Fencing Her In Page 2

  Isn’t that what you do when you see a predator? Make yourself bigger to scare it off?

  After a few seconds of foolishness that feel like an hour, the coyote turns tail and walks off into the woods.

  Thank god, because I didn’t grab my firearm before I ran outside. I don’t even know if I could fire it in good conscience. I hate shooting a natural predator even more than I dislike wiener dogs or Molly and her sass bucket mouth. Pretty…soft…sass bucket mouth.

  Shit.

  She should really keep this annoying thing in the house in the dark of night.

  I consider whether I should drive the dog over there, since walking along the property line from here to her front gate would be very inconvenient at this time of night.

  Instead, I decide to see if I still have the fence jumping skills I honed back in high school in Oklahoma while running from the cops after our keggers got busted up.

  I take a few steps back and make a run for it, easily clearing the fence. To be fair, it’s a split rail fence lined with chicken wire, so there’s nothing sharp for my drawers to get caught on. Ripped up more than one pair of jeans doing that trick back in the day. I scoop up the yappy dog before it gets itself into too much trouble. Immediately it stops yapping and licks my arm. As I carry it across the wide lawn, I pray I don’t step in dog business on my path to Molly’s front door.

  “Good thing you’re kinda cute,” I say, not acknowledging the fact that I might mean the wiener dog or Molly or both. “But tomorrow, I’m building a privacy fence, ’cause I need sleep. And your momma’s gonna pay for half of it. You understand me?”

  Chapter Three

  Molly

  I usually take the smaller dogs out on a leash in the middle of the night when they need to pee. Coyotes have been known to carry off small dogs, and most of these little ones can hear the coyotes off in the distance at night. Leash or no leash, the smart ones will stick to my side. But tonight, Terrence is so ornery, I decide he needs to run for a bit.

  A coyote would have to get a running start and be pretty determined to hop that fence to get to one of my babies, but on the other hand, it’s not a big fence and you never know if there could be a weak spot where something could sneak out or in.

  I hear Terrence making a racket over by the new neighbor’s property line.

  I grab my shotgun in case I need to be intimidating. I’ve never shot a person or animal with it. Mainly I use it to scare off jackasses who drive by trying to cause trouble.

  As I’m walking across the field, suddenly Terrence stops his barking.

  My breath catches. This can’t be good.

  I bolt ahead, but soon see the reason Terrence has stopped his noisemaking. In the light of my flashlight it becomes clear. He is being carried, like the posh little wiener dog he thinks he is, by my neighbor, Daniel, who’s tromping across my field in nothing but flannel pajama bottoms.

  When they get close, he sets the dog down. And now three other dogs have awakened to join us in the middle of the wide span of buffalo grass.

  “Did he get out somehow? Thank you for bringing him back. But next time, just take him inside with you and call me, I’ll come get him. I’ll give you my number.”

  Daniel looks less than friendly. “No, he didn’t get out. He was barking his ass off right outside my window, so I went outside to try to get him to shut up. And I ended up chasing off a coyote who was looking at him like breakfast.”

  I laugh. “That’s so sweet of you, but this is a coyote-proof fence. They can’t clear it.”

  His jaw ripples. “The point is, your dog was barking. Loudly. In the middle of the night.”

  I nod at him. “Yes, dogs make a great security team. They would have woken up the entire county if a predator got through the fence.”

  Daniel grits out as he gestures at Terrence. “That one did a good job of waking up the entire county all on his own.”

  I shrug. “Dogs bark. It’s what they do. And it’s not like I leave them outside all night long to bark indefinitely. Just a couple on the porch who enjoy sleeping outside. But if a dog wakes up to go outside to tinkle, well, sure. Yeah, they might bark at something.”

  Daniel shakes his head. “So why don’t you train them to hold it overnight?”

  “Terrence is old. His kidneys are less than awesome. He has to go out a lot. You know how it is with pets.”

  Daniel shakes his head again. “Nope.”

