Page 37 of The Back Forty
I don’t need to look. I already know who it is. It's the reaction most people have when they see my boss in all his six-foot-four, handsome glory.
My stomach drops, flips, and flutters all at once and slowly I turn. Lawson's striding into the bar like it belongs to him, all slow confidence and clean lines. Faded, light-wash jeans that hug his hips in a way that should be illegal. A black V-neck shirt pulled taut over his chest, dipping just low enough to show the edge of the tattoo inked over his heart.
I know it's Beckham's name and birth date because I saw it months ago when we trialed a hotels swimming pool in western Montana during one of our trips. It’d been an innocent midnight dip, but I hadn’t been able to stop admiring the strong muscles that he keeps trapped under his clothes.
The cowboy hat shadows his jaw, but I can still see the way his mouth curves when his eyes find me. That smile. That devastating, low voltage smile that zaps something deep in my core. He walks like temptation. Like trouble wrapped in denim and leather and silence.
“Oh god,” the bartender murmurs when she realizes he's looking right at me and walking towards us too. “He’s with you?”
I don’t look at her. I can’t take my eyes off him because something shifted last night when we were laughing on my bed side by side, and I'm not sure what it is. There’s a difference in the way he’s looking at me and I can feel it.
“He’s my boss,” I whisper, voice hoarse.
His hand lands casually on the back of my chair and it feels like he’s branded me. I try not to lean into it. Try not to imagine what it’d feel like if he gripped my hips like this instead.
I wonder if he knows what he does to people. To women. To me.
God, I hope not.
I shift in my seat, suddenly hyper-aware of every inch of my body. I repeat the mantra I’ve been clinging to for over a year:He’s your boss. Nothing more. You love this job. You need this job. Focus on a flaw he has.
The one missing tooth near the back of his jaw he told me got knocked out wrestling with Cash when they were kids.
Right. That. A missing tooth. That should help.
Except somehow, eventhat’sstupidly endearing today. You can only see it if he opens his mouth really wide, but I love that it roughens up his otherwise perfect exterior.
“You ready?” he asks, his voice low and gravel rough as he tips his hat politely at the bartender in respectful greeting.
I’m not even remotely ready. But I square my shoulders, nod, and meet his gaze. “Yeah,” I say, forcing my voice not to waver. “Let’s do this.”
I slide off the barstool, trying to remember how to walk like a functioning adult and not someone whose limbs have turned to jelly. My hands smooth down the front of my jeans. They’re flared at the bottom, a little nod to bell-bottom country fashion,and the denim’s stiff in that fresh, barely-broken-in kind of way that hugs my hips tightly and shows off my curves.
The top is pale yellow, soft cotton with short sleeves and a high neck that sits snug against my collarbone and I'm wearing daffodil colored earrings, and a cream cowgirl hat that Isla made me purchase last week when we took Catalina shopping in town.
It’s modest. Simple. Sweet. Not exactly my usual pitch outfit but today is different.
Back in Silicon Valley, I used to wear sleek black suits and heels sharp enough to kill a man. My hair was always blown out to perfection, makeup polished within an inch of my life and most of my pitches and interviews I've gone on with Lawson, I've dressed the same way.
But this? This outfit feels like wearing a costume. Like playing dress-up in someone else’s idea of likable. But Lawson was firm about it this morning before we left his house.“These guys want small-town, Southern charm.”
Even if they’re oil executives in five-thousand-dollar boots who probably spend their weekends at private lodges and vote for politicians that think women belong in the kitchen instead of running companies and telling men what to do.
So, no pressure or anything. Just land a client he’s been chasing for years while dressed like a cowgirl.
I glance at him, suddenly hyper-aware of everything about me. He’s watching me with that same unreadable expression, eyes trailing slowly over my outfit. His face gives absolutely nothing away. I can’t tell if he thinks I nailed the look or if I’m about to humiliate us both.
Or if maybe, he’s thinking about last night again. About what he saw when he barged into my room.
I swallow hard and try to focus. “Do I look fine?” I ask, trying for casual but hearing the nerves laced through every word. "Do I look like I'm trying too hard?" I spread my arms out wide and do what I imagine is a quick line dance and then tip my cowgirl hat at him playfully.
He clears his throat and looks away, jaw tight. “Yeah. It’s fine.” Then he turns and walks off like that’s the end of it. Like I’m not spiraling behind him.
“Hey—wait up!” I call after him, already fumbling for my things and then freezing when I realize I left my freaking tablet back at the bar.
Perfect.
I spin around, heart in my throat, and rush back toward the bartender, who’s already holding it out for me with a wide grin across her pretty face.
