“Hey.” He tilted her chin back toward him. “I said lookin’, not fucking, and you want to know the truth? That bar, it’s mostly filled with railroad men and lumberjacks and their old ladies, and I wouldn’t call most of ’em pretty.”
“So you’ll be bored till you see me again?” she asked hopefully.
He cocked his hip and adjusted his belt. “Bored stiff, I imagine.”
On her laugh, he stepped away from his truck and walked her to her rental.
“And you?” he said. “I mean, no strings or anything. Ropes okay—no strings, though, to tie you down.”
She wanted him, frankly, to bind her to him, and hold her fast, and forget all the reasons, all the sane and sensible reasons for leaving, forget that he had a life and she was afraid she would have just…him.
“No strings, but…I’ve never known any other guy—maybe I never want to know any other guy—like you. For what it’s worth, you absolutely possess me.”
A small satisfied smile played across his face. “Go on, then. Drive on back to the real world. I’ll be around a while, waiting to possess you again.”
She opened the car door and slipped behind the wheel, but she still didn’t start the engine.
He leaned inside her open window. “I decide I want a beer earlier than Saturday, I walk down to the bar, I call you tonight, say. You be home?”
“Late,” she said. “I didn’t—I didn’t confirm a flight.”
“Still not that sure, are you?” He smiled. “Well. I am. I climb back on even after I’m thrown. You know I do.”
He turned away and walked to his truck, his hips swaying slightly, his walk jaunty, his broad back straight and proud. If he turned back, and she saw those golden curls and that wickedly beautiful smile, if he turned back and she saw those full lips and thought about all the things he could do with them, if she saw his tanned, rough hands and thought about all the places he touched her with them, if she saw his deep blue-violet eyes…
Anna put the key in the car’s ignition, turned the motor over, and sped away, her wheels kicking up gravel in the parking lot.
Hot and gold, the light of the summer afternoon trailed her through the Absaroka pass. With the car windows open, the sun spilled in on her and scorched her skin until the mountain shadows draped over her, leaching the color from the sun and fading the heat of the day.
She could still feel the weight of Grant’s kisses on her bare shoulders. No matter what else happened, she would keep her promise to visit. And if she found herself a life she loved as much as he loved his rodeo, maybe someday she would even make a promise to stay. She just had to find the passion she was missing. Even if she wasn’t entirely sure how she would go about finding it, or even if she would recognize it if she did.
She was already four hours south of Cody, Wyoming, and crossing over the Gros Ventre slide, when she turned the car around.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2006 by Kensington Publishing Corp.
“Wild Ride” © copyright 2006 by Vonna Harper
“Cowboy in Paradise” © copyright 2006 by P.J. Mellor
“Saddle Sore” © copyright 2006 by Nelissa Donovan
“Rodeo Man” © copyright 2006 by Nikki Alton
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ISBN: 0-7582-2085-5
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