Free Summer Winds by Austin, Andrews & Austin

on both feet in front of me, grinning broadly. I clapped despite myself and she bowed.
    “I’m applauding your not breaking an ankle or my fence,” I said, to recover.
    “You were applauding my dismount,” she said, looking down at me, breathing heavily. “I promised myself I wouldn’t fall.” She froze, gazing into my eyes.
    The wind suddenly shifted, and I could smell her cologne blended with her body heat and I was sensually aroused. The prairie wind bent blades of spring grass to the ground around us and swirled beneath my cotton shirt like the hot breath of an impatient lover.
    She reached for my hand and I let her slowly open my fingers, my muscles weakening at the intensity of her gaze and the tenderness of her touch.
    “What’s this?” She took the slips of paper from me.
    “Tickets to the River Festival. I was—”
    “Could we?”
    Could we what? My mind raced. At this moment, my answer might be yes to almost anything. “Yes.” I let all the air out of my body as if confirming that thought to myself, then hurried back to the truck muttering something about needing to get dinner ready.
    An hour later, I’d left her a hamburger on the countertop with a note saying I was going to bed early. I needed time to regroup. I wasn’t that naïve. I knew I was in the danger zone. Something about her left me on edge and excited, a condition I’d occasionally wished for, but not now, and not from a younger woman. Not from a woman of any age.
    Fleeting forbidden thoughts blew through my brain and I replaced them with more appropriate ones. Maybe I should partition off the bunkhouse and move her out there. Not have her underfoot all the time.
    A light tap on my bedroom door and I froze, pretending to be asleep. The tap grew louder. “Maggie, are you okay?”
    “I’m fine.” I tried to sound slightly annoyed.
    “You sure you’re not sick or something?”
    “Just trying to get some sleep.”
    “Sorry. Thanks for the burger.” Her voice trailed off and I felt bad about the brusqueness of my tone. But in truth, I was trying to get some sleep. I hadn’t slept well since she’d been here. The idea that someone was prowling around my house at night, not that she prowled, but potentially prowling, opening the refrigerator, flushing toilets, opening screen doors, apparently, at a subconscious level, made me feel unsafe or violated or whatever.
    Three hours later I looked at the clock, wondering why I wasn’t getting any sleep. I will take her to the River Festival, demonstrate that I’m her friend as well as her employer so she’s not afraid of me, as Donnetta suggested, and then have Perry partition off the bunkhouse and move her out there. If she doesn’t want to share his bathroom, she can come in the house in the morning to shower.
    Resolving all that, I was finally able to get a few hours’ sleep.
    I awoke long before sunrise, threw on some jeans, and headed out to bang on Perry’s sleeping quarters, hoping he was up early. He opened the battered wooden door looking askew and listened to my plaintive harangue.
    “Why does she have to move out here ?” Perry said, standing on the bunkhouse porch in the predawn light in what could only be described as gray long johns.
    “It’ll be better for her and give me some room, better for everybody, actually.” I tried to sound casual, as if I were suggesting a spontaneous campout.
    “Except me…the person who has to cut his personal space in half.”
    I hadn’t really considered that with a male worker the bunkhouse was fairly large, both men sharing the main room, but to accommodate Cash, I would be putting up a wall and removing half of Perry’s living area. “You’re right, you’re right.” I turned and went back to the house as Perry asked questions of my back.
    “She cause you any trouble?”
    “Of course not.”
    “You feeling okay?”
    “Of course.”
    “I guess I’m the only one who’s confused, not that that’s unusual,” he