Page 29 of The Cowboy Who Looked Again

“In fact, even as casual as we were, I think our relationship is the most serious one I’ve had.” His hands hung over his knees, between his legs, and he finally ducked his head to look at her. “I told you, no one sees me. Not with Mitch around. Not with Smiles. Not with all the other cowboy hats. It’s like a sea of us, and I’m…insignificant.”

“I saw you,” she said, reaching for his hand and tugging it gently into her lap. She stroked her thumb over the back of his. “That night at the summer dance.”

“You saw Mitch.”

“You’re wrong about that,” she said. “I saw you, and I saw that cute blonde dancing with you. She liked you.”

“Maybe,” Link said.

“There are no maybe’s for me,” Misty said. She used her free hand to turn his head toward her. “I want to try again. I’m not going to apologize again for the first time, but I would over and over and over if you needed me to.” She swallowed, her pulse like butterfly wings in her chest, tickling her ribs and making her throat scratchy.

“I want to try again, and I want it to be serious this time.”

Link nodded, ever-so-serious. “Misty, I just—” He exhaled, and Misty leaned closer, almost desperate to hear what came next. If given space, he’d continue, at least if the words plagued him enough.

“What?” she asked. “Say it.”

He shook his head. “It’s not something that can be said. It has to be shown.” He leaned toward her, and Misty’s lips tingled in anticipation of touching his. But he didn’t kiss her on the mouth. Instead, he brushed his lips across her lower jaw, then dipped his mouth to her neck.

A thrill ran along her shoulders and down her arms. Being his felt fantastic, and phenomenal, and so…freeing.

She hadn’t expected that. She’d thought belonging to someone else would cage her, trap her, suffocate her.

“Will you go out with me this weekend?” he asked.

“Maybe,” she said, easily slipping back into the fun, flirtatious Misty she knew precisely how to be.

“Maybe?” He glanced at her, and she grinned at him. “What’s a man gotta do to get a yes?”

“I wanted you to kiss me,” she said, her eyes dropping to his mouth. “If you’d have kissed me, you’d have gotten a yes. But you didn’t. So you get a maybe.”

He chuckled and shook his head, his gaze dropping to the ground. “I’m not ready.”

“We’ve kissed before.”

“Have we?” He cut her a look out of the corner of his eye, and he’d folded himself onto the bench and still leaned over his legs, his jeans probably dirty from his long day of work around the ranch. He still smelled like sunshine and warmth and his sexy cologne, so maybe he’d changed. In the twilight, she couldn’t really tell.

“I remember kissing you, so yeah, I think we’ve checked that box.”

“It’s not a box you check off,” he said. “And that was before, when things were just for fun. This is different, and I’ll not have you push me to do something I’m not ready to do.” He gave her half a smile as he said the last part, and Misty wrapped her other hand around his too.

The wind blew by on this cliff, and Misty turned her face into it. “I won’t,” she said.

“Good.” He straightened and slid his hand away from hers only to lift his arm around her. She curled into his chest, liking how close she could get to him this way. His lips touched her earlobe as he whispered, “I want to, sweetheart, but if we’re tryin’ again, this is like Date Zero, and no respectable cowboy kisses on Date Zero.”

“Okay,” she said. “So a cowboy could get a yes to a weekend date if he mentions the words ‘deep dish pepperoni pizza’ and ‘Starlight Trail’ in the same sentence.”

He lifted his head and together, they looked out over the horizon. “Oh, so you’re going to plan our first date now?”

“It’s okay for me to say what I like and want.”

“It sure is,” he said. “But it’s okay for a cowboy to plan something he hopes his girlfriend will like, even if it’s not exactly and precisely what she says she wants.”

“True.”

“But only if he gets that yes,” he said.

Misty tipped her head back and looked up at him. He didn’t return her gaze, but she kissed his cheek, pure joy flowing through her. “Yes,” she said. “I’d love to go out with you this weekend.”

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