Page 25 of The Cowboy's Temporary Solution

Seri's head shakes side to side, dark curls shimmying around her shoulders with the movement.

"She knew."

A small smile teases at her lips, like she's just trying it on for size.

"She said you never went for the public displays of affection with any of your girlfriends and the way you were already touching me gave you away."

"So she was just testin' us yesterday at the bar, I take it?"

Seri's smile widens. "She said we were looking for an excuse to do it. She thought she'd help us out."

"Sounds like Bernie, all right. The girl's always been one for drama, stirring up shit any chance she gets."

"She seems okay," Seri says, "in small doses."

Swiping the hat off my head, I run my hand up the back of my neck, making a damn mess of my hair.

"My mom buy you them shorts?"

Seri giggles and shimmies her hips side to side in a motion that temporarily has me forgetting about the groveling part of the conversation and dead set on the tossing my girl over my shoulder and getting her into the nearest bed part.

"It's like she set out torture me," I grumble under my breath. "Ma's feeling pretty bad about steering you wrong, you know. Iset her straight as soon as I knew what she told you. Me and Bernadine were never--"

"I know." Serenity answers quick, cutting me off and taking a tentative step in my direction. "She told me."

"Before I left Slow River, she was going through some stuff with her husband-- rumors got spread, she used them to her advantage. It put a pretty big wedge between me and her. Dad and I were already having differences of opinion on how to run things at the ranch. I had an offer to do dairy nutrition in the corporate sector down in Houston; I took it. Haven't been keen on coming back since.

"Bern's tried to chase me down a few times. Mom started hintin' around that Bernie was single when her divorce was final and... I'd been stressing coming back here."

Serenity shuffles her feet; the clipped toe boots scuffling in the dirt.

"I get it," she says in a small voice, "and you thought it'd make things easier if you could show up with a girlfriend. Just someone you could put between you and that drama while you dealt with your dad's service and working out things with your brothers about the ranch."

"So it makes sense to you?"

Seri shrugs, nonchalantly, like she's taking this all in stride and none of it is burning her inside like it is me.

"I may not have understood what the problem was, but I knew I was only a temporary solution to it when I agreed to your craziness." This time she laughs, a thin sound but painfully genuine. "I admit I was really excited about getting the inside track on the local history, but it was also really flattering-- the idea that you'd be willing to have people think we were connected that way. I mean...especially when I saw Bernie. I'd never be able to compete with that, you know?"

My eyes drag up her body, from the bared flesh of her thighs, over the ample swell of her hips, the full breasts straining at the buttons of the gauzy, floral blouse, all the way to the heart-shaped face with those hypnotic, aqua blue eyes.

She's right about that last bit-- there's absolutely no competition. Not against Bernadine, or any other female in this valley. Or anywhere at all, for that matter. Serenity wins, hands down, on all counts.

"Baby, if you think I'm the better half of this bargain, we need to get you in front of a mirror. I was gone for you the minute you sat down in that airport chair across from me." I can't help but draw a sharp breath at the memory of my first sight of her. "With your clothes all rumpled and your hair a mess, looking like you'd just gotten done with a good, hard, going-away fuck.

"I was sure you had some rich boyfriend with a corner office in one of those downtown city sky-rises who was going to miss you something fierce. Couldn't believe my luck when you turned out to be up for grabs."

This time when she laughs, it's more of a self-conscious giggle; a sound that goes through me and tugs at my dick.

"Definitely never had a going-away fuck," she tells me, dipping her head downward while a blush creeps into her face. With a nervous cough, she clears her throat and confesses, "I've never actually had any kind of...fuck."

If the fair is still going on around us, I've lost track. I can't hear the exhilarated screams from the midway, I can't see the flashing lights from the carnival rides, or smell the fried dough scents and roasting meats and vegetables from the open pit bar-b-ques in the concessions.

There's just Seri and me, and her words have thrown me for a loop while my brain was already spinning.

"Never any kind of...but last night when we were...you were full on..." My hat's in my hand while I scrub at the back of myneck again, trying to make sense of everything I know about the saucy little city girl that's got me all caught up in ideas about diamond rings and floor plans for the house I'll be building alongside my brothers out on the ranch.

"You kinda passed out before I had a chance to bring it up."

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