Chapters (43)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Epilogue
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Readers Guide
- QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
He wasn’t so sure they had stopped. It had been only a few days, after all. He didn’t want to jinx it, though, in case she was right. “Nothing to trigger bad memories, maybe?” He turned his head enough to kiss her cheek. “And hey, if you happen to like making love in a backyard shed, that’s all right with me.”
As soon as he said it, it hit him that she’d never said it back. She had only said she loved his voice. He’d told her he loved her so many times now—with his saxophone, with his body, with words, and she’d never said it back. Sometimes, she looked at him in a certain way, and he thought maybe . . . But he wanted more than maybe. His heart was so tied up in this girl that he knew damned well he was never getting it back.
Then again, maybe she was the smarter of the pair of them. He was starting to doubt he was ever going to be able to leave his mama or New Orleans for long, but he could already feel the itch of going a whole week without riding a horse. He loved his life in Montana, living his days to the rhythm of the wind and the animals beneath his saddle.
And location was even less of a choice for Andra than it was for him. She owned part of that ranch, and the better part of the Lawler reputation was built on trophies won by horses she’d trained. Plus, she was welded by the heartstrings to that palomino mare of hers.
Andra lifted her head from his shoulder. “You okay? Or is the heat killing you, too?”
He grabbed his shirt off the floor and handed it to her so she could get cleaned up. “Missing my cowboy hat, that’s all.”
She got up out of his lap, her face lighting up.
“What?”
She grinned, and blushed the tiniest bit. “Next time we do that, will you wear your cowboy hat?”
Her smile soothed some of the ache in his chest even as it stabbed a little deeper, because he never wanted her to turn that smile toward any other man.
“Darlin’, if you let me do that again, I’ll wear anything you want,” he said. “Except pants.”
Thirty
“Faster!”
Andra picked up the pace of her whisking, frowning down at the uninspiring tan goo in the skillet.
“Faster, girl, or the roux’s going to burn.” Rose clucked her tongue.
“Why don’t we turn down the heat if it’s going to burn?”