“Yeah. They kissed, in this very bar. Carson took a dim view.”
Carson Wilder and Perry Bramble had been best friends since they were children and had spent most of their adult lives trying to outrun their attraction to each other. They had stopped running about a year ago. But there had been a lot of drama on the way there, and West had gotten tangled up in it.
Jessie put her hand on her chest. “Well. I’m a little bit offended that West didn’t tell me about that. He knows I love drama.”
“You clearly do.You clearly do.” Gus slid a beer across the bar, and Jessie grabbed it, nodding, before taking a sip. “Drink quickly,” he said.
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Feeling impatient, cowboy?”
“Very,” he said.
He was gratified when he saw color rise in her cheeks. She wasn’t unaffected by this. By him. By them.
She swallowed the beer down. “All right, Wilder. Let’s get out of here.”
And then she grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him toward her.
He chuckled, grabbed her hand and twisted it behind her back, pulling her body up against him.
And he was almost sure he was going to die of heat stroke. But he didn’t let her see that. “Behave yourself,” he said, their faces a scant inch apart.
Fistfight. Fuck. The jury was out.
“Well,” she said, and her voice was breathless, as he had never heard her sound before.
“Do you need me to be the designated driver?”
“Yeah. I can pick my truck up in town tomorrow.”
“Perfect.”
He released his hold on her but then took her hand in his. He turned toward Dalton and tipped his hat. Dalton was staring at him, his mouth open. Cassidy was in the corner, texting wildly.
Dalton probably had a ride home with the redhead, and Cassidy was going to have to get a rideshare. But then, that was sort of the way these things went. And by the time he was out on the street with Jessie, he wasn’t thinking about them anyway. His body was on high alert, his heart pounding hard, and he had to keep on reminding himself that he wasn’t actually taking Jessie Jane home. He was just … taking her home.
He was still holding her hand, conscious of how soft her skin was. That surprised him, considering she was such a devoted horsewoman. He had expected her to have some calluses. When he had thought about it. Which was a couple of different times.
Just a couple.
“I can take you back to your place, but it might be beneficial for us to meet up in town tomorrow morning.”
“Hey, whose scheme is this?” she asked.
“It’s yours. But you roped me into this, so now I’m going to be mouthy.”
“Lord. I should’ve enlisted Cassidy to pretend to be my girlfriend. She’s probably less of a hassle than you.”
“She isn’t. On that you can trust me.”
“Anyway,” Jessie said, “I do agree. I think we should be seen having coffee together tomorrow, and then in the afternoon I’m going to file the paperwork to enter the mayor’s race. And I’m going to have to … I’m going to have to set up a social media page, but I’ll start with the Wild West Show’s page, and I’ll do a live video.”
“Wow. You have to actually … do things like that.”
“I’m great with people, Flynn,” she said, her voice sounding overly cheery.
“I’ve heard that.”
They were still holding hands. As soon as they got far enough down the block, he let go of her. “I’m just right there,” he said.
