Six Weeks to Catch a Cowboy

by Brenda Harlen

  Thankfully, she managed to stifle the instinct and settled for pulling away. “Good night, Jack.”

  “You’re not going to invite me in?” He sounded surprised.

  “Didn’t we have this conversation at the restaurant?”

  He shrugged, smiled. “Eternal optimist.”

  “Good night,” she said again.

  “Good night.”

  She unlocked the exterior door, then stood inside the foyer and watched him walk back to his car.

  After three hours in a body-hugging dress and killer heels, she was only one flight of stairs away from the comfort of her favorite pj’s and bare feet.

  Instead of climbing those stairs, she stayed where she was until Jack’s Mercedes had driven away. Then she stepped outside again and got into her own vehicle.

  As she pulled out of the parking lot, she acknowledged that she was probably making a big mistake—but she couldn’t seem to help herself where Spencer Channing was concerned.

  Chapter Eleven

  Spencer was scrolling through the channel guide on TV when his phone beeped with a new text message from Kenzie.

  Is Dani still awake?

  No, he immediately replied. She finally crashed about half an hour ago.

  Then he asked, Are you home from your date?

  No.

  Then why are you texting me?

  Because I’m standing outside your apartment.

  His only reply to that was to open the door.

  She unbuttoned her coat as she stepped over the threshold, then shrugged it off and tossed it over the arm of the sofa.

  His eyes nearly popped out of his head and his jaw hit the floor.

  She was wearing a dress the color of ripe eggplant, with long sleeves and a very short skirt. In between, the fabric hugged her curves like a lover’s hands, and below the hem of that short skirt—wow.

  How had he never noticed that she had such great legs?

  Maybe because he couldn’t ever remember seeing her in a dress before. And it irked him to know that she’d put on that dress to go out for dinner with another man.

  His irritation was slightly tempered by the realization that she wasn’t with any other man now. Instead, she was here with him—and with fury and frustration rolling off her in waves.

  “Are you here to yell at me in person?” he asked, a little warily.

  She shook her head, and the big, loose curls she’d put in her hair swayed with the motion. Her soft gray eyes were enhanced by smoky shadow on the lids and mascara on her lashes. Her lips were naturally pink, sweet and tempting.

  He scowled. Fancy hair. Fancy dress. Fancy shoes that added enough inches to her height that her mouth was almost level with his own. Which was probably something he shouldn’t be thinking about now, because she hadn’t gone to all this effort for him. No, she’d done it for some guy whose name she wouldn’t even tell him. Apparently someone who really mattered to her.

  He felt a slight twinge of guilt, considering that he might have spoiled her evening with his playful text messages. But only a slight twinge, because if she really hadn’t wanted to be disturbed, she could have silenced her phone and ignored the messages.

  And then even that twinge was gone, as he acknowledged that even if he had messed up her night, he wasn’t sorry. Because he didn’t want her hooking up with some guy—unless that guy was him.

  But he probably did owe her an apology of sorts. Or at least an explanation.

  “I can understand why you might be upset,” he began, “but—”

  “Just shut up for a minute.”

  Not only angry, he realized, but frustrated and...something else he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

  “I’m trying to expl—”

  Since he apparently wouldn’t obey her instructions, she shut him up by pressing her mouth to his.

  He’d spent a fair amount of time perfecting his moves over the years—and he knew that he had some pretty good ones. He also liked to be the one to make the moves and considered pushy women to be a major turnoff.

  Until now.

  Until Kenzie moved in, tipped her chin up and settled her soft, sweet lips against his.

  Definitely not a turnoff.

  She lifted her arms to his shoulders, her fingers sliding into his hair, nails gently scraping his scalp.

  Her tongue swept along the seam of his lips, a silent request. He welcomed the deepening of the kiss, wrapping his arms around her, anchoring her body against his. Breasts to chest, thigh to thigh and other good stuff in between.

  When she finally eased her lips from his, they were both breathless.

  As oxygen slowly made its way to his brain, he had a vague thought that he should maybe let her go.

  But he didn’t want to.

  “That was...um...”

  She looked at him, her eyes wide with awareness and arousal, her lips moist and swollen from their kiss, and his mind went blank.

  At a loss for words, he decided the only appropriate response was to kiss her again.

  He’d been keeping a tight leash on his desire for weeks, for a lot of reasons. Of course, Dani was the biggest one. He was no longer a freewheeling bachelor—he was a dad now. Taking on the responsibilities of a child had required some major lifestyle changes. Changes he’d happily made for his daughter. He had responsibilities to Dani, not the least of which was to be a good example.

  And he thought he was doing a decent job as a parent. Sure they’d hit some bumps in the road, but so far, they’d negotiated the journey without any major mishaps. Keeping up with his daughter usually kept him busy from morning till night. But there were a lot of long, empty hours after Dani was tucked into bed that he found himself thinking about various and interesting ways he might fill that time. Most of those ways involved sex.

