The Hard-to-Get Cowboy

If she was sitting there wondering what went into the creation of a rebel like him, he wasn’t about to give her answers.

He wanted to get back to the flirtation. He hadn’t met anyone in Thunder Canyon who’d made him forget all the tough questions that had been echoing in his brain ever since the wedding brawl, and he wasn’t about to lead her into thinking that he was the kind of guy who was even comfortable having that type of conversation.

Leaning his elbows on the table, he sent Laila his most lethal grin.

“If you’re thinking of asking me questions, don’t.”

“Questions about what?”

“Serious stuff. The kind of questions that come after a first date.”

She laughed, as if he’d stepped over a line she’d already drawn with him. “Are you saying this is a date?”

“Nope.” He lowered his voice. “But when we do go on our first one, I’m just laying out some ground rules. I don’t want to hear any of the kind of questions that make you narrow your eyes like that.”

She was flustered, and he hadn’t expected that from a graceful, composed woman like Laila Cates.

“When we…?”

“When we go on our first date,” he said, completing her sentence, enjoying the hell out of the chase.

Because he always got what he wanted when it came to women, and Laila Cates wouldn’t be an exception.

“I never said I would—”

“You didn’t have to, Miss Laila. But you know damn well that we’re going to go out.” He lifted an eyebrow. “It’s just a matter of when.”

Chapter Two

He sure was cocky, Laila thought, her pulse racing so fast that it felt as if she was running.

Jackson Traub—arrogant and altogether too confident.

And they were talking about a date.

Her. Him.

She could just imagine what her parents—no, the whole town—might say if they caught wind of this conversation. Laila Cates, the proper bank manager, the woman who did everything according to the letter, hanging around with a rabble-rousing Texas stranger.

But then a different type of thought altogether started to take shape in her mind… .

What if going on a date with a fly-by-night man like Jackson Traub could convince Cade Pritchett that she really wasn’t longing for stability and marriage?

Suddenly, she liked the whole idea. Especially since, even if she wasn’t looking to settle down, there would be no future with Jackson, anyway. Because the talk around Thunder Canyon was that he was merely here to work on that oil shale project.

Here and gone.

There was an appeal to that. And there was a definite appeal to him, too, as he sat across from her with that crooked grin, all playful cowboy, the complete opposite of a man like Cade.

What would be the harm in just one date?

But then something went swirly in her belly, melty and hot, trickling downward until it settled in the core of her.

She shoved the sensation aside.

“Come on, Laila,” Jackson said, his brown eyes glinting with that flirtiness she’d seen before. “I’m just talking about a date, not a marriage proposal.”

Wasn’t he a card.

Or, more to the point, a wild card.

“Very funny,” she said.

“Don’t tell me a man doesn’t have a chance with you.” He sent a glance over his shoulder, toward the door where Cade had disappeared only moments ago. “Or maybe there’s something else to it.”

She had the feeling he was going to go somewhere she didn’t want to go.

“Maybe,” he said, “there really is something between you and Pritchett, even if you were desperate to get away from him less than five minutes ago.”

Jackson said it in a teasing way, as if he didn’t believe it for a second.

Was there anything this Texan didn’t see? It was as if he could read her through and through.

Yet she refused to dignify his question with an answer. She knew when a troublemaker was stirring it up.

He chuckled, just as the jukebox went silent, leaving only the laughter from the bar patrons.

She crossed her arms over her chest.

“We both know that there’s no way you’ll end up with a nice guy like Pritchett.” He put the glass to his lips, drinking.

His throat worked with every swallow.

She couldn’t take her eyes off him, couldn’t stop herself from thinking what it would feel like to have her lips against that throat, the warm skin roughened by stubble from a five o’clock shadow.

But she managed to pull her gaze away before she offered evidence that he was right about her being attracted to a bad boy over a good one.

“I may not end up with Cade,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean I’d put myself in the position of ending up anywhere with you.”

He put down the drained mug. “Shot through the heart, Miss Laila. You’ve got some excellent aim.”

“And you don’t know enough about me to go around predicting who’s my type and who’s not.”

“I can sure guess.” He sat back in his chair, long-limbed and laconic.

A wise girl would have gotten up from the table by now, heading through the door for home, where it would be safe. But here she was flirting with him.

And she didn’t want to stop.