Page 44 of Slow Hands Cowboy

She smiled. “You’re missing out.”

He looked at his phone and swiped a few times. She could see the exact moment he spotted her video. He had his sound off, but she had captions on the video.

“I see. Ride a cowboy, huh?”

“It’s an expression in these parts.”

She moved past him and he caught her arm. “For what, exactly?”

Her heart pounded hard, like a trapped bird in a cage trying to escape. “Fucking, I think.”

Her breath rushed out of her lungs in a gust, and she felt suspended. Never had she ever said something like that to a man. Let alone to a man who was like her own twisted, sexual heaven and hell rolled into one.

It was dangerous. Playing with Walker in any capacity. Playing on the same team, trying to agitate him like they were opponents, all of it.

Because she didn’t feel neutral about him, unfortunately.

She hadn’t back then, and she didn’t now.

Just acknowledging that terrified her. She was standing there, mouth open, staring up at him, her heart fluttering wildly.

It was attraction.

Intense. Horrible. Overwhelming attraction.

But attraction didn’t have to mean anything, it didn’t have to do anything to disrupt your life, didn’t have to play into any of your decision-making. Those were decisions that she’d made a long time ago.

Walker was emblematic of that decision. Or rather, the fact that after all this time she had never gotten any closer to Walker, had never allowed herself to play with that particular brand of fire, was emblematic.

“We have reservations at La Befana.”

She tried to laugh. “Anna thought that you would.”

“Because she’s a good campaign manager. It’s definitely the place to go to be seen on a Friday night. If one is trying to engage the social elites of Mustang River.”

He said that last part dryly.

It was funny, because she supposed she was part of the class that would be considered the social elite of Mustang River, but she did have some awareness of the fact that it was a niche social group.

Because Mustang River was niche.

Of course, everything that she did here, her work, her campaign, it was her whole life, so it was the most important thing she could think of, even while knowing that in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t like most people would find this town to be all that important.

Wasn’t like most of them would find it impressive that her father had been the mayor of this tiny little community out in eastern Oregon?

But she didn’t really need to impress anybody.

Maybe he didn’t realize that.

He probably didn’t.

He seemed to carry a heavy amount of resentment inside of him. Against her, against the community. And as she followed him out toward the truck, the question that had been quietly forming low in her stomach escaped her mouth.

“Why exactly did you come back here?”

He opened up the driver’s side door, looked at her over the top of the cab of the truck, and then slipped inside without answering.

She opened her own door and got inside.