“Now?” he asked.

“I should return the massage, but, holy shit, Sawyer, I can’t even think,” she panted.

He slid into her body in one fluid movement, and they rocked together. She clung to him, fingernails pressing into his back, and legs locked around him. His kisses deepened, and her hands moved to his cheeks and then up to grasp his hair. She wanted to touch him, all of him, so her hands roamed from shoulders to his firm butt, down his legs as far as she could reach, and back again.

He took her to the very brink of an exploding climax and then backed off to let her cool down before building up the tempo again. “Open your eyes, Jill, so I can see down to the bottom of your soul,” he said between short gasps.

“All you’ll see right now is a red-hot desire for you,” she answered, then pulled his lips to hers for another searing kiss.

He grinned. “Then keep your eyes open and let me see that.”

It was cold in the room, but every inch of her body was on fire. Her toes curled. Her body ached with desire.

“Now?” he asked.

“Three hours ago,” she answered.

She imagined a cliff overlooking a deep blue sea. She’d climbed to the top, and when Sawyer said her name in a hoarse Texas drawl, she wrapped both arms around his back and growled his name as they tumbled into the cool water together.

When he could catch his breath, he rolled to one side, but he didn’t let go of her. “Hot damn!” he muttered.

“You got that right.” She snuggled as close to him as she could get and shut her eyes. She wouldn’t sleep. She’d just stay there until her wobbly knees could take her to her own bedroom. But in two minutes she’d drifted off into that wonderful place that consenting adults go when the sex is so damn good they can’t move a muscle afterward.

Jill dreamed of a pasture full of bright yellow daisies with half a dozen kids romping around at a picnic. Little red-haired girls dressed in denim shorts and cowboy boots. Dark-haired boys in boots and jeans. And there was Sawyer, a little older with a few shots of gray in his temples, but he still looked at her with the same brown-eyed wonder that she’d seen right before they’d fallen asleep.

She awoke to the sound of running water and whistling. A quick glance toward the clock said that it was five o’clock. That had to be morning, not evening, because the last time she checked, it was past six. Her feet hit the cold floor, and she did a quick tiptoe dance to the bathroom, where she threw back the shower curtain and stepped in front of Sawyer.

“Good mornin’.” He grinned. “I was going to let you sleep while I went out to do the chores. There’s a cold, blustery wind blowing. Even Piggy and Chick are hugging the woodstove this morning.”

“Thank you, but I’m wide awake. We can make breakfast, and then after we eat, we’ll do chores. I hate to even think about that day coming when this is in my hands.”

“Come summer we’ll hire some help for the ranch. Gladys says she gets half a dozen boys to come and help soon as school is out. Polly should be well, and things will let up a little then.” Sawyer picked up the shampoo, poured out a healthy amount on her hair, and worked it in from top to bottom. “Now turn around, and I’ll rinse it all away before we use the conditioner. Your hair is silky, Jill. With all those curls, you’d think it would be wiry, but it’s not.”

“Neither is this.” She touched the soft dark hair on his chest.

“So you don’t want me to shave it all off?”

“Why would you do that? I love it. Little boys have bare chests. Men have hair. Hunky cowboys have just the right amount,” she answered.

“Do I get to be in that latter category?”

“Oh, yes, you do.” She rolled up on her toes and kissed him. “Holy shit, Sawyer!”

“What?”

“Wet kisses are downright…well, they shoot desire through a body like adrenaline in the flight-or-fight mode.”

He chuckled. “You going to fight or run?”

She giggled. “I’m not going anywhere but to the barn for hay, cowboy.”

“Not to bed first with that burst of desire?”

She handed him the conditioner. “The cattle would starve plumb to death if we went back to bed, because we wouldn’t get out of it all day. Now when summer gets here and they’re put out to pasture on green grass and we don’t have to feed twice a day, that’s another story.”

“But then”—he turned her around so the shower could rinse the conditioner from her hair—“we’ll have plowing, sowing, clearing land, and all that.”

“And then, like you said, we’re going to hire some help. Got any relatives hiding down south who might want to move to Burnt Boot?”

“For ranchin’, or for the store and bar?”

“Ranchin’, and maybe some evenings in the bar,” she answered.

“I’ll check around. That reminds me, I never did get around to callin’ my folks. Did you?”

She smiled up at him. “I’m naked in a shower with you, and you think of your mother? What’s wrong with this picture?”

“You mentioned relatives. My mind went to some cousins who might be interested in a job, and then I thought about what their mamas would think of them coming to Burnt Boot. My mother sent me up here to spy on Finn. She didn’t expect me to stay.”

“Neither did mine when I told her I’d moved here.” Jill stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her body. “And, darlin’, my mama was the last thing on my mind last night. When we get near a bed, I don’t think of anything but you.”

He chuckled. “Well, then I will always remember to keep a bed right handy.”

* * *

On Monday morning, Polly said if she had to stay in the house one more day she was going to climb the walls. So Gladys loaded her up in the truck, took her to the store, and told Sawyer and Jill they didn’t have to come in until after lunch.

“Aunt Gladys, why don’t we come on in when we finish feeding, and you can take Polly for a ride?” Jill asked.

“Give me that phone,” Polly said loudly.

“I could hear what you said, girl. I don’t want to go for a ride. I want to talk to people. I want them to come in the store, and hell, I don’t even care if they get into a knock-down drag-out fight right here,” Polly said. “I don’t like this getting-old shit.”

Jill grinned. “Well, Auntie, it’s not for wimps. Only the strong get to do it.”

“You always could out argue a stop sign. But it won’t work today. You and that handsome Sawyer spend the day together. After lunch, my ass. I’m staying right here until closing time, whether Gladys likes it or not. I hope everybody in town knows I’m here and comes in to visit.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m not arguing anymore,” Jill said.

She visualized a long, lazy afternoon in the bedroom, but it didn’t happen. Right after they finished their morning routine, a heifer decided to give birth to a calf that was too big for her. That required an hour of getting her into a barn out of the cold, where the calf would have a better chance of living, and then pulling the bull calf out when he was born butt-first. They’d barely gotten their hands cleaned up and made sure the new little fellow could stand and nurse when the phone rang.

Jill fetched it from her pocket and answered without checking the ID.

“You win,” Polly said. “I’m pooped, and if I have to hear another person tell me how their great-aunt or uncle or neighbor’s kid broke their leg, I’m going to throw them through the plate glass window. Gladys made me call you. Some friend she is. She wouldn’t even do it for me, since I threw such a fit. If you and Sawyer will come on to the store, I’m ready to go home and get a nap.”

“We’ll be there soon as we go home and get the blood off us,” Jill said.

“Shit, girl! Who’d you kill, a Gallagher or a Brennan?”

“Neither one. We just pulled a calf. Tell Aunt Gladys it’s a bull, and mama and baby are just fine. We’ve got them in a stall in the barn for the next few days, though, with this cold weather,” Jill answered.