Heiress for Hire (20 page)

"Sure. We'll just walk across the field to our house. Your grandma made that peach cobbler fresh this morning, so it will still be warm. Delicious."

Piper ran out the door without a backward glance at him or Amanda.

"Well, see you later too," Amanda said with a small smile, as Piper's skinny legs pumped hard to take her across the yard. "But hell, I've been known to run for dessert myself."

"I'd never guess," Danny said, preoccupied with the hope that had risen when Piper had agreed so readily to go with his mom and dad.

Her smile fell off her face. She turned back to him and gave the coffee can a suspicious glare. "So who is Rudy?"

"The rooster."

She snorted. "I'm sorry, but I'm not feeding next week's dinner-on-legs. I'm going to go start taping Piper's bedroom. The paint store guy said you have to cover the woodwork with tape to make the job easier."

"Amanda." He grabbed her arm when she started past him. "Just… just walk with me for a minute. I want to talk to you."

"Can't you just talk to me now? In the kitchen, far away from anything that smells? Besides you, I mean."

It took him a minute. "I smell?" Shit, he should have taken a shower before sitting down to lunch. But hell, if he stopped and bathed every time he broke a sweat, he'd spend half the day in the bathtub.

"You're a little… earthy." Amanda tucked her hair behind her ear and crossed her arms over her breasts.

Danny wasn't sure what a man was supposed to say to that. "I'm a farmer. I sweat. I'm sorry if that offends your little nostrils. I guess men in Chicago don't sweat. They stay in shape lifting their wallets instead of doing manual labor."

"Don't get your flannel shirt in a bunch. I didn't say you smell bad. I said you smell earthy. Huge difference. One is gross, one is… not gross." Her cheeks got a little pink, which surprised him.

Amanda wasn't a blusher.

"So you don't find me gross? Smelly? Disgusting?" Danny took a step closer to her, charmed by that tint to her face. He wondered how she'd feel about kissing a smelly farmer in his kitchen.

"No." But she seemed to have caught onto his intent, because she stumbled back and grabbed the coffee can off the table. "Let's go feed the chickens before Rudy has a cow." She hit the screen door with the palm of her hand. "Get it? Has a cow? That's farm humor."

He got it.

And he liked it.

He liked every inch of Amanda, from top to bottom, inside and out.

Not wanting to risk her Kate Spade sandals getting pecked, Amanda took them off as they stepped into the yard. Of course, that left her feet bare and completely vulnerable to any rogue chicken who might get carried away.

Better her feet than her five-hundred-dollar shoes. It was doubtful she'd be able to buy replacements any time soon. She tugged on Baby's leash. "Come on, sweetie, we're going to meet some chickens."

Danny glanced down at her feet. "Umm, do you want to borrow a pair of my gym shoes? The grass is kind of dry this time of the year."

She pictured putting his clunky, dirty shoes on with her Juicy dress and shuddered. "No, thank you. I'm tough. I can handle it."

He coughed into his hand. "Tough is not the word I would have chosen to describe you."

"What word would you use?" She could only imagine. Rich, spoiled, irritating, flat-chested were probably in his primary grouping. Followed by secondary adjectives such as lazy, unskilled, stubborn, and hawk-nosed.

Danny walked beside her with his hands in his front pockets. He wasn't looking at her, which wasn't promising. But then he said, "Fascinating. That's how I'd describe you."

What, like freak-show fascinating? Or like, really cool and interesting kind of fascinating?

"Complex. Generous."

He thought she was generous? That was a switch. One that rendered her speechless.

"Beautiful. Provocative."

Danny glanced over at her, and she was instantly reminded of that hot kiss they had shared.

Which she was so over.

Her terry-cloth dress was just rubbing her nipples, causing them to rise, that was all.

Danny continued with his Portrait of an Heiress. "Sweet. Lost."

Now he was too close to home. He was wiggling inside her head and under her defenses. He was seeing that part of her she hated, that she hid and pretended didn't exist.

"I think you've got me confused with Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Maybe the little dog threw you off."

Baby was jumping and leaping, clearing the brown tufts of burned out grass like they were boulder-size bushes.

"So where are these chickens, anyway? All I see is dead grass and a dilapidated shack. If that's where the chickens live, I'm already feeling more charitable toward them. That's an appalling structure. This is like the ghetto for chickens." Amanda shifted, the sun beating down on her. The grass did hurt. It was like walking on broken glass.

"Chick, chick, chick," Danny said, rattling the coffee can.

There was something about a grown man calling "chick, chick, chick" that cracked her up. Amanda laughed. "Don't tell me that actually works."

Then she let out a squawk and ducked behind Danny. The chickens—dozens of them—had swarmed out of the chicken house and were pouring toward them, clucking wildly. Baby barked with all the ferociousness a two-pound poodle can muster.

"They're going to attack us!"

"They want the food, not us." Danny tossed bits of dinner rolls and potato salad out into the yard. The chickens turned up the speed, running hysterically toward the food.

