To Kiss a Cowgirl

by Jeannie Watt

  Mike had come in and spent a good half hour after closing talking about Karen and the goats and his new house. Jolie hadn’t had the heart to shut him down, especially after he’d asked for help picking out some pottery for his new kitchen, but once she’d gotten him into his truck and on his way, she’d had to race to get home herself. As it was, she’d barely had time to feed and ended up going to the bar in the clothes she’d worn to the store that day. And she’d realized too late that her phone wasn’t in her pocket.

  It was only a short detour to the store on her way home and Jolie left her truck running as she went to the door. She’d hoped the cleaning crew might be there on one of their last missions before the contract officially expired, but the building was dark. The yard light next to the warehouse was on, coloring everything a washed-out bluish color.

  Jolie used the light on her key ring to find the right key and get it into the lock. She snapped on the overhead as she went inside, pausing to cast a cautious eye over the interior of the store. Her father had always teased her that she was the most cautious about things that weren’t likely to be a danger and the least cautious about those things that were.

  So be it. She didn’t like dark, lonely places, even if the chances of something being there were slim to none. It was amazing how creepy a feed store could be at night. Dylan’s office door was cracked open. Had she left it that way? Probably, even though it was her custom to leave the door wide open so she could see inside the office.

  Finally, Jolie lifted her chin and headed toward her desk where her phone was in the top drawer. Her footsteps sounded unusually loud in the store—louder even than she remembered them in the morning when she was there alone. She slid open the drawer, pulled out the phone, then jumped a mile as the bell above the door jangled. Her heart slammed against her ribs, then the next thing she knew she was in flight, heading toward the rear exit.

  “Jolie!”

  Her hand was on the dead bolt when Dylan said her name a second time and she realized that the intruder was someone she knew...someone who was supposed to be in Washington. Or home with Mike. Definitely not here.

  She turned back to see him standing in the middle of the store, an expression of concern on his handsome face. She pressed a hand to her hammering heart and for a moment she thought she might, for the first time in her life, pass out.

  “You scared the bejeezus out of me!”

  Dylan took a couple steps closer. “Did you ever think to lock the door behind you?”

  “No,” she muttered, feeling stupid. “I didn’t think anyone would be lurking.” She cocked her head. “Why are you lurking?”

  “I was driving by on my way home and saw lights where there shouldn’t be any and drove in to investigate.”

  “Alone? What if I’d been some crazed burglar?”

  “Driving your truck?”

  “Point taken.”

  “Besides,” he said dryly, “investigating is kind of what I do.”

  “Do you have a gun with you?”

  “Yes.”

  That gave her pause. Dylan carried a gun. Had he always? Like, here at the store?

  She didn’t want to know. Guys who carried guns were guys who courted danger and she didn’t want to think about Dylan being in danger.

  “I should be going. I left my truck running.”

  “I noticed.”

  She didn’t move. “How was the test?”

  He slowly shook his head in a way that didn’t exactly smack of confidence. “I don’t know.”

  “But you’re Mr. Test. How could you not know?”

  “I was...preoccupied.”

  “By?”

  “Way too much stuff.” He reached up to rub his hand over the back of his neck, his eyes closing briefly as his fingers worked the muscles there.

  Do. Not. Do. This. “Anything you can talk about?” The words came out of her mouth anyway. They had to. There was no way they were staying put. Not when Dylan looked like this, as if he was one tautly stretched nerve-snap away from imploding.

  His chin hit his chest and Jolie thought she had her answer and was about to back off when he said, “Got an hour or two?”

  “Maybe.”

  And maybe there was no good reason that her heart was still beating a little harder, but she sensed she was approaching some kind of threshold and she couldn’t stop herself from easing over it.

  When he lifted his gaze, his expression was resigned. To his fate? Or to finally spilling his guts to her? As she looked into those blue, blue depths, she decided she didn’t care which. And even though part of her insisted that she march past him, out the door, get into her truck and drive to safety, she knew she wasn’t going to.

  “I need to shut off my truck.”

  She half expected him to use that as an excuse to drop the pretense that he was actually going to talk to her, but he didn’t. “I’ll get it,” he said. “Mine is running, too.”

  “I didn’t see your headlights when you drove in.”

  “Probably because I turned them off.”

  “Snuck up on me.”

  “Old cop trick.” He let himself out and Jolie told herself that she didn’t need to be thinking that he looked as good in slacks as he did in jeans.

  “What other old cop tricks do you have?” she asked when he came back in and handed her the keys.

  “Too many to mention.” He leaned against the shelf that held the horseshoe nails. Seeing that they were making themselves comfortable, Jolie boosted herself up onto the cabinet, crossing her booted ankles. Pretended that he was just Jim telling her the woes of his day at the bar.

  “How did you come to be a cop, Dylan?” It seemed a safe way to dive in, even though she didn’t really expect him to answer.

  To her amazement, he did.

