Winning the Cowboy's Heart by Karen Rock

Author:Karen Rock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-11-05T15:30:41+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

HEATH STUDIED THE Scrabble tiles nearly filling the board and plunked down an O and a P with a shrug. It was his best option. Or so he guessed. With the fetching redhead beside him, ready to pounce on his every move, who could focus? Despite the soothing, honeysuckle-scented air filtering through the window screens, and the bullfrogs serenading the balmy night, his body felt like an overwound clock. Awareness stiffened his joints and raised the small hairs on his arms.

“Op?” Jewel’s petite nose wrinkled. Wearing a light blue tank top revealing toned arms and a trim waist, her burnished hair flowing around her freckled shoulders, she’d never looked prettier. Or maybe he was coming around to her kind of pretty?

He fought the urge to run his fingers through her waves, teasing them apart. “Op is short for operation.”

“Hey, I’m not trying to talk you out of it.” Then she chuckled and placed S and T before his OP.

“Fine. You got me.” Heath’s gaze dropped to her beautiful mouth, as rosy as her freckles, then lifted to her sparkling brown eyes. The relentless desire to be her first kiss had already cost him countless hours of sleep. What would she taste like? Spicy and sweet, like a Fireball candy...one of his favorites? “But I’m still ahead.”

“And I’m not finished.” With a flourish, she added a B, A, N and K, using all but one of her remaining tiles. Then she sat back on the couch, her expression triumphant, arms folded across her chest.

“Stopbank?” He summed up the points. Eighty-one—which put her in the lead. Whoever lost tonight had to ride in the rear of the herd tomorrow, a long, lonely day. “That’s not a word.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Are you challenging me?”

“Heck, yeah.”

She passed him the dictionary. “You’ll lose your turn when you find out I’m right.”

“You’ll lose those points when I prove you’re wrong.” With quick flicks of his fingers, he turned to the S section, scanned down the page then stopped.

Stopbank.

A levee.

Exactly what he needed to stop his building feelings for Jewel. With time running out this summer, a wedding date decision waiting at its end, along with a looming courtroom family showdown, he had to rein in his emotions. They threatened everyone and everything in their path.

“What’s it say?” Jewel crowded close, and his fingers curled around the book binding at her fresh, clean scent. It was like breathing in sunshine after a spring rain.

“Says you’re wrong.”

“Liar!” She lunged for the book. When he held it aloft, her momentum carried her forward, tumbling them down to the couch.

The book dropped from his nerveless fingers. Neither seemed to notice as they stared into each other’s eyes, their mouths a whisper apart.

“Jewel,” he groaned, cupping the back of her head. Her soft hair tickled his cheeks as it fell around them like a velvet curtain.

Her dark eyes glazed. “Heath—”

“Yoo-hoo!”

Jewel scrambled backward at Kelsey’s call. Heath bolted to his feet so fast he upended the board.

“What are you up to?” Kelsey’s heels clicked on the wooden floor once she strode inside.

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