Cowboy Take Me Away (14 page)

“He seems kinda uptight,” Eve said.

“Not really,” Cynthia said. “He’s just careful about things.”

“Like I said. Uptight.”

Cynthia just smiled. “And he’s a good dentist.”

“Well, that’s exciting.”

“And he’s really nice to his patients when they can’t afford stuff.”

“Really?” Eve said.

“The other day, I overheard him tell a patient who couldn’t afford a filling that he needed practice on that particular procedure, so if she’d let him do it, he’d only charge her half.”

That surprised Shannon. She’d always thought of Russell as the kind of guy who was a little too proud of his professional services to ever discount them.

“But his diet,” Cynthia said. “Now,
there’s
something that needs to change.”

“His diet?” Shannon said.

Cynthia shuddered. “He eats frozen stuff out of a box almost every day for lunch. The ones that are nothing but a scrap of chicken and a pile of vegetables.”

“Oh, that. He’s just careful about his health.”

“In other words, uptight,” Eve said.

“Will you
hush
?” Shannon said.

“One time I offered to share my homemade macaroni and cheese with him,” Cynthia said. “He looked at it as if it was poison.” She shook her head sadly. “Too bad. He needs comfort food more than any man I’ve ever met.”

Shannon thought about her favorite homemade comfort food—a scoop of chocolate ice cream on top of a Twinkie covered with whipped cream out of a can. If she and Russell ever did get married and he expected her to cook, he’d be out of luck.

A minute later, Tasha slid onto the barstool next to Eve and set her giant orange handbag on the bar. She wore a casual jersey dress cinched by a skinny silver belt. The dress hit her mid-thigh, but it looked even shorter when she wore the platform pumps she had on this evening. Silver chandelier earrings came within an inch of grazing her shoulders.

“You made it after all,” Eve said.

“I was supposed to do a dry run on Trina Dobson’s up-do for her wedding, but she canceled.”

“The appointment or the wedding?”

“Both. I don’t have the details yet. I’ll let you know.” Tasha looked at Shannon’s hair and frowned. “You have split ends.”

“Hello to you, too, Tasha.”

“Right there,” Tasha said, flicking the ends of Shannon’s hair. “And they’re only going to get worse.”

Shannon worried about a lot of things, but split ends wasn’t one of them. “I’ll be in for a haircut soon.”

“You’re also getting gray hairs.”

“It’s stress,” Eve said.

“It’s genetics,” Shannon said. “You have gray hairs, too. You just cover them up with your color of the week.”

Eve turned to Tasha. “Stress.”

Terri set Tasha’s usual Diet Coke on the bar in front of her. Tasha had told them once that alcohol was nice, but that nobody wanted to see what happened when she had one too many. And for a woman her size, she said,
one
was one too many.

“So what’s stressing you out?” Terri asked.

“Luke Dawson,” Eve said.

“Yeah, I heard he was back in town,” Tasha said. “Is he still as hot as he used to be?”

“Oh, you bet he is,” Eve said.

Shannon turned to her sister. “Will you let me speak for
myself
?”

“Okay,” Eve said. “Your turn. Is he as hot as he used to be?”

Shannon gave her sister a deadpan look, then shook her head and took another sip of her margarita.

“Who’s Luke Dawson?” Terri asked.

“A guy we went to high school with,” Eve said.

“Ah,” Terri said. “The one who’s working for Shannon now.”

Shannon slumped with disbelief. “Has everybody in the whole town heard about him?”

“Uh-huh,” Terri said. “And from what I hear, he’s bad to the bone.”

“Terri,” Eve said, “
you’re
bad to the bone.”

“True. Which is why I’ll never hold it against him.” She glanced over at a nearby table. “Uh-oh. Shonda’s getting slammed out there. Gotta go take an order.”

She swung around the bar and went to a table where four young women sat. They wore capris and sparkly sandals, and designer handbags hung over the backs of their chairs. The band had shut off the music so they could test sound levels, but the women’s chatter was almost as loud as the jukebox had been.

“We were heading for our girls’ weekend in Austin,” one of them told Terri. “And we saw this place on Yelp. The reviews said it has a lot of local flavor.”

