Page 26 of Austin
*
Kristen woke witha start, rising on one elbow and pushing her hair back with her free hand as she tried to remember where she was, why she was outdoors. Why she was no longer soaring through the air, as she’d been doing just seconds before.
The stirring behind her brought her crashing back to earth. She wasn’t flyingoverthe valley. She wasinthe valley, in the bed of a pickup truck, the crisp April air nipping at her.
With a bull rider snuggled up against her rear end.
She was half afraid to look over her shoulder at Austin, who would, no doubt, be the picture of early morning male sexiness. She wasn’t yet ready to face such a thing.
She had no choice.
“Finally,” Austin murmured as if it were approaching noon. Since the sun hadn’t yet cleared the horizon, she didn’t believe that was the case.
“What time are we leaving?”
“Right after coffee.” He smiled a little, his eyes crinkling at the corners as if she amused him.
“What are you smiling at?”
“You look kind of good all rumpled.”
“Rumpled. Thank you.”
“It was a compliment.” He didn’t smile, but his voice was low and intimate. Warm and seductive. Kristen barely kept herself from swallowing.
Right. A compliment.
He put a hand on her shoulder then and drew her back down, so that they were once again face to face, as they’d been the night before, only now she could see his face clearly. His eyes were so damned blue—blue with white streaks that made them seem even bluer. And his mouth…she allowed her gaze to slide down and hold on his perfectly carved lips.
She needed to think of something else. Immediately.
“Those things I said last night—”
He put his fingertips on her lips, startling her into silence.
“Don’t backslide on me, Kristen.”
“Hey, you guys! Coffee!”
Kristen let out an audible breath at Ellie’s yell and Austin scowled…as if he honestly wanted to continue the conversation. Why?
She wanted to ask him, but the words froze in her throat. Thankfully, Ellie gave another shout from the house.
“We’d better move,” she said.
“Yeah.” His expression told her that he thought she was engaging in avoidance tactics. She saw it differently. What she was avoiding was none of his business, and she felt massively self-conscious…no…she feltvulnerableabout the things she’d said yesterday. This morning. She’d revealed her weak spots.
Austin rolled his bedroll while Kristen folded her borrowed blankets and carried them back to the house.
Ellie smiled at Kristen. “I hope you weren’t too uncomfortable last night. I don’t usually make my guests sleep in the truck.”
“Actually, it was very comfortable.” Except for the ways in which it wasn’t, which had nothing to do with the sleeping arrangements. She was still marveling at the things she’d told Austin. Half regretting them. It’d been the darkness and the intimate setting and the fact that there was something inherently seductive about Austin. That ‘something’ had threatened her back in the day when she’d found him so tempting that she had to make certain he kept his distance, and it was threatening her now.
It was also making her very, very curious about a lot of things she had no business being curious about.
*
It was stillearly when she and Austin drove north to I80, the sun stretching its rays across the pale blue and lavender desert, and glinting off the sagebrush on Kristen’s side of the truck. It was a beautiful morning—one of those rare mornings where she actually felt a small stirring of hope. She’d had a good time yesterday. Better than she could have imagined. For a short period of time she’d forgotten about all the crap in her life and simply existed in the moment.
