Page 3 of Apple of My Eye

“Fine. Get me home, cowboy.”

I held the passenger door open, offering my hand to help her up, which she didn’t take. I sure as hell buckled her in though, nice and tight.

“I could have managed myself,” she balked. “Like I do with everything else in my life.”

“Yep. But precious cargo, remember? So I need to make sure you’re secure,” I said, and ignored her further ramblings on the issue.

The engine of her rig rumbled to life, and we eased down the hill, out the ranch drive, over the cattle guard, and onto the mountain road, gravel crunching beneath the tires before it smoothed out.

For a minute, neither of us spoke.

She tipped her head back against the seat, eyes half-closed. “Dad used to say this was the most dangerous mile in the county.”

I glanced over. “Oh, yeah?”

“He said people get too comfortable with it. Think they know every curve. That’s when they mess up.”

The only curves I cared about were hers. I took my time on the road anyway.

Her window down, it let in the crisp fall mountain air scented with pine. She hummed softly to whatever tune Cat Country radio was playing, and I let the sound of it fill the cab instead of trying to talk over it.

I couldn’t help but sneak a glance or two her way. The tied-up tee at her waist revealed a little skin. The tan line on her thick thigh showed beneath her cutoffs. And nothingwas sexier than a woman wearing cowboy boots with shorts, in my opinion.

She wasn’t a girly thing, not like her sister Ivy, who ran the boot shop in town and dressed fancy almost every day. No, Daisy hardly ever showed concern for such things. But to me, she was beautiful even if she dealt with horse hooves more than people and smelled like a dusty barn.

I’d watched her work many times, impressed by the way she could read a horse, calming the animal, as patient as anything I’d ever seen. It didn’t hurt that I held a soft spot for redheads. I fell hard from the moment I laid eyes on her.

She hadn’t a clue. No matter how much I tried. No matter the amount of teasing or flirting for the past year, nothing would break down her wall she’d built against me.

“Haven’t seen you at the Cowboy Nights.” I casually brought up the subject of her sister’s matchmaking idea to bring more singles into town. More singles meant the possibility of more coupling, leading to more families and a population spurt for our small town of Forest Grove, at least according to Ivy’s reasoning. Personally, I didn’t need her trying to fix me up with anyone, unless it was with Daisy, but I attended these nights with the guys from the ODRR to support her idea anyway. “Not since the first one, when you tried to introduce me to a nice young lady.”

Her head snapped toward mine. “Did it work?”

“Sweetheart, I haven’t left the Sapphire Saloon with anyone yet. But you attend the last Cowboy Night coming up, and maybe I’ll get lucky with you.”

She snorted. “You really want a woman who threw a drink in your face?”

“Not one of our finest moments. But I could forgive and forget.”

“I apologized, didn’t I?” she retorted.

We’d gone down for a night out in Bozeman with Ivy and Colt. Things were going great between Daisy and me throughout dinner and axe throwing, and I had every hope I’d have her in my arms by the end of the night—that was until a couple of women stopped by our table and thought I was my brother.

I couldn’t help if Maddox and I looked alike. He’d gained quite the following since he became the Montana Frostbite’s star player, the top scorer on ice in the expansion team’s first season.

I had let those ladies take photos with me and talked with them just to be nice. Only Daisy huffed away. When I went to her, I got a beer dumped on my head. To be fair, if I’d seen her talking and taking photos with some guys, it would have had my teeth grinding as well.

Maybe I should have given up on her right then. But her fiery nature kept on the hook. Of course, she went to her motel room, while I stayed at the bar and got drunk. Ended up sleeping it off in Colt’s truck overnight.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, she had climbed into the truck with half a bottle of tequila and told me she was sorry. We drank and talked for a while about horses until we both fell asleep, leaning against each other, shoulder to shoulder until the sunrise woke us up. I took her to the motel diner for breakfast and coffee, and we hadn’t spoken a word about it since.

That was about as far as things between us had progressed because Daisy had walls bigger than the ones crossing China.

“Let me ask you this, Daisy May Wylde…” I chose my next words carefully. “What’s it gonna take for you to let me in?”

She crossed her arms and stared out the side window without another word. Which about summed up my luck with her. Most men might quit trying; not me. Not yet.

I pulled up to her old farmhouse, and she launched out before I killed the engine, but not toward the front door. She moved around the side of the house toward the apple orchard, scrambled over the fence, and got swallowed by the dark between the trees.