Read Online A Loving Man by Cait London - Free Book Online

pickup, admiring his stock. He said he didn’t want her to stand too close for fear some of the mud that encrusted them—and him—might soil her “pretty dress.”
    A long-married man, Zeb flushed when Rose stared at him, disbelieving his gallant behavior when he barely noticed his tiny, silent wife. Rose was dripping in mud and so was Estelle. He smiled feebly at them, before they ran off after the last piglet who was headed for the farm pond. Estelle was shouting, obviously enjoying herself as they trapped the piglet, who ran back and forth between them. “Gotcha!” Rose yelled and dived for the squealing animal.
    Victorious at last, she hugged the squirming prize to her, tripped and fell into the pond. Sloshing in the muddy depths and trying to regain her balance wasn’t easy, but she laughed, enjoying the cheers from the bank. Then something gripped the front of her sleeveless blouse and hauled her out of the muddy water. “I got him,” she exclaimed happily, hugging her squirming piglet until Zeb took him.
    “Yes, you did,” Stefan said, his deep voice threaded with humor.
    Riding high on her victory, Rose grinned up at him. He grinned back, looking not as foreign and stern, but with a stubble covering his jaw and wearing a dirty, grease-stained T-shirt, he looked like any farmhand, just in from spring baling. He smelled like freshly cut alfalfa, a scent that she’d always enjoyed. “This is farm life, bud. I was the best greased pig catcher at the fair in my time.”
    “I can see that—” Stefan tensed as Rose threw her armsaround him and kissed him just as she would any good “bud.”
    This “bud” wrapped his arms around her quickly, tugged her close and changed the kiss into a sensuous, stormy heat. She dived into the enticing, mysterious taste and the feel of his body close to hers, and tossed away everything but the sense that the inevitable had come calling. His hands trembled on her as he lifted her off her feet and continued kissing her, his mouth slanted, fused to hers as lightning danced around them and thunder roared and her senses began an unfamiliar beat.
    His lips lifted slowly from hers and she shocked herself by taking one last quick kiss, then met that dark, intense gaze with her own. “I can’t breathe,” she whispered.
    “I’m holding you too tight?” he whispered back unevenly, his accent more pronounced.
    “Not that. You’re just sucking up all my air again. And you’ve got a definite problem,” she whispered shakily. Stefan’s hard thighs were pressed against her damp ones, his body taut and humming as he held her.
    “You think I am happy about this?” he asked harshly. “That I act like a boy around you? That thoughts of you keep me awake?”
    Somewhere in the distance, Zeb cleared his throat. “I’ll just be getting these little ones back to their mama.”
    Stefan placed Rose back on her feet and his hot, intimate look raked down her muddy body, where her wet blouse clung to her breasts and her nipples peaked. His swallow was rough as he smoothed her damp hair from her face. “Rose,” he whispered so softly, wrapping her name in the taste of midnight rendezvous, sensual touches and heart-stopping intimacy.
    When Rose pulled herself out of the daze she had just slid into, she looked to find Estelle and Yvette. She hopedto use them to put distance between Stefan and herself, but they were walking across the field toward the plant starts. Clearly Stefan’s family had left her to fend for herself.
    “What are you doing here?” she asked him.
    He motioned to his pickup on the farm road. “I needed a part for the tractor and was going into town. I could not resist stopping when I saw you and Estelle acting like happy children in the field, chasing those pigs. Estelle has never looked so young and free. It was a beautiful thing to see, and to hear your laughter. You’ve become friends with my mother and my daughter. It seems that is more than I can do.”
    “We