Good Time Cowboy

“I know where it ends,” she said. “Divorce court.”

“It was like that between you and Damien?”

It wasn’t a leading question, but a genuine one. And Lindy wished that she could say it had been. That the strange undercurrent that existed between herself and Wyatt was just old hat to her. Nothing she hadn’t navigated before.

But it was like something else entirely. So different that most of the time she tried to pretend it was irritation, that it wasn’t attraction at all.

But then...

Then she was reminded of that first moment she’d seen him. Five years ago. With her husband’s ring on her finger.

They’d been traveling together that year for Damien’s work with the rodeo, and that had meant more nights in honky-tonks than she cared for. But she’d gone anyway.

She’d gone to meet Damien after an event one night. And he’d been there, sitting on a bar stool across the room. He’d looked at her. Which was nothing. Nothing new, nothing extraordinary. People looked at each other every day.

This had been like a lightning strike. Electric. Immobilizing.

Lethal.

She’d had to force herself to keep moving forward, and the whole time he’d stared.

His brown eyes locked on to hers, his expression filled with a kind of intensity she had never seen before.

It had been like her entire body had been hollowed out, making room for this feeling that he had created and placed inside of her. There had been nothing but that. For a full thirty seconds. Nothing else existed outside of it. Not her life. Not her marriage.

Then Damien had stood up, smiled, grabbed hold of her and introduced her as his wife.

It had been like watching a train she had been meant to catch move away from the station, far ahead of her, going somewhere she would never be able to follow.

After that, she felt like she’d been slapped in the face by reality. And whatever feeling she had felt moments before had been replaced completely by anger. Resentment.

At him. As unfair as it was.

“Yes,” she said, her throat dry. “It’s just a little bit of a spark. I’m a woman. He’s a man. It’s nothing...” Again, she flashed back to that first moment in that bar, when the earth had shifted beneath her feet. “Nothing I haven’t felt before. Nothing I won’t feel again. If you don’t catch one train, another will always be by,” she said, in defiance of that earlier metaphor that had passed through her mind.

“If you say so.”

“I do. And I have work to do.”

“Okay,” Sabrina said, writing on the order form in front of her with a flourish. “I have to get down to town. Enjoy your ride.”

Lindy clenched her teeth. “Oh, I will. I will.”

CHAPTER SIX (#udf1a6109-358b-58a2-91a7-45f19f3f8bb8)

WELL, HELL. HE had anticipated how much he’d want her if she showed up in a little pencil skirt, the kind he wanted to shove up her hips so he could step between her thighs. He had expected her hair to be in a prim little bun. Had expected that he would want to take it down and run his fingers through it. He always did.

What he hadn’t expected was for her to be wearing jeans. Jeans that molded to her long, slender legs and showcased her figure in a new, tantalizing way, that the styling of her skirts didn’t.

Neither was better than the other. Not really. But it was a new look at her body, and his own body reacted favorably to that.

The damned pervert.

She still looked prim in her way. She was wearing a button-up shirt, and all those tiny little buttons made his fingers itch to undo them. But she had on a pair of tennis shoes, and that made him smile.

He got out of his truck, his boots hitting the gravel in the drive, the rocks crunching beneath his feet. And she was standing there, her arms crossed, her blue eyes sharp and assessing.

She was trying to get a read on him. Trying to figure out what he might do, so she could figure out what she should do.

If there was one thing he’d figured out about her—besides the fact that her ass had the most delicious curve to it—it was that she liked to be in control.

Too damned bad for her. Because so did he.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” she said, affecting an impatient tone.

He damn near shook his head.

He had expected better from her. She had gone and shown her hand. She was already eager to get this over with. And he didn’t have anywhere else in the world to be. Which meant he was gonna take his sweet-ass time.

He closed the door to the pickup truck slowly, then made his way around the back to the small horse trailer that was hitched up there. “It’ll take a couple of hours to do the whole trail,” he commented.

“I know,” she said. “When Sabrina and Jamie worked out the route, they discussed that.”

He nodded. Also slowly. “Right.”

Only a man who’d made a study of Lindy Parker would have any idea how agitated she was. But, he was a man who’d made a study of her.

The way her blue eyes flashed when she was angry. The way she pursed her lips together and pressed her mouth into a flat line to keep from displaying any emotion she hadn’t damn well chosen to display.

The particular set of her shoulders, the way she squared her hips. Like she was ready to face an opponent in battle.

He saw all those things contained in her still form and placid expression.

Because he was a fool.

A fool who was really enjoying drawing all this out.

He undid the latch on the horse trailer, then slid it open. He climbed up inside and encouraged the two horses they were taking out on the ride—Emmy Lou and Trixie—out into the lot.

All the while very aware of the fact that Lindy was standing there, stiff-necked and anxious. Her very noncasual mood at stunning odds with the outfit she’d chosen to wear today.

No. She was not more relaxed than usual at all. But then, he wondered if that was him, more than it was anything else.

Unless it was Grant.

Annoyance kicked him in the gut.

He didn’t believe that she wanted to date Grant. But, clearly she wanted him to think that she did.