Rae Lynne Gilley stood at the kitchen sink, her hands immersed in hot sudsy water, and slowly washed each dinner plate until it squeaked. It was the only excuse she had for staring shamelessly out the window while Joas Kendall, the hired hand, unloaded the hay wagon. He was a compact man in his mid-twenties, wearing loose-fitting black trousers and a baggy white shirt rolled at the sleeves. Occasionally he would remove his wide-brimmed hat to wipe his brow, revealing a shock of dark hair and deep brown eyes. But mostly he worked at a steady pace, until sweat soaked the spaces between his suspenders, causing his shirt to stick to his muscular frame in a way that made her knees grow weak.
“You’re behaving like a schoolgirl,” she said to herself, as she finally looked away long enough to rinse and stack the last piece. After all he wasn’t the most
