Page 27 of The Undercover Cowboy

Ever since Shane’s bulls were tampered with, he’d made it a point to have one of his employees with them at all times. She hadn’t thought he’d be this close.

“Oh, that’s okay. I don’t want to bother them. I’ll catch up with Reba tomorrow. How are things going tonight?”

“Quiet,” Pat said and stifled a yawn. “I thought things were about to get interesting when I saw the two of you.”

They were about to get interesting, just not in the way that Pat meant it.

“Have you seen other people wandering around tonight?” Nash asked, and she could have kicked him.

Pat narrowed his eyes at him. “Aren’t you one of the bull riders?”

Dolly grabbed Nash’s hand. “He’s with me.”

Pat’s eyes widened. “Oh. Oh. OH.” He drawled out the last word. “I’m sorry for interrupting, then.”

“No, it’s okay,” she said, feeling the blush hit her face hard. She was going to have to do a lot of explaining to Reba tomorrow. “We were just going.”

“You have a good night, then.”

Dolly dragged Nash by the hand away from the bulls and from Pat who was grinning his fool head off.

“I wanted to know what he was going to say,” Nash complained.

“I’ll get the dirt for you tomorrow when I talk to Reba. She’ll know if there’s anyone who has been wandering around after hours.”

She could tell by the way Nash twisted his lips that he wasn’t happy about involving Shane and Reba in the investigation, but that was too damned bad. Reba knew who Nash was and Shelby trusted her. That should be enough to clear the Viking Ranch from suspicion. It torqued her off that it didn’t.

Chapter Nine

Nash

The intimate momentbetween them was lost. That was probably a good thing, considering where they were. And yet his lips still tingled from the phantom contact of the kiss that never happened. Nash had been so close to kissing her, and he was having a hard time getting his head back into the investigation. All he wanted to do was sling his arm around her and buy her a drink at an upscale bar. She deserved something like that, rather than poking around after dark hoping not to step in horseshit or something.

The tension between them lingered in the air as they made their way back toward the parking lot. Despite the interruption and the awkwardness that followed, Nash couldn’t shake the feeling of longing that had surged through him during their almost kiss. His mind raced with conflicting thoughts—wanting to protect Dolly from any potential harm that may come their way as they delved deeper into the investigation while also battling the desire to keep her close, to feel that electric connection once more. Hopefully, this case wouldn’t be going on for too much longer. Nash believed that they were getting closer to unraveling the mystery of what Blevins was up to. He knew, though, that once they did catch a break, Jackson Blevins might not go down easily. He wanted Dolly out of the picture long before that happened.

And as much as he hated prematurely crossing suspects off the list, he had a feeling that investigating Shane Calland and the Viking Ranch wouldn’t lead to anything. Which left him withTaylor Keating, Hector Ortiz from the Jaripeo Ranch, and Ryan Chester from the Rocky Ridge Ranches as his main leads to follow. He’d make it a point to talk to them as soon as tomorrow after he got back from Dallas to see his sister.

“What made you decide to be a private investigator?” Dolly blurted out, as if she was trying too hard to break through the awkwardness.

“I like the challenge of figuring out puzzles. I didn’t want to work for anyone else again. So doing this allows me to be my own boss.”

“Make your own rules?”

“And make sure the rules get followed.”

A pained look crossed Dolly’s face. “Sometimes you have to break the rules or bend them a bit.”

“Now you sound like my father.”

“Ouch,” she said. “He did a number on you, didn’t he?”

“He did indeed.”

“You were never tempted to find him? I mean with all the resources that the FBI has…”

“No.” Nash didn’t mean to cut her off, but he also didn’t want to hear it out loud. He heard it in his own brain often enough. And whenever he had to speak to his mother.

But when Dolly blinked at him in shock, he realized that it had come out harsher than she deserved to be on the receiving end of. She wasn’t Miles, after all.

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