Million Dollar Cowboy (Cupid, Texas #5)(115)

Emma hefted the basket onto the marble counter, moving it this way and that, cocking her head to assess her handiwork, attempting to find the most strategic spot for all angles. "I would have taken care of the flowers sooner, but when I stopped by the clinic to drop off Sam's lunch, he had a whole different kind of meal in mind."

"Oh."

Emma wriggled her auburn eyebrows. "Word to the wise, a quickie on an exam table is not as sexy as it sounds."

"I . . . um . . . never thought . . . well . . . um, okay."

"Sorry, was that too much information?" Emma grinned as if she wasn't the least bit sorry. Her husband was one smoking hunk and she didn't mind letting everyone know they had a spicy sex life.

In all honesty, it wasn't Emma's frank talk that gave Paige pause, rather it was the realization that she'd not ever done anything as halfway intrepid as have a quickie on an exam table.

The bravest thing she'd ever done was to take up residence on a houseboat. And as far as sex went, well, she wasn't exactly a femme fatale. Never mind the Santa Baby costume she had on.

"Now if you want to talk sexy . . ." Emma winked.

No, no, Paige did not want to talk sexy with her employer.

"Room nine at the Merry Cherub has a seven foot jetted tub. Fun!" Emma paused, her face turning dreamy at a hot memory. "Or try midnight under the Sweetheart Tree in Sweetheart Park. And do bring a blanket."

"Um, doesn't that violate public nudity laws?"

Emma looked like a sly cat that had slurped up all the cream. "Sometimes a girl has to let down her hair and take a walk on the wild side."

Wild side, huh? Yeah, well about that . . . not her strong suit. Paige was more the look-both-ways-ten-times-before-crossing-the-street type.

"But I shouldn't be standing here gabbing about sex. Got lots to do. Would you guard the doors and not let anyone unauthorized in until one-thirty? The town council has been my riding my butt about letting people in early." Emma rolled her eyes as commentary on the town council.

"It's five-after-one," Paige pointed out.

"Right, so keeping 'em out for twenty-five minutes shouldn't be hard. You'll only have to monitor the side door. All the rest are locked. You can unlock them all at one-thirty." Emma disappeared into the theatre in a float of red hair and the scent of violets. 

Guard the door for twenty-five minutes?

Sure, she could do that. Paige marched over to monitor the side door at the same moment a guy pushed his way in, bringing a bracing breath of cool December air. She was just about to reroute him when their eyes met.

They both stilled.

Man. O. Man.

Snow dusted his thick ebony curls and broad shoulders clad in a faded denim jacket over a red plaid flannel shirt. He was average height, five ten or eleven, but he had a presence about him that made him seem much larger.

He was lean and narrow-hipped in a pair of well-worn Wranglers, and only the Patek Philippe watch at his left wrist and his handmade James Leddy cowboy boots said he was anything more than an ordinary cowboy.

But his smile!

Dazzling. White. Killer Diller.

Oh, that smile was the dangerous thing!

Sprung from full, angular lips that twitched irresistibly as he stared at her-into her-with laser beam focus.

It was a dynamite, TNT, nitroglycerin kind of a smile that detonated every nerve ending in Paige's body, firing off round after round of tingly, breathtaking explosions.

"Hi," he said and she forgot that she was supposed to say, Doors don't open until one-thirty.

Instead, her jaw dropped and her tongue welded to the roof of her mouth, and she made a guttural sound. "Um . . . um . . ."

His smile deepened, moved up to crinkle around his heart-stoppingly gorgeous gray eyes.

He came nearer, walking with a sauntering, old-west gunslinger gait, the door closing behind him, the sound of his boots reverberating across the polished marble floor.

And still she did not tell him to leave, mainly because she couldn't find her voice. It had gotten tangled up in his smile like a lasso around a bull's heels.

The way he moved, smooth and easy, slammed in her chest and snatched her breath from her lungs.

Couldn't talk. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.

She was a fish on a hook. Well and truly caught.

"I'm here for the performance," he said.

Wait outside, she should have said, but her tongue remained glued to the roof of her mouth, peanut butter stuck.

Her first day on the job and she couldn't complete one simple task. Tell this red-hot stranger to wait outside with everyone else until the doors officially opened.

But it was clear he was not a man accustomed to following the rules. What applied to regular folk didn't apply to Greek gods in cowboy clothing. Did it?

C'mon. Snap out of it.