  “What? You’ve…never owned a dog?”

  He shrugs.

  I stare at him for a second trying to square this man’s rugged good looks with the fact that he’s never loved a canine. Sorry, Whitney Houston, but “The Greatest Love of All” is not inside of us. It has fur and terrible breath and likes belly rubs and is better than all of us.

  “This does not compute,” I say.

  He crosses his arms over his chest. “Does it compute that a person needs sleep and that you shouldn’t let your dogs hang around barking at three a.m. out of common courtesy?”

  I look at Terrence, who is having a rare moment of sitting quietly on his haunches. He’s staring at Daniel like Daniel is the alpha dog.

  As a matter of fact, none of the dogs are barking at all around Daniel.

  I look around and the pregnant Bichon, Fluffy, is lying down by Daniel’s feet. Fluffer-Nutter is next to her on his back, like he wants Daniel to give him a belly rub. Chloe the Great Dane is sitting at attention next to Daniel, alternating her big-eyed goofy stare between Daniel and me. Dolly, the German shepherd and love of my life, is sitting pretty with her eyes looking up adoringly at Daniel, as if his pockets are full of bacon.

  What the hell is going on here?

  “Sure,” I say. “But you also have to understand that this is the country. If you can’t cope with animals making a bit of noise in the middle of the night, maybe you should move to the suburbs.”

  “I got news for you. This”—he gestures around widely with his arms, indicating the whole neighborhood including my field—“is about to become the suburbs.”

  I laugh. “You have to have a suburb nearby for this to become a suburb. This clutch of houses sits outside the city limits.”

  “For now. Haven’t you ever heard of a TIF district?”

  I smile. “A tiff? Like what we’re having right now?”

  He looks at me like he wishes he hadn’t spilled the beans about something.

  “What? What did you just blurt out that I’m not supposed to know about?”

  He replies, “Nothing that’s not public record.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Means you can find out for yourself what the plans are for the neighborhood. It’s all at the county planning office.”

  “Do I look like I’m gonna go down to the county seat and ask to see paperwork when I don’t even know what I’m looking for? Suppose you tell me.”

  He looks to the left and puts his hands up in surrender. “I’m gonna buy your land and turn it into a golf course.”

  I stand there and blink at him for a minute. Is he joking? No, by his face he is clearly not joking.

  “Well, good luck,” I say. “Because I’m not selling. Least of all to you.”

  “You’ll have to, eventually. It’s a lot of money. And if you don’t, it’ll get ugly. They could take the land.”

  “No they can’t. And they who?”

  “The county. And if they don’t, then eventually the city will. They’re already talking about annexation anyway.”

  “Bullshit. I own this place and I ain’t moving.”

  “The golf course has partial public funding, so yeah, imminent domain will prevail in this case.”

  “Again I call bullshit,” I say, my blood pressure rising. This is outrageous. How did I not know any of this? Because it’s all lies; I know it. He’s bluffing to get me to comply.

  “Even if it were, the county is going to widen the road to accommodate all the new houses, so…yeah…imminent domain.”

  I don’t exactly know what that means but I can’t let on that I don’t.

  “You keep saying that like we ain’t even in Texas. This is my property and I could shoot you where you stand and not a single jury would convict me.”

  Of course I have no intention of shooting him. And if I did, it would be, like, a BB gun to the butt for being annoying.

  “You ain’t gonna shoot me.”

  “And why wouldn’t I?”

  “Because you like me.”

  Chapter Four

  Daniel

  I have a feeling I took it too far by telling her that she likes me.

  But she does, doesn’t she?

  “I don’t like you.”

  “OK,” I say.

  I watch as she shifts the weight of her petite body from one adorable bare foot to the other.

  Then she draws in a deep breath and squares her shoulders.

  “If I don’t shoot you, it’s not because you’re hot, it’s because…I have a conscience and your being an asshole is not reason enough to use a firearm.”