“And the best margaritas ever,” one of the other women said.

“And curly fries,” the third woman said. “I
love
curly fries.”

The fourth, a petite blonde with too much makeup and a haughty expression, glanced at the stuffed javelina. “I see you have a wild boar by your door,” she said, looking Terri up and down. “I’m betting you shot it yourself.”

The other women snickered.

“You betcha,” Terri said. “Dropped him with a single shot right between the eyes. I don’t stand for anything charging at me, man or beast.”

Of course, the javelina had actually come from an estate sale Eve had run a year ago, but Terri had never been one to let the truth get in the way of a good story.

“Shall I make that four margaritas, then?” she asked the women.

Three of them nodded enthusiastically. The blonde, however, shook her head. “No. I’ll have a glass of Prosecco.”

“Champagne?” Terri said. “Honey, we don’t even have that on New Year’s Eve.”

The blonde looked exasperated. “Do you have white wine?”

“Yep. I think I can scare up some of that.”

The only reason Terri sold wine in addition to beer and hard liquor was because Cordero Vineyards was right in her backyard, and she wholeheartedly believed in supporting her fellow businessmen.

Just then, the squeal of microphone feedback filled the room. Rufus lifted his head and howled, and everybody in the place laughed. Everybody except the little blonde, who crinkled her nose with disgust. “Oh, my God. You have a
dog
in here?”

“That’s not a dog,” Terri said. “It’s an eighty-year-old man with an extra-long nose and floppy ears.”

“No, that’s a dog,” the blonde said, as if it needed saying.

“You do realize you’re in Rainbow Valley, don’t you?” Terri said. “Where pets outnumber people?”

“But I can’t believe you keep an animal in a place where you sell food.”

“He lives here,” Terri said. “It’d be downright unhospitable for me to ask him to leave.”

The woman turned up her nose at Rufus, then leaned in and whispered none too quietly to her friends. “That is
so
unhygienic. What if he licks something?”

Terri put her fist on her hip. “His mouth is a damn sight cleaner than yours, Twinkie.”

The blonde whipped around. “Ex
cuse
me? What did you just say?”

“Did you really not hear me, or are you asking me to repeat it because you think I won’t?”

The woman raised her nose a notch. “I’d like to speak to your manager, please.”

“Don’t have one of those.”

“Then I’d like to speak to the owner.”

“You’re talking to her.”

The woman drew back. “You’re the owner, and you talk like this to your customers?”

“I’m the owner, and I talk like this to people who say nasty things about my dog. Now, you gonna order, or should I get Rufus to lick something so you’ll leave?”

The woman snatched up her purse. “Come on, girls. Let’s go.”

“But I’m hungry,” one said.

“And they have curly fries,” another said.

“And margaritas—”

“Now!”

As the blonde and her entourage hightailed it away from the table, Shannon, Eve, Cynthia, and Tasha looked at each other with trepidation. Sure enough, Terri followed the women all the way to the door.

“Uh-oh,” Eve said. “Here it comes.”

“And don’t let the door hit you in the ass!” Terri shouted.

“Oh, my God,” Shannon said, dropping her head to her hands. “It’s a wonder she has any customers at all.”

“Hey, that woman was crabby,” Cynthia said. “I’m glad she’s gone.”

“Me, too,” Shannon said. “But Terri has bills to pay.”

Terri came back to the bar to find all three women staring at her. She blinked. “What?”

“You might try being a
teensy
bit nicer to your customers,” Eve said. “Even the difficult ones.”

“Okay, so how about I send that blond chick over to the Red Barn and let her bitch about the cat cooties all over your furniture?”

“On second thought,” Eve said, raising her glass, “life’s too short to put up with pissy people.”

The women clinked glasses and drank. A few moments later, the band stopped tuning up and the lead guitarist took the microphone.

“It’s nice to see all y’all here tonight,” he said. “Let’s get this party started!”

With that, the band launched into a bouncy country song, and everybody cheered. Couples got up from tables and made their way to the dance floor. Shannon, Eve, Cynthia, and Tasha turned on their barstools to watch. Shannon never danced—she’d been born with zero rhythm and a pitiful lack of coordination—but she liked watching other people do it.

