Smooth-Talking Cowboy

“You leaning in like that. Because he’s watching. You think you’re gonna make him jealous?”

She reeled back, moving herself away from Luke. As far away as possible. “No. I wasn’t doing anything.”

He chuckled. “Yes, you were.”

She hated him. She really did. He seemed to put the pieces of her motivation together faster than she did and it wasn’t fair.

“No one would believe it,” she said. “Nobody would believe that I...”

The words froze in her throat. Not just because she could hear how bitchy they sounded, but because suddenly she couldn’t remember what she had been about to say anyway. Because he was looking at her with that steady green gaze, that glass still poised just below his lips and the overhead lights of the bar were highlighting that scruff on his face. Suddenly, she was thinking about the texture of that, too. She wondered if it would be rough, like she imagined his hands would be. He was a very rough sort of creature.

She was not a rough sort of creature.

“Oh, they’d believe it,” he said, his lips tipping upward into a cocky smile. “Even good girls do something stupid every now and again.” He took a swallow of his whiskey. “Might as well be me.”

There was that itch, the one that bloomed beneath her skin whenever he was close. That felt like a cross between having a match struck against her flesh and stepping on a star thistle.

“I don’t do stupid things,” she said.

“Except for maybe break up with the boyfriend you claim you don’t want to be broken up with?”

“I don’t want to be broken up with him.” She tapped the side of her glass. “I want to get back together with him.”

“So you say. I don’t buy it.”

“I didn’t ask you to buy it. I’m not trying to sell it to you.”

“True enough. But, maybe we can try to sell something to him.” He reached out and that hand she had just been pondering made contact with her skin. He squeezed her chin between his thumb and the curve of the knuckle on his forefinger. And it was rough. Just like she had thought it might be. Then he winked. “I’ll see you around, kiddo.”

Then he knocked back the rest of his whiskey and reached into his wallet, putting a twenty on the counter and walking back to where the Dodges were sitting.

She just sat there, staring at him like she had been clubbed in the head.

He had touched her.

And he had winked at her.

And he had called her kiddo, which for some reason felt a million times more offensive and slightly more disconcerting than honey or sweet thing had.

He was an annoyance. A constant annoyance.

She looked back into her Diet Coke, feeling flushed and prickly and isolated. Because nobody was sitting at the bar with her. She wasn’t welcome at the table over there. Or anywhere the Dodges were. That hurt in a variety of strange and sharp ways. She had been friends with that family for most of her life and now she just wasn’t welcome.

She had to believe it was because the breakup had hurt Bennett. And as much as she didn’t want him hurt, she did want to know that he cared.

She sneaked another glance back toward the table, and saw that Bennett was looking at her again. Then she looked at Luke. At his broad back. Broad shoulders. He was not looking at her. And she could still feel the impression of his touch against her chin.

Her gaze darted back to Bennett and she noticed that his expression was speculative. So she offered him that enigmatic smile she had been practicing earlier. Because she was working on being an enigma rather than a broadcast system.

Then she finished the rest of her Diet Coke and started to fish in her purse for some money.

Laz walked over to the bar and picked up the twenty Luke had left behind. “That actually covers everything, Olivia,” he said.

And all she could do was stand there and stare, feeling light-headed. Because somehow, Luke Hollister had ended up buying her a drink, and that had not been the plan.

Olivia didn’t like it when things didn’t go to plan. But unfortunately, that seemed to be the story of her life at the moment.

She got up off the stool and walked slowly across the scarred-up wooden floor, looking down and shoving her hands in her coat pockets, careful not to look at anyone in the saloon. She edged the door open with her shoulder and walked out onto the street. It was dark out, and chilly.

The kind of cold that efficiently sliced through nice, sleek wool coats and penetrated down beneath the skin. But apparently not the kind of cold that could eradicate the heat left behind by Luke Hollister’s hand.

She focused on putting one foot in front of the other as she walked down the uneven sidewalk, her each and every step bathed by the golden glow of the old-fashioned streetlights that lined the street.

Today had been weird. And it had contained far too much Luke for her liking.

Tomorrow would be different. It would be better. It would not begin with a flat tire. And it would not end with Luke Hollister’s thumb pressed against her chin.

At this point in her life she was certain of very few things. But that was one of them.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ube8ed8cf-5a66-59c6-af4d-1af7ec78b06c)

LUKE HAD NO clue what the hell he’d been thinking. But then, that was the theme with Olivia. She brought out the devil in him, and he had no interest in holding it back.

Still, touching her like that to get a rise out of Bennett was not the smartest. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel, tension crawling over his shoulders and down his back. Damn. He was wound tighter than he could remember being in a long time. It was because last night he’d ended up talking to Olivia instead of hooking up with someone, counter to his plan.

He let out a long slow breath as he watched the scenery fly by. It was clear out, sunny, though he knew that the air was as cold as—if not colder than—it would’ve been if it had been cloudy. Those crystal clear mornings had a way of cutting straight through you with no mercy. Maybe they were just worse because you could see the sun, and you expected that it might offer some warmth. But no.

Still, it looked nice. And if he pushed thoughts of Olivia Logan aside, it was almost soothing.

A shaft of golden light cut through the dense trees as he rounded the bend in the two-lane road, right at the spot where the property was. The property that was currently for sale by owner.

For sale by Cole Logan.

The Logans owned a fair amount of land in town. After all, they had been the first family to settle the area and large swathes of the countryside still belonged to them. And this one had famously been for sale for a very long time. Cole Logan had no need to sell it to just anyone, and he was particularly choosy about who he wanted settling, and what he wanted settled there.

Clearly, the man was much like his daughter. A control freak.

Without thinking, Luke pulled off to the side of the road, his truck idling. And he stared at the sign. That sign that he looked at every morning on his way to the Dodge ranch.

He was happy with his life working on the ranch. Although, with the changes, the focus returning to taking in guests and all of that, he questioned his place. And he hadn’t done that since he was sixteen years old.

At the same time, sometimes that money felt like it was eating its way through his bank account like acid. Just sitting there. Sitting there for nearly twenty years useless and dead.

He knew why she’d taken out that life insurance policy. Because if anything happened to her, she had wanted to make sure he had a future. He could make something of himself.

But with the way it had happened...

It had to be the right thing. It had to be the right moment.