Page 60 of Cowboy Stole My Heart
Mia went quiet then. He glanced at her, taking his eyes off the road twice to see her side profile, the way she was so obviously deep in thought as she sat there, staringstraight ahead. Sam sighed and decided to lighten the hell up. She wasn’t asking to be nosey, she’d been trying to make conversation and he’d been an ass about it.
“Mia, I’m not the best at—”
She shook her head when he paused and looked at her again. “It’s fine. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“There’s no great love to speak of, but I’ve had my heart broken before if that’s what you were asking. Haven’t we all?”
“Yeah, I suppose,” she said. “Although I’ve more had tiny pieces of my heart broken off multiple times than one big break.”
He softened, his jaw losing the tight clench he’d been holding it in before. “How so?” he asked.
“Oh, well, I guess I fell for a guy before realizing he was no different than the last. He liked me because of my money, he wanted to meet my father. Did I mention wanting my money? That’s kind of been a recurring issue for me.”
He liked that she was trying to make light of it, her humor making it sound funny when in reality he knew it would have been so hard for her.
“I suppose it didn’t take me long to figure out that I’d somehow been choosing douchebags over and over again, but then it became easier just not having expectations and not dating.”
“That’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard,” he said, finding it hard to believe that someone as smart and beautiful as Mia had found it hard to meet someone decent. “If you couldn’t find someone half decent, it doesn’t leave much hope for the rest of us.”
“Very funny,” she chuckled.
“Come on, Mia. You’re beautiful and talented andsmart, you’re so much more than the money you’ll inherit one day.”
She went quiet, and he glanced over at her more than once, wondering what she was thinking and whether he’d said the wrong thing.
“Mia?”
Her smile told him she was fine. “That’s very sweet of you to say. Thanks, Sam.”
Sam kept quiet, not about to tell her that she was welcome because it was true. Mia was way too good for him, and even now he wondered what he thought he was doing, working on her ranch and then sleeping with her in his downtime. At least tonight he was taking her out instead of just being another in a long line of men who only wanted one thing from her. At least his thing wasn’t money.
He kept driving, then pulled off the road when he saw the sign. It was a little place in the middle of nowhere, but he’d heard good things about it and he was hoping Mia was open-minded. He’d grown up eating plenty of food like this, in places like this, but he wasn’t so sure about her.
“You like hot food?” he asked as he cut the engine.
Mia leaned in and kissed him, expectantly. “I think it’s a little late to be asking me that.”
He kissed her back, forgetting all about not wanting to upset her makeup, cupping the back of her head, not able to let her escape that quickly. Her hair was soft in his palm, her lips painfully soft against his. One thing he’d never expected was to be necking like high-school kids in a half-empty parking lot with one of the wealthiest heiresses in the state.
***
Mia dabbed at the corners of her mouth and below her bottom lip, wondering if she had any lipstick on at all, andwhether the remnants were smeared across her face. Sam was holding her hand, and when they walked inside she had to wait a moment for her eyes to adjust. The place was dimly lit but had a nice enough feel to it, even though she noticed that she was perhaps the only non-Hispanic person there.
“I’m guessing this is going to be authentic Mexican,” Mia said with a grin, leaning into Sam. “Which means our mouths are going to be on fire soon, right?”
“Have you ever been to Mexico?” Sam asked as they took a seat at a rustic timber table, sitting across from one another.
“A few times.”
“Ever eaten at street stalls?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m not going to say. You’ll just think I’m a princess.”
“Hey, most people go to Mexico and stay at over-priced resorts, that does not make you a princess,” Sam said, leaning closer across the table, fingertips tracing a pattern on her hand. “When I went, I was pretty young. The memories blur together now, but I was there to see relatives on my father’s side. My grandfather was Mexican, and we’d go visit sometimes. So when we were there we’d eat all the street food, and it was amazing.”
She smiled back at him as a waiter placed a candle on their table that flickered and made shadows dance across Sam’s face.
“See, it wasn’t so hard to tell me about yourself, was it?”
