Forever's Affection (Forever In Luck Series Book 3) (8 page)

Turning,
he gave her his best smile, laying on the charm. “Because I wanted to know how
tall perfect is.”

She
rolled her eyes and shook her head, unimpressed. “That’s piffle. Please don’t,”
she answered, trying to put the brakes on things.

The
idiot he was wouldn’t stop. “You want me to lie to you then, is that it?”

“Kris—”

Her
tone uttered a warning that he heard loud and clear. Change the subject quick,
he decided. “Who’s Goldie?”

She
looked over at him puzzled.

Good,
he’d thrown her off. “This morning, when you were on the phone, you said to
have him bring Goldie.”

Her
expression took on one of understanding. “Not who, what,” she said with relief,
shaking her head at the apparent change in conversation. “Goldie’s my hunting
dog.”

He
groaned. Too late, it just slipped out, and she looked over clearly on the
defensive.

“What?”

Pulling
into the farmyard, he put the truck in park and looked over at her. “You hunt?”

“Yeah,
you got a problem with that?”

He
sighed, albeit very quietly, then asked, “What do you hunt?”

“Big game and waterfowl.
You want to
make something of it?”

She
was going to bring him to his knees. “Can I show you something?” he asked, as
they got out of the truck.

Stopping
at the question, she rolled her eyes again. “Let me guess, you want to show me
your gun.
Haha
.
No thanks.”

He
started laughing, then took her hand and pulled her along. “Come on, don’t be
so cynical. Besides, it’s not a gun, it’s a rifle.”

“
Mmhmm
,” she answered unimpressed. “That’s what they all
say.”

*****

Opening
the door to the outbuilding and flipping on the light switch, he stepped
inside, moving over so she could see what he wanted to show her. Walking
further inside and looking all around, she studied the walls and tables,
then
smiled brightly. Glancing his way, her eyes twinkled,
and she nodded appreciatively. “This…is nice.
Real nice.
I’m impressed. So, you’re a taxidermist?”

He
went all robin breasted proud. “Coming from you, I’ll take that as a
compliment. No, I’m a farmer who has too much time on his hands in the winter
months. So, I come out here and putter around. My family informed me the night
of the storm that I’m becoming feral, and as you pointed out, I need to get out
more. So there you go.”

She
chuckled. “That wasn’t very nice of them.”

“No,
but sadly, I’ve come to realize it’s true.” Walking to a tall cabinet, he
maneuvered the lock and opened the door. Smiling, he turned and looked at her.
“You still not interested in seeing my gun?”

Looking
him straight in the eye, she said with a glimmer, “I thought it was a rifle?”

“It
is, but these here are my guns, take a look, you might find something
intriguing.”

She
laughed a little, as she stepped closer. “Okay, just a peek.
At
the guns.
In the gun cabinet.”
Stopping, she
smiled heartily. “A collector of Winchesters I see. Nice. Can I touch?”

Oh
yeah. “Please,” he answered with a glint in his eye, the energy between them
crackling. “I wish you would.”

She
laughed and shook her head.
“Naughty, naughty, naughty.”
Reaching out, she sighed, appreciating what she saw. “Oh baby, come to mama,”
she said, taking out the best of the bunch. Loving the rifle with her hands,
she turned it from side to side,
then
put it up in
aiming and firing position. “A prewar
model
seventy,
four fifty-eight magnum, sweet, very sweet.”

She
froze and shifted her eyes over to him when he groaned. Coughing, he tried to
cover it up, shuffling his feet in the process.

Catching
his eye, she quizzed him, “What?”

“You
know your way around a gun.”

She
went back to studying the gun. “
Mmhmm
. Sure do. Does
that surprise you?”

“I
find it sexy as hell. What do you use?”

Putting
the gun back, she grabbed another, studied it, and put it through its paces.
“I’m a Remington gal, mine’s a Remington seven hundred bolt action, seven
millimeter magnum, but I have others, it just depends on what I need it for.”

He
had to ward off a hard-on while standing and watching her open, close, lever,
aim, and trigger his firearms. “What do you like to hunt?”

“It
would be easier to say what I don’t like to eat. I hunt so I have food to eat,
but I suppose elk would be my answer, deer work too.”

He
smiled, unable to stop himself, the words just rolling off his tongue, he said,
“I like you.”

She
let out a grunt.
“All because I know how to handle a gun and
eat game.”

Man,
she really had been treated poorly. “No, not even remotely close to that, it
goes further. It’s because you’re by far the sharpest, most interesting person
I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah right.”
She shook her
head as she put the gun back, not believing him in the least.

“You
don’t believe me.”

“No,
I don’t. What you meant to say was the sharpest, most interesting
woman
you’ve ever met.”

“Wrong,
sharpest, most interesting person I’ve ever met. That you’re a woman is an
absolute bonus, and I’m glad to have met you. There aren’t many like you out
there.”

“Thank
God for that, the world just sighed,” she responded sarcastically.

He
shook his head. “Wrong again, Dani. You think all men want is some feminine,
needy, clingy, little woman, and because of all that’s
happened,
you distance yourself from men and your femininity as much as possible. Except
that there are men out there
that find
strong,
capable, independent women remarkably attractive and appealing. I’m one of
those men, and you’re absolutely one of those women.”

“Ah, the allure of the amazon woman.”

She
was beginning to piss him off with her self-deprecation. “Knock that shit off,”
he snapped, standing his ground. “I won’t have you mocking me or you in that
way. You want a fresh start, then lose the stereotypes and give things a
chance.”

