Slow Burn Cowboy(70)

Seconds had passed, but they felt like minutes. Hours. Whole days’ worth of life-changing moments, all crammed into something that probably hadn’t actually lasted longer than the blink of an eye.

Then it was over. She was the one who pulled away and she wasn’t quite sure how she managed. But she did.

She wasn’t breathing right. Her entire body was shaking, and she was sure her face was red. But still, she turned and faced Wendy, or whichever mean girl it was. There were a ton of them in her non-halcyon high school years and they all blended together. The who wasn’t important. Only the what. The what being a kiss she’d just given to the hottest guy in town, right in front of someone who didn’t think she was good enough. Pretty enough. Girlie enough.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice a little less triumphant and a lot more unsteady than she would like, “we’re here on a date. And he’s going home with me. So I’d suggest you wiggle on over to a different table if you want to score tonight.”

Wendy’s face was scrunched into a sour expression. “That’s okay, honey, if you want my leftovers, you’re welcome to them.”

Then she flipped her blond hair and walked back to her table, essentially acting out the cliché of every snotty girl in a teen movie.

Which was not so cute when you were thirty and not fifteen.

But, of course, since Wendy was gone, they’d lost the buffer against the aftermath of the kiss, and the terrible awkwardness that was just sitting there, seething, growing.

“Well, I think that started some rumors,” Anna said, sitting back down and shoving a fry into her mouth.

“I bet,” Chase said, clearing his throat and turning back toward his plate.

“My mouth has never touched your mouth directly before,” she said, then stuffed another fry straight into her mouth, wishing it wasn’t too late to stifle those ridiculous words.

He choked on his beer. “Um. No.”

“What I mean is, we’ve shared drinks before. I’ve taken bites off your sandwiches. Literally sandwiches, not—I mean, whatever. The point is, we’ve germ-shared before. We just never did it mouth-to-mouth.”

“That wasn’t CPR, babe.”

She made a face, hoping the disgust in her expression would disguise the twist low and deep in her stomach. “Don’t call me babe just because I kissed you.”

“We’re dating, remember?”

“No one is listening to us talk at the table,” she insisted.

“You don’t know that.”

Her heart was thundering hard like a trapped bird in her chest and she didn’t know if she could look at him for another minute without either scurrying from the room like a frightened animal or grabbing him and kissing him again.

She didn’t like it. She didn’t like any of it.

It all felt too real, too raw and too scary. It all came from a place too deep inside her.

So she decided to do what came easiest. Exactly what she did best.

“I expected better,” she told him, before taking a bite of her burger.

“What?”

“You’re like a legendary stud,” she said, after swallowing her food. “The man who every man wants to be and who every woman wants to be with. Blah, blah.” She picked up another sweet potato fry.

“It wasn’t good for you?” he asked.

“Six point five from the German judge. Who is me, in this scenario.” She was a liar. She was a liar and she was a jerk, and she wanted to punch her own face. But the alternative was to show that she was breaking apart inside. That she had been on the verge of the kind of ecstasy she’d only ever imagined, and that she wanted to kiss him forever, not just for thirty seconds. And that was...damaging. It wasn’t something she could admit.

“Six point five.”

“Sorry.” She lifted her shoulder and shoved the fry into her mouth.

They finished the rest of the dinner in awkward silence, which made her mad because things weren’t supposed to be awkward between them. They were friends, dammit. She was starting to think this whole thing was a mistake.

She could bring Chase as her plus one to the charity thing without her brothers buying into it. She could lose the bet. The whole town could suspect she’d brought a friend because she was undatable and who even cared?

If playing this game was going to screw with their friendship, it wasn’t worth it.

Chase paid the tab—she was going to pay the bastard back whether he wanted her to or not—and then the two of them walked outside. And that was when she realized her truck was back at his place and he was going to have to give her a ride.

That sucked donkey balls. She needed to get some Chase space. And it wasn’t going to happen.

