Page 66 of This Time Around
He turned, his legs carrying him double-time toward the tractor.“Over my dead body,” he called out, not turning back.
“That can be arranged,” she shouted back.
Jordan’s response was his hand lifted high in the air, middle finger extended.
Ryan grinned at me.“See?What’d I tell you?”
Ryan was almost as nutty as his wife, good people though.I met him last week when Rebecca and I had gone in to eat at Down Home, the restaurant where Christa works with her family who would be bringing us food soon.He and Kelly had been there.They slid into the booth next to Rebecca and I, uninvited, and he’d shaken my hand.Then he picked up his menu—my menu, rather— and acted like he’d known me forever.
Even the people of Carlton were growing on me.
“What was that about?”I asked, spinning to where Rebecca was still huffing and puffing next to me.
“Nothing.”She brushed back her hair and tugged on her ponytail, growling.“What an idiot he is, though, seriously.Isn’t he Ryan?”
“Hey.”He lifted his hands and backed up slowly.“Leave me outta this.”
“Whatever.I need to get back to work.”She kicked a patch of rocks and they sailed through the air.
“You okay?”I asked her.
“Well, I feel more in the mood to chop some wood even though I can barely swing an axe, but yeah.It’s just history crap.”
Without thinking about our audience, I bent down and brushed my lips over hers.“You can tell me all about it later, get it off your mind if you need to.”
Her eyes flickered to Ryan and back to me, a haze on her cheeks that had nothing to do with the heat.“Okay.”
