Page 26 of Charming the Cowboy
The Lovers…
Oh. No. No, no, no.
She reached into her pocket, hands shaking, and took out a couple of her crystals. Then she pressed them up against his chest, before curling her hand back into a fist and collecting them again, wiggling out of his hold and thrusting them awkwardly into his hand.
He looked at her like she was crazy.
“What?”
“Just… I have these crystals. I have them in my pocket. They’re for protection. But I guess they used you to protect me today. So that I didn’t fall, and I didn’t crack my head open in your barn, because that would really suck. And I think you deserve the crystals, because you were the one who saved me. Probably because of the crystals.”
“What?” he said again.
She was babbling. Erratic and more than a little bit silly.
Because she couldn’t come up with anything more reasonable than that. Or a way to extricate herself from this moment.
She would’ve thought that maybe a lightning bolt would come in between them and provide a crack of a reminder thatshe wasn’t allowed to get this close to a man. But instead, it had been up to her and her own awkwardness to deal with it.
“I don’t need your crystals,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t… Thank you,” he said. She didn’t know what caused the redirect. But he put the crystals in his pocket and jumped down out of the wagon. “Hey, I figure I’ll deliver this to the back of the store a couple of days before the actual wagon ride. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
She blinked. The abrupt change of subject put her off balance a little bit. But then, she was already off balance. “Yeah. I think that sounds good.”
“I’m going to have to haul it down with a flatbed trailer, and then I’m going to have to pull the horses down when we’re actually doing the whole thing.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Right.”
He was saying very reasonable words, and she still felt physically… wound up.
It had been a whole weird few days. Where she had felt… so much of the deficit in her life, which was not what she usually chose to focus on.
And then there was Cooper.
But Cooper was an impossible crush now, as impossible as he’d ever been. And she needed to remember that.
“I’d better get going. The wagon looks great. Thank God we live in a place where no one will steal my spider.”
“You really like that spider.”
“I love him,” she said. “So maybe I should be worried someone will take him. Maybe I can’t love décor either!” She said it bright and chipper and forced out some laughter after. “Anyway, I have to go.”
She was abandoning the man in her own parking lot. It was so weird. She seemed weird. There was no way he was going to think she was cool or chill or remotely in her right mind.
But she couldn’t stay. Not when she was on fire. Not when she wanted him so badly.
Not when he didn’t want her.
Chapter Five
She had run from him like she was afraid of him. And that really sucked.
He hadn’t intended on getting into a compromising position with Eliana, that had been accidental. He didn’t think crystals had anything to do with it, however. He shoved his hand into his pocket.
He had given it a couple of days to breathe.
