True-Blue Cowboy--Includes a bonus novella

by Sara Richardson

  Olivia’s heart sped up, but then she remembered waking this morning to a text from Michael asking if she’d reconsidered his proposal and a text from her mother asking if she was crazy passing up a guy who could give her so much more than her dad ever gave to her. This afternoon her dad had actually called, and she’d let it go to voicemail just so she wouldn’t have to listen to him asking when she was going to grow up and come home to face her problems.

  Reality.

  “I’m just here for the week,” she insisted. “So whatever this is with me and Cash, it’s temporary.”

  Lily nodded with a knowing grin. “Mmm-hmm. That’s why you’re buying a new dress for a first date with a guy you don’t plan on seeing again.”

  Olivia’s mouth fell open, but she had no comeback.

  “He’s a good guy,” Lily said. “If you can get past that gruff exterior, there’s a real sweetheart underneath.”

  Olivia blew out a breath. She’d seen that sweetheart already, not that Cash would admit it. “What about you and the cake-eating rodeo star?” she asked Lily, trying to get the attention off her and Cash.

  Lily shook her head. “Luke Everett hasn’t been able to stand me ever since Tucker and I started dating. Now that we’re divorced, seems I get under his skin even more.”

  “You know what they say about love and hate,” Olivia said. “It’s a very thin line.”

  Lily’s cheeks grew pink, and Olivia wondered if they’d already crossed that thin line.

  “Do all the Everett brothers look like that?” she asked.

  Lily rolled her eyes but nodded. “It’s really not fair. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, all that cowboy-rancher swagger with a sun-kissed California vibe. They’re like a pack of horseback-riding Hemsworths. Though I’m guessing you prefer the dark-haired brooding type.”

  Olivia laughed. What she preferred was not worrying about the future because the What comes next? was the part that terrified her. All she knew was that kissing Cash Hawkins was as easy as breathing because he had no expectations of her beyond the present. She didn’t know how to be anything other than who she was—a runner. That was why she’d run here, to the town where Gran and Pop fell in love through the words written on the page. But for these next few days with Cash, she could just be herself. With him. Until their time ran out.

  “Something like that,” was all she said.

  “Well, I should go.” Lily started backing toward the door. “I was just walking by and saw you. I hope it’s okay I stopped in to say hello.”

  “I’m glad you did. I was a little on the fence about the dress, but now my mind’s made up.” Olivia yanked the tag that was hanging from her sleeve and walked it over to the small checkout counter where the owner was helping another customer. “I’ll take it all,” she whispered.

  “Good choice,” Lily said and then waved. “I have a good feeling about you, Olivia.”

  And then she was out the door.

  After a hefty but worthwhile dent on her debit card, Olivia soon was, too.

  She checked her phone once she got back to the bed-and-breakfast. She had exactly thirty minutes before Cash was supposed to pick her up, so she decided to head down to the common room and see who was around.

  Everyone was around because Wednesday nights were apparently game night, and just about all the guests plus the owners, Rose and Marcus, were seated around the long wooden table setting up Trivial Pursuit.

  Olivia bounced on her suede-booted toes and clapped. “I love this game!”

  “Come join us!” Marcus said. “We’re just getting started.”

  She worried her bottom lip between her teeth but then grinned. “Okay, maybe just a couple rounds. I—I sort of have plans.”

  Rose raised a brow. “You mean with the sheriff.”

  Enthusiastic mumbling broke out among the guests, and Olivia groaned.

  “How does everyone know?” she asked.

  “I saw him at the market this morning in the produce section,” Marcus told her. “Cash never shops for fresh produce. I knew he had to be doing something special for someone special.”

  “And I bumped into Carol from the boutique at the bank who said something about Lily Green and a new customer talking about the sheriff,” Rose said. Then she looked Olivia up and down. “New outfit?”