“Oh, my God,” Tasha said. “Look who’s over there.”

“Where?” Shannon said.

“At that table in the corner. By the jukebox.”

Shannon looked toward the jukebox and just about spilled her margarita.

Luke?

F
or several seconds Shannon held her breath, feeling as if the world had suddenly jolted to a halt. Luke looked good. No, not good.
Great.
When she’d seen him that afternoon, he’d been dirt and sweat from head to toe. But now…

He wore a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and even at this distance, she had no difficulty admiring the way that shirt stretched across his broad, muscled chest. His straw hat dipped low over his forehead, and his hands were wrapped around a beer. A second later, he tipped that bottle up to take a sip, highlighting those tanned, muscled forearms. Just watching him made her mouth go dry as dust, and she could have cheerfully sat right there and stared at him for the rest of the evening. Hell, the rest of her
life
. She fought the feeling, but she was one margarita down already, making resistance impossible.

But what kept her from enjoying the view were the two young, attractive women who sat at his table, one on either side of him. Luke seemed to be listening to them as if they were actually saying something interesting, which Shannon doubted. After all, they weren’t exactly dressed to impress him with their intellect, which meant he was probably more fascinated by what was below their necks than what was above them.

Then he turned around and looked directly at Shannon.

She swallowed hard, wishing she’d turned away before he looked at her. Now she felt compelled to play the game—who was going to blink first? The music pounded inside her head, mingling with her friends’ mindless chatter, but she kept her attention on Luke. She put the straw to her lips and sipped her margarita, the icy liquid doing nothing to counteract his hot gaze. But she didn’t care if a meteor hit, she wasn’t blinking. Then one of the women tapped Luke on the arm, and he automatically turned to look at her.

There.
She’d won!

But then the woman was running her fingertip up and down Luke’s forearm, sitting so close to him their thighs were almost touching. Shannon frowned. If she’d won, why did she feel like such a loser?

“Has he been there the whole time we’ve been here?” Eve asked.

“He showed up about ten minutes before you guys did,” Terri said. “Do you know him?”

“Oh, yeah,” Eve said. “That’s Luke Dawson.”

“Oh, my God,” Tasha said, her big eyes even wider than usual. “I see why you’re stressing. He’s way hotter than he was in high school, and that’s saying a lot.”

“I didn’t think you liked cowboys.”

“I don’t.”

Then came another surprise. Luke rose from his chair, took one of the women by the hand, and led her to the dance floor. Moments later they were two-stepping to the music.

Shannon watched with astonishment. Even favoring his knee, he danced with the kind of grace a man his size should never have had, looking far more at ease in front of a crowd than she could ever have imagined. The Luke she’d known would have hung back in the shadows, his hat brim shading his eyes and emphasizing his brooding expression. Yet here he was dancing like a man who’d spent hours in honky tonks from coast to coast, picking up women and twirling them around dance floors.

“I don’t believe it,” she said. “He’s dancing.”

“I know,” Tasha said.

“Why is that weird?” Terri asked.

“You didn’t know him before,” Tasha said, looking confused. “He wouldn’t have…it just wasn’t like him to…” Finally she just shook her head. “Luke Dawson dancing is just
wrong
.”

Shannon agreed wholeheartedly. And yet there he was doing it.

The song ended. Luke escorted his partner back to their table, and when the band started the next song, he danced with the other woman he’d been sitting with. Shannon just sat there, stunned. And when song number three came, he headed to the dance floor with yet another woman.

“He sure likes to have a good time, doesn’t he?” Eve said.

“Yeah, he’s really energizing the place,” Terri said. “Maybe I can pay him to show up every night just to keep things hopping.”

“You could have a Ladies’ Night,” Eve said. “Promise them Luke will be here to dance with every woman in the place.”

Not every woman
, Shannon thought.

Not that she cared one way or the other. She took a hefty sip of margarita number two, telling herself to ignore him, but when he danced with another woman, it started to feel as if he was deliberately ignoring her. He probably knew her better than anybody else here, yet he hadn’t even spoken to her?

