Page 36 of Boston
“Come in,” she yelled from inside, and Boston pulled open the screen door and twisted the doorknob.
“It’s just me,” he said, but he didn’t see Cora anywhere in the main living areas of the house.
“The strap on my shoe just broke,” she yelled from down the hall. “Give me a minute.”
“No problem,” he called, his eyes sweeping around her house. He’d been here just last night, and everything lookedalmost exactly the same. Still, a tiny thrill filled him that he stood here, and when Cora came bustling down the hallway only a few seconds later, the first thing he looked at was her shoes.
They seemed to be made of all straps, alternating silver, white, and gold across the top of her foot and around her heel, and they added a couple of inches to her height.
Boston let his eyes track up her legs and body to her face. She wore a white pair of shorts as clean as freshly fallen snow and a white tank top with alternating black, silver, and gold stripes with shimmery, metallic thread in the fabric.
Her makeup matched, as she’d done a black, smoky eye, with silver shadow and little gold dust flecks in the corners of her eyes. Boston could not speak, for this goddess of a woman had rendered him mute.
She looked back at him too, her smile genuine and bright. “Did you go home and change first?”
The question shook him out of his stupor, and his tongue still felt thick in his mouth as he said, “Yeah.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, her smile falling a little bit.
Boston told himself to get it together, and he managed to take a step toward her. “I don’t think we can go out.”
Cora frowned. “Why not?”
“There’s a couple of reasons, actually.” He took another step toward her and then another, finally close enough to slide one hand along the waistband of those unblemished white shorts. “One: have you talked to your sister and your momma? People are going to see us at the restaurant.”
Cora looked up at him, her expression open.
“Two,” he said, before she could answer. “Every cowboy who sees you is going to want to ask you out, and I don’t know if I can compete with that.”
Her smile returned, and she dipped her chin and shook her head. “That’s just silly.”
“You look incredible,” he whispered, and he dipped his head too, placing his mouth right at her ear. “I don’t know how to be with a woman like you.” He touched his lips to her neck and then sternly told himself to behave.
He pulled away and was glad to find a flush in Cora’s face that mirrored the one rising through his whole body.
“I didn’t mean to ask such a hard question,” she said.
“Maybe today can be our hard question day,” Boston said.
Cora groaned and stepped past him. “Okay, but I think we should limit it to three.”
Boston chuckled. “You’ve asked me one, and I guess I’ve asked you one—which you didn’t answer, I’d like to point out.”
“I needed to think about it.” She picked up her purse and faced him. “And I think I could go to church again. My momma and daddy raised me with scriptures and sermons and Sunday services, but I haven’t been in a long time.”
Boston nodded, trying to release the tension in his jaw. “Why is that, do you think?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said with a sigh. “Life got busy. I was away from home. No one had any expectations of me. I could do what I wanted.”
“And you didn’t want to go to church?”
“It wasn’t at the top of my list, no,” she said.
“Well, no pressure from me,” he said. “I find church to be grounding. It centers me a little bit. It reminds me that life is good, even when it’s busy or things don’t go my way.”
Cora linked her arm through his and turned him toward the door. “That sounds really nice,” she said. “I feel like I could use some of that.”
They went outside, and she pulled the door closed behind her, but didn’t lock it.
