A Cowboy in Her Stocking by Trish Milburn

Author:Trish Milburn [Milburn, Trish]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-11-20T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

For the next couple of days, Jake kept his distance from Talia. She appeared to understand because she didn’t seem to willingly cross his path either. Why had he kissed her? They’d been talking like they had when they’d been such good friends, and then he’d gone and screwed it up. But no matter how many times he told himself that it had been a mistake, that it was wrong to be attracted to someone else when he’d given his entire heart to Sunny, he couldn’t deny the fire that kiss had lit inside him. He’d never thought he’d be attracted to anyone again, but a growing part of him was tired of being lonely.

It didn’t help when Mia and he arrived at the winter carnival at her school, and she immediately raced off to talk to Talia. Telling himself to be a man instead of such a wimp, he followed his daughter to where Talia was manning a booth. A large metal cattle trough was filled with water and dozens of little yellow plastic ducks. As he stepped up behind Mia, Talia was pulling a string of tickets out from the green apron around her waist.

“Do you think you could find a use for these?” Talia asked Mia.

His daughter squealed in delight as she accepted the tickets then kissed Talia on the cheek. Jake’s heart expanded at the sight.

Mia hurried off to join Ginny and some of their other friends to play games and ride the pint-sized carnival rides.

“I think you’ve made someone’s day,” he said.

“It seems like ages ago when I was that young, that excited about throwing a dart at a balloon and winning some crappy prize.”

“Yeah.”

Talia shifted her attention from the retreating pack of girls back to him. She reached into her apron again and brought out a single ticket. “Seems I have one ticket left.” She nodded at the trough of duckies. “Care to give it a try?”

“With my luck, I’m afraid I’ll win a herd of locusts.”

“Sorry, I already have dibs on that.”

He laughed a little, glad that they seemed to be moving past the awkwardness that had taken up residence between them since he’d kissed her. He grabbed the duck nearest him and turned it over to reveal an XL written on it in black marker.

“Looks like you’re a lucky duck,” Talia said. She took the duck and replaced it with another from a box behind her. She walked to the back of the booth, then returned carrying a stuffed bear half as big as she was. “Now the question is, will this guy be Mia’s new best friend or yours?”

“Ha, very funny.” Jake accepted the bear and shook his head. “Looks like I’m going back to the truck.”

“What, don’t want to tote your new buddy around all night?”

He snorted at her before turning toward the exit, feeling a million times better than he had only minutes before. That kiss might have been a mistake, but now that he knew the truth behind why Talia had left he wanted very much to rebuild their friendship.

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