wouldn’t be that careless.”
“I’m off duty,” she said.
“Somehow, I don’t think that would preclude you from giving me a ticket.”
“It wouldn’t,” she said.
“Can I buy you a beer?”
Again, she was completely taken aback. “Why?”
“Because I want to.”
She turned and looked over her shoulder at Logan, who hadn’t even noticed that she was there. What would he think if he saw a man buying her a drink? Would he think anything about it at all? There was a time when he would have. He was as overprotective as Ryder. But, she was twenty-seven. All around her, people were flirting. She had never flirted a day in her life. Not really.
She looked up at West and he was...well, he was gorgeous.
Seeing him shirtless yesterday had nearly knocked the wind out of her, and when he had come upon her on the ride earlier today she’d thought she was going to fall off the horse.
She couldn’t pretend that she didn’t think he was handsome.
He was also the epitome of a bad decision. Everything that she had never wanted to be drawn to.
It kind of made sense in a way. She was under an immense amount of pressure right now. Maybe that was the problem. She was having some kind of psychotic break in the shape of a broad-shouldered cowboy. For the first time, suddenly, she understood why people made bad decisions where handsome men were concerned.
Yes. I’m sure that West Caldwell would be very interested in the idea of you testing out your sexuality on him. That he wouldn’t find that boring at all.
The idea made her cringe.
He was already on his way to get her a beer, and she was sure that he wasn’t pondering her or her sexuality at all.
She burned.
And it made her angry. She was used to being in charge. Of herself, and of the people around her. Sure, sometimes it made it weird to be the person in authority.
To walk into a bar and have someone say audibly that they had to stop having fun now. But there was something about it that she liked too, and the fact that West made her want to connect in some way, the fact that he made her feel lonely, galled her.
This was already far too much contemplation to be having over the offer of a beer.
Normally, though, she found being on the outside comforting.
It allowed her to maintain the control that she wanted. It allowed her a sense of safety. A bubble around her and everything that she was.
He made her feel lonely. Incredibly conscious of how long she went without being touched by another person on a given week. Months. If she avoided her family...no one touched her. And her brothers were not overly demonstrative physically. Iris and Rose hugged. Though, not as often as Sammy, who seemed to touch people as easily as she breathed. But it was all dependent on whether or not she saw them, and she didn’t really have anyone else in her life that breached the bubble.
By design.
The reminder didn’t help.
West returned with the beer, and she made a concerted effort not to let his hands touch hers. Because every time they had passed beer back and forth between them they had touched, and it was accumulating on her skin. Like the impression of him was there and she couldn’t do anything to make it go away.
“Look,” he said. “There’s a table. Want to snag it?”
“Why?”
He looked at her, those blue eyes making her stomach feel a little bit shaky. “Same reason I bought you the beer. Because I want to.”
“But why?” She was persistent in this, because she knew that there was always an angle. Always a catch. That was life in a nutshell. It was never straightforward. It was never simple. You might think one thing was happening, then life would turn around and clock you in the face.
She didn’t much trust anything, least of all this far too good-looking cowboy who should be the last person in the room that wanted to talk to her, but wasn’t.
“I don’t know,” he said, not taking his eyes off hers, and it was that admission that made her follow him over to the cleared-out table for two in the far corner.
She could feel people watching her.
She glanced over at the jukebox and saw Logan had noticed her finally. She didn’t want him to come over and talk to her. And when she looked up at him she decided to try and give him an