All my life, my parents had tried to drill into us that one decision could change your entire life. I would say that ninety percent of the time, the warnings were associated with contraception and safe sex, which my brothers and I always found hilarious considering there were nine of us. The other ten percent of the time they were a mixture of not drinking and driving, not getting into fights, and not setting things on fire. Although the last was only aimed at my brothers Trace and Travis, who had earned the nickname TNT thanks to their love and reckless use of fireworks.
I’d half-listened to all of the parental rants. I just always figured if any of the Briggs kids were going to get into trouble with the law it would’ve been one of my brothers. Sawyer got into brawls all the time during his teens and early twenties. Or maybe it would be TNT accidently blowing something up. Never in a million years did I think it would be me.
Thanks to one act of passion, one act of kindness, one act of heroism—here I was. One afternoon where my compassion had outvoted my common sense was all it took to end up here. And this was just the beginning. I had, oh, about one hundred and ninety-six hours left.
Part of me, the childish part, wanted to throw a tantrum. But my parents had raised me better than that. If there was one thing that the Briggs family prided themselves on, it was stepping up and taking responsibility for your actions. As much as I hated to admit it, I was actually getting off easy. Things could’ve been a lot worse than this, and I had one person to thank for that…not that I planned on thanking him anytime soon.
Sticking out my bottom lip, I blew out a breath, causing my bangs to blow up. Out of the corner of my eye I spied the party responsible for my current predicament.
Romeo was curled up on a blanket of hay in a cool, dark corner…snoring.
“Seriously?!” I yelled in frustration. “You’re just going to take a nap while I’m killing myself?”
He stirred and lifted his sleepy head, opening one eye before plopping his chin back down on his hay bed with a sigh.
It was adorable.
No matter how irritated I was at that dog, I could never stay mad at him. Not when he peed on my down comforter during the thunderstorm the day I’d saved him from the evil clutches of Cruella.
Not when he chewed my Christian Louboutin high heels. Not even when he threw up on my favorite Coach bag after he’d got into the trash and scarfed down almost an entire large pizza that I’d burned and tossed.
My hands rested on my hips as I cocked my head to the side and watched Romeo just as relaxed as he could be. “You know what? You are damn lucky you’re so cute.”
“So are you,” Hudson’s deep voice rumbled.
I gasped in a start as I spun around and found the man that had just taken a year off my life leaning casually against the barn door, like he’d been there all day and was in no hurry to leave. His shirt was damp with sweat and it outlined his chiseled frame like he’d been greased down for a Playgirl shoot. Every muscle in his biceps and triceps were chorded from hard, physical exertion. There were faint impressions of the dips and valleys of his six-pack abs. My mouth watered like a popped fire hydrant as my eyes scanned his torso, upper body, and arms.
I was so distracted by the overwhelming sex appeal he was so effortlessly oozing that it took a moment before the words he’d spoken absorbed into my consciousness. When they did, my eyes shot to his in shock.
“Wait a minute….” I rewound them in my mind, just to make sure that I hadn’t imagined them on account of heat stroke or something. Nope. Not imagined. He said I was cute. I notched up the twang in my southern accent as I fanned my hand in front of my face. “Why, I do declare, Mr. Reed, did you just pay me a compliment?”
I was teasing…sort of.
In all the years that I’d known Hud he’d never once complimented me. Well, not with words anyway. He’d given me a few very complimentary, very heatedly pleasant stares with his light brown eyes that had left me feeling all kinds of flattered. As far as any kind of verbal validation? That had been a big ol’ goose egg.
“No,” he stated flatly, his facial expression as unreadable as always.
I grinned from ear to ear, not at all dissuaded by his response. “Not to tip your canoe as you float down the river of de-Nile but um, yeah…I think ya did.”
Pushing off the door, he stood to his full height. His feet were planted shoulder-width apart as he crossed his arms and took in a deep breath through his nose. The alpha stance might’ve been harmless on another man, a lesser man. But on a sweaty, muscular, jeans-and-white-shirt-wearing Hudson, it was devastating.
My body heated from the inside out. The heat started coiling low in my belly and spread like wildfire up to my cheeks. I could’ve stayed there all day, just staring at him, and as embarrassing as it was to admit I probably would’ve if he hadn’t spoken the one word that cut through my lust fog like a ray of bright sunshine.
“Lunch,” he rasped.
That one word served as a railroad switch to my one-track mind that had been headed straight to Sex Station and was now chugging at full steam ahead to Food Depot. My feet were moving before I even realized I was walking.
As I was passing Hud, who was still standing firmly in place like a statue carved by Michelangelo, I exclaimed, “Thank God. I’m starv—”