Nicky stared at him. “That’s your answer?”
“Part of it. More like an introductory offer. I’m in love with you.”
There. He’d said it. And better yet, he meant it. Garrett expected that to get Nicky jumping into his arms for some more of those kisses. Maybe some celebratory sex, too, if he could get her away from their audience.
An audience who was celebrating with whispers and soft happy squeals. Apparently, this was the outcome they’d wanted. It was an outcome Garrett was pretty damn pleased about, as well. Except for one thing. Nicky hadn’t said those words right back to him.
His heart stopped.
And he felt the panic start to race through him. He didn’t think that was a sugar hit from the cookie, either.
“Say something,” he insisted to Nicky. “Say the right thing,” he amended.
She leaned in, put her mouth to his ear. “I’m in love with you.”
Just like that, the panic vanished. His heart started to beat again, and he kissed Nicky, hauling her onto his lap. He kept the kiss as tame as he could manage, considering that he was suddenly starving. And not for any more of that cookie.
But for Nicky.
He stood while he still could and pulled her into his arms. “We can take things slow,” he said to her, knowing that wasn’t going to happen.
Apparently, someone else felt the same way because a voice came from the window. D.M.’s voice. And she muttered one very appropriate word.
“Bullshit.”
* * * * *
Now, keep reading for a special bonus story, ONE GOOD COWBOY, also set in Wrangler’s Creek, by USA TODAY bestselling author Delores Fossen...
ONE GOOD COWBOY
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
EXCERPT FROM DRURY BY DELORES FOSSEN
CHAPTER ONE
THERE WAS A cowboy lying on the bar of the Longhorn Saloon. From the doorway, Evie Martin stared at his tall, lean body.
This wasn’t good.
She needed to get to work, but first she would apparently have to deal with a passed-out drunk. A drunk who wore faded jeans, an unbuttoned denim shirt and scuff-toed cowboy boots, and had a pair of red lace panties partially covering his face. His last moments of consciousness had probably been exciting, to say the least.
The rain spat against her back, and Evie stepped inside to save the few dry places left on her jeans and top. A trio of overhead whirling fans spilled cool, brisk air onto her.
She tiptoed around the toppled chairs, peanut shells and other assorted food remains. The floor was gluey, so sticky in spots that she had to work her shoes loose a couple of times.
Bud Wiser—his real name—was in the corner eyeballing the mess much as she was except there was even more dread on his craggy face because he worked for Evie’s father, Dale, who owned the Longhorn. That meant Bud was going to have to clean this up.
Evie took a deep breath before she spoke. “What happened here?”
“It was a bachelor party, of sorts.” Bud had a broom in one hand and a mop and pail in the other. “Don’t think it was planned. It just sorta sprung up real late last night, and everybody in town including the Busby boys got in on it.”
Well, she hoped whoever had done the “springing up” had paid for this. If not, her father was going to have a cow or two. “Is that why you called me, so I could smooth things over with my dad?” Because it was highly likely her dad didn’t know. He didn’t work Wednesday nights so none of this had happened on his shift.
“Nope. I called you because of the note pinned to the cowboy’s chest. The cowboy with the red panties on his face,” Bud added.
There was no need for that clarification since there was only one such cowboy in the room. But what she did need was clarification as to why he would be wearing a note that had anything to do with her.
Evie stopped just short of the bar, reached over and raked the panties off his face. They landed on his neck. Still, he didn’t move, but it gave her a better look at him. And in this case, a better look was all she needed to know who he was.
Carson Rowley.
A cattle broker from San Antonio and the absolute last person she expected to find passed out like this. If Evie had been guessing who was likely to end up here, she would have put every other adult in Wrangler’s Creek on her list, including the town’s three ministers. At the top of that list would have been Bennie Martindale, Carson’s business partner.
Bennie was also her on-again, off-again boyfriend.
This kind of “sprung-up” party was exactly something he would have done. Ditto for being on the bar with the red panties.
Evie checked out the note next. And yes, it was pinned to Carson’s shirt. Someone had scrawled, “Call Evie and tell her I’m sorry.” There was no signature.
She gave Carson’s arm a shake, and as if hinged at the waist, he snapped to a sitting position. His bloodshot eyes flared open to reveal stormy blue irises. Like some angry force to be reckoned with, he growled and wrenched his mouth into a jagged line.
“Had too much to drink?” she asked.
He groaned again. This one had a you think? smart-aleck quality to it. He grabbed the panties off his neck and looked at them as if they were a UFO. For a second she thought he was about to ask her how they’d gotten there.
Or if they were hers.
But instead he groaned again, tossed the panties on the floor and got off the bar. He winced every inch of the way before his feet landed on the floor.
“There’s a stampede going on in my head,” he grumbled.
Not surprising. Also not surprising that Carson still managed to look hot despite the wincing and groaning. Of course, he always had that effect on her. Forbidden fruit and all that. Not that he would have given in to anything forbidden. Nope. Not Carson. He was a good guy and as loyal as a brother to Bennie.
