When she stepped off the elevator into his condo, she found him sprawled on his couch holding an ice pack to his shoulder. He hadn’t shaved, and his burnt-toast hair was a delicious rumple. Despite the bruise on his jaw, he was just so... everything. All that battered, lived-in masculinity would wake up any woman. Even the dead ones. Rugged men like him were born to win ball games and sire warrior children.

Children? She had to get more sleep. As much as she liked kids, she didn’t want her own and wasn’t in the habit of thinking about them.

He came off the couch. He was shirtless, and he wore gray sweatpants like other men wore Hugo Boss. They slipped low on his hips, revealing a flat, muscled abdomen and a thin line of dark hair pointing straight toward...

Toward her stupid downfall.

She was furious with herself. This had to stop. She was calling Eric. She was going to get this... this urgency out of her system even if she had to seduce Hottie in the back of his squad car.

“I’d ask how you’re feeling,” she managed to say, “but some things are self-evident.”

“I’ve been through worse.”

“Shouldn’t you bandage up your chest?” Right this second. Wrap up all that muscle so I can’t see it.

“They don’t do that anymore,” he said. “Constricts your breathing.”

So what was her excuse? Because she could barely fill her lungs.

Just as she found herself praying he’d put on more clothes, he grabbed a zippered navy sweatshirt from the back of the couch and shoved his arms through the sleeves. But he didn’t zip it. “You mentioned something about an omelet?” he said. “Let me see what I’ve still got growing.”

Sweatshirt falling open to reveal one of Mother Nature’s masterpieces, he went out to his rooftop garden. Instead of using his absence to regain her equilibrium, she followed him.

He was pulling up something she at first thought was an onion but then realized was a leek. He looked so much more at home here than he did working the crowd at Spiral. Utterly relaxed. It struck her how much digging in the dirt with those big, competent hands suited him.

“It doesn’t feel right,” she said. “Somebody like you owning a nightclub.”

“I don’t know why you’d say that.”

“Because Farmer Coop was born to plow the fields.”

“That’s Rancher Coop to you. I’m from Oklahoma, remember? And I’ve never been so glad to get out of a place.”

Despite the chilly weather, he was barefoot and still hadn’t zipped his sweatshirt, but the cold didn’t seem to bother him. She glanced over at the cozy nook not far from the French doors: round, slate-topped table; a cushioned chaise wide enough for two.