Page 23 of A Cowboy in the Streets

I caught up with her right when she slapped open the door and found my office empty.

Her hands went to her hips. “That mother fucker,” she muttered.

The placement of her hands drew my attention to the way her hips and ass curved from her small waist. I allowed myself a single second to eye-fuck her as I leaned against the doorframe behind her. What Brax didn’t know, he couldn’t lecture me on.

“Now, that’s not fair. Haven’t fucked a mother even once, to my knowledge,” I drawled.

She let out a startled yip and spun on her toes, clutching her throat. She recovered quickly and narrowed her eyes at me. “Was that a joke?”

Well, shit. I guessed it was. The words had rolled off my tongue all natural and easy without me thinking much about it. I cocked my head, studying her. It had been a long time since I had joked around with anyone, but I was pretty sure the point of it was to make someone laugh.

James wasn’t laughing.

She was scowling.

Might have something to do with the way I lectured her in front of my kid and then summoned her to my office for more of the same. She probably expected me to yell at her again. Although, come to think of it, she didn’t look meek or apologetic, the way I would expect an employee to look when they were about to get reprimanded by their boss.

No, she looked like she was squaring off for a fight.

“Well?” she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.

It suddenly occurred to me that, compared to her lower body, her upper region was oddly…shapeless. Almost androgynous. She could have an A-cup or Dolly Parton tits under her tee shirt for all I knew.

“Do you have something you want to say or not?” James pressed. “Because I have somewhere to be.”

I jerked my gaze to her face. The size and shape of her breasts wasn’t a mystery I was going to unravel today…or ever. “Where are you going?”

“Jo’s. I’m meeting a friend for coffee.” She glanced at her watchless wrist, like she could tell the time by her freckles. “And now it’s my lunch break, so…”

James had been in Aspen Springs for less than a week. As far as I knew, she didn’t have any friends here yet. Unless she had hit it off with one of the ranch hands. She and Jesse had seemed pretty friendly this morning. That didn’t give me a good feeling.

“I’ll drive,” I said. “No use in wasting gas when we’re both heading in the same direction anyway.”

She eyed me with deep suspicion. “You’re going to Jo’s?”

“Thereabouts.”

Her lips pursed. My gaze snagged there, on that plush pink mouth. Hard to believe my mouth had ever touched hers. Brutally unfair that it would never happen again.

“Fine,” she said. “But this is my break. Not an excuse to trap me in a car so you can yell at me some more. In fact, no work talk at all. Got it?”

I grunted noncommittedly. Not that I had any intention of yelling at her, but what the hell were we supposed to talk about, if not work?

“I mean it,” she insisted. “The second we’re off Lodestar Ranch, you’re not my boss.”

Ah, hell. There were lots of reasons to keep my mouth off Ms. Pink Boots, but that right there was the best of them. And she had just stripped it away.

Chapter 9

James

Fifteen minutes into our drive, I regretted my embargo on work talk. This being Colorado, we got the weather out of the way first. After that, we fell into silence—and not a comfortable silence, either. Adam wasn’t much of a talker, but I was, and right now I sure as shit had a lot to say. The problem was my self-imposed work embargo meant I couldn’t say any of it. Instead, I stared out the window.

It would be fair to say I was pouting.

Pouting was a new experience for me. I didn’t keep things bottled up. I preferred to say my piece and move forward. Let it out and let it breathe, as my mom liked to say. Otherwise, all those thoughts and feelings would turn toxic and poison you from the inside out. It was one of the things my dad appreciated most about my mom. She never made him guess what she was thinking. He never had to ask what was wrong.

Of course, when it was me, he called it a temper tantrum.

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