The Rancher's Surrender. Jill Shalvis

slight puff of air, and she nearly moaned out loud.

      She snatched back her hand. “Knock it off.” She was proud of her even, haughty voice. He didn’t have to know that her bones had just melted away, leaving her drowning in a pool of longing.

      He just looked at her, all one hundred eighty pounds of uninhibited, rowdy, knowing male. “What’s the matter?”

      She lifted her chin and glared back. “You’re wasting precious daylight hours. I’m going to have to dock your pay.”

      “I’m not getting paid.”

      Which was another puzzle she’d been meaning to solve. “You cared for Constance that much that you’d do this for one year without compensation?”

      He met her gaze evenly. “Yes.”

      That sort of generosity was unheard of where she’d come from. There was a reason for it, she reminded herself. Just as there was a reason he was trying to butter them up.

      “We are going to pay you, you know,” she grumbled, looking away. “Soon as we can.”

      He smiled then and leaned against a post, all sinewy grace. “The gig is up.”

      “What gig?”

      “Why don’t you save us both a bunch of trouble and admit how you feel about me?”

      She managed a laugh. “It’s not flattering.”

      That infuriatingly sexy smile stayed put. “You’re crazy about me.”

      “Crazy, definitely.” She flipped her precarious ponytail back, using annoyance to cover her fear. Had she given herself away? He couldn’t have guessed her deepest, darkest, most secret fantasy, could he?

      Her secret little hope that someday he would be the crazy one. Crazy for her. Not for the land, but her.

      Just thinking it in the light of day had color rushing to her cheeks. She put her hands on them, feeling the dirt streak on her skin.

      She could only imagine how she looked. And how was it that she felt as though grime clung to her every pore, while he looked cool and clean? He even smelled good, she thought resentfully. Lingering soap and one hundred percent male. No man should be allowed to smell that good. Standing there thinking about it, she wavered in the heat.

      No wonder women fell over him. It was disgusting, yet she leaned just a tad closer to catch another whiff.

      She must be more tired than she thought.

      His eyes narrowed on her, reminding her she didn’t like that he noticed every little thing about her, especially the things she didn’t want him to notice. “You’re slacking off, Jackson,” she muttered, turning away. “Get back to work.”

      “Let’s take a break.”

      “I don’t need one.”

      He hauled her back around, his hands firm on her hips. “I need one,” he insisted, searching her face for who knew what. “I’m tired, Zoe. Very tired.”

      “Oh. Well then, I don’t want to show you up or anything and make you feel bad.” She sank gratefully to the tailpipe of the truck—actually, rambling heap better described the ancient, beat-up thing that had been left on the deserted ranch.