Page 17 of Hard to Love
“So what are those prophecy boots telling you? That you should take up balloon art or maybe go to rodeo clown school?”
Her expression turned inward, that way a woman’s did when she was about to bust out with an idea that was a beauty. Or scary as all hell. “You know what I think they’re saying? I think they’re saying if I want to meet my future head-on, I need to take a chance. Play the cards. Throw the dice.”
Alex wasn’t a fan of the universe’s odds. They always favored the house, and the house that screwed you out of your money was just as likely to screw you out of your life. “So you’re heading to Vegas?”
She reached out and tugged on his shirt sleeve. “Nope, we’re going to my dad’s barn.”
Greer neededto stop touching this man. She’s known him for half a day and couldn’t seem to keep her hands off him. But there was more to him than she’d originally given him credit for. Secrets and pain and ambitions.
He might try to keep them hidden from the world, but he’d never met someone like her before. Someone who could see past the surface, even if she couldn’t always decipher what was lurking beneath.
And that made him irresistible to her.
“Going where?” Alex looked down at her grip on his arm as though she had poisonous fingertips. Not exactly aboost to a girl’s ego. “And why am I going with you?”
“Are Raylene’s Bunco buddies still at Sweetwater?”
He grimaced, reminding Greer of a six-year-old facing a plate of cooked spinach. “Probably.”
“Then you’re safer with me.” She tapped her chin as if a thought had just occurred to her, as if the idea hadn’t bloomed in her brain the minute she realized he wanted to be at Raylene’s about as much as she wanted to wear six-inch heels and pearls every day. “Besides, the barn has a little office and bathroom in it. If you’re not comfortable at the B&B, I bet we could get you set up out there. No internet, but there’s running water and electricity, and you seem like a pretty simple guy.”
His lips tipped up at the corners, and the damn things were like magnets. She actually leaned closer to him before she caught herself. What did she plan to do—lay a kiss on him right here in the middle of Guadalupe Street?
“Four-poster beds with slick duvets and fluffy pillows definitely aren’t my scene.”
“Oh, she put you in the Thelma and Louise room, didn’t she?”
“So we’re going to some barn so I don’t have any more satin suffocation nightmares?”
“Not completely. I’m pretty sure that’s the place where I’m supposed to roll the dice.”
Before Alex could shut her down, Greer told him to stay put, and she ran up to her apartment above her small studio to grab her car keys. She bounded back down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk, half-convinced he would be gone by the time she returned.
But he was just standing there, his sketch pad tucked under his arm, staring down Guadalupe. And oh Lord, the look on his face. How could she have ever believed he wasin any way simple? She might think she could read people, but it would take a room full of psychologists—and a couple of priests for good measure—to pick all the individual emotions out of Alex’s expression.
But what was most clear to her was his sad sort of longing.
What could such a tough man be missing so intensely?
This time, it wasn’t her ovaries pulsing. It was her heart.
He’s not a stray, Greer. He’s a grown man.
A grown man alone in some elemental way she’d never experienced in her own life because she had a great family, talented hands, and a sharp mind. She glanced down at her feet.
And she had a damn powerful secret weapon. Her best possible future.
A jolt streaked through her chest.Your life, your love, your prophecy.
Your love. Alex Villanueva had shown up on the very day she’d received her prophecy boots. Could that mean…
Uh-uh. That wasn’t the way it worked. The boots weren’t some potion that caused the nearest person to fall head over heels with you. Surely Alex being in Prophecy was just a coincidence. He certainly didn’t strike her as soul mate material.
Before she had time to chew further on that piece of psychological and emotional gristle, he turned and spotted her standing in the middle of the sidewalk as though she’d been playing freeze tag.
“Something wrong?” he said.
She had no idea how to answer that question. One quick bolstering breath, and she slapped a smile on her face. “I’m parked down this way.”
