Danger, Donna Byrd, said a little voice in her head. Danger!
But she was in a rather reckless mood. âHow interesting would you like to make this?â
He jerked his chin toward the board and, damn, it was sexy.
âIf I hit the center,â he said, âyou will answer any question I ask.â
âThatâs begging for trouble.â
âIâll take it easy on you. Promise.â He hit the bullâs-eye with no problem.
âOkay. Have at it.â
Her choice of words couldâve been better. Or maybe they were perfect, because a wicked gleam in his gaze told her that sheâd hit her own bullâs-eye in him.
Caleb sauntered over to the board, plucking out the darts, then leaning against the wall. In his faded blue jeans, tattered boots, long-sleeved white shirt and that hat, he seemed as though he should be out riding the range, not taking aim at her.
But when he did, his aim was true.
âWhatâs the one thing I can do to persuade you to give me a chance, Donna Byrd?â
âWhoa there, Lady Bird, let me give you a hand with that.â
As Donna Byrd heard the deep, drawling voice behind her, she kept on lifting the hand-carved rocking chair that sheâd barely been able to liberate from the bed of one of the Flying Bâs pickups.
But just as she got the furniture under control, she looked over her shoulder to see who was calling her such a name as âLady Bird,â and her grip faltered.
Dimples.
That was what she saw first. Then the light blue eyes that pierced her with an unexpected shock. A shock that she hadnât felt for⦠Well, a long, long time.
A shock that she really didnât have time for with everything that was going down at the Flying B Ranch.
The owner of those dimples didnât seem to care about Donnaâs bottlenecked schedules or Byrd family scandals as he grabbed the wobbling rocking chair from her and deftly swung it on to one of his broad shoulders. Then he flashed that smile at her again, his cowboy hat now shading his face from the early July sun. âWhere do you need me to put thisâ¦?â
âYou can call me Donna Byrd,â she said, correcting him before he could get too cute and call her Lady Bird again. She gestured toward the main house, with two separate wings spreading out from its core and a wraparound porch. It was the very definition of Texas cattlemanâs domain to her. âYou can set the rocker in the living room, if you donât mind.â
âI donât mind a bit.â
He gave her a long look that covered her all the way from head to toe and sizzled along every inch of skin.
By the time his gaze burned a trail back up her body again, Donnaâs breath had completely stopped.
Even though she was trying to tell herself that she didnât know him from Adam, she vaguely remembered him. Sheâd seen him one time, a few months ago, back when her cousin Tammy had injured herself and this same ranch hand had been there to help her out.
He hadnât smiled at her this way, though⦠At least, Donna didnât think so. Sheâd been too focused on Tammyâs injury to remember. Plus, thereâd been a million other things distracting her, like turning the main house and surrounding cabins into a bed-and-breakfast business. She, her sister, Jenna and Tammy had inherited the property from a grandfather none of them had ever met before. Besides that, there were all the personal issues that sheâd been trying to deal with.
Even if she had noticed this guyâs dimples, she wouldnât have had time for more than a passing glance.
Now he winked at her and carried the rocker up the steps and through the front door sheâd already opened. She took a moment, getting her first official good look at him, his worn Wranglers cupping his rear end, his white T-shirt clinging to the muscled lines of his back.
That shock sheâd felt before returned with a blast of heat, and she chased it away by shutting the pickupâs tailgate, the slam like a punch of reality.
She was thirty-one, too old and too wise to be ogling cowboys. Besides, after she, Jenna and Tammy finished up with all the logistics of the B and B, there would be a big marketing push for Donna to carry outâa task that she had embraced wholeheartedly, since she could accomplish it from New York, where she planned to rent a less costly apartment than sheâd had before her grandfatherâs impending death had summoned all of the Byrd family to Texas. And when she got back to the city, she could return to real lifeâtaking up where sheâd left off after her online magazine, Roxey, had collapsed. She had ideas for a relaunch under a different title and premise in this new economyâ¦.