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shut loudly in his wake.
    Dani scowled.
    Carlee and Cooper led a sleek, chestnut gelding with a white seven blazing on his forehead from the trailer.
    “What a good boy!” Carlee declared as she ran her hand down his neck. “That’s my Sweet Pea.”
    Dani’s gaze swiveled to the trailer where, in white letters with an abstract horse logo, it actually said, “Sweet Pea.”
    Dear God, that poor horse .
    Carlee led the horse toward the field, talking to Cooper the whole way.
    Dani dumped the rest of her iced coffee in the garden and went back inside.
     
    ****
     
     
    Dani was tasked with taking a truck into Stirling Falls, grocery list in hand, to pick up things for the festivities the next day. Snacks. Drinks. Paper plates and plastic cups. Goodies from the dollar store for the kids coming. She went through the stores, pushing a heavy cart and trying not to mutter under her breath.
    The truck bed was brimming with plastic bags and boxes of things, strapped down for the duration of the trip, and she parked it with care right in front of the house. Thankfully, she was able to do so because Carlee’s vehicle and trailer was nowhere to be seen. Keys still swinging in the ignition, she reached for her door and glanced out the window.
    And stopped.
    Cooper and Dewey stood several yards away, repairing the outdoor training ring under Gus’s direction. Fresh wood, cut to the same length and stripped of bark so it stood out starkly yellow rather than weathered gray, was stacked to the side while the men worked. Dewey wore a T-shirt still but Cooper had discarded his, working bare-chested.
    Oh. My.
    He was built. This she knew just by looking at him, just by being near him and letting her gaze trail over his chest the last few days, but...
    Day-am !
    Sweat glistened on his tanned torso, on the smattering of dark hair over his chest. His jeans sat low on his hips, denim hugging him like it had sentience and appreciated exactly where it was.
    He lifted one of the posts and thrust it into the ground, gesturing at Dewey for something—
    Carlee’s head popped into view. “Need help?”
    Dani blinked. Damn you. “Sure.”
    The other woman got out of the way long enough for Dani to climb out of the truck, and the two of them gathered grocery bags from the back. The air was tense between them, neither saying anything—not even Carlee, who was the instigator after all.
    Arms loaded with groceries, bag handles cutting into her hands, Dani followed Carlee up the porch steps, but glanced once over her shoulder at the men working.
    Cooper’s gaze met hers, as if he’d been watching her retreat.
    Of course, maybe that was Carlee’s retreat. Dani shook her head and went inside.
     

Chapter Six
    Oh, Adam had been watching her.
    In fact, he was having trouble taking his eyes off of her the past few days.
    He told himself he was just watching to see if she was doing anything new that was stupid, but after the first two days, she’d managed to follow instructions without screwing up too badly. So that wasn’t it.
    No, he enjoyed too much watching her strut around the farm in jeans that clutched her tight enough to show off every curve and the bit of cleavage peeking out from her tank top. He liked her eyes getting angry and pretty mouth pulling into a frown. Energy came off her in waves when they got arguing and he wanted to grab her, claim her, kiss her until they were both lost.
    But something niggled him, still. Something Gus wasn’t telling him. Why she was really here—what was going on. And, too, there was the small matter of her quite blatantly saying she hated him more than a few times while he was in earshot.
    No, nothing could—or should —ever come of this attraction, so he shoved it from his mind and focused on the task at hand. They nearly had the repairs done to the training ring—that had to be done first. Two more racers—a pair of twin sisters who’d been at it for years—were expected within the hour, and they