by Jeannie Watt
“Mind if I sit for a bit?”
Em looked at Mallory, who said, “Just don’t let anyone get that other chair or Kait will have a conniption.”
“We wouldn’t want that,” Wes said as he pulled his chair a little closer to Em than was necessary and sat, putting his beer on the table. “Can I get you guys something?”
“Kait’s handling it.”
“Ah.” He glanced back at Em. “Not competing anymore?”
“Sold my horse.”
“There are other horses out there.”
“Let me rephrase that. I can’t afford a good barrel horse, so no, I’m not competing.”
“Have you looked into sponsors?” She frowned at him and he shrugged before saying in a low voice, “You were good.”
He spoke in a way that felt distinctly intimate. Strange to think that he’d been watching her back in the day. She’d had no idea.
Kait came back with two pitchers, saying that she didn’t want to wait in that mob again, and settled in her chair. “Huh. Imagine that. My chair is still here.”
“I sense a story,” Wes said, but Kait simply waved her hand.
“I’ll be back with the glasses in a sec.”
“I’ll help.”
“I can handle it.” Kait pushed her way through the people and came back a short time later with five glasses. “One for good measure,” she said.
Wes did the honors and the four of them talked rodeo as the crowd in the bar began to swell, and it wasn’t all competitors. Some of the out-of-town rodeo fans had discovered the place, too, probably due to the wonder of social media. She scanned the bar to see if Dermott had caught up with Chase, her heart doing a quick double beat when she realized that standing next to Chase was her very own travel partner.
Jess was there, looking better than any guy in the room, including the one sitting next to her, who apparently thought he was a gift to the world.
Jess, who’d sworn he was going to have an early night.
He turned, as if sensing her scrutiny, dark eyes zeroing in on her, making her feel very much as she had the last time he and Len had found her at a party when she’d been underage.
Emma pulled her gaze back to her beer without acknowledging him. So he’d changed his mind and come out to the bar. Big deal. She was still going to make a night of it.
“Are you all right?”
She jerked as Wes touched her leg beneath the table. He’d been inching closer, but this was too close. She moved her thigh a few inches, dislodging his hand. He gave her a knowing smile, although she had no clue as to what he thought he knew.
When she chanced another glance at Jess, he was once again in conversation with Chase, yet she had a hard time bringing her attention back to Wes, who’d just cleared his throat. A very crowded bar and the only guy she was now aware of was Jess. The cute cowboy sitting with Lara’s group paled by comparison.
Had he come to keep an eye on her? Watch her back?
She knew he wouldn’t be thrilled about her heading out alone with the rodeo crowd. She saw his point, but didn’t know how she felt about him doing the watchdog thing—if that was what he was doing. Flattered in one sense. Frustrated in another. And, just to keep the alliteration going, fearful about where this thing between them might be heading. Flattered, frustrated, fearful. A mix of emotions not at all conducive to the grand evening she had planned for herself.
Wes was so close now that she could feel the heat from his body. She did her best to focus on Mallory and Kait and their stories of trying to live together, work full-time jobs and maintain their small farm, until Wes pressed his thigh against hers under the guise of having to move closer as the table behind them became more crowded. Emma couldn’t edge away, so she gave him a dark look instead. He smiled at her.
She smiled back—a deadly smile. He was going down in flames, yet he didn’t seem to realize that his mission had failed. If he continued to press in on her, she was going to have to resort to stomping his instep, but rather than cause a ruckus at the table, she slid her chair back as far as she was able—which wasn’t far.
“I need to visit the ladies’,” she murmured as she struggled to her feet, no easy task when her thighs were still practically under the table, and squeezed behind his chair. A second later, she heard Wes get up and start to follow her. Somehow she managed not to stop abruptly, so that he ran into her, and continued on into the short hallway between the bar area and the billiards room where the restrooms were located. There she did stop, just in front of the door, and she turned to Wes.
He smiled down at her and had the audacity to prop his hand on the knotty pine wall just over her head.
“When I come back from the restroom, I want you gone.”
His cocky smile wavered, but only for a second, and then it came back, full force. “You don’t mean that.”
All she had to do was to lift her knee. He was open and vulnerable and unaware of her intentions. A quick shot to the family jewels and he’d understand just how deeply she meant it. However...
She pulled in a breath. “I’m not in the market, Wes. Go find someone else.”
“But—” he leaned closer, his breath fanning her face as he said “—I’m a guy who thrives on challenge.”
That did it. But before Em could lift her knee, Wes suddenly stumbled sideways, barely catching his balance before Jess pushed him again, toward the billiard room.
“Jess!” Emma scrambled after them as Jess backed Wes into the smaller room. Wes’s legs came up against a table as the stunned players fell back.
“Jess!”
He turned his head to look at her and Wes took a swing at him, hitting him in the side of the head with a resounding crack and as Jess reeled sideways—and that was when Emma saw that Wes was holding a cue ball in his hand. Jess didn’t go down, but as he fought for balance, blood streaming down the side of his face from a cut above his eyebrow, Wes pulled back his arm to hit him again. That was when Emma yanked the pool cue away from the guy standing next to her and stepped forward, waving it at Wes.