As the latest song wound down, Luke returned his partner to her table. Then he turned around, looking at Shannon so intently she felt as if her panties were melting.

Then he started toward her.

“Oh, God,” Tasha said. “Here he comes.”

Shannon held her breath, suddenly feeling hot all over. She didn’t want to talk to him. Not here. This was a social occasion, and she wanted to keep their relationship strictly business. So if he thought he was going to sit down and chat, or buy her a drink, of course the answer would be no. And dancing—that was out of the question.

As he drew closer, she tightened her resolve.
Stick to your guns. Turn him away. Don’t even think about
—

“Hey, Eve!” Luke said. “Wanna dance?”

“Dance? Hell, yes.”

She jumped off her barstool. Luke took her by the hand and led her to the dance floor. And Shannon sat there watching, totally dumbfounded. Eve was being Eve, dancing and smiling and laughing, and Luke actually looked as if he was having a good time, too. A few minutes later when he returned her to her barstool, Shannon thought,
Okay, now he’ll at least say hello.

Instead, he grabbed Tasha, who gave him a look of sheer panic. But he just led her to the dance floor, and soon she was dancing in spite of herself.

“Whew!” Eve said, sitting down and reaching for her drink. “Cowboys really aren’t my type, but for that man, I might make an exception.”

A minute later, Luke swapped Tasha for Cynthia and headed to the dance floor. It was official. He was definitely ignoring her.

“Any reason he’s not asking you to dance?” Eve said.

“I don’t like to dance.”

“Does he know you don’t like to dance?”

Shannon didn’t know. Could that be it? He knew she didn’t like to dance, so he didn’t bother asking her?

She frowned. No. Of course not. He couldn’t know. When had she ever been around Luke when there had been a band and a dance floor nearby?

A few minutes later, the band took a break. Luke went to the jukebox. The women were chatting away, a conversation Shannon was barely following. Luke was clearly mocking her. That was the only explanation. He was deliberately making her look like a wallflower by asking every other woman in the place to dance except her.

Enough of this. If he wouldn’t talk to her, she’d go talk to him.

As she slid off her barstool, a little voice inside her head told her it was probably a bad idea, but after a couple of margaritas, she told the little voice to shut up. She strode up beside the jukebox, where Luke stood flipping through the songs.

“Hey, Shannon,” he said, sounding annoyingly cheerful. “Didn’t know you were going to be here tonight.”

“I didn’t know you were going to be here, either,” she said, trying to sound as disinterested as she could. But when he was paying attention to every woman there
except
her and then staring at her to flaunt that fact, disinterest was the last thing she felt.

“What song do you think I should play?” he asked. “How about ‘Should Have Been a Cowboy’?”

“You already are a cowboy.”

“Didn’t say it was autobiographical.”

“You worked all day. Isn’t your knee about to give out?”

“Ah. You’re worried about me again.”

“Once again, you’re useless to me if you can’t walk.”

“I’m ahead of schedule on my rehab. The physical therapist said the more I use it, the better it’ll get. So I thought I’d hop over here tonight and use it.” He flipped to another page of songs. “Ah. How about this one? ‘Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys’? A good song and a great lesson all rolled up in one.”

“You’ve sure been doing a lot of dancing tonight.”

“That’s right.”

“With every woman in the place.”

“Now, that’s not entirely accurate,” Luke said, still flipping through the songs. “I haven’t danced with you.”

“Hmm. That’s right. You haven’t, have you?”

“Did you want me to?”

“No. I don’t dance.”

“Don’t dance, or can’t dance?”

“It’s not exactly a talent of mine.”

“So if I’d asked you to, you’d have said no?”

“That’s right.”

“So why are you mad at me for not asking you to?”

“Mad? I’m not mad.”

“But you are wondering why.”

Shannon opened her mouth to speak, then realized how dumb it was for her even to be standing there having that conversation.

“Maybe it’s because you have a boyfriend,” Luke said.

Shannon froze, relief washing over her. Of course! That was it. How could she not have realized that? She and Russell weren’t seeing each other exclusively, but Luke didn’t know that. Suddenly she felt better. Not that she really cared one way or the other if he asked her to dance, but—

“Now wait a minute,” Luke said, suddenly looking confused. “Maybe that’s not it at all.”

