Bo tied down the plane after their return trip from treating the horse and wondered how one woman could pack so much musicality into so few words. Apparently his teasing had set her at ease after all. He hadn't realized how really pretty those North Dakota loops in her tones sounded until she'd rolled them out nonstop in the small confines of the Cessna, questioning him about favorite color, foods, movies.
Red.
Chili dogs.
Twelve O'clock High. But yeah, he liked Top Gun, too, which seemed important to her for some reason.
This light-and-easy flirting thing was beginning to backfire on him, because he was starting to like her, which made him want her more. Too much.
He needed to finish up for the day, get back to his room and regroup before he did some dumb-ass thing like flatten her to the plane for a thorough kiss. No woman should smell this good after working with a horse, for God's sake. Still, he kept catching a whiff of her scent—aloe today instead of tropical sunscreen.
Bo bent and snagged the tie-down rope attached to the ground and reached up to loop it through the metal eyelet on top of the left wing strut. "McDonald's, huh? Lucky kid."
"He didn't expect us back so soon." She tapped her new glasses back in place, thin gold frames glinting the same color as her hair in the late-day sun. "So he took her out for a Happy Meal as a reward for finishing up her math homework."
"She'll enjoy that." He fashioned a slipknot and tightened. Wind stirred a fine mist of dirt at foot level.
"There was a message on my voice mail. One from my brother, too." She fidgeted with the strap to her vet bag, strands of blond hair sneaking free from her pony tail after the long day.
Why didn't she just go into the house and prop up her feet? She'd certainly put in a long enough day. Another thing to like about Paige, along with her steely spine, was her obvious gift in treating animals.
She'd checked out the horse and wrapped his cracked ribs in short order, declaring the animal fit with no punctured organs.
He strode to the right wing and connected another tie-down. "Is your brother back?"
"Not yet." She scraped her hair from her face only to have the wind streak it forward again. "He's still working with the bull out at Tom Walking Eagle's."
Bo's eyes shot straight over to the two-story house—a sprawling place with empty rooms and beds begging to be occupied. No problem. He would just leave. Their flight agreement only covered day calls. Another vet was picking up nighttime emergencies and one of the weekends. Even if Vic didn't mind him being around Paige, apparently he didn't plan to risk any overnighters.
Smart man.
He had no business starting anything with her. He'd told her that friends could flirt without it going anywhere, and he'd meant it. Yeah, she turned him on, but there were plenty of women he'd been attracted to and never pursued.
Except, he couldn't remember being this tempted.
So go for it, his libido urged. His conscience, however, told him to leave this wounded woman the hell alone. Let her rebuild her life with some steady guy like Anderson rather than settle for sex with a scarred rebel who wasn't even sure what he wanted to do with his life anymore.
Bo cinched the rope from the ground to the plane's tail. The action down south in his jeans must be seriously draining the blood supply from his brain. He definitely needed distance ASAP. "You can go on up to the house now if you want. I'm almost finished here."
"Thank you." She didn't move from her perch by the plane.
"I still have to set the chocks and then I'll stop in to say goodbye." Quickly, no hanging around in that house alone. "But then I'd better hit the road."
Unless somebody asked him to stay for supper in the big empty house with all those beds.
They could use each other's bodies for plates.
"You really are an amazing pilot."
"Huh?" He was thinking about how to resist ha**ng s*x with her—sex that she wouldn't offer anyway—and she wanted to talk about the Cessna? Usually he enjoyed the hell out of discussing planes. But right now he wanted to plan a seven-course meal savored off the creamy skin of Paige's stomach, which he'd seen when she cleaned her new glasses with the edge of her T-shirt.
He'd thought the funky retro glasses were fun, but he liked these, too, the way they gave her more of a preppy, prissy air in spite of the jeans and mud-stained T-shirt. Her glasses issued an undeniable invitation of, "Take me off and kiss this lady until the starch melts from her spine."
For some reason the notion of stripping her of those glasses tempted him as much as the thought of bunching and inching up her washed-thin T-shirt.
He turned away before he got harder and popped the snap on his jeans. He probably already had a zipper imprint.
"You're an amazing pilot," she repeated. "I'm making small talk here, getting to know you, like with the favorite foods and movie discussion."