Winning the Cowboy Billionaire - Emmy Eugene Page 0,11

in her forties, he wasn’t sure which number came after that initial four. “I remember Ginny Winters decorating your whole place with black balloons and streamers and all that a few years ago,” he said. “I can’t recall exactly how many.”

“Mister Chappell, are you asking me how old I am?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I think a serious boyfriend would know that about his serious girlfriend.”

“Ginny draped my garage door and my front door in black plastic,” Olli said, fondness replacing the flirtatiousness in her voice. “It was four years ago. I’m forty-four.”

“Ah, Cayden’s age.” He wondered why she didn’t just ask him to be her stand-in arm candy. He decided to simply ask. “Why didn’t you ask him to play this part?”

“Can you handle the truth?”

He looked at her, finding her green eyes dancing with mischief. She was very good at the flirtation game, and Spur needed to up his. “I sure can,” he said.

“I thought about asking Cayden. He was my first choice.”

“Ouch,” Spur said, adding a chuckle to the word so his real wounded feelings wouldn’t show. Subconsciously, his fingers strangled the steering wheel, and he had to mentally coach himself to release them.

“Then you showed up on that pretty bay, saved me from certain death-by-sheep-trampling, and swept me off my feet.”

Spur burst out laughing, glad when Olli did too. Everything lightened then, and he actually thought he could reach across the distance between them and take her hand in his. He did not, but he thought he could. “Certain death-by-sheep-trampling,” he repeated, still laughing between the words. “Sheep are harmless, Olli.”

“Not when they’re coming straight at you,” she said. “And you’re shoeless and can’t run anyway. I thought the last sound I’d hear was that of a bunch of herding dogs barking, as sheep foot after sheep foot trampled the life out of me.”

“Okay, first, sheep have hooves,” he said, starting up another round of laughter.

Olli joined him again, and Spur laughed until her hand touched his and took it from the steering wheel. His voice muted then, and all he could do was marvel at the soft yet insistent tug of her touch as she pulled his hand closer to her and twined their fingers together.

“What’s second?” she asked, but Spur had no idea what they’d been talking about. He looked at her, the mood in the cab much different now that she’d touched him.

“You have soft skin,” he blurted out, immediately wanting to shove something in his mouth that would prevent him from speaking again.

She smiled, though. “Thanks, Spur.” She drew in an audible breath, and Spur felt like he needed to take one too. “So I’m forty-four. Ginny Winters is my best friend. You’re forty…six, I think?”

He nodded, and she continued with, “And you own and operate the biggest and best horse breeding ranch in northern Kentucky.”

He laughed and shook his head. “I wish, but it’s a nice statement.”

“You’re not the biggest and best?”

“Oh, we’re the best,” he said. “Just not the biggest.”

“Your place is huge,” she said.

“I’m glad you think so,” he said, though he supposed Bluegrass Ranch was bigger than other breeding ranches. They did more, that was all. They stabled horses too, and trainers came to work their owner’s horses. Their track was open seven days a week, and Trey, the third oldest brother, managed that entire branch of Bluegrass.

“We’re only about six hundred acres,” he said. “There are stables and breeding facilities three times that big around Horse Country.”

“But you are the best,” she said in that flirtatious tone that got Spur’s pulse pounding.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So Kentucky-Southern proper, too,” she said. “You just might win my heart for real, Spur Chappell.”

He looked at her again, not even caring if he drove right off the road. “What does it take to do that?” he asked.

She met his gaze, her eyebrows going up. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve never been married?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“You’ve dated though.”

“Sure,” she said, finally breaking their connection and looking out her window instead of at him. “I was engaged once.”

He wanted to know more about that, and he squeezed her hand to indicate as much.

“You were married,” she said instead.

“Yes,” he said. “Her name was Katie. We were together five years. Been divorced for eight now.”

Olli nodded, the mood all over the place and they hadn’t even made it to Six Stars yet. The restaurant-slash-dance-hall wouldn’t be terribly crowded on a Monday night, but it was always noisy. He second-guessed his choice for dinner, because they needed time to talk.