Page 39 of Fall or Nothing
“Noted. Will that be served at the Thanksgiving meal?”
“Should be.” She reached into a cupboard. I adjusted my focus to uncorking the bottle instead of the press of her hip against mine in a kitchen built for one person at a time. “And my sisters and I always bring the apple pies, made with apples from our orchard.”
“Yum. Apple is my favorite. Bake an entire one just for me and you’d have me at your mercy.”
“Right where I want you.” She batted her eyes. Mm. I liked this side of her.
I put a slice of the pizza on each plate, and she carried them to the dining table in the quaint little apartment. I brought over the stemware, wine, and corkscrew, and noticed then, she’d set up candlesticks.
“Guess I won’t waste the beeswax on just pizza,” she muttered, shifting them out of the way.
“Why not? We can romance pizza. Can’t we?” I tossed my hat on the table and then reached for the lighter, winking at her as I lit the candles. My ex-girlfriend would have had a fit if I’d brought home a pizza and just wanted to chill. She needed to be out, visible in public, making a scene at all times.
Not Sage. She beamed at me, her smile warm and inviting. She turned off the lights, setting the table and the creamy skin of her shoulder softly aglow by candlelight.
Between mouthfuls, she asked, “So, who was thatwoman with the man today on tour with Ash in the barn? She thought she knew you?”
My hand froze halfway to my lips
She watched me carefully, no malice in it, just a question sitting plain on her face, waiting to see what I’d do with it.
“You heard that in the barn?”
“Seemed like a strange interaction.” She shrugged, handing me an out I hadn’t earned.
In truth, I did know the woman, Miriam Buchanan-Astor, a long-time society friend of my mother’s. I never had met her sons before, but the fact she recognized me could have been a huge problem here.
“To her, I looked like someone she knew.” I chuckled, quickly deflecting. “Or, maybe, she was a horny old woman, taking any opportunity to have a longer look at me?”
She joined in the joke. “Yeah. We’ll go with that, because every woman wants a hot cowboy.” She pressed her lips together.
“Hot, huh? Is that what you think of me?”
“You have your moments.”
I licked my lips. Every plan I’d had for a calm, civilized dinner slipped sideways.
“Tell me something about you I don’t know yet.” She sipped her wine and flirted with her eyes above the rim.
I thought about lying, but there’d been too much of that to keep track of. Then I thought about her on her knees earlier, beside me in the straw, petting the newborn foal today, and decided she deserved better.
The honest truth. “I don’t know who I am sometimes.”
“You’re Carter James.”
“It’s not the name that’s the problem.”
“Then what is?”
“Guess I’m just the cowboy wondering what would have happened in that room at the Sapphire Saloon if the door hadn’t opened.” I reached over and pressed a lock of hair behind her ear. My fingertips traced down her cheek, my thumb landing on her lower lip. “I’ve been thinking about you all week. Mostly at three in the morning, in my bunk when the guys are snoring too loud, keeping me awake. Which is a very inconvenient time to be thinking about a woman.”
“What were you thinking?”
“About your cowboy rule, and how you don’t make things easy.”
“I usually don’t. But I might make an exception for you.” Her hand found the front of my shirt, not pulling, just resting there above my heart. I covered it against my chest, my blood pumping overtime to keep up. “In fact, maybe we should kiss again and find out what happens next.”
She leaned forward, cutting the distance between us, tilting her head. My heart jumped; I met her the rest of the way. Our mouths connected in the middle, sweet and soft, mere brushes, hinting of wine and garlic. Then she opened for me, taking as much as I was giving, our tongues teasing. The kiss we’d left back in that room finally landed exactly as I’d imagined it would.
