Page 24 of Texas Made
“Yeah.” He couldn’t deny she was still beautiful. Classic features, gorgeous long auburn hair, a body that would stop traffic. Yeah, still hot.
“Gorgeous, in fact,” Jaclyn continued. “Are you going to call her?”
“No. And I wouldn’t even if I wasn’t with you.”
“Good.”
“Were you really worried?” he asked curiously.
She shrugged. “I have eyes.”
Marshall grinned. “But I only have eyes for you.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, laughing. “Tell me you didn’t just say that.”
“It seemed appropriate.” He reached for her hand and held it. “You don’t need to worry about her or any other woman.”
They ate their dinner and left shortly afterward. Marshall offered to go to Booze’s for a drink or just to hang out a bit, but Jaclyn told him she’d just as soon go home.
On the way home she asked the question he’d been expecting since he’d introduced her to Heather. And hereallydidn’t want to talk about it. His and Heather’s relationship had no bearing on anything.
“Why did you and Heather break up?”
He tried to dodge the question, aware it probably wouldn’t work. “I told you before. We wanted different things.”
“So you said. I’m going to need a little more than that. You said she hated horses and hated the ranch.”
Marshall sighed and gave in. “We dated for four months. It was…pretty intense.”
Jaclyn snorted. “Meaning the sex was hot.”
He shrugged but didn’t dispute her. At the time he hadn’t realized that sex was all they really had in common. “I knew she wasn’t crazy about the ranch, but I didn’t realize she hated it. On the other hand, she didn’t realize there was no way I’d leave the ranch to work in a bank.”
“Good Lord, I wouldn’t think anyone could know you for more than ten minutes and not realize that.”
“We both saw what we wanted to see. And we got along, mostly. But when we started talking about a future together we discovered we wanted totally different things.”
“So the breakup was mutual?”
He gave a short, harsh laugh. “No. I broke up with her and it ticked her off royally. She had a hard time believing I wouldn’t give up the ranch for her. By that time I was pretty disenchanted with her.”
“I can see why.”
“What about you? Any Mr. Rights who turned out to be Mr. Wrong?”
“Just one. I’ll tell you about him sometime, but for now I’d just as soon forget him. I can think of a lot of things I’d rather do.”
He stopped the truck in front of the cottage. “Really? What would those things be?”
She leaned over the console and kissed him. “Come inside with me and I’ll show you.”
“Sounds like a deal,” he said and followed her inside.
Chapter Ten
Friday afternoon, Jaclynset up her cell phone for her weekly video call with her COO, Rachel. She opened her laptop as well, ready to look at whatever Rachel needed to ask her about. She was pleased with how well working remotely was going. In fact, it surprised her since she wouldn’t have thought it would work out quite so well. Of course, she hadn’t been doing it all that long.
After a little small talk, they got down to business. “Anything new I need to know about? Problems? Good news?”
