The Comeback Cowboy by Jackie Ashenden

Author:Jackie Ashenden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: 2023-02-08T19:28:56+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

THE FRONT DOOR of Jackson’s house flew open, and Lincoln was immediately glad that he’d kept himself to the two slugs of whiskey.

Because he didn’t need to be drunk, not when Violet came charging in with storms in her dark eyes and tears on her cheeks.

“Didn’t realize we invited everyone over for our pickup poker night,” Duke said from behind his cards.

Which was when Lincoln noticed that the rest of Violet’s cabin had come in with her.

Flint lifted his chin in Bree’s direction, and they grinned at each other. Clementine and Duke exchanged a look.

Jackson looked disapproving, but then, he always did. And he looked particularly disapproving of Kinley, Lincoln thought.

But Lincoln really only cared about the tiny one with curls and another sweeping dress. The one who was glaring right at him.

“Mighty nice of you to bring an entourage,” he murmured, making sure to lounge disreputably, there with his whiskey and his cards.

And the heart she’d stepped on, no big deal.

“I’m in,” she declared, like she was throwing down a challenge.

“Beg pardon?”

“I said I’m in, Lincoln.” Violet’s gorgeous, imperious gaze swept over his friends, then hers. “I didn’t ask for an audience, but I’m delighted that one’s here anyway. So we can be clear, once and for all, that I’m not afraid of anything. Not any of them. And certainly not you.”

“If you say so, darlin’.”

“I wasn’t making assumptions,” she snapped at him. “I was trying to give you the space I heard you ask at least ten different girls for when you were a college sophomore alone.”

Lincoln stood from his chair, slowly. Very slowly, because his friends were all trying and failing to stifle their laughter, and hers weren’t doing any better. “Violet. I’m not a college sophomore any longer, if you haven’t noticed. Make a goddamned assumption.”

“You better watch out, Marshal,” she threw back at him, drawing herself up to her full height, which was still no bigger than a minute. “Or I really will move out to Oregon and right on into your house. And then what will you do?”

Lincoln smiled, and it took him a minute. And he watched as Violet softened, right there before him, until he could see it all over her, head to toe. Until she smiled back.

And that made everything else fall away.

Until as far as he could tell, it was just the two of them, standing here. They could be anywhere. She was starlight and sunshine at the same time. The whiskey hadn’t done a damned thing except agitate him, but she was intoxicating.

And she was going to be his.

He knew it like he was a fortune teller. He knew it like he knew his own nature, and the beat of his heart.

He knew it like he knew that he would do whatever was necessary to make sure she never regretted this decision. And Lincoln Traeger had always been real good at bending the world to his way of thinking, or he’d still be stuck in a nowhere town in Kentucky, watching his life drain away before him.

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