The Rancher and the Rock Star Read Free Page B

Covey’s hadn’t paid attention to the rule.
    Unable to ignore her hay any longer, she pulled her gaze from Gray’s, jumped off the wagon, and began dragging bales. This time her back muscles whined with every surge.
    “I don’t suppose you could wait to finish until this passes?” he asked. He held up his palm to show he knew the answer. The rain on the old barn roof drummed like the backbeat on one of his songs. A flash of lightning slashed the dark sky, and thunder followed mere seconds later. He shucked off his leather jacket. “Aw, hell.”

 
    Chapter Two
    H IS FITTED, DENIM-COLORED T-shirt read “Dashboard Confessional,” but it wasn’t the band name that unhinged her jaw. Who would have known a singer could sport biceps and pecs like— She snapped her mouth shut. Get a grip, Abigail. You sound like Kim.
    On second thought, no way did Abby want her daughter thinking what she was thinking.
    “Forget it.” She meant her refusal sincerely. “You’ll just get wet, too. I can handle this.”
    “You can’t come close to finishing all those bales alone, and I can’t stand here any longer watching a damsel in distress.”
    Her flash of defensive pride had no time to grow. Two seconds later they were both soaked to the skin. After they each had a stack safely inside, Abby took a moment to rummage in a corner for a pair of canvas work gloves. He thanked her with a silly smile, and she realized what a ridiculous situation she was in. His fame aside, they’d known each other fifteen minutes, and here he was in a downpour, ruining expensive-looking leather shoes and a perfectly good pair of jeans, and doing some serious atonement for lighting his cigarette in the process.
    As they fell into a quick, efficient rhythm, there was no missing that Gray Covey’s pecs and deltoids were not merely for show. He didn’t need to get off the trailer and lug bales into the barn. Instead, he hoisted cube after bristly cube and launched them like javelins through the door. For every four bales she heaved, Gray tossed eight. His biceps contracted over and over, smooth and firm, and his hips twisted in fluid perfection with no wasted movement.
    By the time they were three-quarters finished, she’d changed her mind—or lost it. He wasn’t ruining his jeans. He could have sold the sucked-on denim for a thousand bucks to any woman who saw it. She let herself imagine what a phenomenal photo she could take. It had been a long time since she’d seen anything finer than Gray Covey/David Graham with his thick, rain-darkened hair slicked back to his collar and rivulets of water streaming from his cheeks.
    They continued without words. Once in a while, when a bale flew well, she heard a guttural “oof” from his throat that gave her more chills than the rain did. She refused to dwell on the errant thoughts—they were so foreign she barely recognized them as hers. But even in the driving rain, with lightning crackling every half a minute and thunder following much too closely, Abby didn’t think she’d ever enjoyed any job on her farm as much.
    In ten minutes they had every bale under the roof. She stood beside Gray in the deluge staring at the barn floor, which looked like the aftermath of the Big Bad Wolf versus the first Little Pig’s house.
    “Woo hoo!” He uttered his first syllables since climbing onto the wagon. Blowing out a deep sigh, he bent and braced his hands on his thighs. He peered up at her and grinned. “Here I thought I’d have to miss the gym today. You were going to do this all yourself, Mrs. Stadtler? I’m damn impressed.”
    The compliment pleased her ridiculously.
    He straightened and held up his palm for her to slap. Their gloves made a pitiful, slurping smack, and Abby giggled, although embarrassment picked at the edges of her gratitude.
    “I don’t know how to thank you. This defines above and beyond.”
    He tilted his head back and opened his mouth to the sky. His Adam’s apple convulsed, and