Page 5 of Last Chance Cowboy
His eyes were a deep forest green, and she couldn’t help but notice the color right now. Really notice it. There were glimpses of gold in his eyes, and a darker ring around the outside. For a moment, she was held completely captive by those eyes.
For a moment, she couldn’t think, much less speak.
“Go on,” he said. “You’d better get.”
“Fine,” she said. She didn’t know what she had meant to say. She didn’t know if maybe she could’ve come up with something cleverer if she had given it a minute. But she hadn’t.
So instead, she got back into her car and drove down to Cody’s house. Well, Cody and Marlowe’s house. They still stayed in the apartment at the hotel sometimes, but mostly they lived at Cody’s place. He had a huge, beautiful ranch house out in the middle of the property, and they ate there a couple of nights a week.
Cara was in something of a unique position. Because while she worked on the Painted Ridge Ranch, she did not live there. That was most of the employees, to be fair, but she was someone with an ownership stake, someone who was close to the family by proxy, and yet, she wasn’t right there with all of them.
Zane had his own place, of course. His own property. But even still, he was a neighbor.
Cara lived in the town of Mustang River, about twenty minutes away.
It was a cute town, and she liked that she could walk to shopping, restaurants, and local bars if she wanted to.
In theory. She didn’t do much of any of that. Mostly, she worked on recipes, got up early, and made sure the bakery was perfect before opening every day, so that all of the sweets were ready to go.
Then at the end of the day, she had a drive home. So even though she ate with everyone sometimes, she didn’t do it as often as they did.
It made her feel a little bit outside of things. But it was a choice that she had made. She shrugged off her discomfort, chalked it up to the fact that she had just had a strange encounter with Zane.
Truth be told, every encounter with him made her feel like running a lap and throwing up.
It was like a pure shot of adrenaline into her veins, even if the encounter was completely benign. And this hadn’t really been benign.
She parked alongside Cody’s truck and could see that Walker, Lila, and their family friend Nolan were already there as well.
She got out and saw that the whole family was out back, standing around the barbecue, baking in the late June heat.
“Hello,” she said.
She received staggered greetings from the group in response to hers.
She took a deep breath. “Zane agrees. You can run a trail ride on his place once a week.”
Cody’s head jerked up so fast his cowboy hat nearly fell off his head. “How did you get him to agree?”
“I told you,” Walker said. “Beauty tamed the savage beast.”
Cody looked extremely put out by that, and Cara wasn’t sure why.
Marlowe put a hand on her man’s arm. Calling Cody aboyfriendwas juvenile, like the term crush. He wasn’t a boy. But he and Marlowe weren’t engaged yet, andloverwas just creepy.
“That’s not what happened at all. Though, he did take my bribe. I think he’s just tired of being bothered. Which is actually why I think you sent me, Walker, giving him an indication that he was going to be harassed until the end of days if he didn’t say yes.”
Walker looked innocent. “Me? Stoop to emotional manipulation like that? Yeah. That sounds trite.”
“God help any woman stupid enough to ever try to tangle with you,” his younger sister said, shoving him so that he went off balance and nearly tumbled onto the grass.
Nolan crossed his arms, grinning. “She kind of has a point,” he said.
“You’re really going to side with my sister?” Walker looked offended.
Nolan shrugged. “When she’s right. As rare asthat is.”
Lila looked like she was about to launch a verbal assault on Nolan, and Cara barreled right along, not allowing a fight to break out between the two of them. If Lila and Nolan got going, no one else would get a word in.
