Must Love Horses. Vicki Tharp

      She wanted to say yes, knowing she should say no. She compromised and said nothing.

      By the time they were done with the last horse, there wasn’t a muscle on her that wasn’t sore or stretched or strained. Her legs were soft as Jell-O left out in the sun, and the buckskin had landed one wicked crow-hop that might or might not have dislodged Sidney’s right kidney.

      “So, about that dinner,” Bryan said.

      They stood in the barn aisle, the horses settled into their pen for the night. It was early evening, her lunch long gone, and even dinner with the devil on the backside of hell sounded viable. Not that Bryan was the devil.

      It was that his body invited sin.

      The powerful way he moved, his massive shoulders, his muscular chest…his ass. What she wanted to do to him, with him—

      “If you keep looking at me like I’m a chocolate sundae after you’ve been told you can’t have dairy, we could skip dinner and get straight to dessert.”

      “No,” she said, maybe a tad too fast. “Dinner is good.”

      The cool breeze vanished and the temperature spiked. Or maybe the heat was from his proximity. Sidney wiped the sweat from her upper lip.

      “My cabin?”

      “Not a good idea.”

      “Why?”

      “Honestly?”

      With a sly grin he said, “Unless a lie fits better.”

      She paused, considered a good white lie, like her goldfish needed a walk, or that on Friday nights she always polished her spurs. She settled on, “I don’t trust myself around you.”

      “What are you gonna do, throw me on the bed and take advantage of me?”

      “Crossed my mind.”