Love's Deception Read Online Free Page B

glanced at her. Then again, he shouldn’t flatter himself; last week she’d threatened to call 9-1-1 on him. She was good-looking, but with him leaving at the end of the summer, nothing would come of this. Better to just keep it simple. “For now, I’m farming,” he said.
    They each picked up another bale. Cat chuckled and stopped working to look at him. “Then what was that Larry the Mechanic Guy outfit you were wearing?”
    Ty couldn’t help but laugh. “Larry the Mechanic Guy is my best friend. We’ve been friends for as long as I can remember. He owns an auto shop and helped me get my old bike running again. I was test-driving it when I found you with your flat tire.”
    “Oh, I see.”
    It was mid-afternoon by the time they had the ten tons of alfalfa stacked in the barn. The summer sun had transformed Oregon into a sauna. Sweat ran down Ty’s forehead and back, trapping him in a mask of dust and alfalfa leaves. “Danny, where’s the hose?” he asked.
    “I’ll show you,” the kid said. Cat’s son had followed him like a shadow for the past few hours.
    The boy led him outside to a water spigot. Ty lifted the handle to the pump and waited expectantly for the rush of cold water. “Will you watch my hat for me?” he said, setting his cowboy hat on Danny’s head. Ty held the hose high, and soon water cascaded over the back of his neck. Gasping from the cold, he ran his fingers through his sweaty hair and over his face. He shook like a wet dog and sent a spray of water in the kid’s direction. Danny giggled. Water dripped from the tip of Ty’s nose while he drank his fill. Then he offered Danny the hose. “Would you like a drink, little man?”
    “Yeah.” He handed Ty his hat.
    Cat walked toward him with her checkbook and pen in hand. “How much do I owe you?”
    One look in those brown eyes and he shocked himself by thinking,
Nothing, it’s on me.
As a bachelor, his paycheck was more than he needed. He didn’t have any expensive hobbies. After the cost of his surfboard, his weekend trips to the beach were free. Weeknights he went to the gym—minimal expense. If he didn’t work out every day, he nearly went crazy sitting behind his desk. He had two money-market accounts, each with a generous balance. It would be nothing to call the bank and have them cut a check. But that would spark a round of questions from his father that Ty didn’t know the answers to. Maybe the heat was getting to him. He probably wasn’t drinking enough fluids. “Whatever my dad quoted you,” he replied.
    “My mom said it was two hundred dollars a ton, but then you stacked it for me.”
    “That doesn’t change the price.”
    Cat lowered her gaze and began writing the check. “Okay, two thousand then. Thank you. How can I ever repay you? I’m really grateful for your help, you know.”
    He knew she meant it as a statement of appreciation, but the impulse to answer her question couldn’t be denied. “You can go out to dinner with me.”
    Startled, she looked up at him. “What?”
    “Actually, you can repay me—by going out to dinner with me.”
    She glanced toward the horses grazing on the hill and subtly shook her head. “That’s nice of you, but I’ll have to pass. I don’t know if I can get away. There’s so much to do around here, and with my mom’s condition I hate to leave her with Danny for very long.”
    Turning on his best charm, Ty squared up his shoulders, hooked his thumbs in his pockets, and sent her a winning smile. He couldn’t remember the last time a girl had turned him down. Was she going to make him beg for a date? “We can take Danny with us. Cat, it’s only dinner. You have to eat anyway. If I pick you up Friday at seven, will you go? I promise not to have you out too late.”
    Biting her lower lip, she looked up at him and held out the check. It disappointed him he hadn’t been able to entice even a smile out of her. “I wouldn’t want Danny exposed to secondhand smoke.”
    Ty