Just Kidding (SWAT Generation 2.0 #1)(71)

He looked like he’d led a hard life—which he had.

The older gentleman turned to me and immediately said, “Codie Spears!”

I blinked, surprised by the outburst.

“Hi,” I said. “How do I know you?”

He grinned. “You may not remember me, but you do know me. I’m your mother’s sister’s ex-husband.”

I blinked. “Aunt Peggy?”

He winced. “That’d be her.”

I laughed then.

“Poor guy,” I cooed. “I’m glad to see you’re still standing.”

He grinned and patted me on the back.

“Gotta agree with you there. Careful of that board, it’s loose,” he said as I stepped over the board in question.

“Thanks.” I patted his hand that was still on my arm. “I’ve got to find someone.”

“Who ya’ lookin’ for?” he asked.

“Ace Valentine.”

His smile fell and his eyes narrowed.

“Whatcha’ want with him?” he questioned, his entire demeanor changing.

I blinked in confusion at his abrupt change in attitude.

“He’s supposed to be helping me… ahh, I think I see him.” I hurried away before he could say anything else, my eyes on the brown hat I could see bobbing up and down at the end of the walkway.

Skirting one last person about ten feet before the man, I slowed.

My steps went quieter, and I studied the man’s back.

His backside.

If his face was anything like his butt, he’d be breathtaking.

I couldn’t begin to thank the Lord enough for the invention of Wrangler jeans.

There was no way that the guy was cute, though. Not with a body like that. Surely God wasn’t that generous.

From the back he was breathtaking.

He was wearing a white t-shirt tucked into a pair of dark-washed tight—and by tight, I mean so tight I bet he had to jump and shimmy to get into them—jeans that were on the closest side to ‘snug’ as you could get.

He had on a pair of brown boots that were nothing special, but with one glance I could tell that they were his nice ones.

These were clean… and the man didn’t strike me as the type of man that didn’t get his boots dirty.

His hands were rough, those I could see because he had them interlocked behind his back, making his shoulders appear even broader than what they would normally appear as.

His brown cowboy hat nodded every few seconds, his head slanted downward to watch the pen that was underneath him.

And what I saw in that pen made my heart start to hammer, and a gasp to escape from my mouth.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, my eyes on the bull as I moved forward to get a better look.

At first, I didn’t notice that I was close to the man at the very end of the wooden plank walkway.

My eyes were all for the massive bull that was really pissed off.

In fact, I was nearly on top of Mr. Valentine before I knew it.

Glancing up quickly at the closeness of the man, I stopped at his side without ever taking my eyes off the massive bull.

I felt more than saw his head turn to survey me, but I couldn’t keep my gaze from the black beast below me.

“Jesus,” I breathed when that bull pawed the red dirt underneath his feet. “Jesus.”

The man at my side didn’t say anything as we both watched the animal stalk the cage like a large cat instead of a bull, and it was only when the announcer above us informed the arena that the bidding would start in twenty minutes, and that all entering animals should enter them in the next ten minutes, that I became unstuck.

“Oh!” I cried. “I need your help!”

Finally, I turned to the man beside me, and my breath stalled in my chest when I got my first good look at Mr. Valentine.

He wasn’t an old man.

Far from it, in fact.

He was gorgeous.

Beyond gorgeous.

“Are y-you Mr. Valentine?” I asked for confirmation when the man didn’t reply to my outburst.

Please don’t be him. Please don’t be him.

The man’s beautiful head nodded, his brown cowboy hat bobbing with his ascent.

And those eyes of his.

They weren’t brown.

They were like glowing orbs of amber lit with something shimmery and darker golden. Like lions’ eyes.

I’d never seen anything like them before.

But no, his eyes weren’t plain boring brown. They were other.

“I am. You Spears’ granddaughter?” he asked.

I nodded mutely, unable to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth.

“You got the cows dropped off yet?” he continued, not bothered in the least by my proximity like I was to his.

I shook my head.

“Let’s go get it done, then,” he said, leading the way.

His long legs ate up the distance, and I had to practically run to keep up with him.

I idly wondered if me falling from this height would kill me, and then nearly laughed when I decided that even if the fall didn’t kill me, the bull in the pen I fell into would.

I’d just made it about halfway when Mr. Valentine made it to the end.

Almost as an afterthought, he turned to see where I was and scowled when he realized I wasn’t right behind him.