Free Between the Seams by Aubrey Gross Page B

he could respond, they rounded a curve in the trail and burst through a wall of mesquite shrubs and purple sage. Chase knew the minute Jo saw where they were by her quick, surprised gasp.
    They stood on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the Devils River. Five hundred feet below them the river wound lazily through the ranch, and across from them was a wide expanse of gently rolling land dotted with scrub brush, cacti, mountain laurel, wild persimmon and oak trees. In the distance was a deep canyon, and then taller hills and plateaus.
    “I always feel like I can see to the edge of the earth from here.”
    “It’s beautiful, Chase. Absolutely gorgeous.”
    He scanned the area across the river and pointed. “Look, there, you can see a couple of bison.”
    She squinted and held her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. “Where? I’m not seeing them.”
    Chase stood behind her and guided her hand up so that her index finger was pointing in the right direction. “There.”
    She looked again, stilled, and softly said. “I see them now.”
    He was standing close enough so that her blonde hair tickled his nose, the scent tormenting him in the best sort of way. His hand had dropped and settled on her hip. As they stood there, the sun starting to dip close to the horizon and paint the sky in shades of blue and orange, she leaned back into him, and Chase rested his chin on the top of her head.
    “Beautiful,” she murmured.
    He wasn’t looking at the sunset when he said, “Absolutely beautiful.”
    ~~*~~

Chapter Seven
    “You up for a beer?”
    Two days after taking Jo out to Devils Ranch, Chase looked up from his laptop and the contract he’d been trying to read for the last thirty minutes and rubbed his eyes. Owen stood at his office door, his polo shirt wrinkled and dirty, his jeans looking no better, his red hair disheveled and a tired look on his face.
    Chase asked, “Rough day at the office?”
    Owen sighed, ambled over and flopped into a chair. “You could say that. Contractor hit a pipe while digging. Had to get that fixed. Then the cement truck broke down. Blew the engine. Took another two hours to get a new one out to the site. Two of my guys got into a fight and one of them ended up in the ER with a broken hand. Left the hospital about an hour ago, got a quarter mile away and blew a tire. It’s been a perfect day.”
    “Wanna take a stab at translating legal jargon into plain English?”
    “I’ll take busted pipes, broken down cement trucks, broken hands and blown tires any day over legal shit.”
    Chase glanced at the time. 6:47. He vaguely remembered Kim poking her head into his office some time ago to let him know she was leaving for the day. He rubbed his hands over his face, knowing that the contract in front of him was going to continue to sound like gibberish to his tired brain, and closed the laptop. “I think I could definitely be up for a beer.”
    “Wings and Rings?” Owen asked, referring to their favorite place to grab a beer, some wings and unwind while watching a game on one of the many big screen TVs.
    “Sounds good to me. Let me just shut everything down and I’ll be there in a minute.”
    Owen got up and left, leaving Chase alone with his thoughts once more. He threw one more glance at his laptop, knowing that tomorrow he would have to force himself to focus and push Jo from his mind.
    A man had to get some work done for crying out loud.
    He vaguely thought about texting Jenn, seeing if maybe she and Jo would like to join them, and then realized he was acting like one of the teenagers Jo counseled. He dropped his head into his hands and muttered to himself, “For the love of tits, Roberts, you’re a grown man. Act like one.”
    But the thought of tits made him think about Jo, and her breasts, and how amazing they’d felt pressed up against him when he’d kissed her that night at Owen’s. The erection that had been at half-mast since he’d dropped her back off at her grandma’s