  Olivia blushed so hard she thought her face would actually catch fire. “I guess there’s no point in my answering any of your questions since you seem to know everything already. So there’s only one thing left to do.”

  “What’s that?” Marcus asked.

  “Kick all your butts in Trivial Pursuit.” She sat down at an empty spot on the bench seat, her chin held high. Then she glanced at her opponents, who all seemed to be sitting in pairs. Couples, to be exact. “That’s okay,” she said in response to her own thoughts and most likely what everyone else was thinking. “I can hold my own against teams.”

  A throat cleared in the open archway of the common room.

  A man’s throat. And hell if Olivia couldn’t recognize said man just by that sound. Still, she spun slowly to find Cash Hawkins standing behind her.

  “I’ve played on a team or two,” he said.

  Rose waved him off. “High school football doesn’t count,” she teased.

  Cash slid into the empty seat beside Olivia, barely giving her time to take in his plaid shirt, the sleeves rolled to reveal his muscular forearms. His dark jeans hugged his hips and—well, speaking of butts. Cash Hawkins was a sight to behold. And she was enjoying a long moment of beholding.

  Olivia swallowed. “I was running early.”

  He leaned in close—even with the whole table watching—and whispered in her ear. “So was I.”

  His breath tickled her skin, and he smelled—mmm—she had to fight to keep from sighing.

  “Rosemary,” she said out loud. “And mint.”

  “Should we get started?” Rose asked, reminding Olivia that she and Cash were not alone, and oh how she wished they were now.

  “Do we still have time?” Olivia asked Cash, hoping he’d tell her they were in some rush to make a reservation. Then her brows drew together as her eyes dipped from his to three small but fresh cuts on his neck. “What happened to you?”

  He sighed and shook his head. “Mrs. Middleton’s cat. Twice.”

  Her concern morphed into a giggle. “Please tell me you actually saved a cat from a tree. Twice. That really happens?”

  Cash nodded and she noticed a slight tinge of pink spreading over his cheeks. Somehow him blushing made her blush, and she was sure everyone could see. Her heart raced even though she was sitting still, and as much as she’d been looking forward to tonight, something as simple as a first date suddenly felt—dangerous. She’d thought her time in Oak Bluff would be a welcome diversion from the mess that waited for her in San Francisco. But physiological reactions like this were not in her repertoire. Cash Hawkins did more than divert her attention. He captivated it.

  The sheriff pulled out his phone and fired off a quick text. To whom she had no idea.

  Then Rose handed him the dice, and he rolled. “You’re in Oak Bluff now, Ms. Belle,” he said. “We’ve got all the time in the world around here.”

  A whole ninety minutes later Cash held the door and Olivia exited the bed-and-breakfast out onto the pavement.

  “I can’t believe you knew that Denmark had the oldest flag design,” she said, walking backward so they could continue their conversation.

  He raised his brows. “Hey. You got us the sports and leisure piece by being able to name what teams all those NFL coaches coached. Impressive,” he said.

  She shrugged. “Why? Because I’m a woman?”

  He laughed. “No, because they’re not current. You’d have had to be a young kid when they were all in their prime.”

  Her smile faded. “My dad’s a huge football fan. Sunday afternoons and Monday nights used to be our thing—until he and my mom started arguing louder than the flat screen wit
h surround sound. Kinda lost my love of football after that.” They got to the corner, and she finally turned to face the street they were about to cross. “You were good?” she asked. “In high school?”

  He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans as they continued to the other side of the street. “Mighta been able to play in college. But I blew out my knee the week Dad went into hospice.”

  Her throat tightened. She pulled one of his hands free and laced her fingers through his, giving him a gentle squeeze.

  “I’m pretty much the worst, aren’t I?” she said.

  He tugged her across the street perpendicular to the one they’d just crossed, only answering her when they were on the sidewalk again. “How do you mean?”

