Chute Yeah (The Valentine Boys 3)

“How did you always manage to get there on the days that I was?” I asked curiously.

He grinned. “Your stalking skills weren’t quite up to par with mine.”

With that cryptic statement, he turned onto the main highway that would lead us to his ranch.

“You know, I sent them Christmas cards telling them thank you,” I said. “I always wondered why in the hell I always got the special treatment when even old Mrs. Coot didn’t get it.”

When the store had changed owners, gone were the times of the past when they would load your truck for you. Now it was all up to you, and that meant that I was stuck lugging out eight fifty-pound bags of chicken feed every three weeks.

Banks started to chuckle as he pulled down the long drive that would lead up to the house.

I blinked as we topped the hill and the house came into view.

“It’s lit up like Fort Knox,” I found myself saying.

“Feeding time,” Banks answered. “All the animals get taken care of up here before we get to work doing everything else. Darby has probably been up for half an hour now mucking out stalls.”

Banks was right.

When we pulled up to the big barn, Darby was indeed mucking out stalls.

In his underwear.

“Umm,” I found myself saying. “Do you realize you forgot to put pants on?”

Darby grunted out a ‘yeah’ and kept working.

I tried not to admire his body, but the kid had done a lot of growing up over the last year.

And filling out.

No longer was he a lanky baby adult. Now he was well on his way to being exactly like his older brothers.

Only with a whole lot less regard for his dress.

“Do you want some water or anything?” I paused. “Help?”

He looked at me dressed in my nice clothes—semi-nice, really. They were my work clothes. I just didn’t do not-nice clothes, thank you very much.

“You’re wearing what I assume are a hundred-dollar jeans,” he said. “And your boots look like they came right off of a runway.”

I placed my hands on my hips.

“Hey,” I said. “I’ll have you know, I stomp through chicken shit in these with no problem, and still manage to wear them out to dinner later in the evening.” I paused. “And these jeans are a hundred dollars. New. I got them for twenty-two dollars at the consignment shop on Alpine.”

Darby’s lips twitched.

“I’m gonna go change, baby,” Banks said. “Come inside and eat when you’re done.”

Banks knew me well.

Darby had thrown down the gauntlet, and there was no way in hell I was allowing him to think I couldn’t muck out the stalls right next to his half-naked ass.

“Give me a shovel, bitch,” I ordered.

Darby’s lips twitched, and I could hear Banks’ laughter follow him into the house.

We worked in companionable silence for a while.

At least until I remembered the girl that I’d sat next to at the rodeo this weekend.

“So, do you know a bullfighter’s daughter that hates you?” I asked curiously.

Darby didn’t even pause in his work.

“I know a lot of girls that hate me,” he said. “But only one comes to mind.” He looked up at me then. “Waylynn.”

I nodded. “That’s the one.”

“Why do you ask?” He bent forward and a bead of sweat dropped down from his chin and planted itself onto my shovel.

“She sat next to me,” I shrugged and kept working, tossing piles of shit and hay and feed and everything that collected on the bottom of a horse’s stall into the bucket between us. “And she didn’t like you. I just wondered why.”

“I turned her down for sex,” he answered. “She thought that since I was free with my loving that I would do her, and I didn’t want to do her.”

That surprised me.

“Why?” I asked, coming to a stop. “She’s gorgeous.”

He snorted. “She is. But she’s also not my type.”

“What do you mean not your type?” I asked curiously.

“She’s got ‘relationship’ stamped all over her. I’m sure the moment I sank my cock inside of her, she’d be asking for marriage and babies and all that fun stuff, and I’m just not at the point in my life where I’m willing to give that. I’m graduating next month with my masters, and I’m going to finish if it kills me,” he muttered darkly.

I found myself smiling as I shoveled shit with him.

“I’m sure,” I said softly, “that if she actually cared, she wouldn’t want you to put your career or your education on hold for her.” I paused. “But, saying that, it didn’t sound like she’d even give you the time of day so…all of it is moot, isn’t it?”

His shovel scraped loudly on the floor, and I looked at him, pausing mid poop dump to stare at his incredulous face.

“You don’t think she’d give me the time of day?” he asked.