“Oh yeah.”
“Trevor is a damn fool.”
She leaned close again. The scent of roses beckoned him as she whispered, “He said he couldn’t be with me anymore because he didn’t find me sexually attractive.”
Jameson knew he must have heard wrong. “What man with a pulse wouldn’t be attracted to you?”
She grinned. “Yeah, well. You win some, you lose some, I guess.”
From over by the pool tables, some guy let out a whoop and someone else whistled. Applause followed. The band struck up another song, this one loud and fast.
When the noise died down a little, she asked, “You here with a date?”
“Nope. Just having a drink with a fascinating woman.”
She studied his face for a long count of five before declaring, “You’re playing me, aren’t you?”
He sat up a little straighter. “No, I am not. Trevor blew it, and I’m grateful to that clown. Because if he hadn’t, you wouldn’t be sitting here next to me on New Year’s Eve.”
Slowly, she turned her glass on its Wild Willa’s coaster, the one that showed a sexy cowgirl in a short skirt riding a bucking bronc and waving her red hat above her head.
“What?” he asked low. “Say it.”
“You are bad,” she observed. “So. Very. Bad—and I like that about you far too much.”
“Being bad is good, then?” he asked hopefully.
“Oh yes, it is. In the context of this moment, of you and me side by side on New Year’s Eve at the Get-Lucky Bar, being bad is very, very good.”
As the band struck up another fast one, they gazed at each other, eye to eye. Time passed, but neither of them looked away. He saw no reason to speak. He could just sit here beside her, staring into those sultry eyes of hers until next year came around.
Except he really did like the sound of her voice, especially when she kept those eyes on him and spoke to him alone.
He asked about her family.
And she brought him up to speed on the Cruises. Her brother, Evan, owner and operator of Bronco Ghost Tours, had just gotten engaged earlier that night to Daphne Taylor, estranged daughter of the richest rancher in the county. Vanessa’s mother had a boyfriend now, and Vanessa’s grandmother Dorothea, whom the Cruise family called Grandma Daisy, had recently found out thathermother was not her birth mother.
“That is some big news,” he observed.
“And there’s more.”
He couldn’t wait another second to touch her. Prepared to apologize profusely if she slapped his hand away, he guided a thick curl of hair behind the perfect shell of her ear. She didn’t object. Instead, a tiny smile pulled at one corner of that mouth he hoped he might get to kiss when midnight rolled around.
“Tell me everything,” he commanded.
“Well, I’ll tell you this. Grandma Daisy’s birth mother—mygreat-grandmother—istheWinona Cobbs.”
“Wait. You mean Winona Cobbs who wrote the famous ‘Wisdom by Winona’ syndicated column?” He used to read that column every week. Winona Cobbs gave good advice.
“The one and only.”
“Lots going on with you Cruises.” Things never got that exciting on the Double J.
Lowering her voice and leaning closer to him once more, Vanessa confessed, “I feel a little bit guilty. I ran out on tonight’s family New Year’s Eve party at Daphne’s Happy Hearts Animal Sanctuary.” Daphne Taylor was somewhat famous locally—not only for being the only daughter of cattle baron Cornelius Taylor, but also for not eating meat in the middle of cow countryandfor her rescue farm, where she took in every broke-down horse and runaway goat that wandered by.
“Please don’t get me wrong,” said Vanessa. “I’m glad Daphne and Evan found each other. And my mother, who’s in love with her boss, is happier than she’s ever been before.”
“But?”