Turning
from him, she took a deep breath and let it out. “It’s not like a light
switch,
you can’t just turn it on or off. If you could, I
would’ve shut it off a long time ago.”

“True,
but you don’t have to stand in the light alone. It’s just you and me, Dani, no
one else knows you here. It really is a fresh start.”

“I
come with a hell of a lot of baggage.”

She
sure the hell did, and she was going to require special handling. Closing the
gun cabinet, he answered her, “My dad, he has a little saying, it goes,
everything happens for a reason. I don’t know what all has happened in your
past, and maybe one day you’ll want to tell me, and if you do, I’ll listen. But
I can tell you this, of all the families in Wisconsin you could have
met,
you were brought to ours for a reason. My brother in
law, Nate, he’s a retired Army Ranger, and has PTSD from stuff he encountered
in Iraq and Afghanistan. When he returned, things were bad, and he and Linnie
needed to live with us so we could all help him through things while he
received therapy and treatment. Essentially, what I’m trying to tell you is
that I have some experience in dealing with people who’ve survived trauma. All
of us have, you’re safe with us.”

“I…I…”
Silence.

“Let’s
not look too far into the future right now, okay?” he stated, trying to
alleviate some of her stress. “Let’s just take this one minute at a time.”

Silence.

She
was stuck. Trying to defuse the situation, he tried helping her. “Dani, turn
and take my hand. Let’s get those fish cleaned. Jules won’t touch them
otherwise.”

Laughing
with start, she turned a little. “A real wimp is she?” Glancing at him, the
hurt and anguish just below the surface, she quickly looked away, running a
thumb and finger under her eyes.

Reaching
his hand out to her, he said softly, “We’ll work through this. We will. Come,
let’s clean those fish, then let’s go to your house, where we’ll enjoy a couple
beers while we manage to make something edible, then we’ll relax. Out of
curiosity, do you like to watch movies?” He watched her make a fist,
then
straighten her fingers, before stretching and shaking
them out.

With
a worried look and deep sigh, she took his hand, as she answered him quietly,
“Some, action adventures mostly.”

Pulling
her a little closer, he looked into her eyes. “Indulge me, please, tell me how
tall is perfect?”

She
shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know, but I’m five-ten and half.”

“Dani,
that
is
perfect.”

*****

The
next day, Kris pulled into the ranch yard at half past noon. Putting the truck
in park, he looked around wondering where Dani might be. Not wanting to scare
her like he had the day before, he sat waiting, hoping she’d make an appearance
and see him first. No luck. Getting out of the pickup, he grabbed his purchases
and carried them to the house. Spinning on his heel, he looked to the barn when
he heard a loud cracking sound and the noise of things snapping and breaking.

“Dani,”
he yelled, moving quickly towards the barn.
“Dani, you all
right?”
He looked in the barn and yelled, stopping to listen, his voice
echoing around. Not there. She must be out in the pasture. He ran out there,
nothing. More cracking sounds. “DANI…” He listened.

There
was a very faint, “Out back.”

Rounding
the corner of the barn, he stopped and looked around. Tree branches littered
the ground. Just then a large branch fell to the ground. Tipping his head back,
his eyes went up, and up, and up. Finding her tangled in the branches of a huge
tree, his heart tripped at the sight of her dangling from a limb with nothing
more than a thin piece of rope anchoring her and keeping her from falling.
Trying to compose
himself
to keep from yelling at her,
he walked closer. “Dani… Dani, come down.”

“I
will when I’m done.”

“
Noooo
.
Now!”
Oh boy, he was struggling to hold his temper.

“You’ve always
been domineering.”

“Hey,
I’m the boss here, not you! Don’t tell me what to do.”

Taking
a deep breath and counting to ten, he said, “Okay then, you’re scaring the hell
out of me,
boss
, please come down.”

“Quit
being a
wuss
, you wouldn’t tell your guy friends to
get down.”

Damn
it. He rested his hands on his hips, looking down to the ground. Now what?
“You’re right, because my guy friends wouldn’t be up in a tree dangling by a
rope, when all they needed to do was call one of our other guy friends, who
happens to run a yard and landscaping business and owns a bucket truck. Please
come down.”

“Well,
why didn’t you say so?” she responded in a huff.

Why
couldn’t she be like other women and let men handle the tough stuff? Had he
really just thought that?
“
Ahhh
,
because I’m down here having a stroke, and my brain isn’t working right.
Please come down.”

“I’m
coming, I’m coming,” she said with annoyance, as she leapt and hopped from
branch to branch. “Good grief, I still think you’re overreacting. I’m no china
doll you know?”

Her
independence was supposed to be a good thing right? And yet it was taking him
to areas foreign to him. “Since when is concern for your safety overreacting?”

Dropping
several feet to the ground, she answered him. “I was doing fine, before you—she
raised her hands and made air quotes—‘saved me.’”

Women
had always valued him for the protection and strength he offered. Affronted, he
simply asked, “Why are you angry with me for wanting to keep you safe?”

“I’m
not a wimp.”

Okay,
this was not him, this was her. “No one said you are. Why are you angry?”

“I
need to get these trees cut. Are you going to call your friend, or am I
climbing back up there?”

“Dani—”

“Kris!”
she snapped, her face turning hard.

Whatever
was going
on,
had nothing to do with him he decided.
Part and parcel of the package, he thought. Taking control of the situation, he
responded, “Okay, we’re taking a time out here. I’ll call my friend. You go do
whatever you want, because you will anyways, and then later, we’re going to
talk about this.” Not giving her a chance to respond, he turned and walked
away.