Free Can't Resist a Cowboy by Elizabeth Otto Page A

going back to work before they come looking for me.” He gave her a tender smile and grabbed his hat from the table before walking out. Carrie cleaned up the kitchen, ruminating on the things they’d talked about, trying to drum up new ideas that might help the ranch. Except that her mind kept straying to Levi and that morning, and the way her body had lit up with his touch.
    Getting out some cleaner, she doused the countertop and scrubbed until her arm and the hitch in her side started to throb. When that was done, she turned to the sink, and then the cupboard doors. Cleaning worked the knots out of her thoughts, and right now, thanks to Levi, she had a lot of them.
    She’d just filled a bucket to scrub the floor when the back of her neck tingled. Pausing to listen, she heard the distant noise of bellowing cattle and shouting men. She almost shrugged it off and went back to her work, but something made her stop and hold her breath. It was faint over the other noise…
    A voice calling her name.

Chapter Ten
    “Carrie?”
    Unsure at first where it was coming from, she crossed to the kitchen door. Her dad must have left it cracked open when he’d gone out. A shape at the bottom of the porch steps gave her a jolt.
    “Hey, can you toss my jacket out here?” Levi’s voice was tight, tense, followed with a low grunt as if he were trying to hold back pain.
    “Come on in and let me find it.” She’d rearranged the table and chairs and moved things out of the way in preparation for mopping the floor. She had no idea where she’d put it.
    “I’ll wait.” There it was again, words punctuated with a groan as if talking was difficult. Wiping her hands on her jeans, she pushed open the screen door and went out. It took a minute for her eyes to adjust in the light, but she saw clearly enough to read the hard-etched lines on his face.
    “You get kicked or something?”
    Levi was bracing himself with one arm on the railing, bent over a little. “No. Get my jacket, please?” She started toward him, but he put his other hand out at her, palm up. “Damn it, woman, don’t.”
    His harsh tone stopped her, surprise turning into irritation with a big helping of concern. Then she realized he’d been on a horse all day, like the last time he’d had pain. His legs. Snapped back into motion, she went to the top step and looked down, offering him a hand even though he wouldn’t be able to reach it from down there.
    “Let me help you. Come on.”
    “Fuck, Carrie. I said, don’t .”
    “And I said, come on.” She extended her hand again, knowing full well that he wouldn’t come up to take it. It ripped her up inside to see him like this, and as long as she had the ability to help, she’d push him until he accepted or stormed off. By the agonized look on his face, he wasn’t in the position to be storming off anywhere.
    Levi looked up, fading daylight casting his face in gray. His breath came hard and soft, once, twice, four times until he blinked and set his jaw. “Go inside. I won’t come up with you standing there.”
    Men and their pride. Fine. As her own disability progressed, Carrie often wondered what it would be like to have to rely on others for help, and if her self-worth would suffer because of it. For Levi, needing help was probably about the worst blow imaginable.
    A minute or so later, Levi came in, so pale she thought he was going to pass out. She ushered him into the living room. His broad shoulders were set tight, pulling his shirt across his upper body. His biceps bunched and rounded beneath the fabric as he grabbed his left thigh with both hands and lowered onto the couch.
    “It might be better if you slip out of your jeans?” His scowl deepened, his lower lip curling up a little beneath the top one.
    “Just do it over my pants again. Please.”
    She recalled the topography of dips and rises she’d felt through his jeans. The angles of his jaw were more pronounced as he clenched his teeth, a small