Page 35 of Rogue Cowboy
Total package.
Not that she wanted such a masculine and attractive, quiet alpha man.She had no idea what to do with him and feared that she’d disappoint him.Just thinking about kissing him, touching him, letting his hands on her skin under her blouse made her flush with heat and fear, but also excitement that she didn’t trust.Cole was a man who’d probably had lots of women, and she had no idea what she was doing.
Or if she could do it.
She was his wife in name.But she had no business even pretending she could build a future with him.
“Head in the game, Riley,” she muttered, hoping to push away all sexual thoughts.
It was Friday morning, and she needed to keep her focus on the horses, Petal and Arlo’s exhibition later, working with the barrel racers taking practice runs on the horses they boarded, and helping Boone and Rohan with the stock.This was the first year she was taking lead, and she wanted her mom to be proud.Riley didn’t have time to fantasize about a Texas cowboy who’d soon be heading home, duty done, papers signed, no matter what he said.
Cole was too chivalrous.But maybe if she did kiss him, she’d prove her point, and he’d pack up and drive south at top speed.Just the thought of kissing Cole made her body do an involuntary shimmy.What, was she still a goofy, inexperienced teenager?
“Don’t answer that,” she muttered darkly.
“That some new weird dance move, sis?”Her brother Boone stepped out of the shadows of the stable doors that were open enough for one person to slide in and out but not wide enough for an escaped horse to bolt through.
The new rule had been established after a prized buckin’ bronc had been released by a cowboy with bad intentions.The horse had bolted and kicked and run amok through the campground with cowboys trying to soothe it.Boone had lassoed the horse, and while he’d been tossed around, he’d managed to hold on long enough for its owner, Tucker Wilder, to calm the horse before it was injured or had hurt anyone else.
Though Riley had trained some with Tucker, that day had cemented Tucker’s legend status for Riley.
Tucker wouldn’t run away from something awful.
She would have fought back.Not turned to a chivalrous white-hat cowboy for help.
“Morning, Boone,” Riley slid through the door and saw Rohan leaning against Cinnamon’s stall, his arms crossed and his mouth a thin line.Great.Double-teamed.
Brothers.
They’d always sheltered her.Maybe that was why she’d been so dumb and lost out on her own in the great big world of LA.Still, she couldn’t hide forever.Cole’s arrival had proved that.
She didn’t meet Rohan’s assessing stare and fought her need to shove open the massive door farther so that the early morning light could spill into the aisle of the large livestock area.
“You haven’t danced in years,” Rohan said.
“I have a dance partner now and a date,” she said flippantly.
“That so.”Rohan’s voice was midnight dark and old road-kill flat.
“About that,” Boone began in a far more ‘see, I’m the reasonable younger brother’ tone.“Piper was picking up takeout at Rosita’s last night and saw you with a cowboy.Said things looked intense.You’re not really dating that Texan, Riles, are you?He was just blowing smoke up our asses, right?”
“Cole’s just trying to make nice with the locals to get a foothold into our business,” Rohan said, shocking Riley with that statement.He and Cole were friends, weren’t they?Where was all this suspicion coming from?Cole had barely mentioned business with her.
Probably because you kept freaking out, idiot.
“Riley doesn’t date, and she doesn’t have a dance partner for the barbecue or the steak dinner,” Rohan said in a ‘dad laying down the law’ voice he had no right to pull out with her.
She glared at him.He was her older brother.Not her boss and definitely not her social director.Even her dad didn’t talk to her like that.
“Who I spend time with is not your call,” she stated, hands on hips.
“The hell it’s not.”
“Ro, dial it back a notch,” Boone, always easygoing, urged.“Don’t need you to be sporting a black eye when she clocks you.”
Riley squirmed self-consciously.She’d looked at herself in the mirror.The bruising along her jaw was not as bad as she’d feared, and by wearing her hair down, she could hide some of it.
“I heard the words ‘steak,’ ‘dinner’ and ‘date,’” Cole said and entered the stable.“Yes, to all three.”Cole angled his body between her and Rohan, blocking her from returning her brother’s glare.
