Page 41 of The Cowboy Comes Home

He was Emily’s boss.

Jackson introduced them, and Tucker was edgily trying to think of something to say when Shane Highwater said with a grin, “I owe you thanks.”

Tucker blinked. “What?”

“For saving me from having to do that speech thing. Yours was much better anyway.”

“Oh.” Tucker relaxed a little. “I got through it, at least.”

“After what you’ve been through, I’d think a little speech would be nothing. You quite impressed my wife.”

Tucker blinked. He hadn’t quite made that jump yet, either. “She was…easy to talk to.”

“She is that,” Highwater said, smiling like a man thoroughly and completely in love. Like Jackson smiled at Nic. And Logan smiled at Tris.

The kind of smile he’d never get. The kind he didn’t deserve.

He made an excuse about wanting to look around some more, and they let him leave. It was a strange feeling, familiar yet different. It had been a very long time since he’d been anywhere near a rodeo. He didn’t want to be some has-been wandering around places where he’d once been a star. He’d thought himself long past that, yet here he was, feeling…tense. Almost like he had back when he’d been headed for the arena himself, yet not quite. He couldn’t put a name to the difference, just that it was—

“Must be strange for you.”

He stopped dead as the voice came from just behind him. The voice he already knew so well. He turned his head, wondering how he hadn’t sensed her presence. Then realized that maybe he had, maybe that was the tension he’d been feeling.

“Emily,” he said, almost to himself.

She smiled at him. And suddenly his brain was rocketing off in weird directions, remembering his thoughts about certain smiles just moments ago. Because this looked…similar. Not like, exactly, but…like it could become one of those smiles.

He gave himself an inward shake as he realized she was speaking and he wasn’t hearing.

“—wouldn’t blame you if you’d never set foot at a rodeo again.”

“I…haven’t. But this was different somehow.”

Only then did he realize Lobo was sitting quietly at her feet, looking up at him. He leaned down to stroke the dog’s head. Then straightened to look at her, into those golden eyes. “Don’t think I could do that in L.A.”

“I hear their dogs are a little harder there.” A wry half-smile curved her mouth. That mouth, those lips… “I imagine they have to be.”

“Everything has to be.” The words were out before he even thought. And even he couldn’t deny he sounded a little harsh.

“And everyone?” she asked.

“Yes,” he admitted. And then something in those eyes, something warm, encouraging, not sympathetic—he hated being pitied—but empathetic made him add, “People are nicer here.”

Her smile was wide and pleased now. “Yes. We are. So you’d fit better here.”

He had to rein in his words, which wanted to respond rather fiercely to that. “If that was a compliment, I’ll take it.”

“It was.” She paused, as if she were having the same second thoughts about her words as he’d had. But then she went on. “One of many I could think of.”

It was like a kick in the gut. And now it was as if he’d forgotten how to think, how to be cautious. And before he could stop himself he was asking what was boiling up inside him.

“I know you’re working, but do you get a break? Like for lunch, or at least a lemonade or something? I hear the saloon here has some special stuff at a stand over by the burgers and stuff.”

That smile of hers became nothing short of brilliant now. “The peach lemonade? You haven’t tried that yet? Well we can’t let that go on.”

He found himself grinning back at her. All his misgivings, his doubts seemed to fall away. He’d asked her for a not-quite-date, and she’d reacted as if she’d been waiting her whole life to hear it.

She glanced at her watch. He was noticing the device seemed a bit heavy for her delicate wrist when she spoke again. “I need to make a circuit of the grounds, but in about an hour I can—uh-oh.”

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