Slow Burn Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  And so now, she was focused on that. He had been candid about the fact that he had been attracted to her for years. That was a lot of fantasy to live up to. Maybe he had built her up to something in his head that she just wasn’t.

  A sexual vixen she was not.

  While she had been in some casual relationships, she was not into casual sex. She really hadn’t had that much of it. In the grand scheme of things. In fact, she imagined as twenty-eight-year-old women went she wasn’t particularly experienced.

  Finn, on the other hand, was. And he tended to associate with women who were probably better versed in the carnal arts than she was.

  If Finn was imagining she was some kind of sex kitten, he was going to be disappointed. Well, he hadn’t been disappointed last night. But there was still time.

  He moved his hands down to her hips, tightening his hold on her. She could feel just how into all this he was. Could feel him there, hard and thick and pressed tightly against her hip.

  She lowered her gaze so she didn’t have to look at him. Because she didn’t want him to see all of her conflict. Didn’t want him to see just how turned on she was by this simple, over-the-clothes touching. She didn’t want to want him more than he wanted her.

  She couldn’t remember ever worrying about that before.

  But there was something about this, something about him that made her feel vulnerable. She didn’t like it. She had worked so damn hard to not feel that way. To feel in control. That was what she had done here in Copper Ridge. Struck out on her own, built a life for herself.

  Her own business, her own friendships—with only elements of her past revealed so that she could control how all those friends saw her.

  To a degree, she had always done that with Finn. And now, that was over. She couldn’t control what was between them. He knew everything. He had seen her naked. And her heart just about fluttered out of her chest every time he looked at her now.

  She was completely out of control. And unable to insulate herself.

  “Yeah,” she said, trying to keep her voice casual. She forced herself to look at him. “You’re right. It’s not weird. I guess it’s okay.”

  “In that way that it’s the best you’ve ever had,” he said, a cocky smile tilting his lips upward.

  “Finn,” she said, a warning in her voice.

  “Sorry,” came a voice behind them.

  They jumped apart like scalded cats, then turned toward the sound. Cain was standing in the door, looking not even a little bit sorry.

  “You will be tomorrow when I give you stall mucking duty,” Finn said.

  “I just wanted to ask Lane if it would be all right if Violet came down to her shop around noon tomorrow. And if she would be able to arrange a meeting with her friend.”

  “That should be fine,” Lane said, her tone as parched as her throat.

  “Great,” he said, his gaze sliding back to Finn. “Honestly, it’s worth having to muck stalls.”

  Then he turned and walked out of the room.

  “I told you he was a bastard,” Finn said.

  “Do you want to explain that?”

  “His smugness? He’s a bastard, like I said.”

  “I mean his clear interest in what is...happening between us.”

  Finn lifted her shoulder. “I may have made a big deal out of the fact that you and I were only friends when they first met you. And this morning, when I came back home, they were very interested in where I had been and who I was with. I didn’t tell them.”

  She thought about that for a moment. “And you didn’t want to tell them.”

  “I didn’t know if you would want me to. I didn’t know what to say either.”

  She was drawing a blank on her opinion on this. Because it occurred to her that the topic might come up with Alison, Cassie and Rebecca. And she wasn’t sure she wanted it to. She, too, wasn’t sure what she would say. Part of her wanted to keep this all to herself. Part of her was a little upset that Cain knew now.

  But if they were going to be spending the night with each other, she supposed it wasn’t really practical for them to keep it a secret. If they were going to be together. Were they together?

  Finn had said they would be friends who had each other. Kind of like friends with benefits, she supposed. Which was different from being a couple.

  Also standing to reason, seeing as neither of them wanted a permanent romantic relationship. Neither of them wanted marriage or a family.

  But did that mean keeping this a secret? Did she want to?

  “You don’t have to make any decisions now,” he said.

  Well, that was the nice thing about being with someone who knew you so well, she supposed. She hadn’t had to voice any of her doubts. He had just known.

  “Well,” she said, “that’s good. Although, I imagine in terms of your brothers knowing, there’s no decision to make. Since they just know.”

  “True. But that frees us up to make all kinds of other decisions.” Then he did dip down to kiss her, long and deep. And it went a long way in clearing up that unsettled feeling. When he was kissing her, everything seemed to make perfect sense.

  When his mouth was on hers, tasting like Finn and sex and excitement, it all made sense. Not in a way she could put into words, but in a strange, unknowable kind of certainty in her chest.

  “What kinds of decisions?” she asked, as soon as they parted.

  “Well, to start with...your bed or mine?”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THEY HAD DECIDED on hers. Mostly because Lane hadn’t wanted to deal with the various reactions his brothers might have if they discovered she had spent the night. Sure, the cat was a little bit out of the bag, but that didn’t mean she wanted to parade around the house with the cat, so to speak.

  Day two. It was day two of her new relationship with Finn. After a second night of making love. It had been... Well, it had been no less amazing on the second night than on the first.

