LITMIR.BIZ

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there was her out. “Work. Work helps.”

      “Then I guess I’d better let you go.” But he didn’t let go of the wrench.

      “Noah?”

      “What?”

      Her mind was a jumble. He was so close. She was so…darn, he was so close. She glanced down at their fingers, only inches away from each other. His gaze followed hers. “I don’t like this…this physical stuff messing with my job,” she said, tugging on the wrench. “So why don’t you just kiss me so we can get it over with?”

      Ivy’s suggestion shocked even her. Well, she wasn’t exactly thinking straight right now. And why not kiss the man? Everyone in town seemed to think she had come to Tallula on a mission to collect men anyway. Why not live up to their expectations, spit in their eyes the way she always had? Her city-bred parents had been snooty to the people of Tallula, and Ivy had always been an outsider, long before she’d left and become an actual outsider. She’d learned to tough it out, act the part. Slipping back into that persona would probably be easy enough.

      “Or better yet, I’ll kiss you,” she said. She rose on her toes, grasped Noah’s shirt and planted one quick kiss on his lips.

      Simple. Easy. No. Not either of those. At all. Noah’s lips were warm; his masculine scent surrounded her; his big body made her want to curl closer.

      Panic ensued, and Ivy rushed toward the door before she could do something stupid…like let Noah see how that kiss had affected her. “Now,” she said as nonchalantly as she could, “we’ve got that behind us, so we can totally forget this ever happened and get on with our lives. And don’t ever apologize to me again for loving your daughter.”

      She fled, her lips burning, her cheeks on fire. And, she soon realized, she had left without a single tool. What on earth would she tell Darrell?

      She didn’t know…or care. She had kissed Noah Ballenger. Was she totally insane?

      “Yes,” she whispered. “But at least he isn’t pitying me right now.”

      He was probably getting ready to fire her butt.

      Chapter Four

      NOAH FELT LIKE a restless lion who’d been prowling solo for months and had just realized that there was a female in the vicinity.

      Ivy would probably hate that comparison. That rigid backbone, determined chin and all that sass were hard evidence that she had a boatload of pride. And she was doing her damnedest to hang on to it. She liked to play tough, to keep people off guard so that they couldn’t see the pain she was carrying. Even someone like him who was a heck of a lot better with horses than with women could see that. That was why she’d kissed him, wasn’t it? To distract him from feeling sorry for her.

      Well, it had certainly worked. For a few minutes his entire body had flamed. His brain cells had fried. Every nerve ending on his body had reacted. That mouth, that silky, soft mouth that tasted of peppermint and some indefinable sweetness that was hers alone had left him wanting to chase her down, pull her against his body and plunder that mouth again.

      That would have been incredibly dumb. She had been right. The sparks had been flying between them from the first, but they needed to get that out of the way, because there could be nothing between them.

      She couldn’t even look at Lily. And he would never allow Lily to be hurt again. He would never get tangled up with anyone who would desert his child.

      Ivy and her luscious lips were off-limits. And he would just have to suck it up and take it. And consider himself lucky that he had gotten one taste.

      “I saw you kiss Ivy.” Brody’s voice came from behind him.

      Oh, hell, Noah thought. He couldn’t even defend himself. He didn’t want Brody to know that it was Ivy who had done the kissing, especially since she’d kissed him only to get rid of him. Hadn’t the woman been hurt enough?

      “You didn’t see anything,” Noah said. “It was nothing.”

      “Nothing sure looked hot.”

      “Nothing is ever going to happen again,” Noah reiterated. But he wondered if he was trying to convince Brody or himself.

      Well, she had certainly done it, Ivy thought. Kissing Noah had seemed like a good idea at the time. She’d been sizzling every time he got near and she had thought that kissing him would kill two birds with one stone. It would get him to stop pitying her for losing her child while he still had his, and it would release the physical tension that had been building between them.

      “Wrong on at least one count,” she whispered. Now that she’d felt Noah’s mouth beneath hers, she wanted to kiss him again. She wanted him to kiss her, and she wanted…she looked down at her hands. She wanted to touch him.

      “Argh!” she said, rubbing a cloth over the kitchen counter of the crew house. She had moved out of her old home that was filled with ghosts and bad memories. The spartan little cottage suited her. There were no memories here. Under other circumstances and on any other day, it would have been perfect.

      Today this house and the ranch simply reminded her of Noah, the last person she needed to be thinking about. He couldn’t be in her plans; she couldn’t be in his.

      She needed to get away, and her parents’ house wasn’t a good choice. Where could she go?

      Well, she did need to pick up a few things, and playing “bad Ivy” with the townspeople would at least take her mind off Noah. There would be tension, but the tension in Tallula would be the kind she could handle.

      Borrowing the old ranch pickup that Brody had told her she could use, she headed for Tallula, parked and walked into a small department store. As she entered, several people turned toward her.

      Immediately a salesclerk rushed up. “Ms. Seacrest, may I help you? That is…we don’t carry too many fancy things…”

      “Nothing a model would wear,” another woman said, her tone judgmental. Ivy recognized the woman. She’d been a pretty girl, but the boy she’d liked had been fixated on Ivy. Now, remembering the ache she felt every time she witnessed the closeness between Noah and his daughter, closeness that had been torn away from her, Ivy felt a twinge of responsibility toward the woman and dismissed her snooty remarks. Maybe she was married and the marriage wasn’t going well. Maybe she and her husband had fought this morning. Maybe she was worried that Ivy would overshadow her again and steal her happiness.

      So even though her first reaction as a teenager would have been to put up her chin and say something smart, or to act cool and unmoved, Ivy decided to take a different tack, to try to be nice in the face of nastiness.

      “It’s okay. I’m sure you have exactly what I need,” she said. “I’ll look around until I find what I want.”

      Silence settled in. Ivy’s heart thudded. She reminded herself that she had always been an outsider here and always would be. And why should she care, when she wasn’t staying?

      She drifted over to a rack of cotton work shirts, then found some inexpensive but pretty scarves, looking up to see the belligerent woman still staring at her. What had the woman’s name been? Oh, yes, Sandra. The other women had nodded curtly at Ivy’s speech, and one or two had even smiled a little, but not this one. Clearly, Ivy’s speech hadn’t mollified Sandra.

      Ivy soon found out why. There was a small coffee shop in the store, and a few of the women wandered over there. Whispering ensued. A few looks were cast Ivy’s way.

      Finally one woman separated from the rest and approached Ivy. “I know we haven’t met. I didn’t live here back when you did. I married into Tallula,” the woman said. “I’m Alicia Kendall.” She held out her hand.

      Ivy blinked and shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Alicia.”

      “Ask

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