  “Grieving process,” he said shortly. “I couldn’t handle school after dad died. I’d been doing a work-study job with campus security and because of that I got a chance to enter police officer training school.” He scuffed his shoe along a crack in the floor in front of him. “Granddad wasn’t thrilled. He wanted me to continue in forensic biology, but I wasn’t ready.” He gave a small shrug. “I love being a cop.”

  Something in her stilled, the same as it had when he’d told her about his windshield being shot out. “What about the potential for danger?”

  “With the proper precautions...” He shrugged again, seeming to think danger wasn’t an issue. “I’m a field training officer. I ride with the rookies, which means that I know what I’m doing.”

  “Huh.” Jolie studied her bare knees for a moment.

  “Something wrong?”

  She looked up, forcing her expression to clear. “No.” Nothing she felt like talking about. Like the way her stomach was turning inside out at his seeming disregard for danger. This was his time to talk. “What happened in Washington?” Because something had clearly happened.

  “I got the all-clear to go back on duty.”

  Again she felt a small twinge of anxiety. “Congratulations.”

  “Took my test. Dealt with some other matters.” He glanced down at the cracked tile again. “Found out that my supervisor wants me to transfer.”

  “What? Why?”

  “A guy that I have potential issues with would be my immediate superior. I told the captain it didn’t matter, but he has hesitations.”

  “What’s the solution?”

  “He thinks it’s a transfer. He said he’d make it easy.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “Honestly? Like shit. I didn’t do anything to justify...” He shook his head. “Long story.”

  He moved then, coming to stand closer to her. Because she was sitting on the counter their eyes...their mouths...were at the same level. He
leaned in another fraction of an inch and for one wild moment she wondered if he was going to kiss her, because if he did, she wasn’t going to stop him. Not tonight. But instead he leaned on his forearm, close to her thigh, and looked out across the room. He was close, too close, yet somehow not close enough.

  “It felt kind of strange going back.”

  “I think that’s pretty normal. Plus, you’ve been through a lot of...I don’t know...trauma?”

  “More like drama. Don’t get divorced.”

  “No intentions of ever doing that,” she said and he glanced up at her.

  “Neither did I.” His softly spoken words made something shift inside her. “But, Lindsey and I... I don’t know what happened. I did my best but it quit working.”

  “Maybe it worried her. You know...” Her voice softened. “Being married to a guy who spends a lot of time in harm’s way.”

  Dylan considered her theory for all of a heartbeat. “I don’t think that was a major concern.”

  “Why?”

  “She hooked up with another cop. Before we split up. My, uh, partner. The guy who will be my supervisor if I go back to my old job.”

  Jolie’s stomach had twisted as he spoke and now a heavy silence hung between them and there wasn’t much to do about it. She couldn’t think of anything to say—nothing that would help, anyway. No wonder he’d seemed lost in dark thoughts. She glanced down at her rose-embroidered boots then looked up and said, “I see why you wanted your private life left alone.”

  “It was pretty damned humiliating. I mean, my own partner and my wife? The killer part was that I thought I’d been doing all right.” One corner of his mouth tightened. “I steered away from the booze, the groupies. Tried to make our time together count.” He exhaled. “We talked, tried to explain our needs...but it was like we weren’t speaking the same language.”

  Jolie’s lips parted. She understood what he was saying. Most of her short-lived relationships—flings, really—hadn’t ended well because of it. She’d tried to explain what she was and wasn’t looking for, but she may as well have been speaking gibberish. Guys didn’t understand her need for space. And a lot of it. So when they closed in too tightly, she did the only thing she could do and walked away.

  “So what happens now?”

  “I wait to hear the results of the detective exam. Make a few decisions about where to work.”

  “Everything is in limbo.”

  “At the moment.”

  “Makes me glad I’ve finally made a commitment to the ranch. To staying.” She swung her foot back and forth. “I like having roots. Like working for something.”

  “Can you see yourself leaving?”

  There was something more to the question than what he was asking on the surface.

  Therefore Jolie considered her answer before saying, “I’m not going to say I’ll never leave the Lightning Creek, but for right now being there works for me. I like being there. Where I grew up.” She took in a breath. “Where my dad died.”

  “There on the ranch.”

  “I was nine years old. He had a heart attack at a ridiculously young age. Just...died.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She reached out and put her hand over his without thinking, covering his warm work-roughened fingers with her own before once again settling her hand back on her thigh. “I could say the same. Although...you were probably grieving before you lost your dad.”

  “For a couple years.” He shrugged. “We had a good relationship and I’m grateful for that.”

  “I never asked about your mother,” she said with a sudden frown.

  “No need to. She and my dad never married. She basically left me with him when she found a guy she liked better. I have very little contact. My dad and grandfather raised me.”

  “They did a decent job,” Jolie said, a little shocked that she’d never known this about him. He seemed so together, so centered. Yes. His dad and grandfather had done an excellent job.

  It was getting late. Too late, yet she had no desire to go home to her lonely house to check for monsters in the closet. Maybe she and Dylan could talk in the feed store until it opened for business. Then she could go home at noon and fall into bed. Forget about practice and sleep until it was time to work at the bar.

