Page 54 of The Cowboy Comes Home

Emily smiled at that. “You mean the chief does.”

“That, too,” Nic agreed with a grin. “Nobody who has a clue is going to mess with one of Shane Highwater’s people.”

“And he’d be the first one to tell us not to count on that.”

Nic nodded. “He’s a good man and a great chief.”

It was at that moment her phone chimed a text. She looked at the screen, then back at Nic. “Speak of the devil,” she said with a laugh. “His ears must have been burning.”

“I thought it was your day off?”

“It is. He’s just making sure I’ll be there for the briefing in the morning.” Her brow furrowed. “Although I don’t know why he’d think I wouldn’t be.”

“Maybe not everybody is as utterly reliable as you,” Nic teased.

Emily sighed. “That’s me, married to the job.”

The moment the words were out she wished she hadn’t said them. She got up before Nic had a chance to go back to their earlier conversation. She didn’t want to talk any more about Tucker Culhane. She promised Nic she’d be at the saloon next Friday night for the locals’ gathering, and made a hasty exit.

But as she walked back to her car, her old friend’s words rang in her mind.

…I can’t think of a better man to do it with than Tucker Culhane.

Do it with. She so did not want to open the door to all the possible meanings of that particular phrase.

But no sooner did she shove that out of her head than what Nic had told her Jeremy said rushed in.

…you already know how good a guy Tucker is because of how Lobo liked him right away.

The kid had, she had to admit, a point. The once traumatized dog had very good instincts about people. Chance had told her that, although he didn’t know all of what the dog had been through when he’d been serving overseas. But Lobo had proven it on duty here several times already, so why not off duty, too?

And she certainly couldn’t deny she reacted to him. Strongly. Especially for someone who gave little time to such things.

That’s me, married to the job.

Her own words came back to slap her this time. Yes, she loved her work, and knew how lucky she was to have landed at Last Stand PD. But was that really all she wanted out of life?

All she knew for sure was that Tucker was the first man to have her questioning all this in…years. And the more she wrestled with it, the more the certainty grew that this was not something she should turn her back on.

No, she didn’t want to walk away from this spark that struck with this man. She wanted to do something about it.

Maybe even see if it could start a fire.

Chapter Twenty-Six

…what I feelis admiration, and…and other things…

Tucker measured his emotional state by the simple fact that he’d hurled that full bale of hay—and a three-string bale at that, weighing in at about a hundred and twenty-five pounds—to the top of the stack without a twinge. Or at least, not one he felt physically.

He heard a thump from the stall next to the hay storage, and leaned back to look. Pie, Jeremy’s beloved pinto pony, was resting his head on the top of the lower half of the stall door. The little piebald, who had inspired the purchase of the bigger and feistier Splatter, tilted his head so he could look at Tucker, but without lifting it from the door, making him look like some sort of cartoon character. It made Tucker laugh, and it was such a relief he reached out to the hay bale he’d just stacked and grabbed a yummy-looking handful and gave it to the little one.

He was turning to reach for the next bale when he heard footsteps. He straightened to look and was shocked right back into his earlier thoughts when he saw Emily walking toward him.

For a moment all he could do was stare at her. Every time he saw her out of that uniform it seemed to startle him. As it did now, watching her in jeans and a tank top of some silky material that flowed over her. She moved with such elegance, those long legs covering ground so gracefully. She had her hair in a long tail tied at the back of her neck, but he could see it moving with each stride. He barely noticed the big black dog at her side, although the horses did, heads popping out up and down the barn aisle. Especially Splatter, who seemed to recognize his new buddy immediately.

Emily was smiling at him. That registered belatedly, although he suspected that odd burst of warmth he was feeling was related more to that smile than to his exertion of tossing hay bales, or the fact that it had broken eighty degrees some time ago.

“Emily.”

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