“All right.” He stepped up next to her, studying her out of the corner of his eye. She watched his hands too close when he held a knife, so he’d quickly gotten into the habit of delegating all the chopping to her. This time, when he pulled a paring knife out of the butcher block, she only smiled and tipped a sideways look in his direction.

“Did you see that last spin I got out of Socks today?” she asked. “Haunches never budged.”

“I did notice that, actually.” He divided each peach into sections, handling them gently so they wouldn’t bruise. He had to fight back a smile every time the knife moved and her eyes didn’t follow it. “It was a beautiful thing. Absolutely beautiful.”

Seven

Dust hung in the popcorn-scented air, the dirt by the fence malty with spilled beer. By the rodeo grandstands, the women’s going-to-town-day perfume was too thick to breathe. LJ had moved down the rail until he was closer to the bull chutes, where all he had to contend with was the grass-green tang of manure.

He’d been busy all morning, warming up his lariat and other people’s horses, polishing hooves, and spraying ShowSheen on every animal in sight until both trailers full of Lawler horses were shiny enough to star in a shampoo commercial.

Now he was taking a break. Ever since Andra had stepped out of the trailer’s tack room, dressed to perform, he’d felt a little like a drunk man playing sober. He needed a second alone to reassure himself that he knew how to walk the line.

Gone were her ragged jeans and baggy T-shirts with horsey sayings on the front. Instead she wore a shimmering, champagne-hued silk shirt that drifted all soft and flimsy over the curves of her breasts, nipping in at her waist before it gave way to a set of black chaps tailored to the flare of her hips. Golden letters down one leg said, “Miss Rodeo Wild Falls 2008.” But it wasn’t the clothes, or the lipstick making her lush mouth look even more kissable than normal. It wasn’t even the spill of black curls that bounced saucily against the small of her back. It was the way her spine stood tall, her muscles coiled with excitement, not nerves.

Andra was always beautiful, but with the kind of confidence that practically invited you to stare?

She was stunning.

He’d been gritting his teeth all day against the other cowboys whistling at her, but as long as she was safely on her mare’s back, Andra just laughed and waved at them. Under that tiara-spangled Stetson, she was a whole new woman. One he wanted and didn’t recognize all at once.