Miles was halfway across the room when a bald guy with a beer belly hanging over his belt and a neck the size of Miles’s broad chest sat down in front of Lula Ann. Miles picked up his pace and chose to sit down at the table next to Lula Ann’s.
A big smile covered the blonde’s face when she looked at him. “Well, hello to you! I’m Delilah. Please tell me you are Samson.”
“No, ma’am, just plain old Bubba Jones, who is late getting to the party. What do you do for a living?” he asked, but kept his ear tuned to what Lula Ann was saying about liking sunsets.
“I’m a wedding planner,” she said, and went on for a full three minutes about herself.
Miles scrolled down on the app until he found Delilah and marked no, and then tuned his ear to the conversation at the table next to him.
“What do you do, cowboy?” Delilah asked and reached across the table to touch his cheek. “Have you heard a word I’ve said? I hope so because I’ve already given you a yes.”
“Thank you for that. I work on a ranch,” he answered. “Someday in the future, I hope to own my own place.”
“So, you play in the dirt?”
“You might say that,” Miles said.
“You look like sex on a stick, darlin’, but I hate anything that has to do with sweat, dirt, or being outside. We might have some good times together, but I’m going to have to change my yes to a no,” she said. “I hope you aren’t disappointed.”
“Not a bit,” he said just as the bell rang.
The big guy traded places with him as soon as Miles stood up. He barely beat another fellow waiting to get five minutes with Lula Ann. He sat down, stuck out his hand, and said, “Hello, I’m Bubba Jones. I believe we met in the hallway by the restrooms.”
Most women he met were eager to flirt with him, but not Lula Ann. She covered a yawn with the back of her hand before she extended it to him. His interest had never been piqued like this in all the years he had been dating. She had no idea who he was or that he came from money, which was a good thing. The vibes that sparked between them when their hands met was something he’d never felt before. For the first time in his adult life, he couldn’t read a woman. Was she playing hard to get or was she really not interested in him? He could only hope that it was the former, and not the latter, because he really wanted to get to know her.
“Lula Ann Smith,” she said. “I like …”
“I know,” Bubba said. “I was sitting at the table over there and heard you giving the last feller that line. Is it to weed out the undesirables or the real truth?”
“I don’t give away all my secrets in one night,” she teased, suddenly more interested than she’d been all evening.
She held her hands tightly in her lap to attempt to stop the trembling. No simple handshake had ever made her want to drag a guy outside and make out with him like a couple of teenagers, but Bubba’s touch damn sure had.
“Why are you here?” Bubba asked.
“My friend set this up for us, and then she got sick and couldn’t come,” Lula Ann replied honestly. “I might ask you the same thing.”
“I heard about it during dinner in the hotel restaurant and decided to see what it was all about,” Bubba said. “Is this your first one?”
“Yep,” Lula Ann answered. “How about you?”
“Oh yeah, but I’m glad I came because I’m meeting you,” he said.
“Is that your best pickup line?” she asked.
“No, but if it’s working, I might add it to my list.” He chuckled. “Tell me, Ms. Lula Ann, why do you like sunsets?”
“Because my grandparents always sat on the porch at the end of the day and watched the sun go down,” she answered. “They held hands everywhere they went, and even in their old age, Grandma’s eyes lit up every time he walked into a room. And he went looking around to find her when she wasn’t right beside him. I want what they had if I ever commit to a relationship.”
“Did you sit on the porch with them?” Bubba asked.
“Every chance I got,” she answered.
If she had met Bubba Jones at a bar or a party, she might have thought he saw dollar signs when he figured out that she was the daughter of Fletcher McLean, the owner of the Wild Texas Oil Company. But as Lula Ann Smith, he wouldn’t know all that, and as a stranger, she felt like she could be honest with him about her feelings. After all, most likely she would never see him again,because not even a Bubba Jones would waste time on a Lula Ann.
“So, what do you do for a living?” she asked.
“I work on a cattle ranch. You?”