  “I’ve been complaining about my parents and their messy divorce pretty much since you met me. And as much as they both drive me to drink—heavily—I can still say that word. Both. Because they’re both still here, and you’ve lost—”

  “Hey,” he said, pulling her close. Then he glanced up and down the street, from shop window to window.

  “You worried about who’s watching us?” she asked, knowing that just about the whole town probably was.

  “I’m not worried about a damned thing,” he said. “Especially you thinking your pain is anything less compared to mine. It’s not a competition. We all have our baggage—our pasts that shape us. It’s what we do with all that shaping that matters.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You’re talking about me, aren’t you? How I run from my baggage?”

  He chuckled. “Or how I keep mine sealed up in a really fancy envelope.”

  She looked over her shoulder, only then realizing where they were standing.

  “Sheriff?”

  “Ms. Belle?”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “You break any laws today?” he asked.

  She pretended she was counting her fictional offenses on her fingers. “Nope,” she finally said. “Unless you count the liquor store I robbed before breakfast.”

  He shook his head and chuckled again. “Well, I guess I’m harboring a known criminal. We better get you inside before the rest of the town is onto us.”

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the department’s front door. But once inside, instead of continuing straight into the office, he veered left, to a staircase she hadn’t noticed the last time she was here. When she was under arrest.

  She followed him up the stairs and to a sparse hallway that had one door at the far end.

  He opened that one door and ushered her inside. There she found a small apartment, modestly decorated and furnished, with a German shepherd curled on a doggie bed on the floor next to a bookcase. Dixie.

  But it wasn’t the sweet, non–attack dog who didn’t even stir when they entered that caught Olivia’s attention. It was the round wooden table set for two, a bottle of red waiting to be uncorked, and the smell of something absolutely delicious.

  “You—cooked for me?”

  He pushed the door closed behind them. “I figured if we went to eat anywhere in town we’d be dealing more with the stares and whispers than anything else. Thought if I took you somewhere outside of town you’d think I didn’t want anyone to know I was taking you out. Decided that if I had the whole day off, I might as well make use of it. So yeah, I cooked for you.”

  This made her smile. “So you do want people to know you’re with me tonight?”

  “I want my damned privacy,” he said. “And to show you a good time. The rest doesn’t matter as long as it’s you and me tonight.”

  Dixie barked and looked up from where she was tearing apart a piece of rawhide.

  “And your ferocious beast,” Olivia said, laughing.

  She dropped down to a squat and gave the dog a scratch behind the ears. Dixie responded by rolling onto her back, exposing her belly for additional scratches. The dog wriggled back and forth, and Olivia lost her balance. She yelped with laughter as she collapsed right onto her butt.

  “You okay?” Cash said, extending a hand.

  She let him help her up, and she brushed off the skirt of her dress. “Yes, but I do seem to have trouble staying on my own two feet when I’m around you, Sheriff.”

  “Any idea why that is?” he asked.

  She looked deep into those green eyes of his, hoping for some sort of logical answer as to how, just a few days ago, she’d run so far and fast from forever that she’d ended up in handcuffs, yet now she was already wondering how in the heck she’d be able to walk away from this man and never look back.

  “Guess you just make me weak in the knees,” she said, voice shaky.

  He wrapped an arm around her waist. “I don’t think there’s one weak bone in your body, Olivia Belle, but far be it for me to argue with a beautiful woman who knows her obscure trivia.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck. “And far be it for me to go one more second without kissing a man who cooked me dinner.”

  Chapter Ten

  And just like that, her mouth claimed his.

  Cash felt Olivia smile against him as she parted her lips, and somehow that made the kiss even sexier—knowing how much she was enjoying it.

  His hands slid up her sides, and she sucked in a breath as his thumb grazed the side of her breast. That was all it took to unleash something in him he hadn’t known still existed.

  It was more than hunger. More than want. Cash Hawkins needed this woman, and he wasn’t sure how to wrap his brain around that. He’d let himself believe for so long that he didn’t need anyone or anything. Because needing someone and then losing them? That was something Cash had experienced too often to write off as coincidence.

