I sighed, realizing I wasn’t going to be able to avoid this conversation. “Until nine. There’s no one else to do it, not until we get the new hires trained.”
I’d be working nine to nine until then.
Flint seemed to grow larger somehow, his shoulders squaring as he stepped toward me. The dominant energy rolling off him made my breath catch.
“Marlene can’t afford to pay you overtime,” he said firmly. “We’re closing at five until Shelly gets trained.”
“I don’t expect overtime.”
“ThenI’llwork the evening shift.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “You go home.”
“But the Western Book Club is meeting tonight,” I shook my head. “You can’t handle those old men. They’re particular about their books and they don’t like strangers.”
“I can handle a few old men talking about cowboys. And I grew up here. I’m not a stranger.”
I raised an eyebrow. It was time for a pop quiz. “Oh yeah? Where’s the western section?”
“Uh…”
Flint looked around the store, his eyes scanning the shelves. Then he walked with confident strides toward the historical section, where a few books about American frontier history were displayed.
A small laugh escaped me before I could stop it, and his head turned sharply at the sound.
“What? These are westerns?”
I walked past him to theactualwestern section, where rows of Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey lined the shelves. “Fiction,” I said. “Not history. They want stories about gunslingers and cattle drives, not academic texts about the negative effects of frontier times.”
His lips curved into a smile, slow and warm, and his eyes moved over me in a way that made my skin tingle. Like he was appreciating something about me that went beyond my knowledge of book organization.
“I’ll manage,” he said. “But… if I have questions, can I call you?”
I hesitated.
Giving him my number felt like crossing a line. This was how it had started with Sawyer.
A few lingering looks, then a casual request for my number.
The next thing I’d known, I’d been bewitched by the man, and riding his cock on the way to what I thought would be a future announcement about a wedding day.
Men like Flint and Sawyer were whatrealmountain men were like.
Not what I read about in the romance novel versions of them.
And the thing about women like me?
We weren’t the heroines in a novel. We were the side characters. A best friend, or a woman working at a produce stand, briefly mentioned. Someoneelsealways got to catch the hero.
Not me.
Only heartbreak could come from giving this man my number.
But he was watching me with those steady hazel eyes, waiting patiently, and despite knowing better, I found myself reaching for his phone before I could talk myself out of it.
I typed in my number and handed it back, my fingers brushing against his palm. The contact sent a jolt of electricity up my arm.
“There,” I said, pulling my hand back quickly. “But only for work questions.”
“Sure. Only for work questions,” he rumbled, but the glint in his eyes suggested he might not stick to that rule.
