She began to walk a little faster ahead of him. Then she opened the truck door and climbed inside. He hadn’t bothered to lock it; there was no reason to in Rustler Mountain. He was the trouble. And these days, he caused a lot less trouble.
Back in their teen years, he and his siblings had been hellions. Until Cassidy had shown up.
He opened the driver’s side and got in, jamming his key into the ignition and turning it over. “I live like twenty-five minutes out of town,” he said.
“I don’t live any closer,” she said.
“Right. I forgot. You still live up at the Wild West Show.”
She shifted beside him, and he tried to ignore the movement of her body. Tried to ignore how aware he was of her.
“Why wouldn’t I? That’s my family property.”
“Didn’t y’all end up with that land because you scammed some guy back in the day?”
“That tale has been greatly exaggerated,” she said, sniffing. “My great-great-great-grandfather engaged in acoupleof dowsing scams.I can’t deny that. Absolutely occurred. But the thing is, he actually ended up finding water, and the guy who owned the property was so grateful he wound up leaving it to him when he died. So nobody really got scammed. He was an old man who lived by himself. He didn’t have anyone else to leave the land to.”
Flynn couldn’t even really be scornful. Considering how he had ended up withhisproperty. They both had property thanks to an old man who had decided to leave it to them for some reason or another.
“Have you been up to Lonesome Ridge?”
“No. That’s your place?” she asked.
“Yep. I own most of the mountaintop. That’s actually why I started ranching elk. Because they do better on the mountain than cows.”
“How does that …? I mean, how is that even going? It’s such a weird thing.”
“Yeah. It’s kind of a weird thing. But my brother has cows, a lot of people have cows. I wanted to do something of my own, something that didn’t compete, but that still … Ranching is in my blood. Some of my blood, anyway.”
“Did you scam anybody to get the land?” she asked.
“Kind of. My grandpa Parker was maybe the only person in the world who thought I was decent. Might have been a scam to let him think so.”
“Right.”
He had rarely heard Jessie Jane at a loss for words, but she seemed to be now. Granted, he had never really been with her when she wasn’t in public. This was the first time he’d ever been alone with her. His muscles went tight, his blood hot.
“So,” she said, her breath hissing through her teeth, “you have an extra bedroom, right?”
“Yes,” he said.
“I’mnothaving sex with you,” she said.
His neck practically popped as he whipped his head around to look at her. “I didn’t ask you to.”
“Well, a woman can’t be too careful,” she said, resting her hands on her knees. “Because men make assumptions. And I don’t have any interest in getting tangled up in your assumptions.”
“I didn’t make anyassumptions,” he said.
“I can’t bank on that. You know what they say about assuming.”
“It makes an ass out of you and me?” He was beginning to wonder if this entire scheme was going to make an ass out of both of them.
“That is correct. That’s what they say.”
“Right. Well. No danger of me coming on to you, Jessie Jane. If I was going to do it, I could’ve done it anytime over the past … I don’t know, decade?”
“I guess so,” she said. “But you know, you might not go out of your way to get, like, a frozen pizza, but if it’s available, it’s what you’ll eat.”
