Chapter 3

At any rate, the two had a very pleasant afternoon, all to themselves, talking and laughing and sharing what may or may not have been girl talk at times, and boy talk at others. When they rode back down to the ranch in time for supper, nobody was more pissed off than Shane.

“Nothing happened!” Wade kept repeating, as the two dressed for dinner in the bunk house.

“I do not believe you. That girl is h-o-t hot. You can’t be a normal healthy man and not have had her on the grass on her ass up there. I know what you were up to, sending us all back the way you did.”

“Dude,” Wade said tiredly. “I’m—” but the dinner gong interrupted him.

* * * *

Shane was so upset he could barely eat. He must have looked a little green around the gills too, because Anna, who was sitting across from him, asked him if he felt all right.

“I’m studying nursing,” she said with an impish grin, “And you don’t look too good to me. Have you ever had your appendix out? Maybe later I could take a look.”