Authors: Shanna Hatfield
“Sure thing, lil’ lady.” Danny’s twang seemed
to be intensifying. “That sure was tasty tea, Miz Lena. I don’t
recollect ever having any quite as delicious as that.”
Flattered, Lena poured him another glass and
put some cookies on a plate for him. “I’m glad you enjoyed it Mr…
What did you say your name was again?”
“Danny, Ma’am. Danny Johnson.”
“Well, you take your time filling out the
paperwork and enjoy your tea,” Lena said, then turned her attention
to Maddie. “So, what did the doctor say? I see you came home
without your sling.”
Maddie poured herself a glass of tea and sat
across from Danny. “The doc said I can slowly start using it again.
He gave me a list of dos and don’ts so I’ll get started tomorrow on
getting it back into shape.”
Lena leaned over and patted Maddie on the
back. “That’s great news, kiddo. If you need help with anything,
you just let me know.”
“Thanks, Aunt Lena.”
Danny finished up the simple application form
and slid it over to Maddie with a wink. Picking up the paper, she
took a drink of tea and nearly spewed it all over Danny and the
table at his responses.
Name: Dan the cowboy man
Address: Somewhere in the Sticks
Alternate Address: Still in the Sticks
Phone: Call me anytime, partner
Position Sought: Cowboy and Farmer Dude
Available to Start: Right this minute
Desired Pay Range: You don’t even want to
know
Are You Currently Employed: What do you
think?
Education: Yep – I got one.
Special Skills or Other: I’ll select
other.
References: I like you, does that count?
Giving him a hard glare and a shake of her
head, she got up from the table. “Mr. Johnson, why don’t you come
with me and I’ll show you around the place.”
“Sure thing, lil’ lady.” Danny swaggered to
the door and held it open for her before tipping his hat at Lena.
“Thank you for the tea and cookies, Ma’am. Much appreciated.”
“You’re very welcome,” Lena said, smiling
broadly before turning back to her dinner preparations.
As Danny and Maddie walked toward the machine
shed where Zach was likely to be found, they compared notes on the
case. Before they went in the shed, Maddie leaned toward Danny and
whispered. “I’ve got to hear all about this act, buster. It is too
much.”
Danny just grinned.
Walking into the shed, Maddie called for her
brother and heard him grunt from the far corner of the building
where he was working on the baler.
“You back already, Maddie?”
“Yep, and I’ve got someone for you to
meet.”
Zach looked up from his work and gave the
stranger with Maddie a cool glare. Danny raised an eyebrow, but
didn’t say anything.
“This is Danny. He’s going to be our new
hired hand for a while,” Maddie said. Stepping close to Zach, she
whispered, “Danny is my partner. We couldn’t ask for any one better
to keep Aunt Lena and Dad safe.”
Zach nodded, grateful for the protection for
his family. Whether Maddie accepted the fact or not, she was in as
much danger as anyone and he wanted to keep her protected, too.
Wiping his hand on a rag, Zach extended it to
Danny. “Nice to meet you, Danny. Looks like you are used to being a
cowboy more than a farmer.”
Danny laughed. “Well,” he stretched the word
out on a twang, “I know my way around a farm, too. I grew up on a
wheat and cattle ranch. Although I preferred riding horses and
chasing cows to riding the tractor, I think I can handle whatever
you need help with.”
“Fair enough,” Zach said. “You can stay in
the bunkhouse with Erik. He’s pretty quiet, seems to be a bit of a
loner, but if you need help with anything farm related, he’s your
man.”
“Sounds good. Where would you like me to
start?” Danny asked, rolling up his shirt sleeves.
“Sure you don’t want to change your shirt.
You’re likely to get it all greasy out here,” Zach said, looking at
Danny’s nice shirt and jeans.
“It’s fine. I’m not afraid of a little grease
or dirt.”
“Great. Then grab that wrench and help me get
this thing back in place,” Zach said, pointing the screwdriver in
his hand toward the toolbox.
“I’m heading back to the house,” Maddie said,
leaving the men to the baler. She knew Danny wore a gun and would
keep on the alert. She didn’t want to leave Aunt Lena alone for any
length of time.
