Page 49 of Take Me Home

As I walked Selena into the barn, a pair of legs stuck out from under the tractor.

“Hello?” I asked, lizard brain perceiving whatever was going on as a threat. It was firmly not a threat.

Jake pulled himself out from under the tractor, his shirt peeking up to show a trail of hair and tantalizing V muscles leading into his jeans. His hands were covered in grease, a smudge of which streaked his forehead. A ribbon of sweat ran down the front of his dark grey t-shirt. He looked all masculine and brawny, and it was jaw-droppingly hot. He wiped his fingers on a greasy rag next to him as he sat up.

“Hey,” he said with a little smirk. “Haven’t seen you all day.”

“Yeah, I’ve been working on some stuff,” I said casually. “Looks like you’ve been busy, too.”

“I did try to come up and help y’all clean this morning, but you got there ahead of me. I kinda slept in today.” He scratched the back of his head, looking uncomfortable.

“It’s a holiday, Jake. You’re allowed,” I told him. “And you’ve started saying y’all.”

The tips of his ears turned pink as he shot me a sheepish look. “I guess y’all are rubbing off on me.”

“I like it,” I said, for once being the one to make him blush. “You’ll be one of us yet. Virginia won’t take you back.”

“I can live with that. I think I’m fixin’ to stay,” he said, wrinkling his nose as he watched my reaction to his little joke. I gave him the laugh he wanted because he was being pretty damn cute. “Anyway, people in Virginia say y’all. I just never did growing up.”

I lost myself in his eyes for a moment before shaking out of it. “So what’s going on with the tractor?”

“It’s been making a weird noise. I think I know how to fix it. Might have to go to Tractor Supply tomorrow to get the part, though.”

“What part does it need?”

Jake looked amused as he squinted up at me. “You never drive it, remember?”

“You’re right. I don’t,” I huffed. “But I might know where Uncle Bill keeps spare parts.”

“It needs a new belt,” he said, resting his arms around his legs, feet flexed. His arm muscles were also notably flexed. He looked unbelievably good, all sweaty and dirty-handed and muscly. It was a challenge to not openly gawk. He wiped his face with the bottom of his shirt, giving me another view of those defined abs and a tiny flash of the tattoo I’d seen in my room a few days before. Was he trying to kill me? Was he actually temperature hot or was he purposefully thirst-trapping me? He had to know that he had an effect on me. A big one.

“I’ve got grease on my face, don’t I?” he asked, examining the bottom of his shirt for stains.

“Maybe a little,” I said quietly, my gaze lingering on those caramel-colored eyes. The corner of his mouth tugged upward ever so slightly as we took each other in. After the Fourth party, I’d been so sure he was about to kiss me when we said goodnight. He probably picked up on the fact that I didn’t want him to kiss me with my entire family watching. Still, I’d have gone with just about anything after the way he was touching me and talking to me in that gruff bedroomy tone. Wiping away my tears with the sweetest look on his face, growling in my ear as he teased me about our Wiffle ball scuffle, and giving me goosebumps with his soft touch? I was putty in his hands. He could’ve told me to sample the Kool-Aid at Jonestown and I’d have given it a go.

But it was all just a dream, really. I always got swept away when I was around him. I just couldn’t resist him. But afterward, reality would set in. I didn’t want to cross a line with him. I didn’t want to be the boss that slept with her employees. I didn’t want to be like the man who took advantage of his power over me. I couldn’t lose him, or Caleb, or Becca, and have to scramble to find somebody else with a month and a half left in the summer.

“I’ll look, but I don’t think we have a belt. You really don’t have to work on your day off, you know,” I said.

He shrugged. “I kind of enjoy it.”

“Wait a second, are youtinkering? Like an old man?” I laughed. Jake feigned indignance.

“So what if I am?”

“I’ll let it slide.” I left him to put Selena away in the stall, who’d been patiently waiting through my little flirty stop. I rewarded her with a nice Fourth of July bath, which she seemed to enjoy thoroughly.

I stepped into the tack room to check for a tractor belt. Jake was cleaning grease off his hands at the sink. Checking the shelves, Uncle Bill’s organization of spare parts left something to be desired. I crouched low and went on tiptoe looking for the part we needed, but came up dry.

Jake’s voice was low in my ear. “You find one?” I jumped, startled that he was right behind me. His hands found my waist to steady me.

“Sorry, babe,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” I stopped breathing in that instant.Babe?I was his babe?

I closed my eyes as I felt his breath on the side of my neck, looking over the shelf in front of me. I froze, tensing under his hands. Jake’s thumb moved along my back. It was the only move he made, and I noticed every tiny detail. Need pooled low in my belly. His scent, his touch, and his sheer nearness were enough to drive me crazy.

“Do you want me to stop touching you, Darcy?” he asked, his voice light and dark at the same time. Light like it was innocent. Dark like he knew it wasn’t.

I breathed out, feeling like we were two magnets, both held apart by similar forces and held together by opposing forces.

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