about—working to get this ranch ready to sell.
But as he wrestled with the gutters, his mind kept wandering back to the woman inside the house. He seemed to always end up on dates with taller, leggy blondes. He’d assumed that was just his type. Even in high school, he’d dated Sophie Bellermine, who’d been a blonde and the center on the basketball team.
So why were his thoughts and hormones latching on to a petite brunette whose curls seemed to be hosting a party on her head?
What was she doing in the house anyway? Yesterday, she’d been like a whirlwind, speeding back and forth to her truck. Today she seemed to disappear inside for longer stretches of time. He just hoped she didn’t fall victim to an avalanche of his grandparents’ myriad possessions.
No, not his grandparents’ stuff, not anymore. Now it all belonged to him—at least until Ella could get it off the property.
As if thinking about her conjured her, Ella strode out to the truck carrying a box of...something. He didn’t even care what it was. Just wanted it gone.
He paused in the midst of attaching another portion of the gutter that had pulled away from the roof to watch her. Her legs might not be as long as a supermodel’s, but they certainly packed a lot of punch. Fit, smooth, tempting. His body stood at attention, making his jeans grow uncomfortable. But he couldn’t stop watching.
He would have been better off if a burly, hairy guy had shown up to do the job, but if someone had to be here for several days, she was a damn sight nicer to look at.
When she turned to walk back to the house, she headed in his direction instead. She shaded her eyes as she looked up at him.
“Glad to see you haven’t bled out.”
No, his blood was too busy rushing to other parts of his body to mess with a measly head wound.
“Despite evidence to the contrary, I’m not normally accident-prone.”
“Good to know, because I start charging for the second injury.”
He laughed, surprising himself. It seemed to release some well of tension within him he hadn’t truly been aware of. His arm and leg muscles relaxed, including the death grip he’d had on the rung of the ladder. He took a deep breath, maybe the first true one he’d taken since getting the call about his grandfather.
“You okay?” Ella asked.
“Yeah.” He nodded once toward the house. “How’s it going?”
“Good. I’m logging as I go so I can at least pretend I have a tracking system for supplies.”
She was taking the time to log piles and piles and piles of stuff that he would have sworn had outlived its usefulness? “Won’t that slow you down?”
He thought he saw a hint of a wince cross her face, but she was too far away to tell for sure.
“Some. I guessed that you still had quite a bit of work to do before you were ready to list the place.”
“I do. But I can’t do anything inside until it’s cleared out.”
Ella slipped her hands into the back pockets of her shorts, probably unaware of the way that movement accentuated her figure and threatened to make him topple off the ladder.
“How much more do you have to do outside?”
Plenty to keep him busy for several more days, but how could he convey that he just needed all the crap gone, out of his sight, out of his life without sounding like he had an irrational hatred for inanimate objects?
“A bit.” Way to be specific, dude.
“Got it, pick up the pace.”
Before he could respond, she spun and disappeared around the corner of the house. Frustrated by his mental hang-up about his grandparents’ stash, he looked up at the cloudless sky and let out a long sigh. He needed to chill, let Ella do her thing. After all, her hauling everything away wasn’t costing him a penny. He needed to appreciate that positive fact instead of letting his past make him want to throw however much it cost at someone to haul everything out of here today.
Calm the hell down.
Despite his “a bit” answer to her question, he had more than enough to keep him busy that didn’t require him stepping foot in the house.
It seemed being away from Blue Falls for several years had made him forget how to cope with things out of his control—concentrating only on the thing directly in front of him and pretending everything else didn’t exist. Movement out of the corner of his eye revealed itself to be Ella striding to the truck, her arms full of several small, teetering boxes.
How the heck was he supposed to pretend Ella Garcia didn’t exist?
* * *
ELLA STALKED BACK into the house, frustration and fatigue gnawing at her. She wasn’t really mad at Austin. After all, he’d been up-front with her about wanting the place cleared out as quickly as possible, and she’d agreed. But she dreaded trying to log everything after she’d shoved it...somewhere. She couldn’t think now about the fact that she didn’t have enough space for everything here, not even close. She’d have to figure that out later, when she had to move everything yet again to log it, then put it back wherever she’d crammed it. She didn’t have time for doubling or tripling her efforts, but it wasn’t as if she was willing to walk away from the current windfall either. Even if the faster she got away from Austin Bryant, the better.
When she’d been tending the cut on his forehead earlier, her fingers could have easily continued exploring if she hadn’t forcefully reined them in. The man was too good-looking for her comfort. She kept having to dissuade herself from making up reasons to go out and talk to him just to hear the sexy rumble of his voice, to see how nicely his jeans fit his backside, to watch the play of the muscles in his arms as he worked.
It sure had been a while since infatuation had hit her this hard and this fast, not since she’d fallen instantly head over heels for Jacob O’Riley when she was a freshman in high school, only to have him and his family move to Ohio. She remembered crying herself to sleep the night she’d found out that he’d moved, convinced it was the end of the world.
Well, she wasn’t going to be crying over Austin Bryant, and it wasn’t going to be the end of the world when he went back to Dallas. Sure, she’d miss the whole sexy-package thing he had going on, but soon enough she’d be buried in her work and too darn busy to wonder about what Austin was doing more than two hundred miles away.
No, she’d enjoy the male scenery while they were here crossing paths, and that would be that.
Several times throughout the day, she came across items that she wanted to ask Austin if he’d like to keep. But he’d made it clear he wasn’t interested, which saddened her. How many times had she wished she had more keepsakes, more tangible items with memories attached? But not everyone was like that. Still, something in her gut told her he wasn’t as unattached as he claimed.
By the time she’d unearthed an old treadle sewing machine, her truck was filling up again. She stood back, eyeing the half of the bedroom where she’d been working for the past couple of hours. She’d made a good-size dent in the contents of the
