She ended the call and hurried toward the sound; it was definitely Dustin. She hurried outside with a mixture of concern and irritation. She was a busy woman, dammit.
But what if he’d hurt himself? Had he gone and done some damn-fool crap and gotten wounded? He’d already fixed her door this morning. Had he decided to repair the crumbling bricks on her artesian well, or maybe give the tractor a tuneup?
“Dustin?” she called. Trying not to convey her worry.
“Over here!” He yelled from behind the barn.
She hurried her footsteps, trying to quench her panic—and was immediately smacked in the face by something small, cold and wet. And then another colorful missile hit her on the shoulder. She reeled back from the impact and the feeling of cold water drenching her, and looked down onto the ground. Water balloons.
Her 30-something year old husband was throwingwater balloons. She could even hear his laughter, see the thatch of hair as he peeped out from behind the barn to see where she was.
Irritated beyond measure, she stomped towards him, feeling the water trickle down her neck and between her breasts.“T’es fou, toi?”she demanded. “Are you mad?”
“Perfectly sane,” he yelled, peeking out at her again. Slipping his arm into view so she could see he was wielding another balloon, ready to bowl her flat. “I’ve got a whole bucket of these babies back here. Wanna play?”
“No, I do not wanna play. What the hell’s gotten into you? I was working back there!”
“That’s the problem,” came the disembodied voice. “You’re always working. Come take a break. Live a little.”
“I live just fine.”
“You live in a world of deals and documents, when you could be living in a world of sunshine and…” A third balloon hit her in the middle of her chest. “… water balloons!”
She didn’t even realize she was upon him until she was, palms smacking into his chest, trying to throw him to the ground. “Did you get those damn things in town today?”
“Yup.” He shifted, bracing himself to prevent being pushed over.
She let him go, then stopped, panting. “God, you’re immature.” She looked down at herself, noticing that her wet blouse was sticking to her like a skin, her braless breasts clearly visible through the fabric. “And you ruined my blouse. This was silk. It’s not supposed to get wet, jerk.”
He looked down at her blouse, but she wondered whether he was surveying the damage or taking in the sight of her nipples, which were already responding to the cold water. And that thought made them pucker even more.
“I’m sorry,” he said eventually. The effort to drag his eyes from her nipples to her face was evident. “Let me replace your blouse.”
“Huh,” she sniffed. “Hard to do, since it was bespoke, and made in Paris.”
“Is there any way….”
“You can start with an apology,” she said, face straight, lips pursed. “But there’s more retribution to be suffered.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and then, with a puzzled look, asked, “but what do you mean by—”
He never had the chance to finish. Because he was struck in the face by two balloons in rapid succession. Before he could even react, Chantelle had reloaded and lobbed one to his chest and another to his midsection, causing him to double over to protect himself. He seemed to have intuited that the next balloon was headed about six inches lower than his belt. “What the—”
“Ha!” she shrieked. “That’s retribution! Take that! And that!” Hands deep in the bucket of balloons, she grabbed what she could and went at him, pleased with her aim and thesmack smack smacksound that announced her success.
Buit Dustin wasn’t easily thwarted. He soon regained his footing; he lunged at the bucket, arming himself, flinging his ammunition at her like a baseball hall-of-famer determined to strike out his nemesis.
“That stings!” she bawled. Truly irritated now. Way out of line, he was. Interrupting her day, getting her up from her desk in the middle of a… and then they both spotted it. The last water balloon, sitting at the bottom of the bucket. Red and wobbly and calling her name.
Dustin looked at her. She looked at him.
Each knew what the other was thinking.
“Like hell!” she snarled at him. “Would you really fight for a pregnant woman over the last balloon?”
Truth was, she was having a good day, and since she’d been keeping up with her prenatal exercises, she wasn’t even winded. But when you had a weapon to use, you used it. It was all the art of negotiation.
He hesitated, his sense of chivalry getting in the way of his fighting spirit. That’s all the leeway she needed. Her hands closed around the balloon, then his killer instinct was back. A wrestling match began.