Even when Bennie didn’t deserve such loyalty.
“Want to explain this?” she asked, touching the note.
Not a good idea because he shifted just as she touched. Since his shirt was still wide-open, she ended up fingering his chest. He noticed, too. Carson spun toward her. Then, he groaned because the spinning had probably caused that stampede in his head to get even worse.
He looked down at the note much as he’d done with the panties. When he groaned again, she could tell that whatever had gone on here was coming back to him and that it wasn’t especially something he wanted to share with her.
“Did Bennie get you drunk and leave you here?” Evie went behind the bar and started a pot of coffee, which she figured Carson was going to need.
Carson didn’t jump to verify that, which meant the answer was yes. “Is my truck in the parking lot?”
“No. Sorry. When I drove up, the only vehicle out there was Bud’s old car.” And speaking of Bud, he’d started in on the cleaning.
“Then I’ll need to call for a ride.” He looked up at her, maybe some of the fog clearing in his head. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
“Soon.”
Which meant she’d need to text her boss, Garrett Granger, and let him know she was going to be a little late. He wouldn’t bust her chops about it, but since she was his bookkeeper and Garrett ran the biggest ranch in the county, there would be work that needed to be done. Also, it was tax season, and Evie knew the paperwork would just pile up if she wasn’t there to help Garrett put out some fires.
First though, she had this particular fire to put out.
“I need you to tell me what happened so I can explain this to my father,” Evie pressed.
Carson certainly didn’t jump to do that, but he nearly wrenched the coffee from her hand when she poured him a cup. Despite it being scalding hot, he had two long sips, paused and then looked at her.
“Bennie ran off with a stripper,” he finally said.
That wasn’t nearly as surprising as finding Carson on the bar, but Evie figured there was a lot more that went with that comment. She poured herself some coffee and went back around the bar so she could face him.
“Ran off as in eloped?” she asked.
His mouth tightened and twisted as if he were at war with the words he was about to say. “Yes. God, Evie, I’m so sorry.”
Evie was thankful for his apology, but it wasn’t necessary. “Are those her panties?”
“Yeah. She had a purse full of the damn things and was handing them out like party favors.”
Evie figured that wasn’t all the stripper had been handing out. Especially not to Bennie. She’d always said Bennie could charm the underpants off a nun, but in this case, he probably hadn’t even had to turn on that dazzling smile to accomplish that.
Carson stared at her. Well, as much of a stare as he could manage, considering he was still having trouble focusing. “You’re not crying or carrying on.”
She dismissed that with a shrug. “I quit crying and carrying on about Bennie years ago.”
But apparently no one had noticed that. According to everyone who knew her, she was still Bennie’s girl. She could thank her mother and Bennie’s foster mom for perpetuating that myth.
“You’re really not upset?” Carson asked in the same tone he might have used trying to determine if she were an alien.
She huffed and nearly blurted out that there were only two things upsetting her right now. This mess, which he had yet to explain, and the fact Carson had never noticed that she practically threw herself at him.
Because she had the hots for him. So very bad.
Evie hadn’t been as obvious about her attraction as the stripper probably had been, but she’d tried to send out all the signals that she was interested in him. Flirting, smiles, visits to his office when she knew Bennie wouldn’t be there. Carson had maybe picked up on those signals, too, but he’d ignored them because of his loyalty to Bennie.
That “Bennie’s girl” label was like a flashing neon sign looped around her neck and drowning her. Probably drowning Bennie, too. But this stripper thing might help with that.
“I don’t think it’s too late to fix this,” Carson went on after gulping down more coffee. “I mean, Bennie likely sobered up before he got to Vegas so he could get married.”
Vegas. Yep, that sounded like Bennie, too. “How did his so-called bachelor party end up here?”
Even though Bennie and Carson had both been raised in Wrangler’s Creek, they now lived nearly an hour away in San Antonio where they ran their cattle broker business. The only time Bennie came back to town was to see her. The only time Carson came to town was to do business with Garrett since Carson and Bennie supplied some of the Granger Ranch’s livestock. When Carson was in Wrangler’s Creek, he usually stopped by the Longhorn, and she would see him then if that’s when she happened to be working her second job as bookkeeper for her father.
Carson dodged her gaze. Not a good sign. She had to put her fingers underneath his chin and lift it to see what was going on in his eyes. Whatever it was, it was something he didn’t want to tell her.
“Bennie came to Wrangler’s Creek to break off things with you for good,” Carson confessed. “He said he just couldn’t stay with you to please my mom.”
Thank God. It was about time that Bennie grew a pair about that. Of course, it was possible Carson’s mom, Ida, wasn’t going to believe him. Yes, Ida thought of Bennie as her own son and knew his faults, but the woman must have believed that Evie could somehow make him less irresponsible.
Evie figured that would take a miracle.
Evie’s own mom was part of the problem, too. In her mom’s mind, if you lost your virginity to a guy, you were noosed to him forever.
Even if that de-virgining had happened a decade ago.
