Page 80 of The Cowgirl's Secret Love
“Crutches and ice cream are a dangerous mix.” He licked his ice cream cone and made a noise that ought to be illegal. “This stop alone was worth the trip.”
“Yeah. For me too.”
Was it terrible that she couldn’t take her eyes off his tongue? Probably not, considering she knew exactly how talented it was.
Envious of an ice cream cone. Awesome.
He must have caught her drooling, because his gaze grew heated and that dangerous smolder was back. Totally distracted, the next thing she knew, her ice cream was running down the side of the cone and over her fingers.
“Let me help.” Finn grabbed her wrist and tugged her hand close to run his tongue over her skin.
News alert. Spontaneous combustion outside ice cream shop in small-town Alberta.Yep. That would be the feature headline in tomorrow’s news stories.
Eventually, she and Finn ended up at the consignment store where, to Karen’s absolute delight, something special was waiting at the far end of the store.
She stopped dead in her tracks, lifted a hand, and pointed. “Finn?”
“Coming. Narrow aisles are a little bit hell on—oh,hello. Do they fit?”
She took the pair of red cowboy boots off the shelf, snooping around until she found a place to sit. And when her foot slipped in, there weren’t only joyful lights going off around her but an entire stage with spotlights.
She stood and gave a little twirl, her feet cradled in sheer comfort.
Finn cleared his throat then tilted his head behind her to the far wall. “Is that your size?”
The dress displayed on the wall had enough frills to make it swing as she moved, and it fit her perfectly.
The man in front of her was quieter. But his eyes… Oh, his eyes said a whole hell of a lot.
Two days later, outside the main house at Lone Pine ranch, Finn sat beside her, their fingers linked as they waited for the wedding to start. He’d found a pair of black pants that fit over his cast, a dark shirt, and a red vest.
How he’d found a vest that exactly matched her boots in so short a time, she didn’t know.
But they looked like a couple, and they felt like a couple. The sensation in her belly was a lot more like fireflies than anything else.
The usual chitchat and discussion drifted around them as they waited for the event to begin. Eventually Brad made it to the front of the area where the chairs were arranged as an outdoor sanctuary. He stood under the apple tree with Malachi Fields at his side. The older man looked slightly amused about something.
Hanna’s little girl, Crissy, came down the aisle, a silver bucket in her hands full of all sorts of flowers from the masses blooming around the house.
“Hanna has the same good taste in flowers as you,” Finn whispered in Karen’s ear.
She squeezed his fingers as Hanna walked past. Little white flowers dotted the braid on top of her head. She wore a simple white dress and an expression of utter adoration on her face as she stared at Brad.
Then Brad and Hanna were promising to love each other into the future. The vows included a whole bunch of other sweet words, but Karen was too busy trying to deal with the image of her and Finn doing the same thing to focus on the actual details.
Something inside burst like a dam that had received its final blow.
Screw it. Finn had said he wanted more. If she wanted to hunt fireflies, then she should look for the biggest, brightest, most incredible fireflies in the entire world.
Which meant telling him what she truly wanted and then making it happen.
The wedding moved from orderly to chaotic. There were more than enough people willing to direct the crowd from the ceremony to the party. Karen caught up with her friends, chatting with the girls she’d so naively cut herself off from the last time they’d gathered.
There were no hard feelings, though. It was clear that when she stepped into a conversation, she was welcome.
Once the meal was over, they all headed outside to where music had begun playing.
Rose all but bounced in place with excitement. “Excuse me. Now is when my bachelor pays his dues.”