  “What?” She raised her eyebrows at Dylan’s question. “You’re smiling.”

  “Thinking about not sleeping until tomorrow afternoon.”

  “We’re probably both going to be useless tomorrow morning, which happens in, oh—” he glanced at his watch “—not that long from now.”

  Jolie eased off the counter. “Yes. I need to get home. Gus will be worried about me.”

  “Gus?” There was just enough suspicion in his voice to make Jolie smile.

  “My big fluffy black-and-white dog.”

  “Oh, yeah. I remember him.”

  “Should I ask why you sound relieved?”

  “Probably not,” he said, smiling down at her.

  “What do we do here, Dylan?”

  He didn’t pretend not to know what she was asking. “I don’t know...be friends?”

  “I like that idea.”

  “I wouldn’t mind having someone I trust to talk to every now and again. If the mood strikes.”

  “I wouldn’t mind listening.” He smiled at her. A heart-stopping, take-his-face-in-your-hands-and-kiss-him-hard smile. She didn’t take his face in her hands, but his mouth was suddenly way too close to hers. Or maybe it just seemed that way. “Don’t kiss me,” she said, her voice husky and low.

  “Why?”

  “I really want to try this friendship thing and if you kiss me, you’ll ruin it.”

  Jolie held her breath, utterly conflicted. Either way it went, she could handle it, but one way would be better for her peace of mind. Fortunately that was the way Dylan chose. Slowly he eased back, putting himself out of range.

  “Friends. Not the kissing kind. Agreed.” But his breathing was uneven. “Come on. I’ll walk you to your truck.”

  * * *

  MIKE INSISTED ON making Dylan breakfast the next morning, even though all he wanted was a lot of black coffee to make it through his four-hour workday. Mike chatted about how well Gordy had done in the warehouse and about meeting his new neighbors, Joe and Marion Bradford. Apparently he and Joe had been acquainted years ago when Joe had operated a service station not far from the feed store.

  And the entire time his grandfather was talking, Dylan had the feeling he was leading up to something. So he drank his coffee and waited.

  “Things go okay over there in Lanesburg?” Mike asked as he set a plate of scrambled eggs, toast and bacon in front of him.

  “I don’t know how I did on the exam, but the doc gave me the all-clear for active duty.”

  “Well, good.” Except Mike didn’t sound all that pleased.

  Dylan was not going to ask why. Honestly, he was half afraid to ask why. Besides that, Mike would broach the matter when he was ready.

  “Did you straighten out all that mortgage stuff?”

  All Mike knew was that Dylan had been having some difficulty with the house. He’d been purposely vague about the matter and his grandfather hadn’t pushed. Dylan hoped he didn’t start now.

  “Better than I’d hoped, but my advice is to never get divorced.”

  “Does this mean you’re never getting married again?”

  Dylan shot him a what-the-hell look and Mike said, “Just asking. No need to get your back up.”

  “My back isn’t up.”

  “Spent some time at the store,” his grandfather continued conversationally.

  “Yeah?” Dylan purposely kept his response casual, since this was obviously going somewhere.

  “Jolie’s made it n
icer.”

  “She has.”

  “The customers like her.”

  “They do.”

  “Don’t scare her off.”

  Dylan’s fork stopped a few inches from his mouth. “What?”

  “You heard me. I like her. Don’t scare her off.”

  “What makes you think I can scare her off even if I wanted to? Because, trust me, I did my best in high school and it didn’t work.”

  “Just a feeling I had. She got kind of funny when I mentioned you. And, well, you guys did have that dust-up a while back.”

  “I don’t want to chase her off. The store needs her.” He recalled how she’d made that very statement the first time they’d met in the store and he’d scoffed at her. He wasn’t scoffing anymore. He also wasn’t saying any more.

  Mike was giving him a look that made him a tad uneasy.

  “Do you mind if I come to work with you today?”

  “No,” Dylan said, surprised. “It’s your store.”

  “Was my store. Now it’s yours and Finn’s.”

  Dylan finished his eggs and got up to put his plate in the sink. “You’d better grab your coat. We’re going to be late if we don’t get a move on.”

  Somewhere along the line Mike had developed a real soft spot for Jolie. Maybe it was because she’d given his animals homes and provided him daily updates. Or maybe she reminded him a little of his wife, Helen, who’d also been a warm, outgoing woman with a wicked sense of humor. Whatever it was, over the next several days Mike came to work with Dylan more often than not, and whatever Jolie was doing, he was right there, chatting her up and helping her out.

  Dylan was definitely the odd man out—which, he told himself, was a good thing. Mike was enjoying his days at work and he provided a buffer between Dylan and Jolie. Not that he was so certain they needed a buffer anymore. Something had changed since the late-night confessions in the store. Since they’d decided to be friends.

  Some of the edge was gone, the sense of not knowing what the other person was thinking. He felt different when he was around her. Happy, really. But he was also well aware that she had a clear boundary that he wasn’t allowed to cross. Not yet, anyway. Friends. Not the kissing kind.