Page 194 of Cowboy Daddies

Unfortunately, the woman who had bumped into him wasn’t as lucky. She let out a cry of pain as hot coffee splashed straight onto her bare foot.

“Why the hell aren’t you wearing shoes?” he demanded.

“I am wearing shoes!” she yelped as she grabbed hold of her foot, hopping around.

When she nearly fell, he reached for her, picking her up and carrying her straight into the diner.

“What happened?” Aggie asked immediately.

“Hot coffee on her foot. Got to get some water on it.”

“Get her into the staff bathroom,” Aggie ordered.

He strode out to the backroom.

“I’m fine. Put me down. I don’t want you touching me,” she grumbled at him.

“I’ll stop touching you when your foot is under cold water,” he countered.

She stiffened but didn’t say anything more as he set her down on the counter and placed her red foot under the cold water.

Hissing, she tried to pull her foot away from the running water.

“Leave it there,” he ordered.

“It’s too cold,” she complained.

“It’s got to be cold to cool down the burn,” he told her.

“It’s going numb,” she said.

“That’s fine. Stay.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “You don’t have any right to boss me around. I’m taking my foot out and leaving.”

He simply crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her with one eyebrow raised. “Wanna bet?”

“Urgh! Of all the people to run into, it had to be you. You’re just determined to be a pain in my ass, huh?”

“I can be a pain in your ass if you like,” he countered.

Her mouth dropped open. “W-what?”

Suddenly, he realized how that sounded. “I wasn’t saying . . . I wasn’t talking about being a pain in your ass. I wasn’t talking about anal sex!”

A throat cleared behind him and he froze.

For fuck’s sake. Could his day get any worse?

Well, her day was going great.

She was down to her last five hundred dollars. And she had no idea how much a starter motor cost, but she was betting that it was more than that. She’d already stopped eating just to stretch her last few dollars.

Casey was going to have to call one of her brothers and ask to borrow some money to get her to Santa Barbara. That was a humiliation that she kept putting off. But she couldn’t do that for much longer.

So not only was she broke, hungry, and a bit light-headed, but she’d bumped into her nemesis, who’d spilled hot coffee all over her foot.

Yes, that’s right.