He made her breath catch. He made her yearn. He made her hot. The silent communication between them was ready to combust.
Sheesh, maybe she shouldn’t have another margarita. She was really thinking outside the box tonight. She turned to the bartender to tell him to forget that last one. She didn’t need it.
And when she turned back around, ready for another round of eye contact with her handsome broad-shouldered Texan, he had disappeared. She searched for him, desperate to find him, scanning the entire saloon with eyes peeled, but it was no use. She’d lost him in the swarm of the crowd. He may have gotten bored and left the saloon.
Disappointed, her stomach clenched. Story of her life.
So much for taking a risk.
But then, there was always the mechanical bull.
Yes, that’s exactly what she’d do. She’d ride the darn thing. Why not? She needed one lasting memory to take back with her to Seattle. One thing she could say she’d conquered while in Texas. The ex-nanny, a woman who also knew her way around a music room filled with children, might just need this bit of excitement to cling to once she left the lone star state.
Ha!
And suddenly, that bull didn’t look so intimidating anymore. Suddenly, the challenge bolstered her courage. She could do this. She could ride that silly-looking contraption. And her bravado didn’t waver while she stood in line to take her turn. It didn’t waver when one rider after another eventually got tossed off. Just a few seconds, was all she was asking. Five. Five seconds on that bull, and she’d be satisfied, and thrilled and proud.
“You can do this,” she muttered under her breath.
And when it was her turn, the arena host whose booming voice rose above the patrons of the saloon announced, “This little lady is Erin from Seattle, and she’s gonna give Destroyer a go.”
She gulped and a crewman helped her up onto the leather back of the bull. “We’ll take it slow,” he said. “Use your thighs as a grip and try to keep yourself centered as the bull begins to move.”
Once he moved back, she took a big breath and nodded to the crewman to start up the robot.
And the bull began to jerk.
* * *
Erin looked up into the dazzling blue eyes of the beast. He was kneeling over her, staring at her face, a frown pulling his very kissable mouth down. Had she slept through her very best fantasy? What was going on? She moved and the cushioned padding at her back rebelled with a squeak. “What the...”
“You took a fall,” he said in a deep baritone voice. With a nod of his head, he gestured to the metal bull.
She realized where she was instantly. And that the crowd circling the arena was watching her. “How long did I ride?”
That brought a smile to his lips. Oh, and it was a killer. “About three seconds.”
She grimaced.
“Your head?” he asked.
When a crewman approached, the beast gave him a glare that would have sent the Hulk cowering away.
“I feel fine,” she answered. She did. She’d been tossed off the bull and landed hard on the padding, but nothing hurt, nothing seemed fuzzy. Anymore.
Except that her handsome beast was at her side, helping her to her feet. She was met with a round of applause and cheers. She chuckled out of sheer embarrassment and then her body tilted, swaying sideways and everybody else seemed to be leaning. “Uh-oh.”
“I’ve got ya,” he said, catching her before she lost her balance and lifting her into his arms. “You need air.”
She stared up at him again, amazed at his strength. From this angle, he was even more appealing. His size, the sexy base of his throat, the scruff on his face and those blue eyes, locked him into a category all his own. He carried her as if she was a handful of marshmallows, instead of a twenty-six-year-old woman. And before they got too far, she pointed toward the bar. “My purse.”
He nodded and changed directions, carrying her over to swoop up her purse off the bar stool with the grace of a panther. He glanced down for a second. “I’m Dan.”
She smiled. What an odd way to meet. But she was not complaining. “I’m Erin. Nice to meet you.”
He grunted a reply.
The contrast of the dimly lit smoke-filled noisy saloon to the cool crisp fall Texas air outside helped to wake her up out of this steamy sort of dream she was in. She didn’t want Dan to put her down, but it was awkward and she didn’t know where to put her arms, so she’d looped them around his neck. Now that they were outside, touched by moonlight and facing the parking lot where it was quieter, the reality of the situation was starting to dawn on her. “I, uh, I’m fine now,” she said. “You can put me down.”
He gave her another glance, nodded and then took great care to allow her to slide down his body. For safety’s sake, she assumed, but oh, the brush of his body with hers sent all the right signals and she shivered.
“Cold?” he asked.
“No,” she answered. “I’m, uh, this is silly. I hardly know you, but...”
She couldn’t finish her thought. Was she about to tell this gorgeous cowboy that just a brush of his body to hers made her tingle from head to toe? No, she couldn’t do that.
“Got it,” he said, and without any discussion at all, he seemed to know. Oh God. How embarrassing. Did women fall at his feet like this all the time?
“So why the bull?” he asked.
“Because it was there,” she answered immediately.
His brows furrowed. He didn’t get her little joke.
She tried to explain, “It’s just that, I’m from Seattle, staying in Texas for the holidays and I wanted to do something Texan. You know,” she added quickly, remembering her thought a while ago about doing him. “I mean we don’t have a lot of mechanical bulls in Washington.”
“I don’t suppose.” Still, the furrow.
“And I... Well, you see my nanny job brought me here. And then a few friends I’d made invited me to a birthday party tonight at the Dark Horse, so I tagged along with them, but they all went home, and I wanted...”
He was a good listener, but he wasn’t adding much to the conversation. And she wasn’t going to babble on anymore. “Never mind.”
Talk about the strong silent type. He was that and so much more.
“You sober enough to drive home?” he asked.
“Oh, uh, yes. I stopped drinking a while ago. I’m feeling fine now, aside from the humiliation.”
He stared at her for what seemed like a minute, his eyes flickering over her mouth and in that heated moment, she wanted nothing more but to lock lips with him, to taste his whisky breath and feel the absolute thrill of kissing him. Almost as if he heard her thoughts, his mouth cocked up and he drew a long breath.
And then he said, “I’ll walk you to your car.”
Disappointment that the stranger who’d just rescued her didn’t want to kiss her into oblivion, she said, “Okay.”
In a few minutes she’d be headed back to her guest cabin at the Flying E, with no job, no prospects, and trying to find a productive way to spend the next month or so. Her job being little Faye’s nanny had ended when her employer Will Brady had found love here in Texas. And apparently, scandal-plagued grade school music teachers were not in hot demand, apparently in Seattle or anywhere else for that matter.
She pointed to her car. “It’s