Page 6 of The Way to a Cowboy's Heart

He shook his head with amusement with a glance at the brat who’d stolen her seat. “Say the word, I’ll un-neutralize it.”

“Tempting. But quite unnecessary.”

He met her eyes with a look that said he was flirting with her. Or was she flirting with him? Good God. It had been so long since either had happened, she wasn’t entirely sure. She never talked to anyone on the train. That generally seemed unwise and unsafe. Yet, he seemed… normal. Not creepy at all. And it felt almost fine to do it, here on a train, when she knew she’d never, ever see him again.

The train stopped at Canal and the car lost a few passengers and added a few more. Elbows and shoulders jostled for space. She couldn’t help but move closer to him.

He smiled. She smiled back. Then both of them, at once, broke eye contact though she still sensed him staring at her before finally turning his attention to the subway route map above the windows, studying it. “Easy to get lost in this place,” he said under his breath. “In this city.”

“Are you?” she asked, grateful to have another chance to say… something. “Lost?”

“Not if Times Square is somewhere on this line. I am on the right train, aren’t I?”

“Oh, yes. A few more stops up the line. Forty-Second Street is likely your stop.”

He looked relieved. “Thanks. That sounds right.”

The train picked up speed, then rolled over a curve in the tracks and she wasn’t the only one to sway precariously sideways, nearly colliding with him, but the cowboy braced her elbow until the train straightened out. She got a surprisingly delicious whiff of him that close, some mixture of amber and rain that went straight to some primitive part of her brain, which sent a shiver of awareness through her. Then, he let her go.

“Ugh. How embarrassing,” she said when she regained her balance. “I’m usually much better at this standing upright thing.”

“These trains… they don’t seem real people friendly.” He shot a look back at the boy still comfortably on his phone.

“Oh, some would say that’s just New York City in general.”

“How about you? Would you say that?”

She sighed. “Perhaps you shouldn’t ask me that on this day in particular. On the other hand, there are a few upsides to the city. Central Park—even in the winter—it’s quite nice. Broadway shows. The holiday windows on Fifth Avenue. Oh, and of course, The Met…”

“The Met?”

“The Metropolitan Museum of Art. You can spend the whole day there. Especially on a rainy day like this. I highly recommend it. Not to be confused, mind you, with the Metropolitan Opera,Met. Which is also wonderful but… two totally different… Oh, I’m sorry. I’m babbling now.”

“Not at all.” He seemed amused, watching her as if trying to remember her from somewhere. Some little crease in his cheek kept appearing and disappearing. “I’ll sure keep those in mind.”

Well… she’d met her fair share of frogs—even toads—in NYC and even kissed a few of them. And worse. But the way he was looking at her… as if there weren’t a dozen other people sandwiching them together and it was just two strangers on a train forging some kind of a connection.

Shake it off. You’re never going to see him again. And, furthermore, he lives all the way across the country if you have your US geography right.

And he was definitelynother type. Not at all. When she dated at all, she went for intellectual Wall Street types who pulled their weekend BMWs out of the garage and took her to Nobu or a Broadway show. Or to the Hamptons for the weekend. Or she took them. Though, admittedly, in both cases, it had been a while. So, it was, no doubt, just the sexy cowboy hat pulled down low over his eyes, or that silver buckle glinting on his belt or the way his jeans hugged his long legs or, more likely, the fact that her entire life had imploded this morning that had her stomach tumbling at his look.

But… maybe she was allwrongabout her type. Maybe her type was…him.

The train slowed at Forty-Second Street, and she watched the platform slowly appear. She turned back to him. “This is you, then.”

“Right.” With a touch of his fingers to the brim of his cowboy hat, he smiled at her again. No wedding ring, at least. “It’s Liam, by the way,” he said, reaching out for her hand. “It was nice to meet you.”

She blinked at his hand for a moment before taking it. His fingers were warm and callused and strong, and he didn’t hold on too long. Just long enough.

“Nice to meet you, too, Liam. I’m—”

The train lurched to a stop and the doors swooshed open. Instantly, the crowd began pushing toward the exit. He frowned, trying to catch what she’d been about to say, but psycho lady shoved her from behind and knocked her a little off-balance with a hostile glare. And by the time she had caught her balance, Liam was already six seats toward the doors in the surging crowd.

Looking as if he had more to say, he held up a hand in a wave as more passengers came between them.

She waved back.

He gave a little shrug, as if to say, “Well, that’s that, then.” But as he passed the kid who’d appropriated her seat, he leaned down and whispered something in the boy’s ear that made the kid go pale, stand, and quickly hurry to the other end of the car.

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