Connor straightened, pushing his hat back. “Sure, Eli. You going to arrange to have my wife returned to me?”

Eli’s chest seized up, his heart squeezed tight like it was locked in a vise. “You know I can’t.”

“Then maybe fuck off and stop commenting on how disengaged I am.”

It was rare for Connor to acknowledge that he was still grieving Jessie. But then, it was rare for Eli to call Connor on his bullshit in a serious way.

“Fair enough,” Eli said, his voice coming out tight.

“Now, I believe you were ranting about our tenant.” Typical of Connor. Get really pissed, then pretend it hadn’t happened.

“I was. She has plans. And dammit, Connor, I sort of have to side with her on them.”

Now Connor’s body registered some tension. “What kind of plans?”

“Community barbecue plans,” he said.

“And how does this concern me?”

“Because she wants to host things here,” he said. “Particularly, she’s planning on having a county-wide Independence Day celebration here on our ranch.”

Connor had the decency to look perturbed about that. “Here? On the ranch? I won’t have to do anything, will I?”

Eli let the implosion happen internally. He hadn’t imagined his brother would actually propose that he help out with things, but then, it would have been nice if everything that wasn’t cows didn’t fall to him.

Which was maybe really unfair of him, but at the moment he didn’t care.

“We’ll have to clear things with you and your schedule. And I would guess base some things around what fields you want your cows in at a given time. Also, if any barns are going to be used, that needs to be cleared with you.”

“Right. Fine. Just...when plans get more advanced, run dates and things by me and I’ll see what I can do.”

The fact that it made Connor look so damn tired brought Eli back from annoyance to pity. “Great. Sounds like a plan.”

Connor frowned. “What happened to your tie...and...all of you?”

“What?” Eli looked down and saw the streak of dirt on his tie. It screamed feminine handprint to him, but he was pretty sure that to the unknowing observer it looked like a streak of dirt. Still, it made him feel a lot more like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar than he would like. And it made him think about what had happened between him and Sadie, which, in all honesty, he hadn’t stopped thinking about since he stepped onto Connor’s porch, but now he just felt like his face was projecting the words so Connor could read them easily.

He tried to remind himself that Connor wasn’t that perceptive. And then he wondered what was wrong with him because any normal man would feel some sense of pride over kissing a woman as pretty as Sadie.

But then again...what they’d shared wasn’t exactly a kiss so much as an explosion that happened to be detonated by the meeting of their lips.

“You look like you rubbed up against the side of a barn.”

Eli looked at the rest of his uniform, heat making his face sting. He could see where every inch of her had been pressed against every inch of him. “Something like that,” he said.

Connor narrowed his eyes. “Something like that?”

“I wasn’t paying attention.”

“You pay attention to everything. Which means...you paid extra close attention to whatever happened to your uniform, because obviously you’re lying.”

“Why the hell have you chosen to get engaged with what’s happening right this moment?”

Connor raised a brow. “I think this is the first time I’ve ever caught you doing something you weren’t supposed to do.”

“I’m an adult. As long as it’s inside the law there’s nothing I’m not supposed to do.”

“But let’s be honest, Eli, the laundry list of things you think you can’t do is longer than your arm.”

“You don’t know everything I do.”

“No, but I know everything you don’t do. We live too close to keep secrets.”

“Fine. I brushed up against the barn.”

“Giving it a hug because you were so happy to see it?” Connor asked.

“Okay, you caught me,” Eli said, keeping his tone dry. “I found two women mud-wrestling just outside town and when I went to make sure they had a permit for it, they couldn’t keep their hands off me.”

“Now I believe you hugging a barn before I believe that.”

“Well, pick one. Because they’re the only two stories you’re going to get. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and start organizing this disaster of a party, because frankly, I just didn’t have enough to do.”

“You know you don’t have to do everything, Eli. There’s a certain freedom in just giving the world the middle finger.”

“Yeah, but since you do it so expertly, someone has to get in there and care.” Eli turned and walked out the front door, feeling like a total ass.

Grab a woman who hates you and kiss her? Big fat check next to that box. Insult your grieving brother? Check.

He was on a roll today. There was no denying it.

He sort of wished the mud-wrestling story was true. That would have been fun at least. There was nothing fun about what had passed between him and Sadie. Hot, yes. But not fun. And certainly nothing he could strut around feeling proud of.

When she’d pulled away from him...appalled wasn’t a strong enough word for the look on her face. She’d looked completely horrified that they’d touched. And he’d just wanted to grab her again. And kiss her more.

What the hell was wrong with him?

When he had...affairs, relationships...whatever you wanted to call them, he was careful about his selection. He found women out of town. He found women who weren’t needy or close in proximity. He found women who wanted sex and some easy, occasional companionship.

With the notable exception of Brandy, the last woman he’d been seeing, they were all very casual and very nonintense. Brandy had turned out to be something of a secret badge bunny and about the time he found her naked in the back of his patrol car begging him to put her in handcuffs, he’d known that relationship had to end.

And one thing was certain—he didn’t pursue women who didn’t want him. Sex was easy. Attraction was easy. It wasn’t...whatever this was.

And now he was officially too wound up to enjoy his downtime. Now he was on the verge of an extreme hard-on that would have to go unsatisfied. And now he was officially way past rest and relaxation, he realized during his walk through the property.

What he needed to do was focus on Sadie’s event plans. Yes, that was what he needed. He needed the control. Which, when he thought about it, was probably what the kiss was about. Some unevolved part of himself was trying to seize control through sex.

It had nothing to do with reality. Or with Sadie. Or with him genuinely wanting to shove her top up and her bra down so he could get a look at her breasts.