Heated Rush - Leslie Kelly [14]
“And she works with them. On purpose.”
All the more reason for him to call the woman and tell her she’d been out of line insisting he spend an entire weekend with her—on a farm, for God’s sake—rather than just the dinner date he’d offered for the auction.
To be honest though, calling her to discuss the matter was only the excuse. Calling her was his main objective. He had thought of nothing else but the way she’d felt in his arms since they’d parted company last night.
But…babies?
He didn’t do that.
Something inside him forgot that fact, however, as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and punched in Annie Davis’s cell number. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. The little buggers usually took naps around this time.
He hoped.
When she answered on the third ring and he heard the crying in the background, he realized he’d guessed wrong.
“Yes?” she snapped, sounding out of breath. “Hello?”
He cleared his throat. “Sorry. I’ve caught you at a bad time.”
“Sean?” she yelped, sounding shocked. “I mean, Mr. Murphy?”
“Sean’ll do.”
“It is you. Wow.”
Screech, whimper, yowl…He heard all of the above in the background as he said, “I should call back.”
“Probably. Yes. I mean, I don’t usually even answer this phone during the day, but I happened to have it in my pocket and heard it ringing. No, honey.”
Honey? “What?”
“Sorry. I’m holding a squirming bundle of male energy and he’s trying to bite my ear.”
He’d like to bite her ear. And he had a lot of male energy. Sean suddenly found himself envying that squirming child, though that didn’t, of course, mean he’d ever want to hold one himself. His younger half sister was perfectly capable of filling their ancestral home with little Murphys. He felt quite sure their father would be able to pay off any future husband to allow the tykes to carry on the family name.
“I, uh, didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”
“I figured we ought to talk about this weekend.”
She sucked in an audible breath, and he could almost feel her panic through the phone. “You are backing out.”
So pessimistic for such a sweet-faced young woman. “Of course I’m not backing out. I just want a little more information about what I’m up against. Other than cows.”
“You won’t be up against them. You won’t have to set foot anywhere near them. I didn’t mean that crack about the shoes. You won’t have to go anywhere near the milking barns. And we don’t have much other livestock except for a few horses. Do you like to ride? Oh, and there are some sheep, too, but they’ll be down in the pasture.”
Barn. Good God. And sheep? He’d seen enough of those creatures in the first twenty-one years of his life to last him until the end of time. Why had he agreed to do this again?
Her eyes, fool. Her eyes and her throat and her golden hair and her soft lips and her feminine body and her honesty and the incredible way she’d felt in his arms.
Well, all right then.
“Listen, things are kind of crazy here,” she said, sounding as if she was about to drop the phone even as she mumbled something to the baby. “Can you call me back after six?”
“Why don’t I pick you up after six so we can go have a drink somewhere.”
There was more yowling, plus a bit of tiny purring like a kitten being petted. He didn’t suspect that was coming from Annie, though he most definitely wouldn’t mind doing a little stroking.
As he’d expected, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head all night long. He’d tried to capture the memory of her smell, thought about the taste of her, had replayed their conversation in his mind, envisioned her pretty face, the pert nose, the amazing eyes. Not to mention the feminine body beneath the butter yellow silk.
Oh, yes, he’d absolutely like to touch her until she purred. Whenever and wherever she liked.
Feeling that way about a woman he barely knew—being so vulnerable to her and wanting her so badly after such a brief acquaintance—should have been enough to make him avoid her. Reason told him to stay away from her until