“Stop!”
As Wes’s attention shifted, Jess regained his balance and managed to clip Wes a good one in the chin, making him stagger back against the table. Emma turned and waved the cue at Jess. “You, too. Just...stop!”
“Cops are coming.”
The casual announcement came from somewhere behind her and Emma rolled her eyes. Just what she needed. She waved the cue at Wes again, then at Jess. If she played favorites, then Jess would never hear the end of being rescued by a woman.
It would serve him right, but...she couldn’t do it.
“You heard them,” Em said. “Cops are coming, guys. Maybe you should get out of here.”
Wes glared at her, then pushed his way through the crowd. Jess came up to her, seemingly unfazed by the fact that she’d saved him, but he didn’t touch her. Before he could say anything, she handed the cue back to the stunned guy she’d taken it from and muttered, “I do not want to spend the night in jail.”
He nodded and took her by the hand, leading her through the crowd and out the exit next to the men’s room. As the door closed behind them, Emma heard a truck engine start. Puffs of exhaust came from the tailpipes of an oversize red Chevy.
Jess let out a breath and put a hand up to his dripping cut, then pulled it away and grimaced. “Am I still pretty?”
“Get in the truck.”
His eyebrow—the good one—lifted.
“Go,” Emma repeated, taking hold of his shoulder and pulling him toward the vehicle. Headlights were blasting toward them and she wanted to get out of there before the deputies arrived. When they reached the rig, she simply said, “Keys.”
He tossed them to her and she opened the door, waited for him to get into the passenger seat and
then started the engine. They pulled out of the driveway just as the sheriff’s vehicle pulled in. Apparently a lumbering truck and camper didn’t look like a getaway rig, because the deputies roared past them, coming to a stop in front of the bar, the wheels of the cruiser half on, half off the sidewalk.
Emma let out a sharp breath as she gripped the wheel tighter, keeping one eye on the rearview mirror all the way back to the rodeo grounds, fully expecting red-and-blue lights at any second. Beside her Jess sat silently putting pressure on his wound. They’d made a clean getaway.
But now they had to deal with the matters before them instead of calling it a night.
* * *
EMMA WAS ANGRY. Beyond angry.
She had reason. Wes had been...himself...and Jess had tailed her to the bar and caused a scene. But given the chance, he would do it all over again.
Still, now was not the time to defend himself. Not when Emma wheeled the truck into the rodeo grounds so sharply that he was thrown sideways.
Yes. Definitely angry.
She parked in their spot, which was still open, turned off the engine and tossed him the keys before getting out of the rig. Jess sat holding the keys for a split second, then followed her out of the vehicle. She motioned toward the camper with her head, her mouth so tight that it was going white beneath her lip gloss. “Let’s see if you need stitches.”
He was fairly certain from the amount of blood pouring down his face, leaving a sticky trail down his neck and soaking his shirt, that he needed something. Emma got the hot water flowing in the tiny sink and pulled out a roll of paper towels that’d been stashed in the cupboard below.
“Do what you can,” she ordered. “And get out of that shirt.”
“Any particular order you want me to do those things?”
Her lips curled at him. Jess reached out and took the towels, unrolling a few and tearing them off, holding her gaze, doing his best to read her as he plastered the wad up against the side of his forehead. She rolled off more, dampened them and handed them to him.
“Can’t do much until the blood stops,” she said in a grim tone.
“You don’t have to stay.” She gave him a look that said, yeah, she did, and Jess closed his mouth. If he told her she was acting a lot like Selma, she’d probably clock his other temple.
Eventually the blood slowed and Jess used the small shaving mirror propped next to the kitchen sink to clean the cut, then wipe the blood off his neck and chest after undoing a few buttons on his shirt.
“Let me see it,” Emma demanded, so he turned to her. She frowned as she studied the cut. “Do you have butterflies?”
“Am I a bull rider?”
She didn’t respond, so he pulled the medical kit out of a drawer and handed it to her. She opened it while he once again put pressure on the cut. She found a butterfly closure and unpeeled the wrapper. Jess took the towel away from his face and she leaned closer, her lips forming a perfect pout as she concentrated on placing the butterfly just so, bringing the edges of the wound together.
“I’m lucky you’re not squeamish,” he said, more to distract himself from the way her scent enveloped him, making him want to reach for her, than because he actually felt lucky.
“I grew up with too many brothers to be squeamish.”
He grimaced as she put pressure on the edges of the adhesive closure. “Done?”
“You should put that shirt in a bucket of cold water.”
“As opposed to throwing it away?”
She gave a small shrug. “It could be saved, but it’s up to you.”
Fine. If the shirt could be saved, he’d save it. Emma’s lips parted as he started unbuttoning it the rest of the way, as if she was going to tell him to stop. But she didn’t. Her gaze held on his fingers as they worked the buttons out of the holes. And then she swallowed.
