Page 46 of A Christmas Baby for the Cowboy
“You don’t look at me the way you look at Knox Carey,” Wyatt said simply. “And between you and me, Knox doesn’t look at anyone the way he looks at you.”
He tipped his hat, and Ramona felt terrible.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean—”
“You don’t owe me any apologies,” he assured her. “This is our fourth date and you haven’t even let me pick you up. Much less kiss you. I was beginning to think I’d lost my touch.” His mouth curved. “My ego is happy to discover that it’s just that you’ve already got a claim on your heart.”
Ramona wanted to argue about that, but she was too aware of Knox across the room.
“Happy New Year,” Wyatt murmured, and then walked away.
She wanted to beg him to stay. She wanted to make wild promises she didn’t mean. She wanted to argue with him because what she really didn’t want was to deal with Knox, who was now stalking toward her as if he didn’t realize that there were other people in this room.
He drew close and she shook her head at him. “We have nothing to say to each other,” she told him.
“I feel certain that you have nothing to say to me, Ramona, and that’s okay,” Knox replied. “It turns out, I have a thing or two to say to you.” But he didn’t launch into any speeches. He held out his hand instead. “You’ve never danced with me.”
She made a face. “That’s because I hate dancing.”
“That’s because you’ve never danced with me,” he retorted.
He didn’t take her hand himself, though he could have. He waited.
And Ramona hated this. She needed to be done with him. That had been absolutely clear to her yesterday. There could be no backsliding again—she wasn’t sure she’d survive it.
Then again, he’d come here tonight. He’d sought her out, and not in the dark of night. She’d spent a lot of time thinking about that yesterday. She’d curled up in the fetal position on her couch and she’d wondered why it had never really dawned on her that everything they did they did alone. Isolated. Usually at night, and then snuck away by morning.
He’d never taken her on a date. He’d never taken her anywhere, except to Billings.
But another thing he’d never done was walk up to her in a crowded room and then stand there, his hand outstretched.
She knew that people were watching. She could even hear a few whispers.
Knox didn’t say another word. He just kept that gaze of his locked to hers, and his hand hanging in the air between them.
“Fine,” Ramona said, crossly.
She pretended it was because she didn’t want to be stared at anymore. She pretended that this was simply the expedient way out of this situation, and she slid her hand into his.
They were staring at each other, so she knew she wasn’t the only one to feel that immediate spark between them when they touched, and then to see the answering flare of it in his gaze the way she knew it was in hers.
There was nothing expedient about touching Knox.
He held her hand for a moment, like he was winded, but to Ramona it seemed like a lifetime.
It had to be at least a lifetime and several eternities later when he turned and tugged her with him as he wound his way through their friends and neighbors, stopping for none of them, and took her out onto the dance floor.
He was right, they had never danced together. If they had, she would have known better than to agree to it now.
Because he pulled her into his arms, and this wasn’t some historical drama. He didn’t break out in a waltz.
He put his arms around her, his hands on the naked skin of her back. And she lifted her arms so she could put her hands on his shoulders, which meant she was pressed against him.
And it suddenly struck her as outrageous that people were allowed to do this in public.
She braced herself as they swayed back and forth, while one of the old-timers who hung out at the General Store most days did a surprisingly good Frank Sinatra impression at the mic.
There were no speeches from Knox. No inadequate discussions of how much he cared about her.
