Page 8 of The Cowboy Who Worked Late

“Honestly?” He sighed, and that combined with his rhetorical question made her adrenaline spike. “Yeah, my cousins and friends and siblings will probably assume we’re on a date. But I’ll just tell them we’re not. It’ll be fine.”

Angel nodded, though everything inside her writhed and squirmed. “I mean, it would be okay with me if you just let them think we’re on a date. You are taking me to dinner and everything.”

Henry said nothing as he drove, the ride easy and smooth along the paved road. “I guess it feels like it could be a date.”

“Sure,” she said, mimicking him.

“But you can’t date the men at Lone Star.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t want to.” Angel sucked in a breath when she realized what she’d just said. She tried not to, but shelooked over to Henry anyway. He wore a semi-stunned look on his face, and Angel wanted to wipe it away. Say something pithy about how she had a big crush on Levi or Clay or someone other than him.Anyoneother than him.

“Okay,” he drawled. “I just need you to answer a couple of questions for me. Can you do that?”

“Maybe,” she said.

“I’ll take a maybe.” He cleared his throat and coughed twice. “One, when I inadvertently kissed you last winter, did you or did you not kiss me back?”

Angel balked at telling him the truth, but her parents had taught her not to lie. She’d been hiding a lot, and she couldn’t carry another secret. “Yes,” she said. “I did.”

“Mm hm. Yes, you did.”

She rolled her eyes, though every cell in her body told her to smile instead. “Is that it?”

“No,” he said. “If I asked you out on a real date, would you say yes?”

“That’s cheating.”

“What does that mean?”

“You just want me to tell you I’ll go out with you without you having to ask.”

“It’s against the rules at Lone Star to date anyone who works there,” he said. “Ican’task you out, even if I wanted to—and I’m not saying I do.”

“Then why does it matter?”

“Because a man would like to know if the incredibly beautiful woman he’s had a crush on for seemingly ever would go out with him, that’s why.”

“I—”

“And because if she would, and she can feel this bubbling, sizzling thing between them, then maybe some rules need to be broken.”

“Henry Marshall,” she admonished. “You don’t break rules.”

“They’reyourrules,” he said. “You could change them.”

“They’re my daddy’s rules.”

The truck traveled down the road, the signs for Stinnett coming into view. Angel sensed she’d lose him and the thread of this conversation once they stopped for dinner. But she didn’t know what to say.

He’d just admitted to having a crush on her, and that made warmed honey ooze through her veins.

“I can feel this thing between us,” she whispered.

“Mm hm. And?”

“And.” She finished drawing in her breath and blew it all out noisily. “I’d go out with you if you could ask me to.”

“Mm.”

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