“Well, this morning I had my coffee black, but I would actually like a latte now.”
“I didn’t realize that cowboys drank lattes.”
“Cowboys that are secure in their masculinity can drink whatever they like. And I’m good.”
She snorted a laugh. He opened up the white door, which had a raccoon decal on the window, and held it for her.
She cleared her throat. “Youdoknow how to treat a lady.”
And he didn’t even make a joke about her not being a lady as they walked in and found at least ten pairs of eyes glued to them.
Oh yes. They were definitely going to be gossip. Most definitely.
She couldn’t get used to the way he held her hand as they walked up to the counter. She felt as if her skin was on fire. So she just tried her best to stare straight ahead as if she was focusing on the menu. She had a feeling she was holding her head at a weird angle, like she was trying to put some distance between him and her, which was not what she should be doing. She didn’t know how to do this. And suddenly, she questioned herself, because this was a whole lot of things she didn’t know how to do.
Usually, she was very good at faking it. It was how she navigated the world.
But this was a lot more faking it than normal.
“I’ll have a latte,” he said. “And whatever she would like.”
“The Milky Way, please,” she said, just choosing something on the menu that sounded decent, and she liked the Milky Way candy bar, so surely it would be all right. She didn’t go out for coffee routinely. The Wild West Show made very good money these days, but her family had never changed the way they lived.
“Two cinnamon rolls too,” he said.
Jessie was so used to pinching pennies that she just did it as a matter of course.
This felt extravagant in ways she really wasn’t used to.
He paid for the coffee, and she knew it was just part of the performance; then they moved away from the register to wait for their drinks.
“You can go have a seat,” he said.
She nodded and realized that she was probably requiring a littlebit more direction than he expected. Shouldn’t she know all the steps of a one-night stand?
The Jessie Jane that everybodyassumedshe was certainly would.
Well, maybe not. Maybe she never stayed the whole night or something.
He came to the table a few minutes later with their coffee and the warmed-up cinnamon rolls.
She dug into the treat with great enthusiasm.
Then she took a sip of her mocha and moaned. It was delicious. A Milky Way bar was made of chocolate and caramel, so she assumed the drink had the same ingredients, but the coffee and rich, frothy milk made it even better than a candy bar.
“Good?”
She didn’t care if he saw how much she was enjoying her drink. It would’ve embarrassed her when she was a kid. Because it betrayed how foreign such luxury was to her.
She wasn’t embarrassed now.
“Yeah. It’s great. I don’t come here very often. And when I do, basically I get a regular coffee. This is a treat.”
“Well. Glad to treat you.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to have to go up to visit my brother after this. He’s going to have questions.”
