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Authors: Kelly Hunter
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glanced her way, his gaze disconcertingly direct. “If you’re talking about telling me how to pull a calf, I needed direction and you gave it. Doesn’t make you bossy. It makes you strategically resourceful and me grateful.”
“ Strategically resourceful,” she grumbled, even as his words filled her with pleasure.
“ It’s a compliment. Confident, capable, strategically resourceful women are incredibly hot.”
“ Even ones who’ve just had their hand up a cow?”
“ It was more like your entire arm.”
“ Yeah.” Ella sighed. “Really not the image I was hoping to present.”
“ Ella.”
They ’d reached the passenger side door of his truck. Next second he’d opened it for her, reached for her hat and tossed it inside. He smiled down at her with those crinkly eyes and the dimples and Ella couldn’t help but smile back. It was a tentative smile though, maybe even anxious. She knew who she was, good traits and bad, and sometimes she wished for more subtlety and finesse, and sometimes she wished that her mother had lived long enough to teach her how to be less of a cowhand and more of a lady.
She had wanted Sawyer to see who she was and the world that she loved.
She ’d also been hoping to break him in a little more gently.
“ That memory of you with the cow is going into the memory bank alongside the one of you presiding over Grey’s Saloon.” He tugged his gloves off and tossed them in the truck too. “And the one of you sitting in the snow making sandwiches, and the one of you getting altogether lost in a kiss. And now I have one of you with snowflakes in your hair. It’s a collage, this picture I’m building of you.” He kissed her, sweet and fleeting, and then he set his lips to the spot on her cheek where a snowflake had just landed and Ella felt like melting right along with it. “And it’s amazing.”
“ I bet you say that to all the girls.” How could a few muttered words and a whisper of a kiss make her feel this gooey inside?
“ No.” He pulled away, his smile crooked and his eyes troubled. “I don’t.”
They reached the house and Ella took him through the side entrance, straight into the mudroom where they shed their coats and boots and hats and anything else that was wet. Sure, he was a visitor, but he’d also been a cowhand for the afternoon and hopefully they were past standing on ceremony with each other. From there she took him through the huge galley kitchen, with its bank of east facing windows and from there she showed him through to the adjacent wash room; the one with the super pressure and the oversized shower head. She gave him towels and fresh soap. She may even have sighed wistfully as she’d watched him close the bathroom door behind him.
“ I’m going up to another shower,” she said, loud enough so that he could hear. “Help yourself to tea, coffee or whatever else you want when you come out.”
“ Okay.”
Ella went to her room and set her own shower to scalding and then she got in and scrubbed everywhere, twice, before declaring herself squeaky clean and starting in on her after shower care. Lotion. Comb. Teeth. Towel wrapped around her while she stood in her walk-in-closet and wondered what to wear for a night out at a restaurant or a night snowed in here, the latter seeming more likely by the minute given the way the snow was coming down outside.
She stood there for a full five minutes, undecided, before stalking back out to her dresser and picking up her phone. Hopefully Sawyer had his phone on him too.
He picked up on the second ring. Guess that was a yes.
“ I’m still in the bedroom, trying to decide what to wear,” she told him without preamble. “And I usually don’t much care what I wear. It’s very odd, this desire to please you. Do you think it has something to do with the lust?”
“ Everything to do with the lust,” he told her dryly. “You want to hope that the level of lust fades as you get to know me better,
“ Strategically resourceful,” she grumbled, even as his words filled her with pleasure.
“ It’s a compliment. Confident, capable, strategically resourceful women are incredibly hot.”
“ Even ones who’ve just had their hand up a cow?”
“ It was more like your entire arm.”
“ Yeah.” Ella sighed. “Really not the image I was hoping to present.”
“ Ella.”
They ’d reached the passenger side door of his truck. Next second he’d opened it for her, reached for her hat and tossed it inside. He smiled down at her with those crinkly eyes and the dimples and Ella couldn’t help but smile back. It was a tentative smile though, maybe even anxious. She knew who she was, good traits and bad, and sometimes she wished for more subtlety and finesse, and sometimes she wished that her mother had lived long enough to teach her how to be less of a cowhand and more of a lady.
She had wanted Sawyer to see who she was and the world that she loved.
She ’d also been hoping to break him in a little more gently.
“ That memory of you with the cow is going into the memory bank alongside the one of you presiding over Grey’s Saloon.” He tugged his gloves off and tossed them in the truck too. “And the one of you sitting in the snow making sandwiches, and the one of you getting altogether lost in a kiss. And now I have one of you with snowflakes in your hair. It’s a collage, this picture I’m building of you.” He kissed her, sweet and fleeting, and then he set his lips to the spot on her cheek where a snowflake had just landed and Ella felt like melting right along with it. “And it’s amazing.”
“ I bet you say that to all the girls.” How could a few muttered words and a whisper of a kiss make her feel this gooey inside?
“ No.” He pulled away, his smile crooked and his eyes troubled. “I don’t.”
They reached the house and Ella took him through the side entrance, straight into the mudroom where they shed their coats and boots and hats and anything else that was wet. Sure, he was a visitor, but he’d also been a cowhand for the afternoon and hopefully they were past standing on ceremony with each other. From there she took him through the huge galley kitchen, with its bank of east facing windows and from there she showed him through to the adjacent wash room; the one with the super pressure and the oversized shower head. She gave him towels and fresh soap. She may even have sighed wistfully as she’d watched him close the bathroom door behind him.
“ I’m going up to another shower,” she said, loud enough so that he could hear. “Help yourself to tea, coffee or whatever else you want when you come out.”
“ Okay.”
Ella went to her room and set her own shower to scalding and then she got in and scrubbed everywhere, twice, before declaring herself squeaky clean and starting in on her after shower care. Lotion. Comb. Teeth. Towel wrapped around her while she stood in her walk-in-closet and wondered what to wear for a night out at a restaurant or a night snowed in here, the latter seeming more likely by the minute given the way the snow was coming down outside.
She stood there for a full five minutes, undecided, before stalking back out to her dresser and picking up her phone. Hopefully Sawyer had his phone on him too.
He picked up on the second ring. Guess that was a yes.
“ I’m still in the bedroom, trying to decide what to wear,” she told him without preamble. “And I usually don’t much care what I wear. It’s very odd, this desire to please you. Do you think it has something to do with the lust?”
“ Everything to do with the lust,” he told her dryly. “You want to hope that the level of lust fades as you get to know me better,
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