Page 19 of Slow Hands Cowboy

“Look at me,” she whispered.

She needed him to look at her. He couldn’t be looking down; what would everyone be thinking? Well, they were all standing up looking at her, so they weren’t seeing what she was seeing, but if they did, they would see a groom that didn’t seem all that interested in his bride or –

His shoulders moved, followed by one foot, and then another. The officiant looked startled as Alan walked right past him and then broke into a run.

He was running away.

He was running away from her.

Running flat out over the green lawn that stretched across the hotel property, toward… He was running toward the woods.

Away from her.

It had only been seconds, but it felt like minutes, it felt like an hour, and she was standing there frozen, watching as her groom fled the scene.

And then, slow motion, like a movie, she saw a horse and rider moving at full tilt across the lawn toward Alan.

Walker.

Sitting on the back of the horse, a cowboy hat on his head, looking the very image of the wild west, her dream, her nightmare, all rolled into one.

He cocked his arm up over his head, and it took her a moment to notice that he was swinging a lasso.

And then he let that lasso fly and hooked it around Alan’s foot, bringing him down onto the grass.

Everyone had their phones out.

They were filming.

They thought this was a bit…

A performance. Maybe.

She could see that half the audience was laughing, the other half looking on in horror. Nobody knew quite what they were witnessing.

Her father had begun to walk purposefully toward where Alan was, where Walker was now jumping off his horse and wrapping the rope tightly around Alan’s body, like he was a recalcitrant calf that Walker was having to subdue.

Walker left the rope there, left Alan bound and lying on the grass, and got back on the horse.

Addison was frozen, watching as Walker rode with speed and urgency toward her.

The whole crowd was in an uproar now, half of them out of their seats. Some, the ones on Alan’s side, were running to where he was tied. Some were simply filming as Walker slowed the horse and walked that horse down the aisle toward her.

All she could do was stare at him.

Then he reached down, picked her up off the ground, and swung her over the horse.

He held her firmly, turned the horse around, and began to gallop away from the crowd.

So fast her shoes fell off.

She had no idea where they were going.

Only that at some point, he slowed the horse down and helped her into a sitting position in front of him, so that she wasn’t simply slung over the horse like a sack of potatoes.

His arm was wrapped around her waist, her body pressed against his hard chest.

He was hot. That heat was the only thing grounding her to the moment. To real life.