CHAPTER THREE
Jamie
I was on a mission. A mission for a signal.
A signal that had apparently packed its bags and fled the state after dinner last night.
I’d tried leaning out the window at a precarious angle, standing on my cabin’s small porch, and even holding it up toward the sky like I was offering a virgin sacrifice to the cellular gods. Nothing. Not even a teasing little bar of connection.
“Paige is going to think I actually ran away,” I muttered, trekking down the path toward the stables.
Lucinda had mentioned at breakfast that the signal was best near the north barn.
Barns were on my do-not-enter list. Ever.
But I was willing to climb a windmill if it meant I could tell my best friend I hadn’t been eaten by a coyote.
Or a cowboy.
I shut the thought down quickly even though I’d already been thinking about him this morning. I’d woken up thinking about him.
The cowboy in the towel. The one that hadn’t been at breakfast. I was not going to think about that sliver of disappointment that had snaked its way inside over my biscuits and gravy.
Nope, I concentrated on not stepping on a snake, or in a pile of manure. I would swear to my dying day that was what I had stepped in yesterday. Even though when I’d cleaned my pink boots last night, it had been dirt, just like Paige had said.
That didn’t mean it still couldn’t happen.
The morning air was cool, so my blouse hadn’t started sticking to me like a piece of crazed cling wrap.
Yet, I knew it was only a matter of time.
Everything was different here, especially the heat and the quiet.
It was quiet—too quiet for a city girl used to sirens and the constant hum of traffic.
Every snap of a twig under my expensive, impractical boots made my heart skip a beat.
I followed the path, rounding the edge of a wooden corral as the massive timber barn finally came into view. I barely had time to register it before a deep voice broke the quiet.
“Looking for something, darlin’?”
I didn’t scream. It was a dignified, high-pitched gasp of surprise. Okay, maybe it was a tiny bit of a shriek, but in my defense, he had the stealth of a mountain lion. Shit. Were there mountain lions in Texas? I wished I had prepared a little more for my after-the-fact birthday vacation.
But then, nothing would have prepared me for him.
Slade strode up behind me, a black Stetson on his head.
He wasn’t in a towel this time. A tight black t-shirt stretched over his shoulders, doing a fine job of outlining his chest and revealing a hint of his biceps beneath the sleeves.
And the low-slung jeans… the towel had some serious competition with those.
“Civilization, if it can be found—or at least a reliable internet connection and a phone signal.”
He let out that low, rumbling chuckle that I felt all through my body.
Especially the important parts. He kept coming toward me, moving with that slow, cowboy grace that made me want to back up and stand my ground all at the same time.
“Who is so important that you are up at this hour in the morning?”
His tone was casual, but something in the way his amber eyes narrowed told me my answer meant something to him.
“My friend, Paige, the one who got me into this mess. I need to tell her I haven’t been trampled yet.” I paused for a moment, my gaze drifting over him against my will. “But am being harassed by the local wildlife.”
He moved closer, his boots crunching on the gravel pathway. He stopped just a foot away, his face serious. “Nothing is going hurt you. Not while I’m around.”
“Oh, right. My hero.” My voice dripped with as much sarcasm as I could muster to hide the fact that him saying that, in that tone, as making my head swim. “The man who treats a towel like an optional accessory.”
His eyes—that dark, intoxicating amber—raked over me. He wasn’t smiling anymore. The air between us suddenly felt twice as heavy, twice as hot.
“You’re still thinking about that towel,” he murmured, his voice dropping into that rough, private register that made my skin prickle. “Just like I’ve been thinking about how you looked in those glasses, trying so hard not to stare at what you wanted.”
“I didn’t—I don’t—”
“Liar.” He took another step, invading my space. “You ran away from me last night, Jamie. Why was that?”
“Because I don’t like arrogant cowboys with god complexes.” My heart was hammering against my ribs so hard I was sure my blouse was fluttering.
“Good. Because I’m not a god. I’m just a man.” He tilted his head, his gaze dropping to my mouth. It almost felt as if he had touched me.
He looked at my mouth for a long, agonizing second. I stopped breathing. The world around us—the distant lowing of cattle, the rustle of the dry Texas grass—all of it faded into a dull, gray hum. The only thing in high definition was him.
The stubble on his jaw, the fine lines around his eyes, the fullness of his lower lip.
And the way he was looking at me. I was a goner.
My logic was screaming run, but my lips were already parting for him, practically begging for the impact of that hard, clever mouth I’d been thinking about all night.
I waited for him to close the gap.
I wanted him to take the choice out of my hands. I wanted him to be the arrogant, overbearing cowboy Paige said I needed, just so I could blame him for it later.
But he just let out a low, dark chuckle. It wasn’t a mean sound, but it was knowing. He knew exactly what I was waiting for.
“You’re starting to sweat, City Girl.” Instead of kissing me, he reached out, one thick finger tracing across my collarbone, before slowly dragging downward toward the first button of my blouse.
“It’s the humidity,” I lied, my body quivering with disappointment.
“Is that right?” He leaned in a fraction closer, his heavy chest grazing the tips of my breasts. I felt my nipples peak instantly, a betrayal so damning I was sure he could feel it through the fabric of my blouse.
He reached down, and for a split second, I thought he was going for my waist. To pull me close. My pulse spiked, a frantic thump-thump in my ears.
But instead, he plucked the forgotten phone from my hand.
Before I could protest, he reached around me, his arm brushing the—I was almost positive deliberately brushing—the side of my breast as he tucked the phone into the back pocket of my jeans.
His knuckles brushed against the curve of my rear—a touch so brief it could have been an accident, but the look in his eyes told me it was anything but.
“There.” His voice dropped to that gravelly register that made my toes curl in my boots. “Keep it there. It’s safer than waving it at the clouds. Wouldn’t want you losing your only link to civilization.”
He straightened up, withdrawing his heat and leaving me feeling suddenly, jarringly cold in the morning sun. He hooked his thumbs into his belt loops, looking entirely too comfortable with the way he’d just undone me.
“See you later, City Girl.”
He turned and disappeared the way he’d come.
“I hate him,” I whispered to the empty air. Then, after a pause, I added, “I really, really hate that I don’t hate him.”