Page 44 of All of Us

I nodded. “I’ll do that.”

Once I was home, I felt calmer. I grabbed my phone off the counter where I had left it. There were messages waiting for me.

DUSTY

Had a great time yesterday. We should do something later in the week.

And a second message.

GENTRY

Looking, forward to tomorrow. I thought I would bring a picnic.

My first response was sent.

JOE

For sure, let’s compare schedules.

I smiled that this was my life and sent the second message.

JOE

A picnic would be great. Anything I can bring?

In some ways, it felt weird to be talking to them both, but I also liked knowing I had friends. It was only 8:00 a.m., and I had about three hours before I had to go downtown to the local diner to take pictures for their new menu. After talking to Mont, I felt tired and decided to take a nap since I hadn’t slept at all the night before.

As I closed my eyes, I thought about both men and their differences—I bet they would be great friends. That would be weird, though. I fell asleep quickly with thoughts of the three of us hanging out in my head.

That couldn’t work, could it?

Chapter seventeen

GENTRY

When I saw Joe come out of his cottage, I couldn’t stop my heart from doing a somersault. It had only been a few nights since we had been together, but it was safe to say I was addicted to him. If I wasn’t afraid of pushing him too hard, I would be with him every night, but I was patient.

Waiting by my truck, he gave me a smile that reached his eyes, and I wanted to pull him to me. We weren’t at that point yet, but I hoped we would get there. He had his camera bag and a few other things.

“Hi.” Christ, I blushed when I said it. How pathetic was that? “I missed—” I stopped talking. It was a terrible cover, but I gave it a whirl. “Are you ready to go on our ride? You should get some great pictures and start getting a feel for riding and using your camera.”

“I can’t wait.” Fortunately, he didn’t say anything about my slip-up. I had been talking to him for thirty seconds, and I was all over him, saying I missed him, grinning like a crazy person. It appeared he wasn’t bothered by any of it as I walked him to the passenger door and helped him in.

“This should be a great ride. We will go down by the lake and have our picnic.”

“One of those bags has a bunch of desserts in it. I took pictures at Stella’s Diner today, and they sent me with all kinds of treats.”

I was unable to stop myself from thinking about feeding those sweet confections to Joe while he was naked. I had it bad.

“Let’s get going. While we ride you can start telling me what you might need from me as your humble assistant.”

I was pretty sure the look he gave me wasn’t that far off from what I had been thinking a few minutes earlier. I brought saddle bags putting them on Amber and decided to go bareback again. When I was working cattle or doing other ranch duties, I would saddle him, but when we were doing something for fun, no saddle was better.

Joe knew how to groom and saddle Amber, but I still felt it was my job to check his cinch. He was doing a good job, and I wouldn’t need to worry about him doing the basics when we took our trip.

He mounted and looked over at me like I was holding us up. “Let’s go slow poke.”

I slapped his leg before I was seated on Dusty’s back. When he was close enough, I leaned in and kissed the shit out of him. “If you keep being sassy, you might get punished.”