“Emma?”
Her eyebrows drew together, but she didn’t look at his face, so he stopped with the buttons and lifted her chin with his fingers. Her gaze came up. Defiantly, as if willing him to believe that his being bare-chested had no effect on her. And then he felt her shiver.
It wasn’t from the cold, since it was about eighty degrees in the small camper.
Em scowled at him. “I should have kicked Wes in the nuts. I almost did, you know.”
Jess’s mouth twitched as she grabbed the topic out of thin air. “Did you?”
She nodded. “He’s a jerk.”
“Glad you think so.”
She swallowed again. “That doesn’t mean I think you’re much better.”
“You think I’m a jerk?” he asked softly.
“I...” Her voice trailed and she exhaled, her breath feathering over his chest, making his groin tighten. When she met his eyes then, her gaze solemn, almost pained, he had no problem interpreting. She was teetering on a precipice. The same precipice he was on. He needed to step away, to bring them both back from the edge...but how was he supposed to do that when she stepped closer, running her hands from his shoulders to his biceps?
“Em...”
She let out a ragged breath, closed her eyes and dropped her forehead against his chest, her silky hair tumbling forward against his bare skin. A gesture of frustration. Surrender. She had no more idea how to handle this than he did.
He wrapped his arms around her, running his hands up and down her back in a soothing motion. He didn’t try to kiss her. He simply held her, well aware that she was probably seconds away from bolting. And when she bolted, he’d let her go and thank his lucky stars that things ended as they had.
But she surprised him. Instead of bolting, she pulled back, frowning slightly as she studied his face. Looking for...something.
Permission?
Encouragement?
Then his breathing stilled as she framed his face, lifted her lips and brushed them over his. The kiss was butterfly soft, yet it sent an electric jolt through him.
Sanity time.
No matter what he wanted to do here, one of them had to keep a clear head. But he didn’t move, and when Emma slid her hands up to the back of his neck, pressing herself closer, he met her lips, kissed her. No more tentative exploration. He asked. She gave. Willingly, a husky sigh escaping her lips as he pulled her against him so tightly that she would have no doubt as to the effect she had on him. It didn’t put her off. If anything she melted into him even more. He wanted her in the worst way. His hands traveled up under her shirt, skimming over her rib cage, his thumbs grazing over her perfect breasts. Her nipples were straining against the thin fabric of her lacy bra, and it was all he could do not to lose himself in the process of making love to her.
She shivered again in his arms and he forced himself to pull back when all he wanted to do was to press on. Claim her. Make her his. “We should stop,” he muttered. Before he couldn’t stop.
“I know.” She let her hands trail down his chest, making his abs contract. “I’m going home.”
His chin lifted as he stared down at her, stunned by her abrupt announcement. “You are?”
“I have to.”
“Why?”
“Why? Well, because of this, for one thing. And because I have unfinished business at home for another.”
“And...?” He sensed there was more.
The muscles in her jaw tightened momentarily before she said, “And because I’m messing up your rides.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I thought we’d already settled that.”
“No.”
He reached out and took her by the shoulders. “Em... I am responsible for my rides. If I can’t ride with distractions in my life, then I have no business going pro.” He gave her a long, hard look, then dropped his hands. Em shifted her weight and regarded the floor.
There was no argument for his s
tatement. If he couldn’t get his head together, he shouldn’t be riding. But he was going to get his head together. End of story.
“Okay,” she said, raising her gaze back to his. “But what about—” she made a quick back-and-forth gesture between the two of them “—this.”
“This. Yeah.” He leaned back against the sink and folded his arms over his bare chest. If his shirt hadn’t been such a mess, he would have buttoned it. Put up the barrier that Em so obviously needed. “What do you suggest?”
Because he had no answers. None that she was ready to accept anyway.
Em rubbed the back of her neck, then took hold of the table behind her, gripping it on either side of her thighs.
“Are you ready to go home?” he asked quietly.
“No.” She shook her hair back. “I’m not.”
“What if we came up with some rules?”
She turned her head to give him a cautious sideways look. “What kind of rules?”
“Strict hands-off rules.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “For real?”
He drew in a breath and let it out again. “Yeah. For real.”
She started slowly nodding, then let go of the table and folded her arms over her chest, mirroring his stance. “So it’d be hands off. Not an I-won’t-touch-you-unless-you-ask kind of thing?”
“Hands off.”
“No exceptions.”
He gave his head a solemn shake. “None.”
She tilted her head slightly, her reddish hair falling over her shoulders. “Does a handshake count?”
“Not as long as it’s only one.” He held out his hand and then a memory flashed into his head and he closed his fingers into a fist. “You will not spit into your hand.”
A grudging smile transformed her face as she, too, remembered the solemn pact they’d made when she was twelve—if she would let Jess and Len go camping without raising a ruckus, then they would take her to the fall carnival and pay for every ride—and sealed with a spitty handshake.