  He’d loved and lost, in more ways than one. And until Olivia Belle blew into town, he’d whittled down that circumference of love to the only two females he’d let past his barriers: Lucinda and Dixie.

  Cash’s tongue tangled with hers, but he needed to come up for air. So he kissed down the length of her neck, breathing in her sweet citrus scent. He paid equal attention to each of her bare shoulders, lips brushing across skin pebbled with gooseflesh.

  But he still couldn’t quite catch his breath. He couldn’t let go of one, singular thought.

  In the span of four days he’d gone from wanting to get Olivia Belle and her disregard for rules and regulations out of his hair to needing her in his bed tonight—and all the nights to come.

  The oven timer went off, and he silently thanked the buzzer for a moment of reprieve.

  “We should eat,” he said, backing away, his voice hoarse.

  She straightened out nonexistent wrinkles in her dress and stared at him. “How the heck did you cook me dinner while we were playing Trivial Pursuit at the B and B?”

  This, at least, got him to grin. “Walters and Adams have a key to the place. I texted them when to come on up and preheat the oven. I prepared everything and left it all marinating in the fridge. Just had to be thrown in to bake while I was—detained.”

  She breathed in deep, then closed her eyes and sighed. “Mmm. I’m starving, and whatever you made smells unbelievable.” She strode toward the table. “Can I pour you a glass of wine while you’re getting everything out of the oven?”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  A bottle of pinot noir later, he watched as Olivia swirled her last bite of steak in the marinade. “Seriously?” she said after she swallowed. “I thought single men subsisted solely on canned beer and frozen pizza.”

  He coughed on his last sip of wine. He wouldn’t confirm how close to the truth she was. It wasn’t that he couldn’t cook. Her empty plate was evidence enough of that. It was that he didn’t see the point of putting in so much effort just to eat alone.

  “Guess I’m not your typical single man,” Cash said.

  She polished off the rest of her wine. “I guess you’re not,” she said. She reached down and rubbed her ankle under the table.

  “Still bugging you?” he asked.

&n
bsp; She winced slightly. “It wasn’t,” she said. “But I think walking around in heels mighta made it a little angry.”

  He stood and offered her his hand. “Come here.”

  She didn’t question him, just placed her palm in his and let him lead her to the couch.

  “Sit,” he said, and when she gave him a pointed look, he added, “please.”

  She sat, as did he, a little farther apart than he might have liked. But he had work to do before—well, before anything went further than the couch. If it, in fact, did.

  He unzipped her boots and pulled off her ankle socks. Then he swung her legs so her feet were in his lap, cherry-red painted toes and all.

  “What are you—oooh,” she said as he started massaging her foot. She sunk into the arm of the couch and hummed. “God, that feels good.”

  He worked his way up her calf, kneading her tight muscles.

  She sighed with what he hoped was pleasure.

  “Ever since the knee injury, I see this athletic masseuse every now and then. When the muscles get too tight. The trick is that you gotta take care of the muscles around the injury because when they seize up, it makes it hurt more.”

  “Mmm,” she said, eyes falling closed. “Was something hurting me? I can’t seem to remember.” Then she flexed and pointed her uninjured foot. “I know this one isn’t hurt, but I might walk funny if the muscles in this leg are all tight when the other one is soooo relaxed.”

  He laughed softly and happily turned his attention to the other foot. “We wouldn’t want that to happen, now, would we?”

  She opened her eyes and shook her head. “I could injure myself so badly I might not be able to drive home in time to get back to work on Monday.”

  His eyes met hers. “Would that be so bad?”

  “Being too injured to drive?”

  He shook his head. “Staying longer.”

  She was silent for a long moment, and he knew he should take the words back—words that were full of pressure to commit, to plant her feet in one place for the long haul. Something she’d made clear she didn’t do—and something he had convinced himself he no longer wanted.