Page 65 of The Cowboy and the Baby

A streak of jealousy filled me from head to foot. I step away for less than a minute and a bunch of women descend?

“They’re buckle bunnies,” Wyatt called, smirking. “Chasing the cowboy. That whole crowd knows Cade, and they ask us about him all the time. They’re upset that he hasn’t been here in a while.”

Buckle bunnies.

Huh.

“He’s very popular,” Wyatt added with a wicked grin before he almost sent me spinning into a post, but pulled me back at the last moment. “He’ll be there for a bit, trying to extract himself from them. Cody’s no help, because he’s too quiet and shy. The only time I can get him to speak to a girl is to dance with her. He loves it. He’s almost as good as Cade, too.”

“You’re an excellent dancer yourself,” I said after a particularly intense round of spinning, desiring only to stop the line of thought that centered around other women fawning over Cade. All at once, it became overwhelming, too much. The crowd. Elbows. Whirling. My head whipped round with a sensation not unlike rolling down a grassy hill when I was a kid, and I wanted to sit.

Wyatt smiled charmingly, and with all his white teeth.

“I learned from the best.”

The song ended on a particularly quick fiddle solo that ceased unexpectedly. Relief made me weak; I needed a break.

Wyatt bowed.

“Thank you, Miss Noelle. I believe it’s customary to escort the lady off th?—”

“Find your own date,” a growly voice snapped, and Cade materialized out of nowhere. He shoved a crowing Wyatt out of the way and gathered me in his arms, pulling me close.

Wyatt chortled as he stumbled off, probably seeking out Cody, and vanished into the bodies. Along the dance floor rim, Cody doubled over, slapping a knee, laughing at Cade’s expression.

The hot, nauseating air that had smelled like fried food and bodies immediately disappeared into cool musk, leather, and outdoors. The iron grip of Cade’s arms surrounded me again. In his arms, all the dizziness faded into rightness. Dancers filtered off the floor as the strains of a slow Garth Brooks song melted into the room.

Cade wrapped his arm around my waist, pulled me to his chest, and threaded our fingers together. Like pieces fitting in a known groove, I stepped into him, and let our feet take us where they might.

I felt breathless; fluttery. It didn’t improve even after my body calmed and my head righted itself.

“Sorry,” he grunted.

I laughed. “Wyatt was a charming dancer.”

He snorted.

I tilted back a little. We didn’t go far, mostly swayed in a circle.

“Grand champion?”

His scowl could have ignited water. I had to school my laugh, sensing a deeper ire beneath the heat in his eyes. Mentioning the title bothered him; or was it something else?

“Dancing was a part of my old life,” he finally said, and it felt like he’d handed me something hot. “Not this one.”

“Is that why women surrounded you?”

A quick glance confirmed that the same women watched us carefully. The pressure of their stares exerted a real force on my back, and I couldn’t blame them. If Cade was the one who got away, I’d hate the other woman, too.

“Those women just like dancing with someone that knows how,” he said.

“Ah . . . I think they like you.”

He met my stare for the first time since we started to slow dance, and the discomfort in his tight jaw, the quick, bobbing swallow, was far more pronounced this close. Our lips were so close, a mere breath away.

Cade whispered, “Well maybe I don’t care what they think.”

“No?”