Caleb heaved off me first, hearing the warning tone in his dad’s voice. Corbin tried to get in a last armpit tickle, but I hooked my arm around his neck and put him into an illegal headlock with his arm cocked and immobile in the air.

I was raking my knuckles over his scalp for an auntie noogie when the way Jason said, “Um, Katie?” made me stop.

I puffed my hair out of my face and twisted around. My heart hammered once. Twice. The guy standing next to Jason was the hottest, sexiest, most mouthwatering man I’d ever seen. Tall. Built. His long-sleeved Henley hugged his torso like it had been sculpted onto his biceps and abs. Powerful legs filled out worn blue jeans. What rocked me wasn’t the unruly cowlick that hadn’t been ruthlessly shellacked into place with hair gel, but the rugged scruff covering his strong, square jaw.

He was all things masculine. He oozed sex appeal. And he looked at me like he’d never seen a rumpled mess of an aunt wearing dried grass clippings and a shirt twisted around her stomach.

Air whooshed out of my lungs. “Aiden.”

CHAPTER 5

Aiden

My mind struggled to register what I was seeing. Three red-faced and sweaty people, two kids and one adult, laughing in a carefree way I hadn’t heard since before Mama died. My nephews peeled away, leaving Kate in the middle of the brown lawn. Her hair was a tangled flurry and her shirt had ridden up to reveal a patch of creamy skin above her yoga pants.

Her wide smile died and took the mischievous glint with it. I was tempted to back up, retrace my steps like I could rewind life, just to put that gleam back in her eyes. Sexy. Alive. Unreserved.

Kate was a mess. I’d never seen her in such a state. When we went to King’s Creek to work cattle, she kept to the fringes and made coffee runs. She came out the cleanest out of all of us. But in a trailer park in Billings, in the middle of a lawn, after she’d been wrestling—and I’d been here long enough to see that she knew what she was doing—she was the dirtiest of us all. And I fucking loved it.

She stood and dusted herself off. Randall rose, towering over me like usual. He was older than Dad by several years, but age hadn’t stooped his back.

“Jason,” Randall said. “Why don’t we go help your mom set the table.” He clapped a big hand on my shoulder but I couldn’t take my gaze off a stunning Kate. “You staying for a bite?”

I couldn’t tell from his tone if he wanted me to. Randall would offer to be polite, but he’d boot me the hell out if Kate asked him to. “I just want to talk to Kate.”