Page 61 of The Cowboy Who Worked Late

She nodded. She’d finished eating, and so had Henry. They cleaned up their clamshells, and Henry took hers from her to take it to the trash.

When he returned to the booth, Angel had just gotten to her feet. “You got stuff you gotta get here, sweetheart?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Some cowboys called in last-minute things.”

“Me too,” he said. “I’m out of chocolate-covered pretzels and red licorice.”

She laughed. “You and your obsession with red licorice.”

“As if you don’t have an obsession with oatmeal cream pies,” he said.

“That was my excuse to come to town,” she said with a giggle. “So we have to make sure we get a bunch of those.” Another text came in, this one from Trevor, and she looked at it and added, “Oh, Trevor forgot to put butter on his list.”

Henry grabbed a cart, and they walked around the grocery store together, putting items in that they or the cowboys at the ranch needed. It felt like a very domestic thing to do, something Angel would do with a partner, a spouse.

As she and Henry checked out, she gave him a furtive glance.

He gave it right back to her. “What’s that for?”

“Can grocery shopping be considered romantic?” She threw a look toward the cashier, but she seemed engrossed in weighing the green grapes she’d gotten for Shad.

Henry swept his arm around her and pulled her into his side. “Of course it can be.” He kissed her temple and then her cheek. He took the change from the cashier and started toward the door with their groceries.

Angel followed him, and stood back as he loaded her groceries into the back of her car. “I have to text to get the pickup orders.” She looked at him, wishing they’d just arrived at the grocery store. “I don’t want to go so soon, but I’ve got stuff in the car that needs to be in the fridge.”

Henry took her face in both of his hands and kissed her again right there in the parking lot. “I’m gonna come over tonight.”

“You’re going to come over tonight?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll make sure no one sees me. Once I get in your house, no one will know I’m there.”

“What are you going to tell Levi?” she asked, still trying to think through the excitement of his kiss and what he’d said at the same time.

His face looked blank for a moment, and then strong determination came into his jaw. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m going to come over tonight.” He kissed her again, his lips sliding down and touching her neck.

“Because I miss you, Angel. And I want to see you every day. I want to talk more about what you want your life to be, hear more about your horseback riding lessons, and find out if you want to have kids, or if you want to stay at Lone Star, or if you’ve got other big dreams and things that I can help you achieve.”

She sure liked the sound of all of that. She threaded her fingers through Henry’s hair and guided his mouth back to hers. She kissed him this time, and Henry let her lead the way, stroke for stroke. When she pulled away, they stayed close, their breath mingling.

“I would love a slow evening with you at my house.”

“We do need to slow down,” he said.

She wasn’t sure if he meant the amount of kissing they did or if life was just hectic right now. For Angel, she was implementing a lot of changes at Lone Star. She had a lot of work in front of her before she could establish the nine new positions that would alleviate a lot of her stress.

“Yeah,” she said. “I need you to help me slow down tonight.”

“I’ll be there,” he said. “I don’t know when, okay? But I’m gonna be there.”

“Okay.” With great difficulty, she took herself out of his arms and got in her car. He pushed the cart down the long row to where he’d parked the big ranch truck, and Angel sighed.

Yes, they’d just eaten from a salad bar in a grocery store, and they’d only walked around and bought a few things, but it had felt intimate. It felt like something friends did, something she’d do with someone she trusted, someone she could just walk around casually with and be comfortable with.

Angel needed that level of comfort and friendship in her life, and she had just pulled out of the stall when she got a text from her momma that said,If you’re still at the store, I need more canning lids for strawberry jam.

Angel let out a sigh, pulled back into her parking space, and went to get the canning supplies. She could weather anything today. She could wrestle any challenge to the ground. She could shoulder anything—because Henry was coming over tonight.

Chapter Twenty

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