Walking back into the cool of the house, she
found her aunt busy rolling out pie crust.
“Looks like we need to add another plate to
the dinner table,” Maddie said, washing up at the sink and rinsing
off the blueberries her aunt had set out to make filling.
“Zach gave Mr. Johnson the okay, then?”
“Yep. They are down in the machine shed right
now, working on the baler.”
“Good. I keep trying to convince your dad to
slow down a bit. With the extra help, maybe he will.”
“Maybe,” Maddie said, cocking her head to
study her aunt. “But we both know it won’t happen.”
Lena laughed and finished rolling the crust.
“Nope. It won’t. He’s got farming in his blood. Always has, always
will. Just like your brother, and Erik. That one is a born farmer
as well.”
Her aunt’s mention of Erik brought visions of
the hard-working, quiet man spinning through Maddie’s thoughts.
Images of strong, tanned fingers and thick, solid muscles made
Maddie’s cheeks warm as she wondered what it would be like to feel
those fingers touching hers. To run her hand across his chest. To
be held in his arms.
“I don’t know what you are thinking about,
but you’re face is about the color of a beet,” Lena teased. “Care
to share?”
“No, I don’t.” Maddie fanned her face with a
nearby magazine, chagrined.
Lena laughed. “That new hand you hired is
really something, isn’t he? If I was thirty years younger, I might
be fanning my face, too.”
Maddie smiled. She’d just let Lena think she
was loopy over Danny. That way it kept her from being suspicious of
her real feelings about Erik. It had been more than two years since
Devin died and the same amount of time since she’d felt anything
for any man. The overwhelming sensations created just by being near
Erik were almost more than Maddie could bear. Of all the times and
places to be interested in a man, now was not ideal. In her crazy
life, there was never an ideal time for anything beyond focusing on
work, especially with Zeus stalking her family.
Even knowing all that, Maddie felt helpless
to control the tugging of her wayward heart toward one very
appealing farmer.
Erik wanted to hate the new hand Danny. He
was good looking in a way that made women follow him with a look of
wanting in their eyes. Tall and athletic, of course he had to be
charming, funny, and a cowboy.
Unfortunately, he was also a really nice guy
and impossible to dislike, no matter how much Erik wanted to.
It wasn’t so much how he looked or acted that
had Erik turning green with envy. It was what Lena had said about
Maddie being quite taken with him. He got the idea Maddie didn’t
lightly turn her affections toward anyone and the fact that she was
interested in Danny was almost enough to make him pack up and hit
the road.
Until Danny showed up and he and Maddie
started spending time together, Erik hadn’t allowed himself to
acknowledge his growing attraction to Maddie. Now that there was
some very real competition, he knew he didn’t have a chance.
The fact that he cared made him realize he
was finally ready to leave the past behind him and move forward
with his life. A good first step would have been a date with
Maddie, but now he was uncertain if she would consider going out
with him. She and Danny seemed pretty cozy. He’d seen them talking
on more than one occasion with their heads close together. All this
thought about “will she or won’t she” made Erik feel like a junior
in high school.
Watching Maddie walk out behind the barn,
Erik wondered what she was up to, then heard the distinctive pop of
a gun. Target practice? That definitely surprised him. Finishing up
the work he was doing, he headed her direction.
Maddie decided if she did need to use her gun
for protection, she was going to have to get in some practice. In
the weeks she was waiting for her shoulder to heal she hadn’t shot
her gun once.
Setting up targets behind the barn pointing
toward a fallow section of a field where no one could get hurt, she
decided to see if she could shoot one-handed, since her shoulder
was still on the mend. She didn’t want to do anything to possibly
reinjure it because a fast recovery was what she needed.
She was glad to have her Glock with her, the
feel of the grip in her hand like the touch of an old friend.
Bracing herself, she tried to get a feel for
it in one-hand before she sighted in on the paper target. Taking
her time, she shot at it and deliberately missed. If anyone was
watching her, she wanted them to think she couldn’t shoot.
