Page 34 of Eighteen Bowties and Counting
“No, we don’t,” she called back, and then her bathroom door slammed closed, putting the final punctuation mark on the conversation.
“Well.” He looked down at Pepper and Ruby, who’d been witnesses to the whole thing. “I suppose that could’ve gone worse and it didn’t.”
Ruby responded by turning and trotting over to her food bowl. She sat down next to it and looked at him expectantly.
“Yeah, all right,” he said. “I’ll feed you two, but then Charlotte and I are going out, and I don’t want you to be tearin’ papers off my desk while I’m gone. Ya’hear?”
Oh, they both heard all right. Whether they’d listen to him and leave his stuff alone was another story.
Once the dogs were eating, Beau retreated to his bedroom and closed the door too. He wanted to “pick Charlotte up” for their date, and that meant knocking on the cabin door and waiting for her to come answer it.
So he needed to finish getting ready and then make himself scarce for the next hour. Then, he might just be on his last first date. The thought made his heartbeat quiver, and he headed out to go spend some time with his mini donkeys.
He could tell Jasper, Sprout, and Tilly all about Charlotte—oops, he already had. But they didn’t know about that afternoon’s incident in the training ring, and they’d want to hear about it. Plus, then it would be off his chest, and they could talk about the forthcoming date too.
Then, he’d be able to return to the cabin at the appointed time for his first date with stubborn, smart, sassy Charlotte Wisenhouer.
Chapter Twelve
Charlotte looked at the duo of dogs lying on the couch together. “Where did he go, huh?” She grinned at them and leaned over the couch to give Pepper a rub. The black lab immediately rolled onto his back while Ruby looked at her like she was still deciding if she wanted to be touched.
“You know you do,” Charlotte said to the dog. “You always act so aloof, but I know you love me.” She moved her hand over to Ruby, whose eyes lazily closed in bliss she tried not to show. Charlotte giggled at her. “See? You love it.”
She needed the dogs to calm her before this date. Beau had said he’d leave the cabin so he could come pick her up “cowboy-gentleman proper,” and she’d simply sent him a thumbs-up emoji and told herself she’d worry about her twisted emotions later.
Well, later had arrived, and she still didn’t quite know why Beau made her blood vibrate in her veins. Or why Charlotte worried that this date could either make them or break them. “Please don’t let it break us,” she said. Because if it did, she still had to live with this man. Live with him and work with him.
A knock sounded on the door, and Charlotte spun toward it. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had come to the door to pick her up. She hadn’t lived alone in so long, and it took her a few extra seconds to give her legs the command to go answer the door.
She yanked it open too hard, and it almost crashed into the wall behind it. Charlotte managed to stop it before her hand got smashed, and she looked straight at the epitome of cowboy perfection standing in front of her.
Almost.
A grin pulled across her face, and she said, “You have a little bit of mud on your face.”
He immediately reached up to wipe it away, but it clung to his cheekbone and had dried in his beard. Charlotte found him adorable and handsome all in the same package, and she took a step closer. “Let me.”
The moment sobered between them as she reached toward his left cheek with her right hand and gently brushed at the dried mud until it was gone. His hand settled on her waist, and Charlotte switched her gaze from his beard, which had a little bit of sexy gray growing in it, to meet his eyes.
“Charlotte,” he whispered.
“You can’t kiss me before the first date.”
“No?”
“I’m feeling a little faint,” she said, though she wasn’t.
The flirtiness on his face vanished, but Charlotte giggled. “I’m kidding, Beau, but….” She stepped back, because her heart had started to pound like a big bass drum in a marching band. “I haven’t kissed a man in a long, long time. I’m just a?—”
“Nervous,” he supplied for her.
“Yeah.” She swallowed. “A little nervous, and I’d like to go out first.” She leaned back into him and hugged him, thrilled when his arms came around her too. He sure knew how to hold a woman, and Charlotte wondered if maybe they should just cancel the drive to town and the loaded baked potato and spend the night dancing in each other’s arms.
When she wasn’t looking at him, it seemed easier to talk to him. “It just—sort of feels like we’re doing things out of order, you know?”
“I’ve done things in all the right order,” he murmured. “It’s never worked out all that well for me, so I’m not too worried about the order of things.”
“Well, I am.”
