Love Inspired January 2014(17)

                She might be small, but Lucy Calvert was all woman.

                She turned suddenly and he almost ran over her. Automatically, he wrapped his arms around her, lifting her instead of mowing her down.

                “Sorry about that.” He set her on her feet and she immediately put distance between them.

                She gave a shaky laugh. “I’m so short it’s easy to miss me.”

                “Hardly. No one would miss you.” His frank assessment of her appeal had her swinging away from him to reach for a pie. She lifted the cover, her shoulders stiff as she did so, and he realized she didn’t like him flirting with her. “I just wasn’t watching where I was going,” he added, trying to ease the tension that had sprung between them.

                She’d started slicing pie with a vengeance. “Will you ask the boys what they’d like to drink with their pie, please?” she asked, as if he hadn’t spoken.

                He stared at her back for a few minutes, confused by her reaction. “Sure,” he said, and went to get the guys.

                What had just happened?

                * * *

                Lucy arrived at Sunrise Ranch with the pit of her stomach churning. She knew a lot about the ranch now, since working with Wes and Joseph. The teens had been fun to be around and had worked really hard. She’d been glad she hired them and got to watch their excitement over being destructive. And they’d been so polite doing it.

                Even now the thought made her smile.

                If it hadn’t been for their constant exuberance, she didn’t know what she’d have done when she’d found herself in Rowdy’s arms once more—one minute she’d been fine and the next his muscled arms had swept her off her feet and his heartbeat was tangoing with her own.

                She’d overreacted. Panicked. She’d forgotten how wonderful it felt to be held by a man.

                Forgotten the feel of another heart beating against hers.

                What she hadn’t forgotten was how complete betrayal felt and that had driven her, shaken and babbling, out of his arms and across the room.

                He probably thought she was crazy. Well, that made two of them.

                Letting the excitement of meeting her neighbors take over, she parked beside the house like Ruby Ann had instructed her to do.

                Kids were everywhere. There were several across the way in the arena riding horses, including Joseph and Wes. Three younger boys were taking turns trying to throw their ropes around the horns on a roping dummy in front of the barn. They stopped to watch as she got out of her truck and immediately, ropes dragging, they headed her way.

                “You must be Lucy,” the smallest boy said, arms pumping from side to side as he raced to beat his buddies. His plump cheeks were pink and dampness suffused his face. Obviously he’d been outside for a while and his oversize wide-rimmed cowboy hat hadn’t completely shaded him from the sunlight.

                “Yes, I am. How did you guess?”

                “I heard Rowdy say you were kinda short. And you ain’t much taller than me.”

                Ha! “True. I can’t deny that you are almost as tall as me.”

                “I’m B.J., by the way. I’m the youngest one here, so I’m supposed to be short.”