The Hard-to-Get Cowboy

She also knew that when he spoke, it would be in a low voice that would give most any girl delicious shivers and, not for the first time, Laila wondered just why it didn’t affect her like that.

What was wrong with her that she didn’t feel that way about him…or about anybody, much, except for a couple of men who’d seemed like Mr. Rights until they’d proven to be Mr. Maybe-Not-After-Alls?

A flash of roguish brown eyes and an equally devastating grin flew across her mind’s eye, but she quashed all thoughts of Jackson Traub.

He certainly wasn’t her type, and she’d been reminding herself of that all week.

Cade met her gaze head-on. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, and what I have to say to you now isn’t impulsive or ill-considered. I’ve even been thinking about what I came here to tell you long before the pageant.”

She didn’t like how this was starting. “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about.”

“The future, Laila.”

His direct manner made her wary.

“You’re not the only one who’s entered a new phase of life,” he said. “When a person gets older, he starts to reassess where he’s been. Where he’s going.”

His blue gaze was so intense that Laila prayed he wasn’t about to say what she thought he was going to say…

But he went and said it, anyway.

“I wasn’t fooling around when I asked you to marry me.”

She tried not to react, even though it felt as if a shadow had steamrolled her. “Cade, I didn’t mean to embarrass you by turning you down so publicly, but you know how I feel about marriage.”

“I know how you always said you feel.”

Now Laila was really confused. Had she been sending Cade mixed signals or something? But that couldn’t be the case. She’d always been very clear on her feelings about staying single.

“Cade…” she said softly just before he interrupted her.

“Just listen…I know full well that you’re not in love with me. But we have a lot to offer each other in spite of that.”

He paused, and she searched his gaze, seeing that there was something deep going on in this man. Sadly, she even wondered if this had anything to do with how Cade had lost the woman he’d wanted to marry to an early death years ago.

Maybe that was why Laila had been drawn to him, as a companion more than anything else. He had shut down emotionally after his lover’s passing, and he’d probably seen in Laila a person who didn’t get involved much with heavy emotions herself.

Did he think that she would never expect more out of him than he was capable of giving after having his heart broken?

The realization left her a bit hollow. It wasn’t that she couldn’t love anyone, it was just that she’d always thought of herself as a career woman—one who’d worked her tail off to become branch manager of the bank. One who, admittedly, loved to flirt and play the field to a certain point.

At her silence, he had straightened up in his chair, as if thinking that she was actually considering his point. He seemed so confident now that a scratch of pain scored her.

“Right before the pageant,” he said, “I had a good long talk with my brothers.”

“And with your other friend, Jack Daniels?”

Cade’s skin went ruddy. “All right. A little whiskey was involved, and the more I had, the more I decided I wanted to get an answer from you once and for all about where we were headed. And I don’t regret bringing this up, Laila, not even in such a spectacular fashion. Not even if I made a donkey of myself at the pageant and my own brother took enough pity on me to propose, too, turning my folly into a joke everyone could laugh off.”

What she needed was for a hole to open up in the ceiling that would suck her right into it and out of this discussion. “I—”

“I need to finish what I came here to say.”

He’d raised his voice and, from the corner of her gaze, she saw Duncan Brooks stand away from the bar, obviously hearing Cade and not liking his tone one bit. Laila sent a reassuring smile at the ranch hand, letting him know everything was okay.

Appeased, Duncan went back to drinking his beer, hunched over it as he leaned on the bar.

“I’m tired of being alone,” Cade said. “Aren’t you?”

She sighed, hating that she would have to be terribly blunt. “No.”

He frowned.

“Why does that surprise you?” she asked. “You know I love my life. I love going home to my apartment every night and eating what I want to eat, when I want to eat it. I love watching what I want to watch on T.V… .”

“You don’t ever get lonely? You never wake up at night in your empty bed and wonder if it’s always going to be that way?”

She didn’t know what to say, because there were times when that exact thing happened—shadows on the pale walls, the inexplicable sense that she was genuinely alone.

But then she would go right back to sleep, waking up to a new day, loving her life all over again, even as an itch of loneliness remained in the back of her mind… .

Still, there were good reasons she was never going to get married, and the biggest one was because of what she’d seen in her mom. Laila’s mother had tried her best not to show how life had let her down. Even though Mom loved all six of her children, Laila had seen how she had ordered college catalogues and paged through them with a slight, sad smile at the kitchen table after she thought all the kids were in bed. She’d heard Mom say on more than one occasion that she should’ve taken her studies more seriously and that Laila shouldn’t ever rely on her looks when she had such a brain.

And she also knew that Mom had settled down young.

Too young?

Always wondering, never having the courage to ask, Laila had promised herself that she would give life a chance before getting serious with anyone, and she was damn happy with her decision as it stood.

Right?

She pushed aside her drink and rested her elbows on the table. “Loneliness is no reason to get married, Cade.”

His jaw hardened as he surveyed her. Then, hardly swayed, he said, “We can learn to love each other…I can even give you children before it’s too late.”

Oof.

That really got her. But she wasn’t sure why Cade’s words smarted the way they did.

Had she been thinking about her future lately, even beyond wrinkles, in a more profound way than she even admitted to herself? And, heck…

She even wondered if she’d actually entered the Miss Frontier Days pageant for the final time because she’d needed some kind of reassurance that she was still young enough to be desirable, that she didn’t need to change her life and get validation from marriage or kids…

Her throat felt tender as she tried to swallow. She didn’t like what she was thinking, and she wouldn’t let Cade’s words bother her. But how could she tell him that she didn’t feel more for him than companionship?

Just as she was wishing again for that hole to open up in the ceiling, there was a stir in the Hitching Post as someone sauntered inside.

As soon as she saw Jackson Traub bellying up to the bar in a dark brushed-twill coat with his Stetson pulled low over his brow, her body flared with heat.