And even if it’d been more than a year since Bennie had been in her bed.
In hindsight, it had been a mistake to let her mom see her sneaking inside the house after getting out of Bennie’s car. Evie had been just seventeen then and had walked into an ambush. Her mother had been waiting for her and had spotted the love bites on her neck. The one on the top of her left boob, too, since her shirt had slipped off her shoulder. Her mom had taken that as a future marriage proposal from Bennie.
“You’re not upset,” Carson repeated. “Well, you should be. Bennie acted like an ass. And he did it at a time like this.”
Uh-oh. He got that look in his eyes, and Evie knew what was coming. The “poor, pitiful you” attitude that she didn’t want. It was second only to the “Bennie’s girl” label.
“How are you doing, by the way?” Carson asked a heartbeat later.
Bingo. There it was. The sympathy. Over the past year, sympathy had become a very ugly word to her.
Ever since she’d been diagnosed with kidney cancer.
She’d gone through the surgery to remove the tumor, the treatments to make sure it didn’t come back, and still none of that had been as bad as those looks of sympathy. People treated her like glass.
As if she were damaged.
Broken.
And that hurt more than the cancer had.
“I’m so tired of this,” she mumbled.
Carson nodded. “Yeah, Bennie can be irresponsible. Don’t worry. I’ll go after him and fix it.”
He would. Carson would fix this the way he had the other times Bennie had cheated and done something reckless. Bennie wasn’t blood kin to Carson, but Carson’s folks had practically raised Bennie when he’d been a troubled teen. No way would Carson drop his “good guy” label to let this stay unfixed and hook up with her.
Sometimes, labels sucked.
“I didn’t mean I was tired of Bennie’s shenanigans,” Evie corrected. “Bennie’s just Bennie. He screws up. You bail him out. And for reasons I’ll never understand, your mom and my mom think Bennie and I are the perfect match. Well, we’re not.”
“That’s the shock talking.” Carson touched her arm, rubbed gently as if to soothe her. “Once it wears off—”
“It’s not Bennie I want, it’s you,” she blurted out.
This was another example of hindsight being twenty-twenty. It just hadn’t been a good idea to spring this on Carson like that. Even if he knew she was attracted to him—and she highly suspected he did—Carson was dealing with a hangover and the guilt over having his best friend’s “girl” throw herself at him.
Evie decided what the heck. Since she was throwing, she might as well go for broke. She caught on to the front of Carson’s shirt, balling the fabric into her fist, pulled him to her and did the unthinkable.
She kissed him.
CHAPTER TWO
THE KISS HIT Carson hard and fast. And it was so good that it stunned him into not reacting faster. Too bad. Because he got the sweet taste of Evie before he remembered this couldn’t be happening.
Carson stepped back, hoping he looked merely surprised and not aroused. If Evie looked in the direction of his zipper, though, she’d know just how her kiss had affected him.
“Bennie...” he reminded her.
“Is married to a stripper,” she reminded him right back.
Maybe. But even if Bennie had done something stupid like marrying that woman, Carson was sure he would come to his senses and try to work out things with Evie. He always did. Everybody in Wrangler’s Creek knew Bennie and Evie were destined to be together. Carson couldn’t screw that up.
Even if that kiss had sucker punched him with a doubt or two.<
br />
Doubts aside, he had to do the right thing here. After everything she’d been through, Evie deserved that. Of course, there were times, like now, when he thought she deserved better than Bennie but that was his semi-erection talking.
Man, when he screwed up, he went for the gold medal in screwing up. First, he’d followed Bennie here to Wrangler’s Creek to get him from a bachelor’s party at the strip club just up the road. That party had been for Bennie’s friend Jake Monroe but Bennie had called Carson to come and get him because he’d had too much to drink.
Bennie hadn’t been alone, either.
A stripper had been with him, and that was when Carson made his second mistake. Bennie had tried to talk Carson into taking them home. To meet Carson’s mom. Since that would have gone over like a lead balloon, Carson had taken them to the Longhorn instead.
After that, things were fuzzy.
Carson remembered ordering a virgin margarita. Which clearly wasn’t virgin. Also clearly, he’d had more than one of them. Somewhere along the way, his common sense had gone out to take a leak and hadn’t come back because he’d ended up joining in on Bennie’s celebration.
Even while drunk, it hadn’t seemed a good idea, though.
Now he knew it’d been a damn stupid one.
Carson gulped some more coffee, hoping it would ease the stampede in his head to a mere gallop. It didn’t. But he couldn’t take the time for the caffeine to work. He needed to get started on this before his mom found out.
Too late.
There was some movement in the open doorway of the Longhorn, and he watched as three people hurried in out of the rain. Evie’s dad, Roy. Her mother, LuAnn, and Carson’s own mother, Ida.
The trio was already scowling.
Of course, none of them was aiming a scowl at Evie, only him. He doubted the facial expressions were about his aroused state, either, but just in case, he lowered his coffee mug to the front of his jeans.
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