Bad News Cowboy

He put the vehicle in Reverse and drove out of the parking lot, gripping the steering wheel tight, tension creeping up his shoulders.

“So,” Kate said. He had known his reprieve wouldn’t last. “What exactly would this flirting boot camp entail?”

Okay, so she hadn’t forgotten. Which meant he was committed. No turning back now. Anyway, there was no reason not to go through with it. Kate was just Kate. End of story. “I figure since we’re working together on the rodeo, we might as well work on this, too.”

“Why?”

The question of the year. “I don’t want to babysit you the whole time we’re organizing this. And when you go pro, Kate Garrett, there are going to be cowboys all over you.”

“And what? You think I’m so stupid I’m gonna get tricked into bed? Like I don’t know my own mind? Or are you trying to help me get some?”

The tension crept higher, climbing up into his neck. “That isn’t what I said.”

With any luck, him taking control of the situation would keep her from getting taken advantage of. Not that it would be wrong for Kate to get laid.

Even thinking about it threw up a big fat stop sign in his brain, warning his thoughts not to go any further.

Okay, so it wasn’t as if he expected she never would. Or even that she hadn’t. Because, as she had pointed out a few times, she was twenty-three. And you didn’t exactly have to be smooth to get a guy into bed.

But she deserved better than an ass clown like Chad.

“Okay, what you do with my teaching is up to you,” he said. “But forewarned is forearmed. If you want to get better at talking to guys, I’ll help you. And what will help me is if I know that you’ll be more prepared to deal with jerks should any approach you. And that you understand you don’t have to do anything with them just because they asked.”

“Good grief, Jack. I know that,” she muttered.

“Just don’t ever sell yourself short.”

“Why not? Men do it all the time. I don’t understand what all this protecting me from shallow creeps who are only after one thing is about. You are that creep. I mean, obviously, with other women, not with me.”

He nearly choked on his tongue. “That’s different.”

“How is it different?”

There was no way for him to say how it was different without sounding like a total jackass. So he kept quiet.

But Kate wasn’t content with that. Of course she wasn’t. “Come on, Jack. I’m waiting for an explanation.”

He let out an exasperated breath. “It’s just that there are different kinds of women. There are the kind that you marry. And there are the kind that you...”

A hard crack of laughter filled the cab of the truck. “Are you kidding me? Are you trying to tell me that you marry good girls and sleep with bad girls? And that if I keep pushing my breasts out, the boys will think I’m a bad girl and corrupt me?”

“It’s not good and bad.” He had no clue how to dig his way out of this. Sure, it sounded wrong when he said it like that. Maybe it was even bad to think it. But the bottom line was there were women who were fair game in his mind, and then there was Kate. And she was an entirely different category.

“All right, then. What kind of girl am I?”

Jack tightened his hold on the steering wheel. “The type that could get taken advantage of by assholes.”

“You think I’m stupid?”

“That isn’t what I said. Stupid and inexperienced are two different things.”

“You think I’m wholesome.”

Yes. It suited him just fine to think that Kate Garrett was as wholesome as whole grains. “Comparatively.”

“Compared to what? The women you sleep with?”

Heat lashed Jack’s face. “You’re determined to take this the wrong way.”

“Enlighten me. What is the right way to take this? You’re sitting here telling me there’s a certain type of woman it’s acceptable to mess around with and a kind that isn’t acceptable to mess around with, and you’re putting me in the category that isn’t allowed to mess around.”

“It’s not just women,” he said.

“Okay, then. What kind of guy are you, Jack Monaghan? Are you the kind of guy a girl marries? Or are you the kind we’re supposed to want to bang?”

Hearing the provocative words on Kate’s lips made his stomach wrench up tight. “Kate...”

“Go on. Tell me. It’s hardly fair, since you have such a comprehensive assessment of me. I deserve one of you. So tell me, Jack,” she said as he turned the truck into the narrow drive that would take them to the Garrett ranch and on to Kate’s house, “are you the sort of guy that a girl should dream of getting in a tux? Or are you the kind of guy that a girl should think about getting naked with?”

He slammed on the brakes, without thinking, without meaning to. But he could not drive while she talked like that. “Dammit, Katie.”

“For such an experienced man, you’re acting very prudish.”

“You want to know what kind of guy I am, Kate?” He shouldn’t challenge her, and he knew it, but he couldn’t help it. Because she was pushing. And when Kate pushed, he had to push back. Now and always. “Let me lay it out for you. I’m not the guy you marry. I’m the guy you stay up all night with. I’m the guy who doesn’t call the next day. I’m the guy your mama would’ve warned you about if she had stayed around.”

The last words barely made it out of his mouth before Kate grabbed ahold of his shirt and tugged him toward her. “Now you’re being a jerk on purpose,” she said, dark eyes glittering in the dim light, clashing fiercely with his.

“You wanted to know what kind of guy I was. I think that should answer your question.” He felt like a tool. He’d lost sight of what the end goal was in this weird game they were playing. All he knew was that she was pushing, and he was pushing back. All he knew was that his blood was burning, and his heart was pounding faster than it should have been.

“You did. You’re an ass. Question answered.”

She raised her hand as if she was going to hit him, and he caught her wrist, holding her steady, their eyes still locked. She was breathing faster than he was, and suddenly, the anger riding over the heat burning in his blood fizzled out. The heat remained, his heart still thundering hard, steady. And he was still holding on to Kate’s wrist.

The feeling that had surrounded them back at the bar had returned. Deeper. Stronger. And there was no pretending he didn’t know what it was. He could feel her pulse fluttering beneath his thumb, faster and faster the longer he held her.

Fuck.

He released his hold on her and put both his hands back on the steering wheel. “I am. I’m an ass. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said that.”

“Why did you?” she asked, her voice small now.

“I don’t know,” he said, lying through his teeth with the truck still idling in the middle of the driveway.

“It was offensive. Not just what you said about my mother.”

“I know. I didn’t start out meaning to be offensive. Saying it out loud, I realize it’s stupid. But definitely in my mind I think of the kind of women that I would pick up in a bar and the kind I wouldn’t. Or more specifically, the kind who wouldn’t go with me. Of course, saying it out loud forces you to listen to how stupid it is.”

“It is stupid.”