Page 16 of My Cowboy Valentine

Glancing at his left hand, he frowns, excusing, “It’s nothing.”

“No, it’snotnothing,” I counter, stepping forward and feeling suddenly like the bossy older sister who has to keep everyone in line and uninjured. Grabbing his hand, electricity arcs between our hands. His nostrils flare, and his eyes dilate.

Keep it together, Red. You patched this man up countless times as a kid. You can do this.

But something massive has changed since his childhood and my teen years. I can barely think, let alone breathe, as my fingertips graze carefully over the angry flesh of his wounded hand, every touch sizzling and sparking with undeniable need. By the way his breathing picks up, he feels it, too.

Keep your fucking cool. You’re a forty-year-old woman!

I examine his knuckles gently, desire gripping me with each innocent sweep of flesh against flesh. I swallow hard, trying to remain unaffected by the simmering, unspoken alchemical reaction. It doesn’t work. “You need ice for this and to tell me how you did it…”

He scowls, clearing his throat. “Just punched a table while talking to your pain in the ass brother the other day. It’s nothing.” His voice sounds raw and bothered.

“Stop saying that. Ignoring it won’t make it go away, and the least you can do is ice it,” I say more forcefully.

“Since when do you care about my injuries, Red?”

I lean back on my heels, shaking my head. “Since when? Maybe you’ve forgotten, Ronald, but I’ve patched you upplenty of times. Your knees…your elbows…your forehead,” I say, tipping back his hat and running my finger along the scar still visible on his temple to a hail of more sparks. I inhale sharply, and his eyes darken. “That’s from when you fell into the corner of the brick fireplace at my parents’ ranch house. And here,” I say, fingering another scar on the inside of his right wrist where his pulse pounds. “From baking cookies with me for the school carnival…”

He frowns, his eyes settling unrepentantly on my lips. “Don’t go getting all sentimental now.”

I arch my eyebrows, my gaze fixing on his lips in return, my breath sounding in shallow pants…

His voice breaks the spell. “But if it makes you feel better, you can ice my goddamn knuckles. I was planning on doing it with a beer bottle anyway.”

“Wrong side, dipshit,” I grumble, as if sharp words will dispel the thick tension in the room. Padding into his kitchen, which is easy to find thanks to the open floor plan, I open the freezer and search for an ice pack.

I can feel Rowdy behind me, searing me with his hungry gaze. “You’re serious about the ice, huh?”

“Of course I am. But where are your ice packs?”

He shrugs.

“Seriously? You don’t keep ice packs on hand? I find that strange for someone as accident-prone as you,” I say more to myself than him.

“Accident-prone? Maybe as a kid but not now. Red, I’m a PRCA World Champion. Didn’t you ever watch your brother and I compete? If I were accident prone, I’d be maimed or dead by now.”

“Fair enough,” I reply, my eyes wandering to his muscular shoulders and chest. “I guess we’ve both done plenty of growing up.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, his eyes drifting to my tits again. If that’s how we’re going to play this game, that’s how we’ll play this game. I let my eyes drop to his package, which his tight-fitting Wrangler’s do a nice job of objectifying.

Clearing his throat loudly, Rowdy suggests, “Use a ziplock bag.”

“A ziplock bag? What?”

“For the ice pack.” He says it slowly and darkly, like an audiobook narrator reads a sexy scene. “You know, fill it with some ice, and I’ll put it on my damn hand. Cause what we’re doing right now will only end one way, Red. I don’t know who you think you’re fooling.”

Putting his head down, he strides back into the living room, leaving me red-faced and mortified.What in the hell am I doing?I take a deep breath, willing myself to pull it the fuck together. Then, I search the drawers of his ample light-colored wood cabinetry until I find a bag and load it with ice. New rule. No touching or staring…under any circumstances. Re-entering the living room, I throw the ice-filled bag harder than I need to in his direction. He catches it effortlessly.

“You should’ve thrown like that in high school, Red. They’d have let you be more than the softball team’s benchwarmer.”

There’s nothing worse than your sworn enemy knowing everything about you. But two can play at this game. “That’s a rich comment for the first baseman who lost us state.”

Rowdy shakes his head, licking his lips. “I wasn’t the only one who flubbed it that day.”

“Yeah, but you were the last one to flub it, and that’s what counts,” I declare, sitting across from him on the floor with the coffee table between us, holding the pizza and beers. I grab a bottle, using the bottom of my sweater to untwist it. The only way I’m getting through this night is with alcohol.

“You better watch it there, Red. You’re at elevation now.”

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