Never Tempt a Lawman by Lauri Robinson

Author:Lauri Robinson [Robinson, Lauri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B00HK207RM
Goodreads: 21856321
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

This was not one of her best ideas. Her nerves were frazzled, her brain worn-out, and if Eli tried to touch her one more time, she’d have to give him a wallop he wouldn’t soon forget. Bess huffed out a breath, not because Eli had become completely intolerable—that was normal—but because she should never have invited him over.

She’d rather live in a cave and eat roots than marry him.

Bess pushed aside the arm he once again stretched across her shoulder as they sat on the porch swing. “Stop that, Eli. I told you it’s not proper.”

“Yes, it is, Bess,” he insisted. “I just explained the courting rituals of hummingbirds.”

“We aren’t courting, and hummingbirds don’t have arms,” she growled, scooting farther away. “It’s time for you to go home. I have dishes to do.”

“I’d offer to help you,” Eli said, “but doing dishes is woman’s work, besides, I’d much rather sit out here with you. Mother said I don’t have to be home until dark.”

“And you always listen to your mother, don’t you, Eli?” she asked, rising to her feet.

Her heart skipped a beat as she rested both hands on the porch rail. Not because of Eli’s answer, which was sure to be longer than a preacher’s first sermon. Nope, her heart was in a flutter because of the man walking up the street. The one who’d soon push open the gate as if he owned the place.

Bess spun around and grabbed Eli’s arm. It was soft, nothing like Kirk’s, yet she pulled him to his feet. “Come in the house.”

“But you said we couldn’t be in there alone, that—”

“A piece of pie is proper,” she snapped, pushing him toward the door. “Now, hush up and get in the kitchen.”

Eli was at the table and she was carrying two pieces of the butterscotch pie she’d made across the room when Kirk entered the kitchen. Her heart, as it had taken to doing, skipped a few beats, making her footsteps stumble slightly. She caught herself, but stumbled again at the sour expression on Kirk’s face.

He crossed the room and took the pie plates from her hands, set them on the table, and then pulled out a chair for himself.

Bess fought to control her uneven breathing by holding her breath. It didn’t help. Attempting to deny how Kirk affected her was useless. She managed to dish up a third piece of pie and joined the men at the table as Eli finished a thorough explanation of how a dragonfly only lives for twenty-four hours.

“Is that true?” she asked, pretending to be interested. “Twenty-four hours?”

Without taking the time to chew or swallow the forkful of pie he poked in his mouth, Eli answered. “Yes, it’s true.”

“No, it’s not,” Kirk said. “They live a couple of years. Most of that time is as a nymph. It can take over a year before they eventually metamorphose into an adult. At that stage they live for a few months. Long enough to mate and reproduce.”

Eli shook his head.

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