Slow down, tiger.

Of course, she hadn’t been worried about it at all until Eli. Now she was hyperworried about it.

She settled into the seat and closed the door, her elbow butting against the armrest, her shoulder against the window, anticipating just how intense it would be when Eli joined her in the enclosed space.

He climbed into the driver’s side and, just as she’d feared, the moment he shut the door, she felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out, replaced by a heady mix of hormones and the scent of Eli’s skin.

And yes, he most definitely had his own scent, one she was suddenly very keyed in to. It made her think of the kiss. Made her think of how he’d tasted. Salt, skin and man. And she really, really wanted more.

But that was crazy and she knew it.

He started the truck and it growled to life, vibrating beneath her in a way that was sort of perilous considering her current thought process.

“What is the first stop, then?” she asked.

“The largest barn seems like a good place to start,” he said, putting his arm across the back of the seat as he put the truck in Reverse and backed out of her driveway, taking them to the main road that ran to the different houses and fields on the property.

“So you raise...?”

“Cows,” he said. “And we have a hell of a lot of them. Connor deserves the credit for that. I give him a hard time, but if it weren’t for him this place wouldn’t exist.”

“Why do you give Connor a hard time?” she asked, slipping into the easy, question-asking mode that she’d always used with patients.

“Because he’s my older brother,” Eli said, rolling his shoulders upward, his grip tightening on the steering wheel. “And it’s what we do.”

“Well, yes, but the way you said it implied something deeper than the natural brother-to-brother expression of affection via ‘busting chops.’”

“Are you charging me for this session?”

“What?” she asked, like she was surprised, even though she was fully aware that she was both distracting herself and distancing herself by becoming Therapist Sadie, rather than being Sadie the bag of flail who was marinating in her own lustypants.

“You know. Don’t play innocent. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Is that a value judgment based on the fact that I have a criminal past, albeit a very uncolorful one?”

“Yeah.”

That was it. Just yeah. No apology. No attempt to explain. He didn’t even seem at all apologetic for the fact that he was some kind of a relic from a bygone era. With his angry kissing and generally judgmental attitude, who even needed him or his kissing or his judging? She didn’t. Well, for anything other than getting this whole community events thing started.

“Well, you know, some people might say that the way you judge other people says a lot more about you than it does about them,” she said, sounding annoying to her own ears. Pious, even.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure it does. It says that I’ve spent so much time cleaning up the crap that other people just leave around that I’m short on patience for it. That I’ve spent my whole life being cleanup crew, which means I know people can do better than they do, because I do better. So yeah, it is about me. And I’m judgmental and I don’t care to change it.”

“Well,” she said, “okay.”

She was used to very postmodern men. Men who believed in the exploration and articulation of their feelings. Or men like Marcus, who had liked smoothies and telling her about his day over a light dinner.

She was not used to this kind of Neanderthal he-man thing. Well, scratch that, she was. And she’d walked away from it ten years ago. She wasn’t going to willingly put up with it now.

She didn’t say anything, though. Instead, she just let the silence grow between them until it filled in all the free spaces in the cab and pushed against her throat until she didn’t think she could bear it anymore.

Because she didn’t do the walking on eggshells thing now. She didn’t take the path of least resistance, because she didn’t have to. When people were asses, she walked away. No one got to insert their judgments into her life without her permission.

Not even when the person trying to do so was a badge-carrying, gun-toting deputy. Not. Even. Then.

“Listen, I don’t care what you think,” she said. “And I’m not going to let you try to put me down because of some kind of moralistic—”

“I know you don’t care what I think,” he said. “And none of this has anything to do with being moralistic. You know full well you were trying to psychoanalyze me, and then you went and played dumb about it. And now what? You’re going to get all pissy because I said you weren’t innocent? Because you’re going to apply that statement way further than it was ever intended to go? And you’re going to try to do it while feeling all self-righteous? Hell no, baby, that’s not going to happen.”

She sputtered. “I don’t... You don’t...”

“Tell me I’m wrong, Sadie.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Liar,” he said, putting the truck in Park in front of a giant barn that she wouldn’t have even guessed was a barn at first glance. It had a dark brown tile roof and honey-colored wood siding, glass-paned windows and sliding doors of varying widths. It was more what she’d associate with a high-end stable, not a cattle ranch.

“I’m not a liar,” she said, unbuckling and marveling at the severe...neatness of everything. Sure, it was dusty and there was hay all over the ground, but it was neat and tidy. There was no denying that. It was such a sharp contrast to Connor’s house, and the lack of organization there.

“You are. And if you don’t think you are, you’re at least lying to yourself.” He got out and slammed the door behind him. And she sat for a moment before scrambling out after him. “Thing is,” he said, looking over his shoulder, “it’s not that big of a deal. The original thing I called you on. I think you just like fighting with me.”

“I don’t like fighting,” she said. “With anyone. And I went a very long time without doing it at all before you came back into my life.”

“Correction, honey, you came back into mine.”

“Call me honey one more time, and I’ll dip your fist in honey and shove it in an anthill.”

“My point stands.”

“Okay, sweetie pie,” she said, “the point is that except for you, I never fight with anyone. So I think it’s pretty safe to say that you’re the damn problem. Not me.”

“Is it?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. “It is.”

“Or do you just not talk to anyone who dares to disagree with you?”

He strode toward the barn and left a hissing and spitting Sadie standing there, stunned for a full thirty seconds before she took off after him.

“Why don’t we get back to business,” he continued. “Since I don’t really want to get to know you, and I’m betting you don’t want to get to know me.”

“Yeah,” she said, “fine.” She reached behind her head and tugged the end of her ponytail. “I don’t want to know you. I want to know your barn.”

“Get ready for the excitement,” he said, his tone dry. “And I’m assuming barn isn’t a euphemism for my...for anything.”

“How could a barn be euphemistic?”

“I don’t know. But you’re always accusing me of missing those kinds of things so I figured I’d take preemptive measures.”