Kickin' Up Dust: Operation Cowboy, Book 1 Read Online Free

while doing ranch chores, which she didn’t mind. It was the mud she hated.
    The thick black earth stuck to everything. And dammit, these were her last pair of dry boots.
    Using a stick, she worked to clean off the bottoms. When Crow barked, she looked up to see a figure crossing the field despite the soaking rain. Her heart skipped—Brodie. She’d know that rolling gait of his anywhere.
    Watching him walk was like eating double chocolate fudge ice cream—decadent as hell. She savored every step he put down and the way his arms swung so naturally at his sides. His hat dipped so low over his eyes she couldn’t see them until he mounted the porch steps.
    “Brodie.” Her voice was a little breathless, but she had a naturally raspy voice. Maybe he wouldn’t notice.
    “Are you catching cold in the wet?” Oh, he’d noticed, all right.
    She shook her head, and droplets scattered over her shoulders. “I’m a country girl, remember? We don’t catch colds from rain.” She knew better than to be interested in a guy like Brodie. Unless he’d changed, he charmed everything with tits.
    And she wasn’t that kind of girl. Or was she? She had slept with Wayne on the first date. But that was different.
    “Hmmph.” Brodie took a seat next to her, and the old wooden chair creaked under his bulk. “Looks as if you’ve been making mud pies.” He did a chin-nod toward the stick in her one hand and the boot in her other.
    Her libido went into overdrive. Did the man do anything that wasn’t sexy? She turned her gaze from his brown eyes to his chest.
    Damn, that was worse. He wore a faded denim shirt with pearl buttons. Rolled to the elbows, for the love of moonshine. She couldn’t help but note the change a few days had made. He wasn’t even wearing his dog tags.
    “Nothing better to do than make mud pies on a rainy day.”
    He arched a brow, and her belly fluttered, low.
    Dear Santa, I’ll take a Marine…
    “Your momma will skin your hide if you go in muddy,” he drawled. For the first time since he’d come home, she saw him smile—a real smile that reached his eyes.
    She swallowed hard. Giving up on the boots, she tossed the stick into the yard.
    Brodie laughed. The sound rolled through her like thunder, shaking everything she knew about herself.
    Apparently she wasn’t really as content to be alone as she claimed.
    “Crow didn’t even go after that stick.”
    “Well, he’s five years older and he’s taken an aversion to the rain.”
    He laughed again, the sound so rich and full she could barely form a thought. “A cattle dog who hates the rain? Things really have changed around here.”
    His statement hung between them. “Yeah, they have,” she said quietly.
    He pushed to his feet and started pacing. She watched his long legs eat up the length of the porch several times before she caught his hand on the way past.
    Scorching heat danced up her arm into her shoulder and threaded all the way through her. She forgot about her damp clothes and dripping hair. “Want to go inside for coffee?”
    “Yeah, that’d be nice.”
    He was wet too, so in the kitchen, she handed him a towel. She squeezed the wet ends of her hair into the terrycloth, watching him pat rain off his shoulders and the brim of his hat.
    Their gazes met.
    There it was again—that low, dark heat.
    She dropped her towel and he leaned against the counter.
    “I didn’t come here to stare at you, Danica. I’m sorry.” What to say to that? She didn’t have time to formulate a reply because he went on, “I came to make you a proposition.”
    So. Much. Worse. Visions of his hard mouth on hers as she tore off his wet denim shirt did a mad jig through her mind.
    Before she said or did something stupid, she pushed him aside to get at the coffeemaker. “What sort of proposition?”
    Was it her imagination or did his gaze lick over her backside? She didn’t dare turn her head to see. Instead, she dumped two heaping scoops of coffee into the machine