  I shouldn’t smirk but I can’t help it. “You think I’m hot? Well, that changes things.”

  She raises her determined chin. “How?”

  “Because you don’t have to like me to think I’m hot. You only have to like the way I look.”

  Molly makes a dismissive noise and rolls her eyes. “You’re a piece of work.”

  I look down at my abs and run my hand over them. “Yeah…matter of fact, it did take a lot of work to get hot enough for a female to compromise her principles.”

  “This ain’t about principles. This is about my livelihood.”

  I feel bad for getting her so worked up. But not that bad. She’s damn sexy when her cheeks are flushe
d.

  “I get that. But you won’t have to worry about livelihood if you decide to take the deal.” This is 100 percent true. I’m prepared to make a very generous offer on her property. It doubled when I got a look at her. It tripled when I went home and had to relieve my sorely-neglected, rock-hard cock in the shower because I couldn’t get the image of that sassy mouth out of my head.

  “Who are you to tell me what to do with my livelihood?”

  I laugh and look around. “Sorry, but it doesn’t look to me like you’re in this for the money, or even know the first thing about making money.”

  “Nobody takes in unwanted dogs for the money,” she says.

  “You’ll be able to move into a bigger house, a nicer house.”

  “Fuck that. This is my MeMaw’s house, and it’s not your business to tell me where to live.”

  I sigh. “Look. I didn’t mean for us to have this conversation in the middle of the night.”

  “When did you mean for us to have this conversation? Were you planning on taking me out on a date? Getting me drunk before I sign my life over to you?”

  My lip twitches when I hear the word “date.”

  A meaningful pause gives me time to absorb that word into my skin before I form a reply. It’s been a long time since I had a date. Dates for me have been few and far between. I’ve never even been in a serious relationship, for a couple of reasons.

  “I’m not that kind of guy,” I rumble. It irks me to think she could ever assume I’d try to manipulate a woman, especially with alcohol. And then, it irks me that I care so much what she thinks. What is happening to me?

  She can’t help but roll her eyes at me. That look on her face makes me want to put her over my knee and spank her…real good.

  “You’ve already shown your ass. You’re planning on taking my home. What else is there for me to know about you? What kind of guy are you?” she says.

  I shrug. “I’m a guy who likes to finesse things. I like to massage numbers and go into negotiations to make sure everyone wins.”

  “I can’t see how I’m in any way on the winning end of this.”

  I am not going to win her over tonight. “Well, look at it this way. All I’m doing today is renovating my house. And then the next house, and then the next. The golf course plan is pretty far down the road. Maybe years. We’ve got plenty of time to negotiate.”

  My eyes drift downward. I’ve noticed how much skin is visible in her skimpy yellow cotton sleep nightie. She’s not wearing a bra or undies.

  Her nipples are taut against the breezy summer night. Boom: Boner Town. Again.

  And then I hear words I never thought I’d hear out of this diminutive firebrand’s mouth. “Wanna come inside for coffee? We can start negotiations right now.”

  Chapter Five

  Molly

  His jaw tightens and his eyes travel up to my neck, my mouth, my eyes.

  This man is not my friend. Not my boyfriend. Not my lover. I don’t particularly like him. But the way he looks at me, at my body, my mouth, does something to me.

  He wakes something up inside me.

  I can’t believe it, but my chest, breasts, and ears heat under his gaze, making it very difficult to maintain the necessary level of indignation about my land.

  And then, he smiles. Oh jeez. It’s sorcery. Those dimples. Three of them. One in each cheek and one in his chin. Deep green eyes that crinkle with bad boy mischief. Without his hat, his wavy, auburn hair is on full display. His locks are still slightly mussed from his pillow and begging to be combed by my fingers. Full lips that look strong yet soft and curl a bit unevenly when he shows his teeth. His aw-shucks grin reveals a set of straight white teeth, mostly. One canine tooth stands slightly, charmingly askew.

