Seduction on the Sand (The Billionaires of Barefoot Bay #2)(11)
Author: Roxanne St. Claire

“Most women—”

“Hey, newsflash, Becker.” She snapped her fingers three times. “I am not most women.”

Charcoal-black eyes raked her, from face to body and back up again, just as smoky and sexy as a man could look. “I noticed.”

Damn it, she hated the heat that generated. Two words. One look. And a couple of billion dollars. “I don’t believe money buys you happiness.”

“So says everyone who doesn’t have it.”

She managed not to scoff at that. “Money buys nothing but misery. Trust me, I know firsthand. Misery.” If her parents hadn’t been chasing the almighty dollar…they’d still be here.

He finally smiled. “This is good, Frankie. Really good.”

“What is?”

“This arrangement.” He gestured to her and then to him, as though they had actually made an arrangement. “You can teach me about goats and farms and animal science, and I can teach you that you are completely wrong about people who have money.”

Could he? Maybe someone needed to do that, otherwise, she was never going to fully heal from the pain of losing the two people she’d loved and needed so desperately. Without giving herself a chance to think deeper than that, she nodded.

“Okay, then.” She put her hands on her thighs and pushed up.

“Can I stay?”

Ozzie let out four furious barks, as though he could answer for her.

“I have six sets of very dirty hooves waiting to be cleaned and trimmed. That’s a total of twenty-four goat hooves, which means forty-eight toes that need your attention.”

He frowned, making her wonder if the simple math threw him. “I thought you had seven goats.”

“One’s a buck and, trust me, you cannot handle him.”

He pushed up from Nonno’s chair and smiled at her. “You have no idea how I live for a challenge. If I clean all twenty-four feet, can I stay?”

“Their called hooves, not feet. And, we’ll see.”

He scooped up the dog like he weighed nothing. “Let’s go, Wizard of Ozzie. Farmwork to do.”

As soon as she opened the door, Harriet came bounding over with his cowboy hat in her teeth. Well, what was left of it. The brim was shredded.

Frankie bit back a laugh, but Elliott just hooted as he put down one dog to give his attention to the other. “Would you look at that?”

“Sorry,” Frankie said, fighting an outright giggle.

He gave her that slow, sexy, careless smile as he set the hat on his head and the ragged brim dipped over his forehead. “Let’s get to the hooves, boss.”

Damn it. Damn it. Did he have to be so stinking sexy?

Chapter Five

Elliott rolled over, a jolt from head to toe. Pain jabbed his back and something fuzzy scraped his ear. His forearms ached from compressing the damn shears, using every ounce of strength he had to snap off hard chunks of goat toenail. His thighs hurt from squeezing the beasts between his legs as he bent over goat butts and held their hind legs up to do the work.

Holy mother of misery.

Everything hurt and needed rest and a five-hundred-dollar massage and sauna at the club in Manhattan. Later. He’d make an appointment later. Now, he had to sleep, the need pressing his lids closed and numbing the pain. In his ear, a soft sigh pulled him a little further from a dream, and he reached out to…

He dug through sleep-fog for a name. Francis. No, Frankie. Fiery, feisty, funny, and…furry?

With a grunt, he threw himself backward, as far away from the little goat as possible.

Ruffles.

A musical laugh filled his ears. That pretty, girlie, bell-like laugh he hadn’t heard nearly enough while he cleaned shit—actual, real manure—out of goat hooves. Shifting in the hay bed he’d made the night before, he squinted to see Frankie at her milking station, already wringing the crap out of Clementine’s titties.

Holy hell, he knew their names. Plus, it couldn’t be seven in the morning. Did it never end, this goat business?

Well, this was part of the deal he’d made with the lawyer, right? Burns had salivated at Elliott’s offer and asked for one week to close the sale. During that time, Elliott had to make sure Frankie hit nothing but roadblocks until he and his partners owned the land. That required constant supervision and, evidently, sleeping in a goat barn.

“How’d you sleep?” Frankie asked, the splash of milk into a metal bucket not hiding the little note of concern in her voice. She might act like she didn’t care that he had to sleep here, but she did.

“Like hell in a haystack.” He leaned up on one elbow, scowling into early sunlight that streamed through the opening behind her, backlighting her so she looked…great. Really great. “You’re up early.”

“It’s a farm, big boy. That’s how we roll.”

Too tired to argue, he rested his head and let his eyes focus on her. Jeans today, faded but tight enough to show every curve. And an oversized T-shirt so loose that when she leaned over to adjust the milk pail, he could see right down to a tank top. Her hair was pulled back in her Heidi braid. Small, taut muscles in her arms bunched as she squeezed out milk, her lower lip tucked under her teeth in concentration, a glisten of perspiration giving her a glow.

“You can use the facilities in the trailer,” she said, not even looking at him.

“In a minute. I’m mesmerized by milking.” And the milk maid.

She tried to hide her amusement by tucking her head under the goat’s belly instead, but he caught the smile. “Good, you can finish for me. I think you learned how to do it last night.”

Yes, he had. Squeezed the udders till those suckers were dry as bones. And never wanted to put his hand on another goat nipple as long as he lived. “Aren’t you almost done?” he asked.

“Still have Ruffles and the little girls. And I need to leave in less than an hour.”

He sat up completely. “Where are you going?”

“County Clerk to get to the bottom of this Burns guy and his bogus will.”

Except, the will was not bogus. Elliott was certain of that. How Burns’s client was able to coerce the old man to sign it might not have been the most ethical of means, but the will was legal. “I’m going with you.”

That earned him a vile look. “No, you’re staying here to milk the goats.”

“I’ll do both, but I’m going with you.”

“I can handle it. I’ve already started, to be honest. Last night I Googled that lawyer and the name of his client.”