pack of lies, fooling everyone into believing she was something she wasn’t.
She felt everyone’s eyes on her face as Lane stopped at their table, shoved his thumbs in his belt loops, and grinned. He’d been just one more cowboy at the rodeo—maybe the biggest and best, but still in his element. Here he stood out like a wolf in a dog kennel, filling up the room not just with his height and bulk, but with his masculine confidence and the intensity of his stare.
“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t have time to change. Made the short round today.” He grinned. “The better you ride, the harder you work.”
He assessed the room with narrowed eyes like he was thinking about buying the place—or like he already owned it. Pulling out the empty chair beside Sarah, he lowered himself into it and turned toward her, his arm resting on the table. She felt like she was already in his embrace.
Not that she was going to end up there again. Nope, never again. She was the responsible sister. The responsible roommate.
He leaned toward her and she caught the scent of aftershave, a hint of cinnamon blended with leather and wood smoke. He hadn’t been wearing that last night. All this “I didn’t have time to change” stuff was a load of bull. He’d wanted to make an entrance—and it was working. Every eye in the place was on him—the women covetous, the men envious.
“How are you, princess?”
Sarah bristled. “Don’t call me that.”
She reminded herself that she didn’t like rodeo cowboys. Didn’t like them at all.
You liked the way he kissed you, though. You liked the way he…
She shut down that line of thinking as he gave her a lopsided grin that made him look surprisingly boyish despite the breadth of his shoulders.
“I thought maybe you’d give me a second chance.”
“That’s assuming you ever had a first chance,” she quipped.
The men at the table guffawed, but Lane seemed unaffected by what she’d thought was a killer zinger. He scanned the room and its business-suited clientele with obvious scorn, looking rough, battered, and one hundred percent cowboy.
Being responsible sucked.
She was grateful when the waiter interrupted, bringing course after course of beautifully presented, perfectly cooked food. The conversation started up again around them, and Lane’s white teeth flashed as he good-naturedly answered question after question about rodeo from Eric’s friends. Sarah did her best to shrink into the shadows, concentrating on her food so she wouldn’t have to look at him.
Gradually, the questions slowed and finally ceased as one man after another got up to leave. Lane scooted his chair back a bit, clearly looking to engage Sarah in conversation. They listened to each other breathing for a while. Obviously Eric had invited her here to persuade Lane to do the drilling. And he wanted her to use every possible means to do the persuading.
She had a job to do, and that job didn’t just matter to her. It mattered to Kelsey and Katie, too. She took a deep breath. “We need to talk.”
“You’re right,” he said. “We do.”
Chapter 16
“Why won’t you let them drill on the ranch?” she asked.
“That’s what you want to talk about?”
“Of course.” She leveled what she hoped was a dispassionate stare. “What else would we talk about?”
“Us.”
“There is no us. There can’t be. It’s not just my job, either. You’re a cowboy, and I’m—not. You like Two Shot, and I don’t.”
“How can you not like your own hometown?”
“Easy. If you’d really grown up there, you’d understand. Trust me, if it was, you’d be all for making some changes. I know it looks all quaint on the outside, but people there really struggle to keep going.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“It is when you’re the one struggling.”
He sighed. “Do you really want to pave over your past like that?”
She thought of the town as she’d left it. The abandoned school building, with its broken windows and chipped facade. The town library, filled with out-of-date fiction by Frank Yerby and Anya Seton. The streets, pockmarked with potholes.
Then there was the gossip. The meanness. Her mother hadn’t been very well equipped for life, but instead of helping her, folks in Two Shot had whispered and lied. Even the smallest mistake got blown up into a drama worthy of Shakespeare in that town. And Sarah’s mother had made a lot of mistakes, mostly under the influence of alcohol.
“Yes,” she said. “I do want to pave it over.”
“Why?”
She glanced around the table, almost hoping Gloria would say something