She was actually picking dirt clods behind
the targets and shooting them. So although she wasn’t hitting what
appeared to be her targets, she was nailing her real targets with
complete accuracy. Pleased with her progress, she was
congratulating herself on a job well done when Erik walked up
behind her.
“Getting in some target practice?” he asked,
standing behind her.
Looking over her shoulder she smiled then
caught her breath. He was bronzed from the summer sun and his
golden eyes burned into hers with intensity unlike anything she had
ever experienced. His T-shirt molded to his muscles and caused her
to temporarily lose the ability to think, let alone speak.
Coming to stand close enough she could inhale
the scent of hay, after shave, and man, he brushed her arm, sending
electrical currents zinging through her. “I didn’t know you liked
to shoot.”
“Oh, I used to. I haven’t done it for a
while,” Maddie said. That much was true. Erik, as of yet, still
didn’t know what Maddie did for a living. For his safety, and that
of her family, she knew she needed to be honest with him about what
she did as well as the danger he was in.
“Could be challenging to relearn with one
hand,” Erik said, looking at her gun. Pointing to the weapon, he
asked “May I?”
“Be my guest,” Maddie said, handing him the
gun and taking a step to the side.
After admiring the Glock, Erik adjusted his
stance, raised the gun and fired five shots in rapid succession.
Maddie was caught off guard. Erik blasted five holes in one target
in a pattern that was intentional.
Looking at him with wide eyes, he smiled at
her, reloaded the gun from the box of ammo sitting on a fence post
and handed it back to her
“I like to shoot sometimes,” Erik said, by
way of an explanation.
“Sometimes? I think you must have had a
little practice at it,” Maddie said with a grin.
“Maybe, a little. I used to shoot a lot with
my friends when I was younger.”
“Oh, well, that was pretty impressive.”
“If you want, I could help you.”
For the first time in her life, Maddie felt
pulled into the vortex of her feminine charms and decided to give
them free reign.
“Could you? I mean, I’m just not sure the
best way to go about this. Maybe you could show me,” she looked up
at Erik through her thick eyelashes, but stopped short of batting
them at him.
Erik moved behind her and put both arms
around her. Bringing up the gun, he placed his hands over hers on
the weapon, careful not to bump her injured shoulder, and leaned
down so close his jaw touched her cheek. She could feel the hint of
stubble rub on her skin and the sensation made her tingle from head
to toe.
“If you just hold it like this,” Erik said,
inhaling the scent that was all Maddie. He shouldn’t be here with
her like this. Shouldn’t have put his arms around her. But it would
take a force of nature to make him step back at this point. Maddie
felt too good in his arms. He felt his heart pick up speed as he
leaned nearer, the heat from her back seeping into his chest and
making him feel things he thought he’d buried more than two years
ago.
Turning her head slightly, her lips
dangerously close to his, she whispered, “Like this?”
Erik tried to speak, but found he couldn’t,
so he nodded his head. Swallowing hard, he helped her steady her
hand, “Then set your sight like this.”
“Okay,” Maddie let out her breath. She could
outshoot just about anyone she wanted to with a handgun. She no
more needed instruction on how to handle a gun than she needed step
by step instructions on how to tie her shoes, but she was playing
this for all she was worth. Being this close to Erik was just too
tempting. And wonderful. And it felt so right to be in his arms. So
much for her tough cop, need-no-man reputation. It was about to go
up in smoke. “Am I doing it right?”
When she raised her baby blues to Erik, he
thought his knees might buckle. He wanted so badly to kiss her, he
could barely focus on anything but her lips and how soft and
inviting they looked.
“You’re doing everything just right,” he
said, his voice growing husky and low. Inhaling a steadying breath,
he tried to focus on her shooting. “When you’re ready, pull the
trigger.”
Maddie purposely missed the target she was
supposed to be aiming at by several feet.
“Oh, that one didn’t go very well,” she said,
trying to pout. She wasn’t good at this girlie stuff, but to keep
Erik close, she was willing to try anything. “Maybe you can help me
try again.”
“I’d be happy to,” Erik said, stepping just a
little closer, putting his arms just a little tighter around her.
The electrical current sparking between them would surely combust
soon.