Dancing in the Moonlight

And that scheming snake Jake Dalton unloading the hay that had just been delivered.

His muscles barely moved under a thin International Harvester T-shirt, she couldn’t help notice. He was far more buff than she would have guessed. Tight and hard and gorgeous.

She indulged herself by watching that play of muscles under cotton for only a moment before wrenching her eyes away and forcing her hormones under control.

“I cannot believe you did this, Mama!”

Her mother raised an eyebrow at her accusatory tone. “Tell me what did I do that is so terrible, hmm?”

“You let Jake Dalton sucker you into letting him come to the ranch and help us!”

Viviana laughed. “Oh, yes. I am such a fool to accept the help of a strong, hardworking man when it is offered. Yes. I can see how he—what is the word you used?—suckered me. I am a crazy old woman who allows this man to take terrible advantage of me by hauling my hay bales and mending my fences.”

Maggie ground her teeth. “Mama! He’s a Dalton!”

“He’s a good boy, Lena,” her mother said, her voice stern. “A good boy and a good neighbor. He says he will help us when he has the time, and I can see no reason to say no.”

She could come up with at least a hundred reasons, including the dreams she’d had the night before. Those steamy, torrid dreams of strong muscles and hard chests and sexy smiles.

While she had to admit, she had experienced a tiny moment of gratitude to be caught up in dreams that didn’t involve explosions and terror for a change, she had hated waking up alone and aching and vaguely embarrassed at her unwilling attraction to him.

She shifted away from the window, hoping her mother wouldn’t notice her suddenly heightened color. “Just what did you have to offer him in return?”

Viviana met her gaze briefly then looked away. “Nothing.”

Her sweet, churchgoing, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth mother was lying through her teeth. Maggie had absolutely no doubt.

“Mama!”

Viviana’s shoulders lifted in a casual shrug. “Nothing you need to worry about right now, anyway.”

Maggie said nothing, only continued glaring. After a moment Viviana sighed heavily.

“Okay, okay. I told him I would see that you help him at the clinic on the days he opens to the Latinos.”

She added manipulative, underhanded and duplicitous to the list of unflattering adjectives now preceding Jake Dalton’s name in her mind. She had told him no. But with typical Dalton arrogance, he’d found a way around her.