She wanted to go home and put on soft pajamas and watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. She needed a safe, flannel-lined space and the fuzzy comfort of an old movie. A chance to breathe and be vulnerable for a second where no one would see.

She was afraid Chase might have seen already.

They still didn’t talk—all the way back out of town and to the McCormack family ranch, they didn’t talk.

“My dirty clothes are in your house,” she said at last, when they pulled into the driveway. “You can take me to the house first instead of the shop.”

“I can wash them with mine,” he said.

Her underwear was in there. That was not happening.

“No, I left them folded in the corner of the bathroom. I’d rather come get them. And put my shoes on before I try to drive home actually. How do people drive in these?” She tapped the precarious shoes against the floor of the pickup.

Chase let out a harsh-sounding breath. “Fine,” he said. He sounded aggrieved, but he drove on past the shop to the house. He stopped the truck abruptly, throwing it into Park and killing the engine. “Come on in.”

Now he was mad at her. Great. It wasn’t like he needed her to stroke his ego. He had countless women to do that. He had just one woman who listened to his bullshit and put up with all his nonsense, and in general stood by him no matter what. That was her. He could have endless praise for his bedroom skills from those other women. He only had friendship from her. So he could simmer down a little.

She got out of the truck, then wobbled when her foot hit a loose gravel patch. She clung tightly to the door, a very wussy-sounding squeak escaping her lips.

“You okay there, babe?” he asked, just to piss her off.

“Yeah, fine. Jerk,” she retorted.

“What the hell, Anna?” he asked, his tone hard.

“Oh, come on, you’re being weird. You can’t pretend you aren’t just because you’re layering passivity over your aggression.” She stalked past him as fast as her shoes would let her, walked up the porch and stood by the door, her arms crossed.

“It’s not locked,” he said, taking the stairs two at a time.

“Well, I wasn’t going to go in without your permission. I have manners.”

“Do you?” he asked.

“If I didn’t, I probably would have punched you by now.” She opened the door and stomped up the stairs, until her heel rolled inward slightly and she stumbled. Then she stopped stomping and started taking a little more consideration for her joints.

She was mad at him. She was mad at herself for being mad at him, because the situation was mostly her fault. And she was mad at him for being mad at her for being mad at him.

Mad, mad, mad.

She walked into the bathroom and picked up her stack of clothes, careful not to hold the greasy articles against her dress. The dress that was the cause of so many of tonight’s problems.

It’s not the dress. It’s the fact that you kissed him and now you can’t deal.

Rationality was starting to creep in and she was nothing if not completely irritated about that. It was forcing her to confront the fact that she was actually the one being a jerk, not him. That she was the one who was overreacting, and his behavior was all a response to the fact that she’d gone full Anna-pine, with quills out ready to defend herself at all costs.

She took a deep breath and sat down on the edge of his bed, trading the high heels for her sneakers, then collecting her things again and walking back down the stairs, her feet tingling and aching as they got used to resting flat once more.

Chase wasn’t inside.

She opened the front door and walked out onto the porch.

He was standing there, the porch light shining on him like a beacon. His broad shoulders, trim waist...oh, Lord, his ass. Wrangler butt was a gift from God in her opinion and Chase’s was perfect. Something she’d noticed before, but right now it was physically painful to look at him and not close the space between them. To not touch him.

This was bad. This was why she hadn’t ever touched him before. Why it would have been best if she never had.

She had needs. Fuzzy-blanket needs. She needed to get home.

She cleared her throat. “I’m ready,” she said. “I just... If you could give me a lift down to the shop, that would be nice. So that I’m not cougar food.”

He turned slowly, a strange expression on his face. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want you to get eaten by any mangy predators.”

“I appreciate that.”

He headed down the steps and got back into the truck, and she followed, climbing into the cab beside him. He started the engine and maneuvered the truck onto the gravel road that ran through the property.