Page 47 of Flippin' Cowboy
“I agree. I’m glad we came to an understanding.” Under the table, Nick’s fingers tightened briefly around Winnie’s hand.
Then he released her, shoved back his chair, and stood. She glanced up at him, wondering what he was up to, and admiring the eye-level view of his butt.
“Winnie Snowberry, on behalf of the production crew, I’d like to present you with this,” he announced.
He bent, dug into a large bag she hadn’t noticed before, and handed her a new hard hat. It was still her trademark pink, with “The Soiled Dove Inn” printed in an elegant font over the dove logo Autumn had designed.
The rest of the hard hat was covered in scrawled signatures. Examining them, Winnie realized that everyone involved with the restoration project, even Grandma Abigail, had signed it.
She stared at it, speechless with gratitude. “It—it’s beautiful,” she managed finally. “Thank you all!”
“Here’s to new beginnings,” Nick said, giving her a sexy grin that made her knees go weak.
Chapter 16: Shift in the Conversation
“Hey, how are you doing?” Nick asked Winnie, after the first five minutes of the drive back to the ranch passed in silence.
“I’m…” She hesitated, biting her deliciously plump lower lip.
The fierce, unexpected protectiveness that had rolled over Nick when he heard about the watch party returned with a vengeance. He fought the urge to growl.
“Okay. Really.” Winnie turned her head and smiled tentatively at him.
Nick’s hands relaxed their death grip on the steering wheel.
“Thanks for having my back tonight,” she continued softly. “I really wasn’t looking forward to that trip down memory lane.”
“When I heard about it, I wanted to shake Karla and ask her what the hell she was thinking.” Nick shook his head. “It was damn cruel to expect you to sit there with everyone and pretend everything was just peachy. And that woman even invited the jerks who took your ex-fiancé’s side and have been trashing you online!”
He repressed another growl.
After he’d presented Winnie with the Soiled Dove Inn hard hat, Karla hadn’t let them leave until he and Winnie had answered a bunch of asinine questions from the reporters and bloggers invited to the viewing party.
Despite her initial reluctance to attend the viewing party, Winnie had handled the whole thing, including the Q&A session following the episode, with unexpected grace and good humor. That amazed him, especially since barely six weeks had gone by since Winnie’s wedding disaster.
Winnie shrugged. “I’m used to it. It comes with the territory when you’re a fake celebrity flipper,” she joked.
She was far stronger than she appeared. He remembered what a mess he’d been right after Tiffani walked out on him, and how long it had taken him to recover his equilibrium.
“I gotta ask, though—what the hell did you ever see in that guy?” Nick demanded. “Geoff.”
“Why, Nicholas Evans, I didn’t think you cared,” Winnie answered in a mocking tone.
Nick realized he’d overstepped and shrugged. He turned onto the highway and hit the gas.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her shoulders slump.
“I’ve been asking myself the same question for weeks. Truth is, you never really know what someone else is thinking, do you? I thought we were friends. And I thought he loved me. I mean, he’s the one who proposed. But I was wrong.”
“Geoff Schaefer was an idiot not to appreciate the treasure he had in you.” Nick spoke before he thought.
Winnie laughed bitterly. “Treasure? Yeah, right.”
Her reaction drove home to Nick how radically his opinion of her had changed over the past weeks of working together.
Instead of being the vain, empty-headed celebrity he’d expected, she was down to earth and thoroughly competent. Funny as hell, too. Fiercely loyal to the people she loved. And sexy as sin, even in dusty, paint-spattered work clothes and a thick mask of film makeup.
Come to think of it, Winnie was Tiffani’s complete opposite in every way, not just physically.
