Page 2 of Spurred On

“What? Where the hell did she go?”

He blinked at her ferocity. “She’s gone to Houston to do some marketing. See if she can get more customers in.”

Cody, his brother, Cade, and sister, Claire, had turned their large ranch house into a B&B that specialized in parties for women . . . complete with hot dancers. It had been Cody’s idea, one born of desperation, when the bank had threatened to foreclose on the property after their father’s death. They’d gotten a lot of interest, but the jury was still out on whether this side-business could save the farm.

It would kill him to lose everything his grandfather and father had worked so hard to build. He didn’t know who he’d be without the Double S. And his siblings felt the same way. Each of them put their all into this last-gasp chance to save their inheritance.

Sidney made a face and sighed. “I wish I’d known. I came from Dallas to see her.” After high school, after their breakup, she’d moved there and—other than an occasional visit to her parents—she’d never come back. He’d certainly never seen her around town. Not that he looked for her. Every day.

He suspected she took great pains to make sure they never crossed paths when she happened to come to Snake Gully. Damn it all anyway.

She looked good, real good . . . but he knew better than to say as much.

Her nose curled again. “I heard about what you’re doing here.”

Sidney’s distaste wasn’t the first he’d faced. Snake Gully was a small, conservative Texas town, and even though the ranch was on the outskirts, some of the old-timers didn’t like the idea of bringing in dancers and horny housewives from Dallas. They didn’t like it one iota.

But not one of those bastions of society had offered to help them out of their financial quandary. So, well . . . so there.

He didn’t know how to respond, so he just nodded. “What brings you to town?” he asked before he could stop the words.

She pinned him with a sharp glance and stared at him for a long while, as though trying to decide if she should deign to speak to him or just turn around and flounce away. At long last, she said, with a huff, “My sister is getting married.”

He nodded. “Yeah. I heard. Um, congratulations.” The word burned on his tongue. Cody knew Hanna’s fiancé . . . and hated him. Zack Pucey was the biggest asshole on this side of the Rio Grande.

And the other side.

And anywhere, really.

Why Hanna had agreed to marry him was a mystery. She was sweet and well-liked. Zack was despised. It was the oddest coupling he’d ever seen.

Sidney shuddered. “Congratulations? Thanks a bunch. Anyway, I’m in charge of the bachelorette party. I was thinking about having it here.”

He gaped at her. A rowdy party featuring a passel of hot, toned strippers was hardly Hanna’s style. But hell, a booking was a booking. “Sure. Come on inside and we can look at the calendar.”

“I’d rather deal with Claire.”

Not a shock. “She’s not here.”

“Or Cade.”

“Not here either.” He held out his hands to illustrate his helplessness. Not that he wanted to get her alone in a private space, but he did. Of course, if he dared touch her, she’d probably rack him in the balls. But a guy could dream. “Looks like you’re stuck with me.” He batted his lashes, surely not because he knew it would annoy her. “I promise to behave.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have made that vague reference to the fact that they’d once been something more than icy-polite strangers. She’d melted him once. That was how hot she was.

But she wasn’t hot now. Now she was cold. Frigid. Her icy glower made him shiver. He turned and walked back to the house. He didn’t check to see if she followed, because that would be an admission that he cared. Besides, he could hear her heels crunching on the gravel.

And damn.She was wearing heels.

He loved her in heels.

He forced that scintillating thought from his mind as he pushed open the door to the office and gestured to a chair. Then he dropped into the seat on the other side of the desk—surely not because he felt a sudden need for some barrier between them—and opened the calendar. “Do you have a date in mind?”

She mentioned something in June, and they settled on a couple of options.

“And how many people?”

Another frown. “I don’t know. Twenty-five?”