Down Home Cowboy

“Look, I know you think that you know the situation because Lane told you some things, but you don’t. I do feel protective of her. Very protective. She’s been through enough.”

“Yes. But I have a feeling that part of the reason she’s sometimes surly with you is that you’re hovering a little too much.”

“No. That isn’t it. Just ask her. She feels like she doesn’t see me. She’s mad at me because I have a job, and because I don’t talk to her, which she doesn’t actually want. Because she hates me.” He was not going to let this woman, no matter how sexy, tell him anything about his relationship with his daughter.

Because you’re such an expert about your relationship with your daughter?

He ignored that obnoxious inner voice.

“Hovering over her and driving her to work, and coming in to talk to her boss when she’s late isn’t the same as spending time with her,” Alison said calmly.

“How many children do you have, Alison?” he asked, crossing his arms.

She frowned. “None.”

“That’s what I thought. So, you’ll understand if I don’t take your advice on mine.”

“I don’t have any children, but since my bakery essentially functions as job training I see a lot of different kinds of women. And I’ve learned to work with a lot of different personality types. I’ve learned the most effective ways to build different kinds of people up, to give them confidence. I want Violet to understand that she can accept help, and that it’s a good thing to get help. But I also want to see her standing on her own two feet.”

“You think I don’t want that? You think that because you spend a few hours a day with her you know her better than I do? I’ve been raising her for sixteen years. Four of them by myself. You don’t have any right to make commentary.”

She stood up, making her way over to the window, twisting her hands in front of her. “All right. Maybe I don’t. And fine, I don’t know anything about kids. But I do know about women. And she’s almost a woman.”

He didn’t want to hear that, even though he’d been having similar thoughts earlier. He stood too, agitation pouring through him. “She’s still a kid. And she needs certain things done for her. She’s had it rough. Her mother abandoned her and she needs...she needs more from me because of it, okay? She needs to feel taken care of.”

Alison turned to face him, her cheeks pink, this time from anger, and not from any kind of attraction. “If you’re going to purposely misunderstand me, then I don’t see the point of having this discussion.”

She started to walk back toward the kitchen and he reached out and caught her arm. She looked down at where his hand was curled around her, and she jerked away, her expression wary. “Don’t.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Did I hurt you?”

She blinked, her expression schooled into a perfect, blank slate. “No.”

He knew she was attracted to him. And he’d bet money that was why she’d reacted the way she had when he’d touched her.

He expected her to walk past him. To walk away then. But she didn’t. Instead, she just stood there, looking at him. And he forgot what they were talking about. He forgot that they’d been arguing. And the tension—tension that had been associated with anger only a second ago—shifted, changed.

He forgot everything. Except that she looked like heaven. And a little bit angry, but that just made him want to reach out and smooth the crease between her eyebrows, then trace the shape of her face, down to her chin, slide his thumb across her lower lip and see if it was as soft as a rose petal, like he suspected it might be.

He took a step toward her. Again, he expected her to move away. Again, she didn’t. No, instead, she held her ground, and she licked her lips again.

Before he knew what he was doing, he reached out, hooking his arm around her waist and drawing her up against him. She looked startled for a moment, her hands held up like he had her at gunpoint. But that only lasted a moment. Then she softened, her spine curving as she melted against him, pressing her palms to his chest.

“This is a bad idea,” he said.

She nodded slowly. “Yes.”

But she didn’t push at him. Didn’t try to pull away. So he began to lower his head, slowly, those rose-petal lips so close to his own he was already anticipating the taste.

“No,” she said suddenly. “Oh, no.” And then she did push against him, extricating herself from his hold. “I can’t do this. I don’t do things like this. I’m sorry. I really need to go.”

And then, as it seemed to be the pattern in his life, Alison stormed from the room, leaving him standing there to wonder what the hell he had done wrong now.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#u4c65c955-b2e9-56f0-8268-8c30bc43b85b)

ALISON WAS ALL the way back at her apartment by the time she caught her breath. She hadn’t said goodbye to Violet. Hadn’t stayed to help her frost the cake. She was a terrible mentor. And she felt guilty. Very, very guilty.

But she’d had to get away from Cain.

What had she been doing? She had nearly... She had nearly kissed him.

She went over to the cupboard by her stove and opened it up. She took out a bottle of wine and poured herself a generous portion.

She took a sip, trying to get a handle on her shaking hands. But she couldn’t. She had to... She had to process all of this. She hadn’t been that close to a man in four years.

When he had reached out and grabbed her arm, it had scared her. It had felt like a flashback to something else. Back to someone else. But then he let go of her, easily and quickly. He’d been worried that he’d hurt her.

And then, well, then he had looked at her like she was something amazing. Something he’d never seen before, and all she had wanted to do was lean in to that.

She knocked back her glass of wine, taking a long, strong sip, her other hand braced on the counter. Was this a relapse? All it took was one burning look from a gorgeous man and she was ready to lie on the ground and write welcome across her chest?

No. It wasn’t the same thing. Not even remotely the same as the reasons she had hooked up with guys when she was in high school, why she had married Jared. That hadn’t ever been about physical desire, unfortunately.

That had been about her pathetic need to feel loved by someone. Anyone. In whatever shape that love would take.

This was different. She didn’t want Cain to love her. She had wanted him to press her down on that couch and kiss her until neither of them could breathe.

She took another gulp of wine.

It was difficult to figure out, right then, why kissing him would have been a bad idea. Why letting him lay her down on the couch and drive them both crazy would be such a terrible thing.

He was gorgeous. Like, honestly the hottest guy she had ever seen. She had never before wanted a guy just because she wanted him. Because she wanted to feel his hands on her skin. Because she wanted sex, not some kind of connection. Not some kind of solution to that howling, empty thing inside of her.

She wasn’t empty now. She had her bakery. She had all of the women that she had helped so far, and the women she was helping now. She had a good group of friends. She had her own apartment that she kept in exactly the manner she wanted.

She bought the kind of wine she liked and the kind of food she enjoyed. She no longer had to cook dinner promptly at five o’clock or face the possible ramification of having a dinner plate thrown at her head if it was too cold, or if she had done something wrong.

She could eat at eight if she wanted to. And she could cook whatever she wanted. Or she could go to a restaurant.

Yes, her life was in an entirely different place now than it had been a few years ago. She was a different person. Or, more accurately, she was the person that she should have been all along.

Too bad that person was starting to want sex.

She closed her eyes and thought back to that moment Cain had looked at her. The way he had touched her. The problem was, she wanted sex, and not an entanglement. It seemed to her that Cain’s life was a giant entanglement right now. Particularly with her own.

He was definitely the wrong person to experiment with. What she needed was an actual stranger. A man who would be in town only for a night. Someone she couldn’t possibly have any obligation to. Somebody whose life she couldn’t get drawn into.

She didn’t trust men, that much was true. But even more, she didn’t trust herself.