Too Hot to Handle (Jackson Hole 2)

All her false bravado disappeared and she was hopping up and down like a kid again. “You will? Really?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Shane!” She threw herself at his chest, and Shane automatically put his arms around her. He also automatically registered how nice and feminine she smelled, a stark change from the men he’d worked with on his two weeks of ranch work. Then he very carefully set her back.

“I’m going to take a look at that spare wood. Do you want to walk over with me?”

“No! The spider anthill, remember?”

“Right.” God, she was a piece of work. But she had information he needed, so Shane touched his hat brim and nodded. “I’ll deal with the spiders on my own. And then I’ll take a look at your saloon.”

“Thank you!” she squealed, and he tried not to feel guilty as he walked away. Merry had stepped into something that she couldn’t understand, and that wasn’t Shane’s fault. He set his jaw and walked on.

CHAPTER THREE

“WHERE WERE you last night?”

Merry sat up from a dead sleep, throwing her arms out to defend against the snarling monster crouched above her. The monster jumped back, quick as a hellbeast, its flame-tipped mane framing a…pale and pretty face?

“Oh! Grace. You scared me.” Merry flopped back down onto the mattress, wincing when a spring poked her back. “What are you growling about?”

“Where were you last night? I called eight times! I tried to make Cole get up and drive me home.”

“Yeah? What did he say?”

“He…distracted me.”

Merry snorted and pulled the covers over her head, but Grace yanked them back.

“Merry! What did you do? Did you sleep with Shane? I mean…it’s okay. You can tell me. I won’t be mad.”

The not-quite-suppressed violence beneath Grace’s words sounded like static in her voice. Merry grinned at her. “You promise you won’t be mad?”

“Yes,” she said past clenched teeth and a painfully pleasant smile.

“Oh, my God.” Merry laughed. “You’re the worst liar ever. No, I did not use my super-sexy wiles to lure Shane onto my fold-out sofa bed for a night of uncomfortable passion.”

“I wasn’t worried about you doing the luring!”

“Okay. No, Shane did not butter me up with Star Wars trivia and then ‘accidentally’ fall on me with his penis out.”

“Merry, be serious! Where were you?”

Finally accepting that she wasn’t going to get any more sleep, Merry crawled out of bed and headed to the kitchen to start coffee. “I went out to Providence. My phone must have been searching for a signal for an hour or two and it ran out of power. Sometimes I get four bars out there, and sometimes I get zero. I’m not sure how that works. Is it the wind? The clouds? What—”

“Okay, what about later?”

“Grace, what is your deal? First of all, why do you hate Shane so much? Second…I haven’t had sex in two years. Two years. If I miraculously talked a man into wanting to have sex, wouldn’t you be thrilled for me? I have needs, you know.”

Actually she didn’t. Not anymore. Those needs had finally dried up and died six months ago, at the exact moment that her cheap, knock-off vibrator had buzzed into a slow death. She’d replaced it with an even cheaper knock-off model but hadn’t even bought batteries for that one. She’d just put it away, still in its tacky packaging, and never thought about it again.

Grace seemed to have deflated to her normal petite size. She always seemed four inches taller when she was pissed, but apparently she’d gotten past it, because she sighed and opened a cupboard door to take out coffee mugs. “Why haven’t you been having sex?”

“You know why.”

“I don’t want to hear it, Merry. You’ve got an amazing body, you’re funny as hell and you’re cute.”