hobbled across the room and reached up to the top shelf to retrieve a bottle of hooch. He accidentally bumped into Laura when she grabbed the box of tea bags to align them beside the spaghetti sauce. Her breasts brushed the side of his left arm and Wade snatched a quick breath—only to be assailed by that citrusy scent that had been driving him crazy from the far side of the room.
When he glanced down his gaze collided with those enormous powder-blue eyes, surrounded by a hedge of long, thick lashes. Then his attention dropped to the teasing hint of cleavage displayed by her V-necked blouse. Feeling like a kid who’d been caught with his hands in the cookie jar—or wherever—because he knew that she knew what had momentarily distracted his attention, his gaze bounced guiltily back to her face. Her full, tempting lips were only a scant few inches from his. Wade didn’t dare draw breath, for fear of breathing in her essence so deeply that he’d succumb to the reckless urge to kiss her and find out if she tasted as delicious as she looked. Gawd, he’d known she’d be pure trouble!
“What are you doing?” she asked, a hitch in her voice, a flush of color on her face.
Checking you out, though that’s the last thing I’d planned to do, the voice of honesty replied. But Wade decided to play dumb. He could do dumb if he had to. “Whaddya mean, what am I doing?”
Blushing profusely, her gaze focused on his mouth, Laura gestured toward the top shelf where his hand had stalled in midair. “If you’re reaching for that whiskey bottle, that isn’t a wise idea. Pain medication doesn’t mix with liquor. Your doctor wouldn’t approve, Mr. Ryder.”
“First off, I decided to forego that pain medication because it makes me woozy.” He ignored her when she muttered something about preferring woozy to downright cranky.
“Secondly, you can drop that mister stuff, professor,” he instructed, then backed away from temptation personified.
“I’m not a college professor,” she clarified. “I’m a secondary school instructor.”
“Yeah, whatever. Fact is that my doctor is Jack Daniel’s and he makes house calls.” He snatched the bottle off the shelf and set it on the counter with a decisive thump. “Hand me two glasses.”
“I don’t want a drink,” she informed him.
“I’d hope not. You’re on the clock. I want two glasses, one for each hand.”
She stared pointedly at his left wrist that was draped in the sling. “You only have one good hand,” she reminded him.
“So what? Just hand me the damn glasses.”
She didn’t move, just stared him down as if he was one of her belligerent students.
“Fine then, I’ll get it myself, which only goes to prove that I don’t need you.”
Before Wade could reach around her to grab the glasses she plucked them off the shelf and set them down with a clank.
“Thanks, professor,” he said, and not very politely.
“You’re welcome, Ryder. But you should know that you don’t get extra credit for doing things for yourself when you’re supposed to be resting all those body parts you injured while bull wrestling.”
“I wasn’t bull wrestling,” he corrected.
“Yeah, whatever.”
When she tossed his caustic words back in his face he gnashed his teeth, then realized his jaw was as sore as the rest of his abused body.
“According to your cousins’ version of the incident that required immediate medical attention,” she went on, “you valiantly distracted the big bad bull before he flattened Vance and Quint. But I suspect that you were just trying to clamber out of the way so that thousand-pound brute could vent his frustration on your cousins.”
Wade’s chest swelled with indignation—which served to remind him that his ribs were exceptionally tender. “I didn’t turn tail and run,” he huffed and puffed and blew her theory down. “My cousins may be ornery cusses, but I didn’t see any sense of all three of us getting trampled so none of us could handle the ranch chores.”
“Oh, I see,” she said in pretended thoughtfulness. “You just wanted an excuse to take some time off and let your cousins handle the hard work.”
The comment cut like a Weed Eater. “Hell no! Are you nuts, lady?” he roared. “The last thing I wanted was to be laid up and have a woman under my roof!”
Wade slammed his mouth shut and cursed himself soundly. It was never wise to let the enemy know your battle plan. If Laura hadn’t figured out that he was trying to get rid of her any way he could, she surely suspected it now.
She regarded him through her narrowed gaze then went back to alphabetically stocking the shelves. “So, you’re saying that you’re afraid of women and that fear defines who you are.”
“I’m saying nothing of the kind,” he said, highly affronted. He twisted the cap off the whiskey with a vicious jerk and purposely slopped the amber liquid on the counter as he filled his glasses. “You think I’m afraid of you? Not hardly. You’re all of five foot nothing and I’m six-three in my stocking feet. Whaddya gonna do? Break my other leg? I don’t think so!”
“I’m not referring to physical fright,” she clarified. “I’m talking about emotional terror.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he protested.
She reached over to grab a dish towel to mop up his mess then tossed him a sly glance. “Then you’re saying that you don’t appreciate women in the same capacity that most men do.”
“If you’re asking if I like sex, which is none of your business, by the way, the answer is: Yes, I like sex as much as the next heterosexual guy. I just want sex on my terms. No strings attached, no commitment.”
“So basically you’re saying you just don’t like women, but you don’t mind using them to scratch the occasional itch,” she paraphrased.
Hoo-kay, so that sounded cold and insensitive. But yeah, she’d pretty much hit the nail on its proverbial head. Thanks to Bobbie Lynn he’d never let a woman close enough for prolonged periods of time to form an emotional attachment. “Right,” he replied. “Sex is impersonal. You get some when you need some. Like filling an empty fuel tank.”
She paused momentarily from her chore to glance sideways at him. He could tell she was offended, which was fine by him. He didn’t want to like her and he didn’t care if she liked him, either. The less she liked him the sooner she’d realize working here was a mistake and she’d take a hike.
“This is fascinating,” she said, staring at him with those luminous baby blues that had the power to make him weak in the knees. “Explain to me how sex can be impersonal when the act itself involves baring pretty much everything you are to someone else in the most intimate manner possible?”
Wade grabbed some ice cubes from the fridge, plunked them in his glasses and then tossed back a shot of booze. It gave him time to formulate his reply. “Well, ya see, professor, this is where we get into the differences between men and women,” he lectured authoritatively. “Women think you’re supposed to attach meaningful emotion to sex, but men just like to