Safely behind Danny's bulk, Amanda peered around at them. "Oh my God, that's the freakiest thing I've ever seen. They look like three-hundred-pound men running with their hands in their pockets."

Danny laughed. "That's a pretty accurate description." He tossed chunks of fried chicken after the rolls.

"You're feeding chicken to a chicken? Eeewww."

"They'll eat anything."

Amanda pulled Baby a little closer to her. "I had no idea they were cannibals. I feel a little sick. I mean, that was probably like their cousin or something, and they're just pecking away at her cooked flesh. Maybe they're saying 'That Becky always was a bitch. Glad she's gone.' "

"I think you're giving them too much credit. I don't think there's really a lot going on in a chicken's head."

A wild flapping and squawking commenced, and when the dust settled, Amanda saw a puny little chicken had taken a choice spot in the middle of the pack. The others cut a wide swath around the bird, and it pecked the ground arrogantly, grabbing a piece of roll, holding the food in its beak, and checking out the crowd. With a strut, it swallowed the food and took three steps to the next crumb.

"Who is that little bitch?"

"Actually, not a bitch at all. That's a cock."

"Excuse me?" Amanda widened her eyes at Danny.

"A boy chicken. The rooster."

Right. Of course. Cocks. Bitches. Slightly different meaning on a farm than they had in a nightclub in Chicago.

"That's Rudy. He's the only male. The rest are hens."

"He's like half their size! Doesn't he find that intimidating?" She was getting weirded out just thinking about it. Chicken sexuality had never occurred to her before, and she was getting a visual she could do without.

"Rudy isn't intimidated by much."

Obviously, given the chicken strut he was doing around the yard. Male arrogance wasn't unique to humans. "Typical. The smallest cock has the biggest swagger."

Danny laughed and tossed more food in a wide arc. "He has thirty girlfriends. I guess that would make any guy feel like bragging."

"Yuck. Thank you for ruining chicken for me forever. Here I had myself convinced chicken just appears on the table with a nice lemon sauce on it, and you had to go and shatter my intentional delusions."

"While they're eating, let's duck into their coop and scoop out the eggs."

"I'll wait here, but thank you for asking."

Danny grinned at her. "You really want me to leave you out here by yourself with all these chickens?"

There was a very valid point. "Okay, I'm coming."

At the door of the squalid shack, Danny pulled a pair of rubber boots off a hook. "Just slip your feet in these."

"Why?" Not that she wanted to hear this answer, because she was pretty sure it was going to have to do with something gross.

"Trust me. Put the boots on."

They were huge and they were gray. They went above her knees. "You know, if these were orange with some polka dots this wouldn't be a bad outfit. Farm fashion. It could be the newest market."

"I don't think there'd be much of a market for that. But you do look pretty damn cute."

Danny ducked and disappeared into the chicken house. Cute. She was cute. Chicks were cute. Puppies were cute. She wanted to be sexy, sultry, classy, elegant. Choose one of the above. Not cute. Ugh.

The chicken house was a house of horrors. Starting with the smell. "Ugh, nasty! It smells like the restroom at Wrigley Field in here."

"Watch the droppings." Danny pointed to a pile of…

Sick. No wonder it reeked.

Danny had a bucket in his hand, and he started digging through a row of nests, pulling up eggs.

"Can't you clean this place out a little? This is a labor and delivery room, you know. I'm sure the hens would appreciate some cleanliness." Maybe an air freshener for starters.

Danny didn't glance up, though he did shake his head and swear under his breath. "Start grabbing eggs before the food is all gone and they storm back in here."

That would be bad. Amanda shot a nervous glance out the door. They were still pecking like mad at the ground, but who knew how long the food would hold. She clomped to the opposite side of the shack from Danny and almost lost a boot.

"Damn!" Amanda just about pitched over into chicken poo-poo trying to maintain her balance with her legs spread three feet apart, mid-stride. She didn't spend enough time with her legs apart to be good at it, and really almost never standing up.

"You okay?"

"Yes," she said, flicking her hair off her face and bringing her feet back together. "But I dropped Baby's leash. She's over in the corner sniffing something—something nasty, I'm sure—but don't step on her."

The first nest had two eggs sitting in it. Amanda reached out gingerly and lifted them out. Her conscience pricked at her. "Ooh, I'm not sure I can do this, Danny. That poor hen is going to come back, and her nest is going to be empty."

"It's empty every day. I'm sure she's used to it."

"Even worse. She lays each egg, hopeful, and then they're gone. We're kidnapping her chicks. We're thieves, we're scum."

"We're capitalists." Danny moved to her side of the chicken coop and took the two eggs out of her hand. He held each one up to the window and glanced at it before putting it in his bucket.

"What are you looking for? What separates a good egg from a bad egg?" Amanda reluctantly moved to the next nest. "Major producer here. Six eggs, wow. She must have taken fertility drugs."