Page 81 of The Cowboy's Surprise Return

Man, she’d missed him.

But of course no kisses. They’d broken up.

She blinked at him, trying to register what was going on. He was as handsome as ever, but his expression was somber, and maybe even slightly nervous. Conflicting emotions threatened to overwhelm her.

He glanced past her, shifting from foot to foot, no doubt observing the embarrassing towers of takeout boxes littering her coffee table. She’d like to say she was making up for lost time, given the lack of takeout selections in Sweetheart Creek, but that would be a lie.

She was floundering. Despite checking her peephole whenever she heard a hallway noise, she had yet to meet any of her neighbors. Yes, she’d heard someone last Saturday and had popped out to say hi, but the woman had looked so frightened that Jackie had panicked and pretended she had to check her mailbox, then promptly locked herself out of her apartment.

“Um...” She tore her gaze away from Cole’s delectable shoulders and looked at her wrist before realizing she wasn’t wearing her step-counting watch. In fact, she was in her pajamas despite it being after nine on a Tuesday morning. She hugged her arms around herself and smoothed her tangled ponytail. She wasn’t due at the library until her late-afternoon shift and had planned a full morning of wallowing.

She and Cole had rarely even texted since her move. What was he doing here?

“Trust me,” he said, a hint of question in his voice.

She didn’t want to. She needed to stay reined in, her barely bridled heart looking for its next escape. If she went anywhere with Cole it would bolt. And then she’d have a runaway heart once again, one she wasn’t certain she could trick back into its pen a second time.

She needed to keep her feet rooted to the floor of this stupid, too-small apartment that overlooked a noisy street in a city that was at least ten degrees hotter than Hill Country at any given point in time.

Whatever she did, she needed to say no to Cole. Say no to hope.

Without realizing it, she’d slipped her hand into his extended one, his fingers closing around hers, warm and sure.

She could have sworn she saw a flicker of relief in his eyes.

She was still safe. Still inside her apartment. If she stepped outside of it, then she was going to get her hopes up, have them dashed, and then have even more reason to bury herself in chocolate ice cream. Laura had a lot of good ice cream recommendations and the local grocery store stocked them all. Chunky fudge, chocolate and raspberry swirl, chocolate chip cookie dough with caramel chips… The list was lengthy.

Jackie stepped over the threshold.

“Do you want to put some clothes on?” Cole asked, eyeing her with concern.

She nodded mutely. She could still close the apartment door, lock it, and ignore his pleading knocks.

On stiff legs, she headed to her bedroom and pulled on the bibbed denim sundress she’d worn to work yesterday. She slipped into sandals, walked to her tiny bathroom and ran a damp cloth over her face and brushed out her ponytail. She told Goose to be good, and was out the door before she could allow any thoughts to roam through her numb mind.

Namely, the ones that would stop her from soaking up this gift of time with Cole.

She allowed him to lead her out into the blinding sunshine. Too bad Easter was long gone, as well as a big sale on chocolate, because she was fairly certain that after today’s surprise she was going to need lots of it. And not just the frozen-milk-product kind.

Cole’s truck was idling at the curb, no doubt to keep the cab nice and cool by running the air-conditioning. She laughed, thinking how you couldn’t take the small town out of a man like Cole. He was willing to trust when he shouldn’t.

He must have caught her look, as he said, “It’s locked.”

He proved it by punching the code into the door panel, unlocking the vehicle for them.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s gonna take a few hours. Is that okay?” he asked, looking at her from the driver’s seat. “Carly said you weren’t working until this afternoon.”

Now the strange text messages from Carly made sense. She’d been asking about her shifts and all sorts of other odd things.

Jackie’s hopes buoyed, and she was eager to find out what had been planned between her friends. “Can you have me back by two?”

“Maybe.”

She gave him a look.

“Well, I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.”

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