Page 4 of Wishing Hearts

“Sammy’s on sheep,” she says, scratching a note onto the papers atop her clipboard.

“Damn right I am,” I mutter, walking off as Tilda says something to Carl about pig duty, to which he groans. I don’t worry too much about it.

I have a Doctor Bailey to win over.

As I walk toward the red barn adjacent to the sheep pasture, I send up prayers to every deity I can think of that the doctor is queer.

Please, let me have this one. Just this one.

When I turn the corner, Doctor Bailey is at the mouth of the barn. The worn-down structure and the overgrown grasses nearby create a somewhat wild but beautiful backdrop behind him. The wind is blowing gently, rustling the weeds near his boot, and the sky is clear and blue. Doctor Bailey’s hands are clasped around the back of his neck as he stands there, and his shirt is pulled tight around his biceps. He’s looking out over the sheep, the lines of his face understandably drawn. His hair, dirty blonde, curls gently at his nape, and there’s the most perfect smudge of dirt on his cheek.

The man is a damn rugged dream.

He notices me almost immediately, dropping his arms and straightening up. His eyes swing over me quickly—too quickly for me to make an assessment—and his brows draw in under the wide brim of his hat.

“You’re not Carl,” he says, heading my way.

I give him a grin. “Nope, sure aren’t. I’m Sammy. Nice to meet you.”

Doctor Bailey accepts the hand I hold out his way, his palm warm in my grip and a little dry from working.

“Harrison,” he replies. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“You’re not from ’round here, Harrison,” I note, following the man into the barn. He sounds like a Midwesterner.

He chuckles a bit. “Not originally, no. But I’ve lived in Texas for the last sixteen years.”

“That so?” I ask. “What brought you here?”

He hums a little, poking through his bag and setting a few items onto the exam table we set up early this morning. “Vet school initially,” he answers, glancing my way. “And then I stayed.”

For what reason?

I want to ask, but I don’t. I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I ask too many personal questions. That I’m a little too intense. I call it caring, thanks, but regardless, I don’t want to scare the good doctor off before I can woo him out of his mighty fine jeans. That would be a damn shame, in fact.

So, I rub my hands together and get down to business. Or, at least I try. “How can I help, Harrison? My hands, my body, they’re all yours.”

He lifts a brow, gaze pinging down to said hands for a moment before he faces the exam table again. My heart patters away as I wait to hear how he’ll take that. Whether or not he’ll bite.

In the end, he simply says, “These sheep need to be sheared.”

I look at the three matted sheep in the pen and give Harrison a nod. “Then I’m your man.”

Harrison doesn’t say a word as he gets the shears set up, plugging them into the extension cord nearby. I grab a lead and get a hold of one of the ewes, bringing her out of the pen and over to where Harrison is standing. He gives me a nod, and I get a firm hold of the sheep before positioning her on her rump so that her belly is exposed. Apart from a flick of her ears, she doesn’t put up a single fuss as Harrison starts running the clippers up under her fleece, cutting it neatly away from her skin.

Up this close while Harrison is working, I’m able to get a better look at the man. He’s a little older than me, if I had to guess. But by how much, I’m not sure. I’d put him closer to forty than my thirty-two years of age. He has a few lines around his eyes—nice lines; the kind that come from laughter—and his skin is a light tan that speaks of time spent in the sun. His hair, even though mostly obscured by his hat, is a sandy blonde, and stubble frames his jaw and those damn firm lips of his, giving me all sorts of naughty, wonderful ideas. His eyes are blue and kind, albeit cautious. And he’s fit. In fact, he’s very near my own size and six-foot height. We were eye to eye when I first walked up.

I like guys who are bigger, like me. Especially if they like getting tossed around from time to time.

“So, Harrison,” I say, breaking our silence when I can’t stand it anymore. His eyes flick up to me. “Whereabouts do you live?”

“Near Houston,” he answers. “Twenty minutes out.”

“No shit?” I reply, smile stretching wide. “Tilda, Carl, and me are all from Houston. We work in Animal Control there.”

“Yeah?” he says.

“Mhm. Which means we’re practically neighbors. If you ever need a pool boy, you can call me up.”

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