Shannon frowned. “It’s not?”

“Let’s see…maybe it’s because you’re my boss. If we danced together, it would be inappropriate.”

“Since when do you care about what’s proper?”

“I don’t. But you do. I’m just looking out for you.”

“So you’re not asking me to dance because I’m your boss?”

“I said
maybe
it’s because you’re my boss.”

Shannon frowned.
Well, thanks a lot for putting my mind at ease.

Luke continued to page through the songs. Slowly. Thoughtfully. She wanted to shout,
Will you pick one, already?

“I was surprised to see you dancing,” she said. “You weren’t exactly the outgoing type when we were in high school.”

“True. But you know what I found out?”

“What?”

“Women like to dance. If I wanted to meet women, I had to learn how. So I did.”

“It still surprises me.”

“People grow up. I’ve changed, and so have you.” Luke turned to look directly at her, the cadence of his voice slowing, its tone deepening. “You’re even more beautiful now than you were back then.”

His effortless downshift from teasing to sexy caught her off guard. She felt a hot blush rise on her cheeks, which aggravated her to no end.

“Well, there’s one way you haven’t changed,” she said. “You’re still looking for ways to get under my skin.”

“I thought by now you would have learned how to take a compliment.”

“I thought by now you would have learned not to use flattery to get what you want.”

“So you think I want something?” he said, his eyes slowly sweeping down her face to her neck to her breasts, where they lingered a second or two, before coming up to meet her eyes again.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Do you?”

He rested his elbow on the jukebox, leaning so close she could feel the warmth of his body mingling with hers.

“Oh, yeah,” he said.

Shannon felt a million nerve endings come to life, making her hyperaware of every breath he took. No matter how methodical and driven she’d discovered he’d become, those few steamy words told her he hadn’t lost all of the wild unpredictability he’d been so full of as a teenager. But she didn’t move away. That would signal retreat, and where Luke was concerned, she knew she’d better not give an inch.

He put coins into the jukebox and pushed a couple of buttons.

“Enjoy the song,” he said.

With that he tipped his hat down and walked toward the door.

Wait a minute. He was
leaving
?

He threw a couple of bills down on the bar and nodded to Terri.
No, no, no! Tell me what you want!
But as he left the building and she heard the song he’d chosen to play, she realized that was exactly what he’d done.

“Let Me Touch You for a While.”

The music washed over her, making her whole body feel hot and weak. Luke wasn’t even in the building, yet he was making her so hot she was on the verge of spontaneous combustion.

With the song still playing, she went to the bar. Grabbed her purse.

“Where are you going?” Eve said.

“Home.”

Eve started to say something else, but the last thing Shannon wanted to hear was her sister’s take on the situation. She shoved open the door and hurried into the parking lot, thankful when the door closed behind her, muffling the song and its lyrics. She took a deep breath of the humid night air, then headed across the gravel parking lot to her truck. But as she drew closer, she realized Luke hadn’t left after all. He stood by her truck, his arms crossed, leaning against the driver’s door. Even at this distance, she could feel his gaze flooding over her like a hot caress.

She shoved her purse strap more firmly onto her shoulder, stood tall, and told herself to walk a nice, straight line to her truck. But as she approached the driver’s side, she could tell he had no intention of moving. All she wanted to do was go home, but how was she supposed to do that with a big, stubborn cowboy in her way?

She cursed the fact that she’d had to park in almost the last row, where the neon lights were dim and the night was so quiet she was sure he could hear her heart beating. She stopped in front of him. “I thought you were leaving.”

“Changed my mind.”

“Well, I’m going home.”

She reached into her purse and fumbled around. Wallet, lipstick, tissues, sunglasses…where the
hell
were her keys?

There.

Just as she snagged them and pulled them out, Luke grabbed the strap of her purse and pulled her right up next to him. He’d taken a wider stance, and her hips brushed his inner thighs. Still grasping her purse strap, he slid his other hand along her upper arm from her elbow to her shoulder and back down again, leaving goose bumps in its wake.

“You’re drunk,” she said.

“Two beers? Not hardly. How about you?”