Page 49 of Whispers

“You were watching me,” he’d accused her in the stables later in the week when she, not knowing that he was helping his father shore up the empty hayloft, had walked inside looking for Claire. The elder Riley was nowhere in sight, but Hunter stood at the top rung of the metal ladder of the loft, ripping off a f

loorboard that must’ve rotted through.

Sweat trickled down his neck and dampened the strands of hair at his nape.

“Me?” She stared up at him, past long legs tanned by hours of hard work in the sun and dusted by golden hair. Above his knees a tattered pair of cutoffs hung low on his hips and seemed barely supported by a disreputable tool belt. The rest of his body was naked, smooth sun-bronzed skin, sinewy muscles, chest hair that was a rich red-blond. Determined not to prove the jackass right, Miranda looked past all his purely male features to the back of his head. He tossed the rotted board onto the floor at the base of the ladder. Crash! Dust motes swirled upward, a horsefly buzzed wildly, and Miranda coughed as Hunter slid a new piece of planed lumber into place.

“No reason to deny it,” he went on. “The other day while I was clearing brush. You were watching.”

“No, I—”

“I thought you were the smart one. The one that never lied.” His voice was a low, sexy drawl that teased her even as his words condemned. “Don’t tell me all those rumors are wrong.”

“Excuse me?” she said, bristling. Who was he to talk to her as if she were a sneaky, untrustworthy child trying to pull a fast one on him?

He slid some nails from a pouch in his belt and shoved them into a corner of his mouth. Around the stainless steel toothpicks, he said, “Everyone in town seems to think that you’re the smart one of the three Holland sisters. Ambitious and driven. You know, the oldest, most responsible kid, and all that shit.” He slid a look down the ladder and grinned around the damned nails. “Come on, Randa, don’t try to convince me that you don’t know your own reputation.”

“I don’t listen to gossip.”

“Right.” He slipped a hammer from its loop.

Folding her arms under her breasts, she gave up all pretenses and leveled her gaze up at him. “You presume to know me.”

“Just your type.” He placed a nail on the board and slammed it three times with the hammer. Bam! Bam! Bam!

“I’m not a type.”

“No? Admit it, you get off watching peons labor for your dad while you sit around and let your nail polish dry.” He cast a look over one muscular shoulder, and his gaze was as hot as it was condemning.

“You know what? You’re just another arrogant, self-serving jerk. There’s plenty of those in this town.”

“You were watching me.”

“My mistake.”

“Sure.”

He turned back to the task at hand and banged another nail into place. Fluid muscles rippled with the effort. “And, just for the record, I’m not a jerk.”

“Just like I’m not a self-centered rich bitch.”

A low chuckle filled the barn. “No?”

“No.” Miranda headed for the door, and he dropped lithely to the floor to land in front of her.

Startled, she couldn’t help but take a step back. He smelled of sweat and musk and he was so close—so half-dressed, so blatantly sensual, she lost her breath for a second. His jaw was hard, softened only by a day’s growth of golden whiskers and his eyes, darker in the shaded barn, were the color of gunmetal. He was staring at her so intently she wanted to back away, but there was a post from the hayloft already brushing her back, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of backing down, not even when she glanced at his mouth and her stomach curled in on itself as she saw the edge of white teeth against the hard seam of thin, dangerous lips. She licked her own and he stepped closer still, only the barest of space between the tips of her breasts and his naked chest.

“I heard you wanted to be an attorney.”

“That’s . . . that’s right.”

Flat nipples were partially hidden in the swirls of chest hair. Rigid abdominal muscles flexed as he breathed.

Her knees were suddenly less than dependable.

“Big ambitions?”

“No . . . yes, I guess so.”