Chapter 5 #2
Then my senses slam into me with a solid dose of reality. I’m welcome back? Christ, he’s so full of shit. The last words between us glide through my mind.
All my damn life.
Everything I gave him. Just everything.
No. I’m not, Cord.
I hit replay anyway, listening to nuances this time, over what he says. His voice strains at the end of the message. I let it play all the way through again, right to the end.
Then I hit delete.
I lean against the building opposite the one where I’ve rented an apartment, drinking overpriced coffee.
The city passes by at rush hour. Or at least that’s what it looks like, as traffic bearing frantic parents and thousands of school kids darts in all directions like so many mismatched fish.
One of those parents flying solo bustles past me at breakneck speed, running through my shoulder for the second time in a week, an apology hot on her lips.
It’s not the only hot part on her.
“Dammit.” Something crushes between us. “That was my—ah, that’s my problem. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” I stare down at the top of Winnie’s head. “I wanted to make sure you were all right after last week without it looking like I was stalking your house on repeat.”
Shit. The confession slips out that I’ve been past more than once. Bless Winnie, she doesn’t call me out on my bullshit, at least not right away.
Her face tips up to mine, eyes blazing as she catches on fast. Plump lips part on a breath. Whatever she was going to say stalls on a filter, for once.
Pity. I would have liked to have heard that.
“So you stalk my favorite coffee shop that I never use anyway because it’s overpriced? Great work, West. Real smooth.” She huffs and shakes her head at my imbecilic attitude.
At least we agree there. The coffee is expensive. Decent, though. Cord would approve. He loves the snobby crap. My mood sours as I squeeze the bottom of the responsibly sourced cup too hard, denting its smooth surface.
“Got you this.” I swap her squished sandwich for the mangled coffee.
Winnie stares at the to-go cup suspiciously. “What did you do to it?”
I snort. “I’m not twelve. But I can add salt if that makes you feel better.”
“I can’t tell.” She takes the coffee anyway and sips. The tension on her face clears. “Fuck—” Her throat clears, color staining her cheeks in a pretty way. “I mean…”
I study the pink that rises higher the longer I watch her shift from foot to foot, storing the knowledge away. Miss Winnie isn’t half as confident as she pretends. Or maybe just not as self-confident.
Leaning in, I let a knowing smile decorate my mouth. “I promise that I’m used to hearing worse on the ranch. You go ahead and let that potty mouth run free. I might like it.”
Winnie stares up at me with those soft lips parted. No words escape. No breath, either. She’s frozen right there before me. If I leaned down and covered her mouth with mine, I doubt she’d pull away.
My body prickles with the need to crush her against me and do just that. Break every promise I’ve made to myself over the years and give in to one of a dozen fantasies. Instead, I coast my gaze over her body and ease away from the addictive warmth of her that calls to me like a siren.
“Enjoy your coffee,” I tell the stilled version of Winnie before me and turn my back, walking away. I make it maybe a dozen steps, no more, before her voice calls me back.
“This is it?” she shouts after me, disregarding the looks that turn our way outside the area surrounding her favorite snobby coffee shop.
I take my time pivoting back to her. Then I slowly raise my hand and crook my finger.
Winnie explodes. She storms toward me like a thundercloud on the move.
When she reaches me, my little pocket rocket stops an inch from my nose.
Her chest heaves with brief, staccato breaths.
The momentum of her should rock me back on my heels, but for her, I stand firm.
She’s so damn close that I can feel her heat, itching to pull her tight against me. Again.
“What is this?” she demands, swirling a finger between us, lifting her hand over her head for emphasis.
I stifle a laugh in case she upends the coffee into my shirt by accident. “What is what?” I keep my face carefully blank.
Winnie’s eyes narrow to slits. “Don’t you gaslight me, cowboy man. I’ve had enough of that shit to last a lifetime. And what are you wearing, a suit?” She surveys me with a fresh eye, surprise lighting her face.
I shrug. “Why are you wearing a dress?”
To be fair, she looks damn pretty in the green-and-white patchwork cotton dress beneath her cropped tan leather jacket and matching ankle boots.
Her chin lifts. “Maybe I felt like looking pretty today, cowboy.”
I raise a hand, letting my knuckles graze her waist. “Mission achieved.”
Winnie motherfucking glows. I can’t remember the last time I was knocked on my ass by a woman, but damn if it doesn’t happen right now. I stare down at her, unable to move as that pink stain becomes something so much more than a simple pretty.
When was the last time someone told you that you’re beautiful?
Those words sure as fuck never came from the ex-husband.
I still want a word with him the next time he’s around.
Not that that’s likely to happen. He’s been an absentee landlord in Sally’s life by design.
I doubt the rock star nurse Winnie’s been trying to date has enough sense to pull his head out of his own self-absorbed problems to focus on hers.
Bad news on that front, honey. If good news on mine, as that empty space in her life is one I could so easily fill, despite the fact I’ve promised myself over and over that I’ll never go there.
That, and the fact that Winnie’s a matchmaker from hell.
She threw Rand and Lanie together, for fuck’s sake, in an attempt to conceal the gaping void in her own heart.
I keep telling myself I’ll stay away because of the promise I made to her brother years ago.
Maybe it’s because of the respect for the woman standing right in front of me.
Now I want to break all the damn rules, when in reality I have been for a while now.
I rub my knuckles a little higher, over her ribs, across the underside of her breast. “Like I said, pretty,” I murmur.
Winnie’s so much more than that, but telling her so, here? She’ll dart away from me as fast as she arrived.
The corners of her lips tip up in a vision of perfection and snark. My mind registers that last belatedly. “Fuck you,” she replies, and upends the overpriced, responsibly resourced beverage down the front of my shirt in front of the snobby coffee crowd. “No man tells me what I am.”
I was wrong. Winnie doesn’t run away from me. She struts.
And she’s fucking stunning.