Page 71 of Rocky Mountain Devil

“Thatthingin the living room, eh?” Jesse teased.

“Shut up.” Rafe was usually more on the ball than that, but considering he’d been in the middle of the most brainless moment a man could experience…

“Glad you’re back, though,” Jesse said. “It’ll be good to have company in the evenings.”

“I’m not done tonight,” Rafe warned.

His cousin snorted. “I figured.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Rafe ordered, but this time he couldn’t stop from laughing as well. “I meant I’m headed back out to finish a few more hours haying.”

Jesse plopped onto the couch and reached for the remote. “Well, if you have more fields to do, I’ll find something else to entertain me.Housemarathon, maybe.”

The bastard was going to make him outright ask. Which was pretty much what Rafe would have done if their positions had been reversed. “You’re such an asshole. Do the decent thing and get out of the house for a while.”

“I hope you don’t plan on making me leave every time Laurel is ready to go home, because I won’t do it.” Jesse got to his feet, though. “She’s your girlfriend. It’s not a walk of shame unless you want it to be.”

“We won’t. I won’t—only give her a little space this time.”

“Sure. I can be a gentleman. By the way, you’re flying low.”

Rafe glanced down involuntarily, hands going to his zipper, which was in the proper position. “You’re such a jerk.”

An evil chuckle escaped Jesse. “Do we really want to discussjerkingor—”

“No,” Rafe snapped.

Jesse seemed to find this pretty entertaining. “Don’t leave me openings like that, cuz.”

Rafe offered him the finger. “Anytime you want to leave…”

“No prob.” Jesse sauntered to the front door, whistling happily. He paused with his hand on the doorknob, the door halfway open. “Oh, hey, just in case. You might want to think about this for the future…”

Rafe waited.

His cousin pulled the door toward himself. “Open,” he said with a grin that grew wider by the second. Then he pushed the wooden barrier the other direction. “Closed. Open—”

“Get out,now,” Rafe said without heat.

Jesse left, obviously entertained, and Rafe returned to the bedroom to let Laurel know it was safe to come out. He hoped she wasn’t too traumatized.

Still, he had to chuckle as well.

Welcome home, indeed.

Chapter Sixteen

Rafe caught himself thinking often about what Laurel had shared with him during the picnic. It wasn’t the bits about Jeff, or even the admission she’d had sex with the guy that bothered him the most, although he wished he could have offered the man a firm kick in the pants to send him on his way back east.

No, it was the fact Rafe was completely unfit to help Laurel deal with her worries about faith that sent his brain through endless loops.

The dilemma teased at him in the quiet moments between tasks. During the mindless repetition of driving the swather, and the baler, and moving the harvest into storage. He didn’t want there to beanythinghe couldn’t help her with.

The topic got shoved to the top of his attention when a message from Pastor Dave showed up on his phone, asking for a tour. Rafe called back to confirm a time. A couple hours later, he left the fields and headed toward Gabe’s to get some work done there before he met the man.

The school bus was pulling away from the entrance to the ranch, Lance and Nathan Coleman beginning the long walk toward the barns.

Rafe stopped his truck beside his Six Pack nephews.