Page 86 of The Cowgirl's Chosen Love
“I’m going to put on so much weight if I’m not careful,” she said. “It’s nice to not get nauseous at just the thought of food.”
“Considering you lost weight with your pregnancy, I don’t think putting on a few pounds is a bad thing,” Lisa pointed out.
Rose and Tansy held up their pictures side by side.
“There’s a theme,” Tansy announced. She looked straight at Lisa. “Five bucks says you can’t figure it out.”
“What you mean there’s a theme?” Rose asked indignantly. “I didn’t agree to that.”
“Trust me,” her sister insisted. “Heck, there’retwothemes.”
Lisa examined the two poster boards closer. Rose had written the word BEAUTY across her page in all sorts of fonts, with a dozen different markers. Some italics, some block—all of them floating at different angles. Between each she’d glued pictures of knickknacks, flowers, and what looked like beautiful earrings and jewellery.
“Very pretty,” Julia said.
“And now mine.” Tansy wiggled her board from side to side. “Guess if you can.”
Kelli made a face. “You’re a cheater. You didn’t put any words on your page.”
“Didn’t need to.”
Lisa took a closer look. Tansy had been snatching up all the pictures of good-looking guys she could find, or at least their bodies. Not all of them had heads, but all were fit, muscular, and in some way, partially presenting their backsides.
Lisa’s laughter emerged and she squeezed the baby in her arms a little tighter. “Oh, you’re bad. You’re good, but you’re very bad,” she chastised Tansy.
Tansy looked disappointed. “You figured it out already?”
“You can give me my five bucks tomorrow morning in the form of a latte.” Lisa didn’t bother to keep the gloating out of her voice.
Tyler went from sleeping to screeching in his usual three point five seven seconds. Tamara hauled him away, settling him to eat as quickly as possible. “Don’t make us keep guessing. Or at least give us a hint.”
“I just did.” Lisa could not stop gloating.
Tamara grumbled for a moment before tilting her head at Julia. “See what you you’re in for? Years of being annoyed by this woman.”
Julia was focusing hard, glancing between Tansy and Lisa. Her lips moved as if she was reciting the words that had just been said and then her lips twitched up. “I get it.”
“You can tell us,” Brooke said, staring into the glass as she swirled the liquid. “I’ve had three of these and I’m not thinking very straight anymore.”
Julia pointed at Rose’s board. “Flowers, knickknacks—that’s what Rose sells in her shop.” She swung her finger toward Tansy’s bevy of beefcake.
“That’s not what Tansy sells,” Hanna said with a soft snicker.
“I would if I could, but laws and yada, yada, yada.”
“Oh my God, it’sbuns. You two did a collage of Buns and Roses,” Kelli said in the midst of a hearty giggle.
Lisa made a motion for Rose and Tansy to exchange places. “And there’s the second theme. Beauty and the Beast.”
They were all thoroughly amused. As they looked through the poster boards that Hanna, Brooke and Kelli had made, laughter stayed present. Especially since Kelli’s was ninety percent horses and ten percent boots.
Lisa wasn’t even sure she’d picked up the right board when they all teased it was her turn. There were some appropriate things on there, like a picture of New York and the Sydney Opera House. There were guitars and cowboy hats, and tents on a remote mountainside wilderness.
But right in the middle, almost underlining the word that she’d determinedly written down as inspiration—a pair of masculine eyes stared off the page. Nothing else. She didn’t remember doing it, but the paper had been ripped to remove almost all of the man’s features leaving nothing but clear blue eyes staring intently her.
Familiar eyes looking directly at her as if to demand he be a part of her adventure.
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