changed in the past ten seconds. But he was not a casual observer.
No, her face had changed too. There was a firmness to the corners of her mouth. Intent. The absence of a smile or frown, totally and completely purposeful.
“You didn’t respond to my email,” he said. “I’m wounded.”
She tilted her head slightly, looking up at him. Then, she faked surprise. As if she truly hadn’t realized he was there until right then.
That shouldn’t get him hot. Nothing about her should get him hot. But everything did. Everything damn well did.
“Sorry. Were you expecting a same-day response? I didn’t think that you engaged with such newfangled technology all that often.”
“Nice to see you too.”
“Right.”
He grinned. “Most people would say that it was also nice to see me. That’s manners, Melinda.”
The light behind her eyes indicated that she wanted very much to tear his throat out. But her expression betrayed that not at all. “We didn’t go over how to handle infuriating cowboys in deportment.”
She hated it when he called her Melinda. He knew that. He also loved saying it. Because no one else did. It put him in the mind of other things he might do to her that no one else was currently doing.
Unless he had the read of it wrong. Maybe she had a different lover every night. It was possible, for all he knew.
Just because his balls were all bound up in wanting her, didn’t mean her body was similarly bound up in wanting him.
“Now that’s a shame,” he said. “How are you supposed to go on if you don’t know whether or not you’re supposed to hold your pinkie out when you tell me to go fuck myself.”
“Oh, I know which finger to hold up when I tell you that, Wyatt Dodge. Don’t you worry about that.”
“What brings you out here tonight?”
A moment later, his question was answered when in came her brother, and a friend of his from the rodeo, Dane Parker. Followed by her former sister-in-law Beatrix Leighton.
“They were parking,” Lindy said, by way of explanation. “I mean. They were parking the truck. They weren’t out parking.”
That made him think of all the things he might be able to accomplish if Lindy went parking with him.
Yet again, he felt like he was back in high school.
He really did resent that.
“Dane,” he said, reaching around Lindy to offer his hand to the other man. “Didn’t know you were going to be in town.”
“I live to be a surprise. Lindy mentioned that you might have a job for me coming up in a few weeks.”
“If by job you mean being unpaid entertainment for a mob of people. Yes.”
“For the big launch event for Get Out of Dodge?” Dane asked.
“Yes. But, it benefits Grassroots Winery too,” Wyatt put in. “You know, since we have such a cozy partnership now.”
Lindy’s perfectly placid expression slipped. Just for a moment. “Right. I guess we’d better go find a table.”
“There’s one right next to us,” he said, because the hell if he was going to let her avoid him. The hell if he was going to sit in the same bar as her and let her pretend he wasn’t here. The hell he was going to spend all night trying not to look over at her.
“Thanks,” Bea said, her tone bright. Dane thanked him too, both of them clearly oblivious to the fact that Lindy wanted to scream.
Wyatt led the way back over to his table, and he ignored Grant’s assessing gaze. It didn’t escape Wyatt’s notice that Lindy took the seat at the table that put her farthest away from him.
A moment later Jamie reappeared, smiling broadly when she saw the new additions. “Bea,” she said, sliding her chair over slightly and putting herself next to her. “Good to see you.”
It surprised Wyatt that Bea and Jamie were friends. Though, they were the same age. Just about. But still, Bea was softer, fine-boned and possessing the femininity of a vaguely feral fairy. Jamie was tall, no-nonsense and, as far as Wyatt knew, resolutely allergic to dresses.
Bea started talking with broad hand gestures about some of the animals she had cared for at the clinic today, and suddenly Wyatt understood the connection. Animals. Jamie had practically been born in the saddle. Horses were her passion. And Bea seemed to like anything with four legs.
“I’m going to get a drink,” Lindy said.
“I’ll go with you,” he said.
He ignored the look earned from Grant as he and Lindy walked toward the bar.
“Let me ask you a question,” Lindy said. “Do you try to get on my nerves?”
“To be perfectly honest with you, angel, I don’t have to try. You make it too easy.”
“So you were that boy.”
“What boy?” he asked, as the two of them sidled up to the bar. Lindy pressed her delicate hands down on that scarred wooden countertop, and he pressed his down alongside hers.
For a moment, all he could do was stare at the contrast the two of them made. Her smooth hands, with long, fine-boned fingers, not a single scar to be seen. His own, weathered, with more than a few chunks taken from them.
If he were to take hold of her, his hand would cover hers entirely.
If he were to pull her up against his body, the contrast would be much the same. Soft. Hard. Smooth. Weathered.
“The one that pulled pigtails,” she said, not looking at him when she spoke.
Something stirred inside of him, and he just couldn’t stop himself from saying what he said next. “I still pull pigtails,” he said. “If the lady asks me nicely.”
She looked at him, a cautious expression in her blue eyes. Like she was about to give the answer to a math problem she’d done in her head, and wasn’t entirely certain of. “I doubt that’s ever happened.”
“Sure it has.” He grinned and waited. For her to get mad. For her to blush. Something.
Except, now he was going to end up thinking about that for far too long. Usually, she met him barb for barb. But this particular innuendo didn’t seem to resonate. Maybe that was because she wasn’t standing there mired in sexual tension. Maybe it was because she didn’t think of him that way.
But it might just speak to other things. Inexperience he wouldn’t have thought a woman who’d been married for a decade could possibly have.
That forced him to wonder. To wonder about her marriage, which he shouldn’t do. Especially because she had been
