She couldn’t even start the damn lawn mower, he thought, but was wise enough not to mention it. ‘‘I didn’t say you couldn’t. I said I’d do it.’’

She couldn’t turn around, couldn’t risk what it would do to her system to be that close again, face to face. ‘‘You have chores of your own.’’

‘‘Grace, are we going to stand here all day arguing over who’s going to cut this grass? I could have it done twice over by the time we finish, and you could be saving your string beans from being choked out by those weeds.’’

‘‘I was going to get to them.’’ Her voice was thin. They were both bent over, all but spooned together. The flash of sheer animal lust that streaked through the familiar yearning for him staggered her.

‘‘Get to them now.’’ He murmured it, willing her to move. If she didn’t, and very quickly, he might not be able to hold himself back from putting his hands on her. And putting them on her in places they had no business being.

‘‘All right.’’ She shifted away, moving sideways while her heart knocked at her ribs in short rabbit punches. ‘‘I appreciate it. Thanks.’’ She bit her lip hard because she was going to babble. Determined to be normal, she turned and smiled a little. ‘‘It’s probably the carburetor again. I’ve got some tools.’’

Saying nothing, Ethan grabbed the cord with one hand and yanked it hard, twice. The engine caught with a dyspeptic roar. ‘‘It ought to do,’’ he said mildly when he saw her mouth thin in frustration.

‘‘Yeah, it ought to.’’ Struggling not to be annoyed, she strode quickly to her vegetable patch.

And bent over, Ethan thought as he began to cut the first swath. Bent over in those thin cotton shorts in a way that forced him to take several long, careful breaths.

She didn’t have a clue, he decided, what it had done to his usually well-disciplined hormones to have her trim little butt snugged back against him. What it did to theusually moderate temperature of his blood to have all that long, bare leg brushing against his.

She might be a mother—a fact that he reminded himself of often to keep dark and dangerous thoughts at bay—but as far as he was concerned, she was nearly as innocent and unaware as she’d been at fourteen.

When he’d first begun to have those dark and dangerous thoughts about her.