her staring. “Next time, this is going to happen in a bed.”
Her cheeks pinked. “There won’t be a next time.”
He smiled at her. “The thing is, as good as it is between us in all these hot locations you pick out, Julie, I could make you feel so much better in a private place where I can spend hours giving you pleasure you’d never forget.”
She gasped. “Go!”
He nodded, drinking in her straight posture with appreciation. She was a darling little thing, so prim and bad by turns. My God, he loved a woman with sass, one who said no but begged so prettily, too. He didn’t tell her that her hair was slightly mussed—actually, she looked like a Barbie doll that had gotten caught in a windstorm—and he didn’t tell her that her lipstick was shot. Nor did he tell her that somehow she’d forgotten to put her bra back on. It was still draped over a law book in the corner of her office.
“Thank you, Julie,” he said softly, meaning every word, and then he left her chambers and returned to sit beside Sam.
“Where the hell have you been?” his brother demanded. “I brought you a hot dog.”
“Thanks. I’m starved.”
“So, did she read you the riot act?”
“Pretty much.” Rafe bit into the cold hot dog, moaning with satisfaction.
“Did you apologize for pissing her off?”
“I did. I apologized the only way I know how. Is this soda for me?”
Sam nodded. “And did she accept your apology?”
“She did. She accepted everything.” Rafe chewed his hot dog happily, feeling like a new man, thanks to his encounter with Julie. “She’s a very generous woman.”
“I’ll say she’s generous if she accepted your dopey apology.” Sam sighed. “I hope you didn’t do anything to change her mind about recusing herself.”
Rafe froze. “Uh…”
Julie swept into the courtroom. Everyone rose as the bailiff instructed, then seated themselves again. Rafe swept his food out of sight.
“She doesn’t look happy,” Sam said.
No, but she does look satisfied. His little judge was going to flip when she realized she’d forgotten to put on lipstick. Her hair was pretty much blown out of its ’do. She looked gorgeous to him, but flustered, and Rafe grinned, thinking that next time he wasn’t kissing Julie Jenkins until she begged him to.
He snapped himself out of his sexual reverie, realizing that her gaze was on him, and she did, in fact, look annoyed again. It was the smile, he remembered, and he put on his most serious expression.
She didn’t seem impressed.
But she had been a few moments ago, and that had to speak well for the future. He hoped so, anyway. Next time, I’m going to figure out how those little garter things work, and spend about an hour kissing the judge where I know she likes being kissed the most.
“THOUGH THERE IS NO fundamental reason for me to recuse myself,” Julie said, “I will do as the defendants have requested. Let the record reflect that I do so with a good deal of misgiving for the request that was made of this court.” She pinned Rafe and Sam with a mutinous glare. “Court adjourned.”
“She’s really ticked,” Sam observed. “This will not be good for our neighborly relations.”
Rafe watched Julie sweep from the courtroom on a cloud of displeasure and irritation—with maybe a little embarrassment thrown in. He watched her go, fascinated by the woman he loved wrapped in a real good snit. What Julie didn’t know was that he loved her all the more for her spiciness and warmth, and now that she was good and mad at him, he was dedicated to getting her out of that black robe again. He had a one-track mind when he wanted something, and he wanted Judge Julie Jenkins badly.
They said the best sex was makeup sex—and if that was true, then he was all for making up as soon as humanly possible.
“THAT WAS UGLY,” SAM SAID as he and Rafe walked out into the sunlight. People left the courthouse and were milling around, chatting over what had happened in Julie’s court.
“Not ugly,” Rafe said, thinking about how beautiful she was. “The Callahans are free to fight another day.”
His brother shoved his briefcase into the front seat of his truck. “I’d like to know what Judge Julie was thinking that made her do a turnaround like that. She is not an easy judge to sway. Frankly, I was expecting a lot more fight. And what the hell was all that ‘act surprised about pork bellies’ crap? We don’t do pork at Rancho Diablo.”
Rafe shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now.” He got in the passenger seat and pondered how he might ever put his plan of The Seduction of Julie into place. As Sam had said, she was not an easy woman to sway—and she seemed to hold him in as much esteem as a rattlesnake.
If he didn’t know better, he would think she hadn’t enjoyed his lovemaking.
But he did know better. Judge Julie didn’t have a faking bone in her body, and the woman put on no grand act. He’d be forever thankful for his steer getting tangled in her fence in the first place. Okay, maybe making love in a field on a blanket he’d grabbed from his truck wasn’t a woman’s idea of My First Time, but by golly, he’d waited for years to hold Julie Jenkins, and he’d made the most of it. He’d had her sighing and moaning like crazy, a yearning cat under his fingertips. Today, he’d tried to make her second time something she’d remember with a heaping helping of must-have-more. “I’d just put it up to the fact that she’d heard of your reputation, bro, and went down before the fight.”
Sam shook his head. “There’s something funny about Judge Julie calling uncle that easily. Bode’s hired one of the best teams of lawyers around.”
Rafe clapped his brother on the back. “No one’s as good as a Callahan.”
And it’s true, Rafe thought. I’ve had it from Judge Julie’s own lips. Maybe not in those exact words. Maybe not in any words at all. But I know Julie Jenkins digs her some Callahan cowboy.
FOR A WEEK, ALL WAS SILENT. Rafe saw his brothers at mealtimes and at work, and everybody seemed preoccupied. He wrote it off to the heat. Jonas was moody, but what the heck. When one was a retired surgeon turned rancher, perhaps one got moody. Jonas had always been a brooding cuss, anyway, and as far as Rafe could tell, his oldest brother had been eyeing Sabrina McKinley for the past couple of years, and nothing had changed. If there was one thing guaranteed to put a man off-kilter, it was the unrequited desire for the love of a good woman. It could kill a guy. “Or at least the lust for a good woman,” Rafe amended out loud, earning a glance from Sam, who was studying a mass of papers almost as thick as the Bible. Rafe went back to considering the sales figures for Rancho Diablo, but his mind wasn’t on it. Sam works too hard. He’s been trying to save this ranch for nearly three years now, and I don’t think he’s even looked at a woman in all that time. Callahans should have it easier getting sex than we do.
“The problem,” Rafe said out loud, “is that we all work too hard. And we’re picky.”
