Page 32 of Wild, Wild Cowboy

Hannah squeezing my hand.

Hannah squeezing my hand.

Hannah textedme mid-morning and asked me to meet her at Jo’s for lunch. By then I’d already been up for five hours taking care of the animals, and I was fucking tired. I’d managed to fall asleep somewhere around three a.m., an hour and a half before my alarm went off at 4:30. Before I got her text, I’d had lofty goals of sneaking back to my cabin and stealing a nap.

And then she texted, and my priorities shifted.

She was already at Jo’s when I arrived, occupying a corner booth in the back. I wasn’t late, but she was early. Watching Hannah was becoming one of my favorite things, so I allowed myself a moment to do that. She had her embroidery project with her. I had the feeling she didn’t go anywhere without either a book or sewing. Like me, she needed to keep her hands busy to let her brain sort itself out.

Then she looked up, caught sight of me, and she…well, she didn’t smile. Her expression did something funny, like she was girding her loins. Steeling herself for a hard conversation. It made my stomach tumble a bit, but I sauntered on over with a smirk.

“Hey, there, duchess. Did you order yet?” I asked.

She looked up at me and I swore she gulped. She shook her head. “Not yet.”

“What are you having? I’ll take care of it.”

I put in our order at the counter with Chloe—a grilled cheese sandwich for Hannah, a grilled chicken salad for me, because the last thing I needed was clogged arteries that led to open-heart surgery and then germs would invade my bloodstream and my spleenless body wouldn’t be able to fight them off and I’d die, pathetic and weak, in a hospital bed.

A better option would be to find that cliff.

I knew I wasn’t going to do that. I felt like an asshole for even thinking about it, but I wasn’t going todoit. Except even now, when I told myself I wasn’t going to do it, when IknewI wasn’t going to do it, something whispered in the back of my brain.Maybe.

No, of course I wasn’t going to do it. Instead, I ordered the salad.

I waited at the counter for our orders because Jo’s wasn’t the kind of establishment that brought food to your table, and while I waited, I watched Hannah some more. She tucked her embroidery into her slouchy bag, stared out the window for a moment, then sighed and took her embroidery back out.

Something was definitely up.

Was it Hurricane Red? Had her brother managed to find him, and now she had to give me the bad news? Shit.

Do not cry.

Do not put a hole in the wall.

Do not break that stack of plates.

I carried our tray of food to our table with the same smirk I walked in here with. “Here we go,” I said as I slid into the booth across from her.

“Thank you.” She put her embroidery away again, then pulled her plate closer to her.

I waited for her to say something else, something bad, but she picked up her sandwich, took a bite, and chewed silently.Say it. Let’s get this over with. I speared a tomato wedge withmy fork and angrily shoved it into my mouth. Fucking salad. This is what I had been reduced to, and somewhere Hurricane Red had paid an even worse price.

And then she set her sandwich down, folded her hands in front of her, and said, “Zack, I would like to discuss the nature of our relationship.”

Suddenly I didn’t want to hear another damn word come out of that rosebud mouth. This wasn’t about Hurricane Red.

I leaned back and wiped my mouth on my napkin. “Are you breaking up with me, duchess?” I teased, but I forgot to smile.

Her head tilted as she studied me, and when I remembered to push my lips up, she sighed. “No, I’m not breaking up with you. That wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense, would it? We’re not dating.”

“We’re fucking,” I said bluntly.

I said it to get a reaction from her, make her mad, maybe, because I was feeling a little mad myself. But instead her eyes lit up like I had said something right.

“Yes! Exactly. We’re fucking.”

I stared at her. I couldn’t recall ever hearing Hannah curse before, and my dick made it known that it had very strong feelings about my prim little librarian, with her tidy bun and excessive sweaters, saying those words without a hint of shyness about her. I subtly adjusted myself under the table and wondered if I could somehow convince her to whisper that exact phrase in my ear. Preferably when we were, in fact, fucking.

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