A dangerous little sparkle had appeared in her eyes. “And of course, if he were castrated he wouldn’t be after your mares.”

      “Gee, I hadn’t thought of that.” He said this with as much innocence as he could muster, but she wasn’t fooled.

      Come to think of it, in order to strike out, he’d have to want to run the bases. Tangling with a porcupine would be about twice the fun as tangling with her. In any sense of the word.

      “What’s catrated mean?” Robbie asked innocently.

      She looked smug, and he had the uneasy feeling she and Robbie had somehow just become conspirators against him.

      “I’ll tell you later.”

      “I want to know now.”

      “No.”

      Robbie looked stunned. Matt had never taken that tone with him, and somehow it felt like it was all her fault that he had now.

      “Can I go see the donkey?” Robbie asked in a small voice. “Oh, please, Auntie? Please?”

      “Auntie?” she said, incredulous.

      Matt sighed. There. At least he didn’t have to worry about his secret name getting out anymore. It was not as if she liked him, anyway. Big surprise that the first hint of a smile from her was at his expense.

      It was not as if he cared if she liked him.

      “You know what? It’s a long story, and I’m not in the mood for telling it. Could I just dump the hay, introduce my kid to your donkey and go home?”

      “Certainly,” she said, as if she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more than for his stay to be a brief one, too.

      “Great, hop in the truck.”

      She didn’t unfold her arms from her chest.

      “You want to know how to feed him, right?”

      She glared at Matt for a moment, and then with ill grace hopped on the tailgate of the truck. Not in the cab. He choked back his desire to tell her he hadn’t bitten anyone recently. To his annoyance, Robbie-turn-coat, jumped on the tailgate with her.

      In the rearview mirror he saw her tuck some of that wayward hair behind her ears, adjust her T-shirt, and lick her lips. He ordered himself not to wonder if that meant anything.

      Did that mean anything?

      “I sure as hell hope not,” he said out loud.

      He backed his truck up to the barn, and by the time he went around the back, she was trying her darndest to heft one of the bales out of there.

      Seventy pounds. She had both hands inserted between the twine and the hay. She lifted. Nothing happened.

      He knew damn well what the twine would do to soft hands, but she didn’t quit. With a mighty grunt she picked the hay up three inches, moved forward one, and dropped it.

      “I’ll get it.”

      He might as well have saved his breath, because she gave him a look of fierce pride, squatted down and shoved the bale with her shoulder. It moved another millimeter or so. It would be fun to cross his arms and watch, but that wasn’t the kind of boy his mama had raised.

      He climbed in the truck bed, moved carefully around her, and tossed down the other two bales, which also earned him a glare. Was he supposed to apologize for the fact he was a man? That some things that came hard to her, came easy to him?

      He wondered what would happen if he told her she looked like a Sumo wrestler.

      That would be the end of hair-tucking and lip-licking.

      Still, he didn’t tell her. Because it wasn’t precisely true. The position yes, but the beauty? She looked more breathtaking than ever with her little pink tongue poking out between her teeth, and her face flushed red, and the sweat beginning to pop out on her brow.

      Pretending to ignore her, he moved back around her, hopped off the truck, picked up his two bales, one in each hand, and went into the barn.

      Now you’re showing off, an annoying little voice inside his head informed

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