Page 19 of Cowboy Don't Go

“Honestly, no. But I do have a manual.”

“I can see how that’d be helpful. See this little key notch here? You’ve gotta unlock it to get your lug nuts off.”

“Ahh.”

He’d rolled up his sleeves and she was fully distracted by the way the muscles in his forearms flexed.

He waited. “You got a key?”

“Oh! Of course.” She dug her keychain out of her pocket and handed it to him.

“Thanks.” He actually winked at her then and she felt heat creep up her cheeks. But that didn’t keep her from staring at him as he got to work. She just stood there admiring the way the twilight shadowed the curve of his jawline and burnished the scruff of his beard.

Handsome. Yes, he was. Okay, hot. Not even up for debate. Just knee-wobblingly good-looking, even with the brown ranch dirt ground into his jeans and a little bit of sawdust still in his hair. And especially with his big hands around the wheel of her truck. He worked the lug nuts off the blown tire like he was buttering toast. She was fascinated by how effortlessly he seemed to do everything.

It was annoying, really.

As he worked, she tried to think of something intelligent to say. Lacking that, she blurted, “So, do you do this often?”

“Change tires?” He grunted with the effort of loosening the last nut.

“No. Yes. I mean—”

“You mean help a stranded woman on the side of the road? No. Not very often. Just lucky timing, I guess.”

“It was. For me.” She fidgeted with the cell phone flashlight, trying to get it closer to the wheel. “Why don’t you come back to the house for dinner? Let me thank you for helping me.”

“Thanks, but I can’t. I’ve . . . got someplace to be.”

Good thing it was dark because she blushed furiously. “Oh, I’m sorry. Of course. You have a date. I should’ve known—”

“No. Not a date.”

“Oh, that’s okay. You seriously don’t have to explain.”

He looked up at her for a long, excruciating beat, then turned back to the wheel.

“Listen, about the other day . . .” she began again.

He paused again in his effort. “Which day is that?”

“You know. At the café.”

“What about it?”

“I just wanted to say, first, thank you for buying my lunch, but you didn’t have to, you know.”

“I didn’t have to. I wanted to.”

A man of few words, Cooper Lane’s voice made her want to lean in to catch all the nuance. He was a hard read and she couldn’t really tell if he was catching her meaning.

“I’m really not sure why you would, after I know I-I probably made you feel—totally unintentionally, mind you”—she took a deep breath—“bad or misjudged or unwelcome on the ranch.”

“Totally unintentional.” He nodded disbelievingly at the shredded tire, then grinned.

Staring at the ground, she answered, “No. Not exactly. I mean, I might as well come clean and admit that I had my doubts when Liam hired you. For all the wrong reasons. But I’m a big enough person to admit that, too. And it wasn’t fair of me to judge you based on . . . innuendo.”

“Can you shine that light a little closer?” He looked at her now, lifting his brows in expectation.

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