Page 21 of Heart Like a Cowboy

Something she wished she hadn’t noticed.

“One day, when we’re drunk or something, maybe you can tell me how Jack spent the last hour or so of his life,” she muttered.

He lifted one of his toned wide shoulders, but it wasn’t a casual gesture. Far from it. She saw the pain in his eyes. The ache in every inch of his body. Even if that last hour or so with Jack had been all happy, it would still stir up the horrible memory since anything happy would have blown up with the IED.

“Maybe,” Egan finally said, and she didn’t know if he’d hedged for her sake. Or his. Maybe both since no matter what Egan recalled, it would bring on a fresh round of grief.

Perhaps it was that prospect of grief that had Egan staying silent for a long time before doing another glance around at the TV and ice cream. They were her failed attempts at digging her fingernails in to stop herself from taking a total plunge into that hell place inside her head.

“So, did this virtual date own goats, chickens or ask about things that shouldn’t be asked?” he wanted to know.

Of course, this was a diversion attempt, one meant to draw her on to a different subject where tit-for-tat jokes might be possible. Where for a couple of moments, she might not think of why she had just consumed two thousand calories of ice cream and watched a snarky Jeff Goldblum evade dinosaurs. Even though Alana was sure his attempt would fail big-time, she went along with it, anyway.

“No, but he gave me a backhanded compliment by saying I looked like Scarlett Johansson’s older sister orsomething. I suspect bysomething, he meant more ofThe Creature from the Black Lagoon.”

“Never,” Egan said, but it looked as if he immediately wanted to take back the words. Maybe because they had been too personal and an insider revelation that he didn’t believe her capable of bearing such a resemblance to a swamp monster.

Despite everything, that made her smile a little. “Thanks.Or something,” she added in a tongue-in-cheek mutter.

He smiled a little, too, and then just as quickly throttled back on it. “Look, I know things aren’t...comfortable between us, but if you want to talk, I’ll listen. No alcohol, food or dinosaurs required.”

It was a generous offer, and Alana didn’t point out that it only cemented his “hero/all-around good cowboy” image. But she did go ahead and bring up one big sticking point to such a talk.

“Earlier, we were upset because there’s this...whatever it is stirring between us,” she said. Such a frank discussion was treading on boggy ground, but at the moment it felt as if staying silent would be even boggier. “It could lead to some honesty that might be hard for you to handle.”

He stared at her, reminding her that in addition to “good guy” stuff, he was also “hot cowboy” stuff. That was a big reason for the stirrings. Hot was hot no matter how much baggage it came with.

“The offer stands,” he said with his jaw muscles at war with each other. “If you want or need to talk, call me.”

He slid back on his Stetson, giving her a view of his backside as he strolled out the door and into the sunset. Well, the sun and the heat, anyway. And even without the romantic sunset, he still managed to look amazing.

She frowned. This was why her head was so messed up. One minute she was grieving and guilting over her dead husband, and the next minute she was lusting over a hot cowboy who probably had a good streak that went all the way to the bone. One minute, she was wondering about Jack’s last hours, and another she was wondering what it felt like to kiss Egan.

Oh, yeah. Clearly identifiable reasons for a messed-up head.

She shut the door and cursed when she saw the screen of her phone light up. At first, she thought it might be the lying “barely legal” Lucky, but it was Tilly. Alana didn’t especially want to talk to her, but this was probably about how she’d told Colleen not to attend the life celebration. Because no way would Tilly actually want her there to steal any thunder from Jack. A brief conversation, emphasis onbrief, might cleanse her emotional palate of Egan.

Or not.

She answered the call while she watched Egan climb into his big pickup truck, a maneuver that caused his jeans to mold against his superior butt. She nixed the notion of what it would feel like to kiss Egan and went with wondering if he looked as good out of those jeans as in them.

“This, this, this,” she grumbled. It was what you got when you hadn’t had sex in three years and logical thoughts had a very short shelf life in her mind.

“This what?” Tilly asked.

That was a reminder of her former mother-in-law being on the line, and Alana was so thankful she hadn’t blurted out Egan’s name. But his name got spoken, anyway. By Tilly.

“I just talked to Colleen,” Tilly let her know when Alana didn’t respond. “I told her I didn’t think Egan would be at the life celebration because of being so torn up about his dad and all. He is still torn up, right?”

There seemed to be some unspoken questions tacked on to that one. A fishing expedition to see just how much Alana did know about Egan’s state of mind. It was possible that one of the ranch hands had witnessed their emotional encounter at the pasture fence this morning and already started some gossip about it. Then again, maybe Tilly was just aware that Alana had been hired to work with Derek and therefore might wind up seeing Egan as well.

“Egan’s torn up,” Alana confirmed. It wasn’t exactly a bombshell since anyone who’d caught a glimpse of him in the past week would have seen the worry all over his face.

“That’s what I figured,” Tilly concluded. “And it’s why I told Colleen that it’ll be all right for her to come to the life celebration.”

While that stunned Alana to silence, Tilly let out a little sound of glee.

“It’ll be so good to have Colleen there,” Tilly went on. “It’ll be just like old times.”

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