If there was one thing Jessie didn’t do, it was vulnerability. In the past, she had cared too much. She had tried to make herself be what other people wanted her to be, needed her to be.
And she just wasn’t going to do it anymore.
She didn’t like looking as if she didn’t know what she was doing. As if she wasn’t on top of absolutely everything.
“Then what was that?”
“A request for your brother’s good restoration work. The end. As for the show, I was being neighborly because he agreed to help fix our wagon. Also, I genuinely wanted you all to see it. We’ve never been what you thought we were, you know. It wasn’t like we were gleefully profiting from your family tragedy.”
“You kind of do, though.”
“We aren’t gleeful, though.”
“That’s beside the point, Jess,” he said.
“Just because we do a reenactment of the death of your ancestor? It’s not like youknewhim.”
“Fair. But my brother takes the murder of the first Austin Wilder very personally. Maybe because they share the same name.”
“Well, that is also not my fault. Yes, my family was involved in all of that, and I know that Butch Hancock betrayed Austin, but … there’s nothing I can do about it. We might as well make some money. And anyway, Wild West shows are supposed to sensationalize history. They’re not supposed to be one hundred percent accurate. I get that your brother has a stick up his butt about that. But Ilikethe sensational. I feel there’s room for legends that are bigger than Big Sky Country, and tall tales taller than the mountains.”
It was possible some of that speech was in the intro to the Wild West Show. But hey, if it was effective, why not use it?
“You really are a showman,” he said.
She was. She had been trained by the best. Her dad was magnetic when he stood out there in his fringe jacket and cowboy hat telling stories and introducing each act. He wasn’t totally wrong when he called it a carnival. Or maybe even more accurately, a Western Circus. The result if a rodeo and a circus had a baby.
“It’s my job. And I’m going to take that experience and make it work in this mayoral race.”
“Are you going to have time to do the Wild West Show and run the town?”
“It’s not like it’s a full-time job.”
He laughed. “Yeah. I mean, I know that the mayor has to keeptheir day job when they take on this position. But your day job is a little bit unconventional.”
“Thistownis unconventional. Which goes back to my original intent. This place is so much cooler than we’re treating it. It’s been sanitized and watered down and given over to people likeDanielle. I refuse to allow that to stand.”
Her impassioned speech ended right as they rolled into town, where all the perfectly preserved brick buildings glowed in the early morning sun. An American flag waved merrily from the pole mounted on the front of the old hotel, and Scallywag Coffee was a little aqua beacon at the end of the street beckoning weary travelers to come in and grab some caffeine.
Flynn managed to find a parking space right in front of the building, and she waited in her seat until he came around and opened the door for her.
“My lady,” he said, extending his hand.
She was reluctant to touch him again, but she knew she couldn’t get around it. So she reached out and took his hand, and she smiled. Because she refused to appear uncomfortable, to him, to anyone.
The minute his skin touched hers, she felt heat rush through her.
Her heart began to beat hard as he pulled her out of the truck, and she stumbled forward, falling against his chest, bracing her hand on his shoulder, and regretting it instantly, because he was so solid. So hot and hard.
Without her permission, her fingers curled, just slightly, gathering up a little bit of his T-shirt fabric and skimming over all those muscles.
She gasped and straightened.
“Steady there,” he said, his eyes dipping down to her lips for a second, and she felt an arrow of reaction pierce that place between her thighs she thought far too much about in his presence.
She cleared her throat.
“What kind of coffee do you like?” she asked, because she needed something to say.