  Now she was trying to work without drooling in front of the customers as she reflected on everything that had happened between them underneath the covers. Trying to make it through the day without calling him and asking for something stupid and desperate like a quickie in her back room.

  She was thinking about him a lot. Which wasn’t all that weird. It was the way she was thinking about him that was weird. The quantity of Finn thinking time was about like it always had been. For some reason, she was more aware of it now than she had been before. That she thought about him a lot. Almost all the time, really.

  She was still thinking about that when the door opened and Alison walked in. She had asked Alison to meet her at the shop around noon, so that she could get introduced to Violet and consider hiring her on for the rest of the summer, and maybe even into the school year.

  “Hi,” she said to her friend, hoping that her illicit thoughts weren’t written all over her face.

  “Sorry,” Alison said, “I’m early, but I was hoping to steal some of your pistachio cream. I have evil plans for it.”

  “Well,” Lane said, grateful for the distraction. “You know I support that.”

  “So this is Finn’s niece that I’m meeting today?”

  “Yes,” Lane said, “and I warn you, she is a little bit prickly. But I’m hoping that she can hold it together and make this work. If not, you know you’re not under any obligation to hire her.”

  “Come on, Lane. You’re my friend. And it’s important to you, obviously. Which means I’m definitely going to hire her.”

  “No,” Lane said, waving a hand. “I don’t want you to feel obligated.”

  Alison had made it her mission to not just earn a living from her bakery, but to use it to help women who found themselves in dire straits. Women who, like her, had put their li
ves on hold for controlling men and lacked support and job skills when they finally came out the other side.

  Alison laughed. “I do. But in a good way. Anyway, you know the strays are irresistible to me. You said she needed this job, and that’s a huge part of why my bakery exists. Sure, traditionally it’s to help women who haven’t been in the workforce for a long time, but, a woman making her first foray into the workforce works for me too.”

  Lane smiled. “I’m sure this job could work wonders for her. She’s had a rough go of it. And she’s not happy to be living here. Her mom left,” she said, figuring it was best to try and explain Violet’s moodiness before Alison actually met the teenager.

  “That has to be rough. Fortunately, handling tough cases is also my specialty. Seeing as I was one for a while.” Lane knew that was true. She also knew that her friend would strike the right balance between being gentle with Violet due to her situation, and encouraging her to suck it up.

  Alison didn’t allow wallowing.

  “I have a feeling you’re exactly what she needs,” Lane said.

  Saying that made her wonder if Alison was what Lane needed too. She was tempted to confide in her friend. About Finn. About Cord. About everything.

  But the words stuck in her throat, and a moment later it didn’t matter, because the door opened again and Finn and Violet walked in.

  “Cain didn’t come with you?” she asked.

  “No,” Violet said, looking horrified at the suggestion. “I told him I didn’t need him to hold my hand.”

  “She did need a ride, though,” Finn said. “Mostly because she didn’t know where she was going.”

  “Are you able to get to work?” Alison asked. Skipping right to the practicalities.

  “Yeah, my dad said he’d help with that,” Violet said. Lane had a feeling Cain had put the fear of God in her, considering she wasn’t being her usual dour self. The change looked forced, Lane thought. But it didn’t really matter if it was genuine or not. As long as the girl knew how to turn it on. “He’s really into me getting out of the house and learning...responsibility and things.”

  “Well, I am also a fan of responsibility,” Alison said. “Do you have any experience baking?”

  “Not really,” Violet said. “My mom didn’t cook. My dad hired someone.”

  “That’s fine,” Alison responded. “As long as you don’t mind mostly handling the register until I can train you to do the harder stuff. Everybody that works in my bakery learns how to make all of the goodies, so you have to be willing to get up to your elbows in flour. Which I guess is the next question. Any serious food allergies? Because that makes things tricky.”

  “No,” Violet said. “And, while I’m not educated on how to make baked goods, I eat them pretty proficiently.”

  “That helps. I like some enthusiasm for the product.” Alison looked her over thoughtfully. “I think you should have a chance. Can you start next week?”

  Violet cracked the closest thing Lane had ever seen to a smile. “Yeah,” she said. “I don’t have a life here at all. So I don’t really have any schedule rearranging to do.”

  “Even better. I most especially like hiring people who don’t have lives. All the better to monopolize their every waking moment.”

  Violet laughed, somewhat uneasily, clearly uncertain as to whether or not Alison was being sincere.

  “She’s joking,” Lane said, except she had a feeling her friend was only joking a little bit. Alison’s bakery was her life. Her lifeline. The representation of the new life she had built for herself.

  Another way that she and her friend were very alike.

  “Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not. I just have some shopping to do here at Lane’s if you want to look around for a second. And then I can take you over to the bakery.”

  Violet immediately backed away from the three adults, pulling her phone out of her pocket and wandering to a deserted corner of the store.

  “That pistachio cream would be good,” Alison said. “And if you have anything else you think I should fill a pastry with, let me know.”

  “I got hazelnut cream from the same company. I think that would be great.”

  “Definitely. Get that too.”