  He missed sex. Not just the physical act of coupling but everything that went along with it. The initial attraction, the rise of anticipation, the slow dance of seduction and finally the culmination of a woman’s warm, naked body entwined with his own.

  Yeah, he definitely missed sex. But the bigger dilemma was that lately he hadn’t been thinking about sex in the abstract but sex with Kenzie. Since his return to Haven, she was the only woman he wanted.

  And the way she was kissing him back right now, he was pretty sure she wanted him, too.

  But then, just when he’d located the pull of the zipper at the back of her dress, she tore her lips from his and pushed at his chest with both hands.

  “Damn you, Spencer Channing.”

  He took a minute to drag air into his lungs—and try to figure out what he’d done wrong that had caused her to shift from hot to cold in the blink of an eye. But if there was a man who understood the workings of a woman’s mind, it sure as hell wasn’t him. So he gave up trying and simply asked, “Why are you mad now?”

  “Because I didn’t want to feel anything when you kissed me.”

  Now he was truly baffled. “Huh?”

  She huffed out a frustrated breath. “I was hoping it was just me,” she continued her nonsensical explanation. “That I was tired and cranky and not in the mood to feel anything.”

  “I’m starting to see the cranky part,” he said, trying to tease a smile out of her.

  It worked. Kind of.

  Her lips curved a little, then her expression grew somber again and she sighed. “It was probably a mistake from the beginning. I never should have agreed to go out with him.”

  “This is about Mr. None-of-My-Business,” he realized.

  “Actually, it’s Dr. None-of-Your-Business.”

  “Ah, so that’s why you agreed to go out with him.”

  “It is not,” she denied.

  He lifted his brows, conveying his skepticism.

  “I went out with him because—” s
he began, then shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, I was only going through the motions. And when Jack kissed me—”

  He held up his hands to stop her. “I really don’t want the details.”

  “It was...nice,” she told him anyway.

  “Nice?” he echoed, trying to decipher what she was saying.

  “Not unpleasant, but nothing that would melt a girl’s panties. Or at least not mine.”

  “Well, that’s good then,” he said gruffly, finding a measure of satisfaction in the fact that she’d left the other man to come to him.

  “No, it’s not good,” she denied. “I want heat and passion. I want to be overcome by lustful thoughts and feelings.

  “Of course, I want a guy that I can have a conversation with, too,” she allowed. “But when we’ve finished talking, when he leans in and makes his move, I want his kiss to make my toes curl and my nether regions tingle.”

  Nether regions?

  Though his brows lifted at her use of the euphemistic term, he didn’t comment, because he was happy to listen to her lament the lack of chemistry she’d shared with her dinner companion.

  “Is that too much to ask?” she demanded.

  “Of course it’s not too much to ask,” he said magnanimously, smug in the knowledge that the chemistry between him and Kenzie was off-the-charts sizzling.

  Her sigh was filled with weariness and frustration. “I just want a man who can make me feel the way I feel when I’m with you.”

  “Um...hello?” he said, gesturing to himself.

  “No. You and me—” she shook her head “—not a good idea.”

  “Why not?” he demanded. “Obviously we’ve got the heat and passion thing covered.”

  “Because I want more than heat and passion,” she told him.

  And they both knew he wasn’t in a position to offer anything more than that right now—and that he wouldn’t likely offer more even if he could.

  But he stared at the back of the door after she’d gone and found himself wishing, perhaps for the first time, that maybe he could.

  * * *

  The following Saturday morning, after another visit with Helen Powell that included an update on all the latest plot twists and romantic escapades of The Light of Dawn, a text came through as Kenzie was on her way out.

  Instead of replying to Spencer’s message, she crossed the hall and knocked on his door.

  It was the first time she’d been to his apartment since the night she’d driven across town for the sole purpose of planting her lips on his. More than a week later, the memory of that kiss still made her lips tingle.

  So while she’d continued to spend time with Spencer and Dani—meeting them at the library or hanging out at the park—she’d avoided returning to the scene of the crime, such as it was. But she was no longer worried about a relapse, because sufficient time had passed that she was able to look back with some perspective. It had been late that night, and she’d been feeling lonely after a promising date turned out to be a dud, and none of those factors existed now.

  Not to mention that she could always count on Dani to serve as a buffer to the sexual attraction that simmered between the adults in the room. There was nothing like the presence of a curious child to keep wayward hormones in check.

  “You were visiting Mrs. Powell,” he guessed, when he opened the door in response to her knock.

  “I was,” she confirmed.

  He grinned. “Did she share her theory about Lorelei’s affair with Stefano?”

  “Don’t tell me she’s got you hooked on The Light of Dawn now,” she chided.

  “She watches Dani for me when I have therapy, and we sometimes chat about the plotlines afterward.”

  “Is the therapy working?”

  He nodded. “I’m not nearly as stiff as I used to be,” he said, then he grinned again. “Not in my shoulder, anyway.”

  She rolled her eyes at the innuendo.

