One Wild Cowboy and A Cowboy To Marry: One Wild Cowboy / A Cowboy to Marry

“You’ve got that right,” Emily concurred. “Besides, we should get a move on. We have to go back to the café and pick up the rest of the desserts for the buffet.” She dropped her grip on his sleeve, clasped his hand in hers and tugged Dylan away from her still-scowling, perplexed brothers. “See you later, guys!” She tossed the dismissive words over her shoulder.

Seconds later, Dylan felt Emily begin to disengage her hand from his.

Loath to let her go—because that would have meant he was letting her call all the shots, which was not a good precedent to set—Dylan held tight.

She turned, flashed a smile that did not reach her pretty eyes and then whirled around and kept going.

Half a block of historic downtown buildings later, she had unlocked the front door to the Daybreak Café, stormed inside and shut the door behind them. Still fuming, she promptly wrested her hands from his. “All right, cowboy!” she snapped, pausing only to give him a long, withering glare. “You have one heck of a lot of explaining to do!”

* * *

EMILY EXPECTED AN APOLOGY. It was, after all, the only decent thing to do, given the outlandishly passionate way Dylan had just kissed her. In front of an audience of her family and countless others, no less!

“Hey.” Dylan mocked her impudently. “I’m not the one still claiming to have a date with a person who’s already rejected me!”

Indignation warmed Emily’s cheeks. “Claim what you like, cowboy, if it soothes your ruffled feelings, but there was nothing ‘rejecting’ about that kiss you just gave me.”

“I never said I didn’t desire you,” Dylan volleyed back in a low, rich voice that practically oozed testosterone.

He was acting as if their madcap embrace was a good thing. “How dare you, anyway!”

He stepped forward and further invaded her space. “How dare you?”

With effort, Emily ignored the sexual tremors starting deep inside her. Determined to get command of a situation that was fast escalating out of control, she extended her index finger and tapped him on the center of his rock-solid chest. “Let’s get something straight, Dylan.” She waited until she was certain she had his full attention. “My request for help did not include anything sexual.”

He winked at her facetiously. “Too bad, ’cause if it had, I might have said yes.”

Emily curtailed the urge to deck him for that remark. She didn’t know what he was up to now, but she did not like it one bit. “Furthermore, you are incredibly ill-mannered.”

“Never claimed to be otherwise,” Dylan said with a careless shrug.

Emily arched her eyebrows and ignored his pronouncement. “And you owe me an apology for that kiss.”

“You owe me an apology for that kiss!” he countered just as emphatically, even as her knees grew weaker still.

“Really.” She lifted her chin, drew a deep breath. “Really?”

Dylan looked at her as if he already knew what it felt like to make love to her. “You bet your hot temper you do!”

“Listen, cowboy, I did not start that!”

He moved closer, once again towering over her. “You sure continued it enthusiastically though, didn’t you?”

Darned if he hadn’t made her flush all over again.

Emily’s spine stiffened. “Only because I didn’t want to make my brothers suspicious,” she retorted, hanging on to her composure by a thread.

“Yeah, well,” he pointed out glibly, “you sure failed on that count.”

Emily blinked. “Are you kidding? They thought our embrace was so genuinely hot they wanted to punch you out.”

And whether Dylan wanted to admit it or not, their clinch had been genuinely hot. As well as definitely misguided, Emily thought, pushing aside the potent fantasy this discussion was evoking.

The last thing she needed to be thinking about was kissing him again, she reminded herself firmly.

And she certainly didn’t need to be imagining Dylan’s beautifully muscled body stretched out alongside her own.

Or fixate on the fact that everywhere she was soft, he’d be hard. Everywhere he was male, she’d be female....

He regarded her with a devil-may-care glint in his eyes. “Your siblings wanted to throttle me because they suspected it wasn’t a real date and therefore felt I had no place making out with you—on the town square no less.”

“They had a point about that, Dylan. You did not have a right to haul me into your arms and plant one on me.”

Dylan exhaled. “You reap what you sow, sweetheart.”

The warning in his tone sent a chill down her spine. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Dylan narrowed his eyes. “I’m not interested in being one of your little projects.”

Despite her desire to stay cool, calm and collected, Emily’s heart beat faster. “Excuse me?”

Dylan eyed her seriously. “I wasn’t in town five minutes before I heard all about how the beautiful Emily McCabe likes to bring home ‘strays’ and fix ’em up...and then gets them to fall in love with her before she dumps them.”

More like the guys dumped me, Emily thought glumly.

But not about to correct Dylan on that, she let the misconception stand.

She gave him an arch look and started to turn away. “I don’t deny I was trying to help you, too.” My mistake!

He caught her by the elbow and reeled her back. “By ensnaring me in your web so you could make me over, too?”

“You could use a few more manners, not to mention a haircut and a decent shave,” she said tartly. “But that’s hardly the point.”

He snorted in exasperation. “Then what is?”

“Your horse-training business here in Laramie is only a couple of years older than my business.” Searching for a theory he might accept as plausible, she continued making it up as she went. “I know you’re constantly trying to improve the facilities and equipment on your ranch, and I thought free meals here might help your bottom line.”

He glared at her. “First of all, I’m paid very well for the problem horses I diagnose and train—and I have no shortage of work coming my way. So my bottom line is fine, thank you very much.”

And yet, Emily noted, she had somehow struck a nerve with her mention of money....

Her pulse inexplicably picking up, she angled her head at him. “If business is so good, why don’t you hire some cowboys to help you?”

Dylan grimaced. “I like working alone. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else’s livelihood. And most important of all, I don’t ever want to invest so much in a piece of property that I can’t pick up and move the whole operation if—and when—I feel like it.”

Emily had the feeling he was talking about much more than just his ranch now. She shook her head in mocking censure. “That’s a crying shame, cowboy. You’ll never put down roots that way. Never belong. Probably never marry and have a family, either!”

Although why that should bother her, she did not know. It wasn’t any of her business!