Page 66 of Whiskey Chase
I kicked my work boots into the ground. “I’m so glad you’re amused. Now get your ass in here!”
“Yes, ma’am. Here I come.” He was laughing, but I didn’t care.
“Jesus, Scarlett. How am I going to fit?” he said from behind me.
“That’s what she said,” I said miserably.
“Har har. But seriously.”
“Just crawl in closer to the house—that’s the high point—and then see if you can reach over and unhook whatever has me hooked.”
Mr. Fluffers let out a feral snarl.
“Is that a fucking raccoon?” Devlin demanded.
“Yes. I have a rabid raccoon by the dang collar, Devlin,” I said dryly.
“It sounds like something you’d do.”
I heard him crawling in and turned my head. He made it as far as my feet. “I’m about wedged in,” he said.
“You’re not claustrophobic are you?” I asked, belatedly.
“I don’t seem to be.” I felt his hand on my ass.
“Now is not the time for foreplay.”
“I’m not feeling you up. Your chisel is wedged in a floor board and stuck in your belt.”
“I’m going to die here aren’t I?” I wailed. “My skeleton will turn to dust under this porch, and I’ll haunt trick or treaters every year unless they give me some of their candy.”
I felt a sharp tug and then another one, and my belt jiggled loose.
“Got it,” Devlin announced cheerfully.
I yipped. “You’re the most amazing man in the world, Devlin McCallister.”
He slapped me on the ass. Mr. Fluffers hissed.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m amazing. Now how do we get out of here?”
“You’re going to have to back out. And then I think you’re going to have to pull me out.”
He managed it somehow, first crawling out backwards and then dragging me by my ankles. I pushed with one hand and kept a death grip of Fluffers’s collar with the other.
Inch by inch, we scooted and dragged ourselves out of my almost-grave until I was face-down in the grass.
I leapt up, hauling the cat by the scruff of his neck. “In your face, Fluffers!”
Devlin bent at the waist and laughed loud and long. As much as I enjoyed hearing him laugh, I wasn’t too thrilled that it was at my expense. I dumped the dirtball cat in the house. I’d pay the Carwell’s for a cat bath if I had to. But that son of bitch wasn’t getting outside again on my watch.
“Just what’s so funny, McCallister?” I demanded, hands on hips and working myself into a heated glare.
He was in gym shorts and a t-shirt that were now smeared with dirt. There wasn’t a laundry detergent on earth that could handle that mess. His beard was caked with it too. He looked like a dirty, sexy redneck, and I freakin’ loved it.
I could only imagine my own mud monster state.
“Baby, you’re something,” he said, finally catching his breath.