  The door to the store opened again, and this time it was Rebecca who walked in. Lane hadn’t been expecting her, but it wasn’t totally unusual for her friends to come by and pick up ingredients for dinner.

  As far as she knew, Rebecca didn’t cook, but Gage did.

  For some reason, the tension in the room began to ramp up slightly when Rebecca walked closer, and it took Lane a moment to realize why. And to realize that it was coming from her.

  That whole thing with Rebecca and Finn—as much nothing as it was—was suddenly at the forefront of her mind. But, more than that was the discussion they’d had after. When Rebecca had grilled her on whether or not she and Finn were just friends and Lane had insisted they were. It made her feel horrifically transparent, and also a little bit like a liar. Even though at the time, even under cruel and unusual forms of torture, she would have sworn that she and Finn were only friends.

  She hadn’t meant to lie to Rebecca. She really hadn’t.

  Or maybe she had. Because she had certainly been lying to herself. So all the lies were certainly born of self-protection. And were maybe not entirely unintentional as far as her subconscious went.

  “Hi,” she said, far too brightly.

  “I didn’t know there was a meeting,” Rebecca said.

  “A job interview,” Alison said, “I’m hiring Finn’s niece to work at my bakery for the summer. And maybe even for the school year if we can work it out.”

  Rebecca’s gaze slid to Finn. “Great. That’s good.”

  She could sense Rebecca’s awkwardness, and that made Lane feel even weirder. Because if Rebecca still felt tension, didn’t that mean she was still attracted to Finn? Yes, she knew that Rebecca was happy with Gage, but Finn was sexy. Undeniably so.

  A strange heat surge through her veins, and she recognized it as the exact feeling she had felt months ago when Rebecca had confessed to her that she had nearly picked Finn up at Ace’s with the intention of going home with him.

  She had been jealous then. She was jealous now.

  And it occurred to her that she was standing there scowling, and everybody in the room—with the exception of Violet, whose attention was focused solely on her phone—was aware of it.

  “Yeah,” she said, keeping her tone that same false level of bright, “a job interview. Not a meeting that you were excluded from. What did you need?”

  “I wanted to pick up some blackberries. You texted the other day and said you had them. I thought I would get some to take home for shortbread tonight.”

  “Yes,” she said, trying to clear her brain of all the ridiculous, extraneous things that were rattling around in there and focus on the food. “I do. So I’ll get that and the creams for Alison, and then everyone will be set.”

  She turned, running into Finn and scampering backward like a startled animal. Her skin burned where she brushed against him, and she knew that her reaction had been both totally obvious and wholly visible.

  She put her head down, walking quickly to the back of the store, where she had stashed the berries in a mini fridge.

  “Is everything okay?”

  She lurched backward, hitting her head on the top of the fridge. “Ow,” she said, turning to see Rebecca standing right behind her.

  “You’re acting weird,” her friend continued.

  “Because I just sustained a head injury,” she growled.

  “I meant before that.”

  “I’m not being weird,” Lane said, digging in. Even though she was being weird, and knew she was being weird, and felt weird.

  “Are we talking
about how Lane is being weird?” Alison came up and joined the group.

  “Well,” Lane said, rolling her eyes. “Now we’re all being weird. Because we’ve left Finn and Violet across the store by themselves.”

  “You’re being weird about Finn,” Rebecca said.

  “I am not being weird about Finn.” She was totally being weird about Finn.

  “She is,” Alison confirmed. “And she got weirder when you got here. Which I think is because of the thing.”

  “Alison knows?” Lane asked, shooting Rebecca a deadly glare.

  “Well, I talked to her about it at some point,” Rebecca said. “But the thing is there isn’t anything to know. And you know that. Like six months ago I saw Finn at the bar. We danced. He kissed me. And then I left with Gage.”

  “I know,” Lane said, curling her fingers into fists, her nails digging into her palms. “And it’s not a thing.”

  “Jealous,” Alison said.

  “No. I’m a relationship Scrooge, as you well know. I’m not in one right now, I’m perfectly happy to not be in one.” She looked over at Finn, unintentionally, and both Rebecca and Alison noticed.

  The two of them exchanged conspiratorial glances and Lane frowned. “I am,” she insisted. “I’m part of the She Woman Man Haters Club.”

  “Nothing happened between me and Finn, and nothing will,” Rebecca said, her voice overly placating. “You don’t have to worry about it.”

  “I’m not worried.”

  “I’m getting married to Gage,” Rebecca said. “I am in love with him. My heart beats only for him. And we talked about that right after all this happened.”

  Lane felt irritated. Mostly because she was not going to make a big deal out of this, until everybody started making a big deal out of it. She hadn’t said anything. And she hadn’t done anything. Except probably look a little bit uncomfortable. Having friends was overrated.

  “I’m not worried about it,” she said.

  Well, she hadn’t worried about it, or thought about it much until recently. Until things had started to change between Finn and herself. Until it had forced her to think about the way other women saw him, which had brought that whole incident with Rebecca back into her mind.