Page 52 of Ride a Cowboy

“I’m serious. You just need some pointers on how to flirt.” Macie pointed to Janice’s ultra-conservative, plain dress. “And I caught a glimpse of your boobs. You definitely need to bring the girls out into the light of day. Catch their attention first with your smoking-hot tatas, then lure them in with clever conversation.”

Hank wasn’t sure he liked that Macie thought men were shallow enough to fall for that plan—and then he glanced at her tits and realized she was right. First thing he’d noticed about her had been her boobs. And then her laugh. While he still really liked her breasts, it was that infectious laugh that had kept him coming back for more.

Janice, however, appeared confused, which was not exactly an unusual state for the woman. Clever conversation was definitely going to be a stretch for her.

“Or you know,” Macie said, when she realized her original plan needed some revision, “make them a home-cooked meal and bake them a pie.”

Janice’s face brightened. “I could do that.”

“Tell you what, come by the restaurant one afternoon this week and we can put our heads together and come up with a list of eligible guys, make a game plan.”

Janice laughed. “You’d really help me? Even after,” Janice jerked her head toward Hank, “I threw myself at your boyfriend.”

“Oh, it’s fine. Honest. This only would have been a problem if he’d tried to catch the pass you were throwing. Then I would have had to kill both of you.”

She and Macie laughed while Hank tried to decide exactly how serious Macie was.

The women solidified their date to foist Janice on some poor, unsuspecting Maris fella, and then Janice stood to leave. She hugged Macie and offered him a breezy goodbye as if they were passing acquaintances and she hadn’t just been sprawled out across his table in her birthday suit.

“So…Janice, huh?” she said once Janice was gone, her voice laced with the same humor that was pretty much always there.

“What the hell just happened?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. Maybe fill in a few blanks.”

“I think you already put most of the pieces together. I let things go too far.”

“You think?”

He sighed. “She lost Sharon too. They were like sisters growing up. I got that, so when she stopped by several times a week, right after Sharon passed, I let her in. We ate dinner together, mourned together. Somewhere along the line, her feelings changed. Mine didn’t. I tried to put some distance between us. I started going to Sparks for dinner, just to get out of the house and away from her.”

“Did you tell her you weren’t interested?”

The “are you kidding me?” look Hank flashed made her grin.

“Okay,” Macie said. “Sorry. So you told her. And she kept coming around?”

“Yeah. Dropping off cakes and pies, inviting me out for picnics. When I couldn’t convince her I wasn’t interested, I avoided her. But the colder and more distant I got, the harder she tried.”

“And when she saw you dating me, she realized you weren’t still mourning Sharon. That you were ready for a girlfriend. I warned you that would happen.”

She was right. She’d told him that the first night he asked her out. “When I told her you were my girlfriend, she looked almost happy about it, which I didn’t get at the time.”

“I was supposed to be the transition. The good-time girl. The one no man in his right mind would settle down with.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I thought we established that you?—”

Macie waved him off. “I’m not saying she was right. I’m just saying she did a number on me last week, which was only partly my fault, now that I know she had the hots for you. If you’d told me that, I would have understood her motives.”

“If you’d told me she stopped by, and what she said, I could have laid it to rest right then.”

“Touché.” Then, because it was Macie, who liked to be right all the time, she added an adorable, “Asshole,” to the end.

He sighed. “When I said I wasn’t ready to date, Janice insisted when I was, she’d be right there waiting.”

“Wow. That’s sort of completely stalker-crazy scary.”

Hank chuckled. “It didn’t go quite that far. No dead rabbits in my kitchen.”

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