In this case, she so very much was and could accept that about herself. If anyone deserved to come down a few pegs, it wa
s Will Holt, CEO of Holt Enterprises and perpetual pain in her ass.
“That’s some smile that fella has you wearing,” Aunt Louise said as she stood by the screen door in her usual uniform of jeans, a seed company T-shirt, and worn baseball cap with her iron-gray hair pulled back into a French braid that reached all the way down to the middle of her back. “I like to see it.”
Oh, this was perfect. Her aunt Louise—who’d run her small ranch by herself since her husband, Dexter, had passed away forty years ago—would talk Will’s ear off about all things ranching related. By the time she was done, his brain would be filled with so much cattle-related minutiae that he’d admit defeat on the bet before it even got started.
“Aren’t you sweet for saying so,” Hadley said. Could this get any worse? But she knew for sure they couldn’t sell “serious relationship” with how often her family was going to notice they wanted to kill each other. Time to change the subject. “However, he is really interested in learning everything there is to know about the cowboy life,” she said, lacing her voice with enough oh-my-gosh-gee-willikers insincere sweetness that there was no way Will would miss that she was setting him up.
“Really?” Aunt Louise’s eyes lit up with interest and she turned her full attention to Will. “What do you want to know?”
He didn’t even hesitate. “Everything.”
Of course he said the exact right thing. God. This week was going to be hell.
Aunt Louise clapped her hands together. “Well, you have come to the right woman.” She nodded at Hadley. “This one never did take to anything about ranch life.”
“Gotta say, I’m glad about that,” Will said, putting his arm around Hadley’s waist and tucking her up close against him. “If she had, then she never would have come to Harbor City and I wouldn’t have met her.”
His fingertips brushed against the roll that always made an appearance as soon as she buttoned her pants and—on instinct—she sucked in her gut before realizing what she was doing and letting it all back out again. Will was the last guy she was going to put on a front—or Spanx—to impress. So what if she had so-called unsightly bulges, unfortunate chin hairs that reappeared no matter how many times she plucked them, and unpainted fingernails trimmed down as far as possible? He could pretend to date her as she was or he could go jump in an irrigation ditch. Either way, she’d be happy.
“Aren’t you just the sweet talker?” she said, unwinding herself from his light hold and ignoring the tingling sensation imprinted on her skin.
“Only when it comes to you.” Will tucked a stray hair behind her ear, his fingertips gliding over the shell of her ear and then lightly down the side of her neck as if he were so far gone for her that he couldn’t help but touch her at every opportunity. “You just bring out the best in me.”
“Oh, there’s nothing quite like young love,” Aunt Louise said with a grin.
Then her aunt hurried off, which was good because there was no way Hadley could stop herself from nailing Will with a death stare. That whole cow-eyes look was not the plan. Plus, there was not to be any touching whatsoever.
“What are you doing?” she asked through gritted teeth.
“Thinking ahead. Web said you needed help taking a break from all the immersive family time, so if they think we’re so into each other that we can’t stand to be apart, then they’ll be even more likely to give you some space. Brilliant, right? It’s okay to admit it.”
She would not, even if it were true. A woman had to have some pride, especially when it came to Will. Him hot for her? Ha. That would be the day.
Every time she saw him, he shot snarky little comments at her that only she could hear, as if she wasn’t more than aware that he didn’t approve of her friendship with his brother. Well, he could go stuff it. The second she and Web had met in the world’s longest and slowest coffee line, they’d bonded over the superiority of warm chocolate croissants, the need for subtitles on any show where the cast had a Scottish accent, and the fact that if Bill Bryson and Mary Roach had nonfiction book babies, they would be the most interesting books ever written.
Then she’d made the mistake of going to one of Web’s rugby games and discovered his brother, who was also on the team, was actually his twin and his twin was actually evil. Will had hated her on sight and wasn’t shy about letting her know—at least not when it was just the two of them. There were snarky comments, questions about her background, and disapproving looks whenever he spotted her. She had no idea when or how she’d peed in Will Holt’s cornflakes, but apparently she had, and he and his sexy wink, cute dimple, and too-smackable-for-his-own-good ass could go hump it.
As if he knew what she was thinking and wanted to rub it in that she couldn’t do anything about it, Will took her hand in his and then lifted it so he could kiss the back of it. It wasn’t much, just a quick brush of his lips, but it made her breath catch all the same.
Damn that man. It wasn’t fair.
“Good Lord, you two, I feel like I could make fried bologna sandwiches just from the heat coming off you,” Aunt Louise said, peeking out of the screen door and fanning herself with her hand. “Some of us are having to deal with menopausal hot flashes. Come on inside—I need to get some sun tea to cool me off.”
Once Aunt Louise had her back to them, Hadley yanked her hand from Will’s barely there grasp and shot him a dirty look. The jerk just winked at her and held open the screen door for her to walk through. As she passed by, she would have laid her hand on a stack of Bibles and sworn that it felt like walking outside right before a thunderstorm, when the whole world felt electric. She didn’t mean to look up at him at that moment, but she did anyway, and her heart sped up. She’d never, ever admit it out loud, but there was something about him that had that effect on her. No doubt he knew exactly what he was doing with the little touches, and he was probably going to continue to push her buttons the entire week.
That was okay. She could take it.
After all, it wasn’t like she was in any danger of falling for him. Will Holt was the most bullheaded, annoying, frustrating person she’d ever met, and no amount of hotness wrapped up in Wranglers was going to make her forget that.
…
He wasn’t flirting; he was a man with a plan—at least that’s what he kept telling himself as he flexed his still-buzzing fingers and followed Hadley inside. Maybe it was because he’d been distracted by watching her walk in front of him, but it wasn’t until he was standing in the middle of the open-concept living room that the full beauty of the house hit him.
This was not the kind of ranch house he’d been expecting. Too much TV had planted the idea that it would look like a log cabin on steroids. Oh, there was plenty of wood and antlers on the walls, but it was the floor-to-ceiling windows at the back of the house that grabbed his attention. The outdoors looked bigger out here. The nearly flat green land with its gentle rolls seemed to go on forever, and the puffy white clouds that hung in the atmosphere almost looked painted on against the clear blue sky. As a guy who’d grown up with Harbor City’s Center Park as the biggest green space he’d ever seen in person, the view was awe-inspiring.
Hadley stopped beside him, taking in the sight, a slight smile curling her pink lips. “A little bit different than the view from your penthouse, right?”