Page 6 of Risking it for the Cowboy

She calculated him. Familiar? She loved listening to his music on the local radio’s Homegrown hour, but she’d never been to one of his shows before, never met him in person, and he’d never been a student at the university, never been in her class before. Her life consisted of routine. To the university. To the elementary school. To the farm market. To the grocery store. To the house that was no longer a home and never had been, treading water waiting for my life to begin like the song had said…

An anchor sank in her gut.

Did he remember her from … back then?

“What’s your name? Where’re you from?” His breath caressed her cheek like a prayer.

His scent of teak and mint and exertion. His eyes roved thoughtfully over her, fingers now caressing down her skin to linger on her lips and pushing back her hair as if he mapped uncharted territory.

His touch seemed too invested, too reverent, for a player trying to get his kicks for the night. His heady scent. Sharp and alluring, just like him. This was deeper than what she’d bargained for. She should keep it on the surface—

“I’m from here. I, uh, teach at the university.”

He slowed as impassivity cooled his brow. “A professor?”

She nodded. “A new associate professor, just bumped to full-time from adjunct, but, yeah.” She searched his expression. “Does that, uh, bother you?”

Was he threatened by an accomplished woman? She prickled. Jason always had been. And if McClintock was, too, he could hit the road—

“’Course not.” His easy smile sprang back as if the falter hadn’t happened. “You’re one of them smart ones, huh?”

Spoken with such nonchalance, not looking at her.

He unlocked his truck, never taking his hand from her waist, as if she’d vanish if he let go. Yanked the driver door open and held it wide for her to duck beneath his arm. Ushered her up onto the bench seat to scoot across.

This was reckless, driving off with him. She snagged her phone out of her skirt pocket. Still no calls or texts. Normally, no news would be good news. She texted Heart, who’d just rolled into town for a survey job on the nearby Dixon farm and had forced Charlie out to get her mind off of her worries. Heart would worry if Charlie simply vanished into the night. She was one of the few who knew what Jason was capable of.

Charlie: “Going to grab dinner with the singer. Somewhere to get tacos across town in case I need a search party.”

McClintock slipped off his guitar, still dangling across his back, and thrust it into her lap as he, too, jumped into the cab, his bicep popping as he gripped the oh-shit handle.

He cranked his engine. She clicked her seat belt as he thrust his truck in reverse and slung his arm over the seat to crane backward. He revved out of the parking lot onto the country highway as people began to trickle out the front to leave.

The wind blew in as he cranked down his window.

He turned on the radio. Turned it up. “They’re playing our song,” he teased, his gaze lingering on her in her periphery.

“Last Goodbye.” His song that had won Texas Weekly’s top new indie song two years before. It was late on a Saturday night. Must be the Homegrown hour.

“Light me up like a moonlit sky…” he sang, that rich baritone.

She strummed the guitar and eyed him questioningly. Not every musician liked someone to mess with their instrument—Jason had hated it when she’d played his, to the point she’d finally stopped.

But McClintock eyed the guitar, then her, as that divot popped in his cheek and he nodded. “Play it, girl—Love me like it’s our last goodbye. Pretty as a flower, kiss like a sin…” A smile creased her lips at the memory of the words on stage and the way he’d gazed into her eyes, traced her tattoo with his intensity. He was side eying her now as he sang it. “Feels like my life’s about to begin…” He lingered on that last line as if it meant something.

Her skin buzzed at the thought. She kept playing. He kept singing. Maybe … there could be more for her someday—

No. She wasn’t allowed second chances.

Her hair whipped around her eyes as he drummed the rhythm on the steering wheel and she fingered the guitar, still flat on her lap, like her uncle had taught her to do over all those summers when her daddy had traveled and she’d blessedly gone with, away from her momma’s sad depression and desperation.

“Pretty as a flower, kiss like a sin—” Their eyes connected, his bright ones twinkling as they skittered over her mouth hungrily, as she strummed hard to close it out. An uncertain smile warmed his face as his words tapered off “Feels like my life’s about to begin.”

His attention returned to the road rolling out in front of them and the approaching lights of Nacogdoches, but she watched him roll his tongue in his cheek, watched him focus so hard on driving, it was like he was on another planet, thinking.

A new song came on. Somehow, his upturned palm came to rest on her knee, and her hand slipped into his. Somehow, she was tipping back her head on the bench seat and letting the stress of the weekend wash away as she closed her eyes and opened her neck to the wind and felt his fingers tighten between hers, engulfing hers.

They arrived at a bar. They were singing to the juke box, dancing, popping into a photo booth and snapping a strip of photos, when a basket of tacos arrived at the hands of a female bartender who eyed him like candy, like she knew him, knew him, and an inkling of something set in. This man hadn’t been a celibate priestess like she’d been for the last several years. Had he slept with the bartender before?