  Despite his cocky behavior, his smile reveals a faint sweetness underneath.

  “Sure,” he says, his voice dropping an octave and sending vibrations somewhere deep inside my panties.

  My stomach does a somersault. I am excited yet instantly regretful that I invited him in, but here we are. Even if I wanted to retract my invitation, it would seem so wishy-washy now because he’s already halfway to the house.

  On top of that, I’m seriously amused at the sight of Chloe, Fluffy, Dolly, and the entire pack falling in line at his heels. It’s like a parade of cute butts. Mostly furry butts, but one very nice masculine butt that’s barely disguised by low-slung flannel pajama bottoms.

  Dang. I thought I was in charge of the dogs, but as far as this crew is concerned, there’s a whole new alpha in town.

  Chapter Six

  Daniel

  Molly has piqued my interest, like a social studies project.

  Crossing her rickety front porch, I make a mental note of the vintage rocking chair, a basket of newspapers and magazines, hanging plants strung with macramé harnesses, wind chimes that look like they’re right out of the 1970s with their frogs and mushrooms. The weathered screen door needs to be rescreened and the porch trim could use a coat of paint. Not to mention the floorboards of the porch could use replacing. Still, it has a cozy, welcoming feel that urges me to sit a spell.

  If I feel at home on the porch, crossing the threshold and being inside the small craftsman house makes me feel like I have literally come home. Her honey maple hardwood floors creak in welcome. When the screen door slaps shut, it reminds me of my cousins and me barging in and out of our NaNa’s house back in Oklahoma.

  The small army of dogs follows Molly down the short hall and into the kitchen on the left through the arched doorway. The black and white linoleum on the floor has to be original to the house. And so are the pink steel cabinetry and farmhouse sink.

  This is a rare find.

  Somewhere down deep in the back of my mind, another voice chimes in: “So is she.”

  My chest tightens as I watch this scantily clad beauty ping-pong around the small kitchen, making coffee in a percolator, turning on music on a transistor radio. I also make note of the rotary telephone on the wall.

  As the local country station plays Kenny Rogers on a tinny speaker, I have to ask her. “Is that a percolator? I haven’t seen one of those since my NaNa died. And a rotary phone? And a transistor radio? What is happening? Did I enter a time machine?”

  “I kept everything exactly the way MeMaw left it,” she says. “Have a seat.”

  But no way am I going to sit still. Instead, I open the fridge to get out the creamer. I pull out a glass bottle with a stopper. When I take a whiff, I realize this sneaky woman is a law breaker.

  “This is raw milk.”

  “Damn skippy. There ain’t no law.”

  Well, yes, there is, but far be it from me to point it out. And shit yes, I’m having some of it in my coffee. I haven’t had raw milk since way before NaNa died.

  Then I go on a hunt for the sugar. I take a guess as to the location of the pantry. My guess is correct. I grab a couple of mugs, which—I should not be surprised—are the old-school brown pottery kind used in diners back in the day.

  It occurs to me that I’m feeing cozy and comfortable with her. It’s like the life I sometimes dream about: A beautiful woman and me, both of us half-dressed, having a midnight snack together. Of course, in my dreams, we’re having that midnight snack because we’ve just finished devouring each other in the bedroom and we’re both starving.

  I’m not even bothered that she’s added to this domestic fantasy a huge family of dogs sprawled out in dog beds all around the kitchen, mud room and hallway. It’s like some kind of witchcraft she’s using on me. This feels…the way it should be.

  It’s nice. It feels good. And because I let it feel good, I feel guilty about taking all of this away someday to check off the first box on my list of goals as an up-and-coming real estate developer.

  I locate spoons in a drawer right where she’s standing by the counter. My hand brushes past the fabric of her skimpy yellow nightshirt to pull out two silver spoons with dainty embossed flowers on them. As I close the drawer, I feel her eyes on me. I glance over, and she’s more than sneaking a look at my biceps. She’s full-on staring.