Saved by the Cowboy by A.J. Pine

Author:A.J. Pine
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2018-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

A whole ninety minutes later Cash held the door and Olivia exited the bed-and-breakfast out onto the pavement.

“I can’t believe you knew that Denmark had the oldest flag design,” she said, walking backward so they could continue their conversation.

He raised his brows. “Hey. You got us the sports and leisure piece by being able to name what teams all those NFL coaches coached. Impressive,” he said.

She shrugged. “Why? Because I’m a woman?”

He laughed. “No, because they’re not current. You’d have had to be a young kid when they were all in their prime.”

Her smile faded. “My dad’s a huge football fan. Sunday afternoons and Monday nights used to be our thing—until he and my mom started arguing louder than the flat screen with surround sound. Kinda lost my love of football after that.” They got to the corner, and she finally turned to face the street they were about to cross. “You were good?” she asked. “In high school?”

He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans as they continued to the other side of the street. “Mighta been able to play in college. But I blew out my knee the week Dad went into hospice.”

Her throat tightened. She pulled one of his hands free and laced her fingers through his, giving him a gentle squeeze.

“I’m pretty much the worst, aren’t I?” she said.

He tugged her across the street perpendicular to the one they’d just crossed, only answering her when they were on the sidewalk again. “How do you mean?”

“I’ve been complaining about my parents and their messy divorce pretty much since you met me. And as much as they both drive me to drink—heavily—I can still say that word. Both. Because they’re both still here, and you’ve lost—”

“Hey,” he said, pulling her close. Then he glanced up and down the street, from shop window to window.

“You worried about who’s watching us?” she asked, knowing that just about the whole town probably was.

“I’m not worried about a damned thing,” he said. “Especially you thinking your pain is anything less compared to mine. It’s not a competition. We all have our baggage—our pasts that shape us. It’s what we do with all that shaping that matters.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re talking about me, aren’t you? How I run from my baggage?”

He chuckled. “Or how I keep mine sealed up in a really fancy envelope.”

She looked over her shoulder, only then realizing where they were standing.

“Sheriff?”

“Ms. Belle?”

“Am I under arrest?”

“You break any laws today?” he asked.

She pretended she was counting her fictional offenses on her fingers. “Nope,” she finally said. “Unless you count the liquor store I robbed before breakfast.”

He shook his head and chuckled again. “Well, I guess I’m harboring a known criminal. We better get you inside before the rest of the town is onto us.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the department’s front door. But once inside, instead of continuing straight into the office, he veered left, to a staircase she hadn’t noticed the last time she was here.

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