  “So do you think it was Lorelei or her evil twin in Stefano’s bed?” he asked her. “Because I think it was both.”

  Kenzie laughed. “Of course you do. That’s every man’s fantasy, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Lately my fantasies have centered on only one woman.”

  “Yeah, not going there,” she reminded him.

  “Okay, how about going to Crooked Creek instead?”

  She was surprised—and maybe the teensiest bit disappointed—that he dropped the subject of his fantasies so readily. Yes, she was the one who’d put on the brakes. And she was grateful that he’d respected her wishes. But it might have been nice if he’d at least faked disappointment at being shut down.

  “Was this Dani’s idea?” she asked, aware that since Spencer’s grandfather had started giving the little girl riding lessons, she asked to go out to the ranch every five minutes.

  “Actually, Dani’s not here,” he admitted.

  “Where is she?”

  “With Linda.”

  “The jet-setting Nana is back?”

  He chuckled at the nickname. “Yeah. She and her new husband returned from Europe a few days ago and wanted to spend the weekend with Dani.”

  The “husband” revelation didn’t factor into Kenzie’s response—her only thoughts were of the little girl. “They took her for the whole weekend?”

  “Well, they picked her up early this morning and are bringing her back tomorrow afternoon.”

  “And now you’ve got all kinds of free time on your hands and no idea how to fill it,” she realized.

  “I do have an idea,” he reminded her. “I’m going to head over to Crooked Creek Ranch and saddle up a horse.”

  “That does sound like fun,” she agreed.

  “It would be even more fun if you came with me.”

  “I haven’t been to the ranch in...five years,” she realized.

  “Since Brie left?” he guessed.

  She nodded.

  “So what do you say?” he prompted. “We’ll take a picnic lunch and go for a nice long ride.”

  “I just told you that I haven’t been on a horse in five years. I’m not sure a long ride would be nice—or advisable.”

  “Just a ride then,” he said.

  She was tempted, but, “Didn’t the forecast warn of a storm this afternoon?”

  “Does that look like a stormy sky?” he asked, gesturing to the expanse of cloudless blue visible through the window.

  No, it didn’t. In fact, it looked like an incredible day. The type of day that inspired one to get out and breathe in the brisk autumn air.

  “Domino could use a good workout,” he cajoled, playing a trump card with the mention of Brielle’s gelding.

  Kenzie felt herself weakening. “Has anyone ever told you that you don’t play fair?”

  “I play to win,” he told her.

  “And that’s why I don’t play games with you,” she said.

  Not to mention that Spencer Channing was way out of her league. Maybe it wasn’t as painfully obvious now as it had been when she was sixteen, but it was still true.

  “Okay, forget the games,” he suggested. “And come for the ride.”

  She wanted to say yes. She wanted to spend the afternoon out at the ranch with him. But being around Spencer wasn’t just stirring up old feelings again—it was creating new ones. Deeper and more dangerous feelings.

  At sixteen, she’d believed herself in love with him. But she’d hardly known him back then—certainly not well enough to really love him. And the truth was, if she’d known him better, she’d have recognized that he was spoiled, selfish and self-centered, and she probably wouldn’t even have liked him.

  He’d changed a lot in the time that he’d been away. Or maybe since he’d come back to Haven. He’d be the first to admit that discover
ing he was a dad had changed him in all the very best ways. The one thing that hadn’t changed? He was still the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on.

  Watching that strong, sexy man with his adorable daughter, being witness to the patience and gentleness and affection he displayed in his interactions with the little girl, only made him more appealing. And the more time she spent with Spencer and Dani, the more she realized that she didn’t want to be an observer of the family they were building together—she wanted to be a part of it.

  But that was a dangerous desire. Personal experience had taught her that relationships were fragile and that counting on others was a shortcut to heartache.

  It was a lesson she’d learned when Spencer left town seven years earlier—and a lesson that had been reinforced by her short-lived romance with Brandon and her ill-advised engagement to Dale and a few other dalliances in between. Not that she’d been devastated or traumatized by any such involvement, but she’d been abandoned by her father before she was even born, and each subsequent experience had added to her distrust.

  But Spencer was proposing a horseback ride not a relationship, so she pushed her worries aside and said, “Okay, but if I end up with a bruised butt—”

  “I’ll kiss it better for you,” he promised.

  “Are you seriously offering to kiss my ass?”

  “I’ll kiss anything you’ll let me kiss,” he assured her.

  “Then you’ll be kissing nothing,” she said firmly.

  He just grinned.

  She decided it would be wise to refocus the conversation on his proposed outing. “Can you give me half an hour to run home and change?” She glanced at her watch. “I’ll meet you back here at noon.”

  “I’ll give you twenty minutes and pick you up on the way.”

  * * *

  Spencer had called ahead to the ranch and asked his grandfather to saddle up Domino and Copper Penny, and the horses were both tacked and ready when they arrived.

  “Who’s this pretty lady?” Kenzie asked, stroking the long nose of the chestnut mare that had trotted over to the fence upon their arrival.