Page 13 of Slow Hands Cowboy

She gave him her hand, and lightning shot through her body.

It was like she was back thirteen years ago at high school graduation all of a sudden.

When her feet touched the ground, she felt like they didn’t.

And he was far too close.

He inclined his head, just for a moment, and her breath left her body.

“Congratulations.”

Then he pulled away from her and left her standing there stunned.

For the second time.

Chapter Three

The whole bridal shower experience had left Walker twitchier than a cat’s tail. He was mad, mostly at himself, for how he had handled everything with Addison.

The better part of valor would be to act like absolutely nothing bothered him at all.

To have hidden the fact that he even remembered her from high school, much less that he was holding onto anything overly intense.

But he hadn’t done that.

In fact, he had done the opposite of that.

And echoing that moment at their high school graduation had been the height of stupidity.

Of course, she probably didn’t remember that. Probably had no idea what he was referencing.

Good.

His ego, and his libido, were being major pains in his ass.

Normally, both things served him quite well.

His ego had gotten him into a lot of rooms that a poor kid from Mustang River, Oregon, never should’ve been admitted to, and his libido had done the same, actually. Or maybe that was all his looks, but it didn’t really matter.

None of it really mattered.

No, he had money, so he didn’t really need any of the other things, but that was a whole different thing. Life was unfair, and money made it more unfair in more fun ways for the people who had it.

He could remember being a kid, and thinking that he would do anything to get rich.

Hell, anything had to be better than living like they did.

Anything had to be better than having hand-me-downs and charity that felt like a pitying pat on the head, a moment to make somebody else feel good about themselves, and more grateful for the things they did have as they looked around at the things he didn’t.

Yeah. He could live without that.

Getting rich was the one inevitability of his life. The one thing he’d always known he was going to figure out how to do.

His mom hadn’t done it because she had been tied to kids, tied to a man, and Walker had sworn that he would never be so tethered to anything that he let it hold him back.

He did feel connected to his siblings. A certain level of obligation, but that had never held him back.

When Cody had proven that making it in the rodeo was possible, that was what Walker had chosen to do.