‘That’s not necessary.’
‘You got lunch,’ I point out.
‘So?’
‘Expense account, remember?’
‘Old-fashioned manners, remember?’ he replies with a wink that makes my pulse race.
I bite back an exasperated sigh as I slide into the bench seat, and then a rush of something else as he slips into the seat across from me and our legs become enmeshed beneath the table. He’s big and the booth’s not wide, so it’s not really anything other than circumstance, but that doesn’t matter to my tremulous heart.
I can’t keep track of whatever we were talking about, and Beau’s smirk shows that he knows it.
‘Do you get recognised a lot?’ I change the subject just to say something, because the air around us is sparking with need. Heat slicks between my legs, unmistakable and urgent, so beneath the table I cross one over the other, then wish I hadn’t when my toe brushes his calf. I see the way he reacts, eyes narrowing, shoulders bunching, and I recognise the same rush of desperate fire in his veins. Which makes it even harder to blot mine out.
‘Beau?’ His name is like a plea on my lips, only I don’t know what I’m pleading for. For him to answer me, or touch me, or dosomethingthat makes me feel like myself again.
‘Around these parts.’ His voice is a little slow, like he’s fighting some urges himself. ‘And especially during the season.’
I can barely keep up, but somehow manage a jerky nod.
He leans forward, his tone suggestive. ‘Don’t you wanna pull out your notebook and write that down, Bailey James?’
Heat creeps up my neck, making my skin flush. ‘I’ll remember.’
His smile is knowing, like he sees that I’m totally knocked off my game by the way he makes me feel, by the way his big, strong legs are on either side of mine, so intimate and personal, so perfect. When I breathe in, I taste him on the tip of my tongue, his masculine fragrance, soap and cologne, and his own unique blend of hormones that makes everything inside me go all loopy.
I clear my throat, trying to squash down on the longing that’s controlling me. ‘Does it bother you?’
His eyes crinkle at the corners. ‘Does it seem like it bothers me?’
‘You like the attention.’
‘It doesn’t bother me,’ he repeats. ‘But I don’t go seeking it out.’
‘What’s it like at home?’
His laugh is a low rumble. ‘You think my family treats me like some kind of sports hero?’
‘I mean your hometown.’
‘In Goodnight?’
The same spark of something shifts inside me that did when I first started researching Beau, and read about the town he grew up on the outskirts of. Goodnight, Arizona sounds like aquaint out-of-the-way place, with all the requisite ingredients of a quintessential small-town, from a saloon-style bar to a general store run by a local everyone knows. The streets are wide, crime low, people friendly—at least, that’s the way it seems, going from what I’ve read.
‘In Goodnight, I’m more known for being Cole Donovan’s son than anything else—my dad was Cole, too, but no doubt you already know that.’ He rubs the palm of his hand over his jaw. ‘My old man was something of a legend around those parts, on account of how he was always helping everyone. If someone had a busted fence, he was there. A problem with stock, Dad knew how to fix it. A stray, he was finding them a home.’
‘Sounds like a man with a heart of gold.’
Beau nods, something wistful in his expression. ‘Yeah, that pretty much sums him up.’
‘So you’re saying no one cares that you’re setting the bull-riding world on fire?’
His legs move closer together, trapping mine between them, and I suck in an audible breath, my eyes flaring when they lift to his. A quirk of his lips shows he’s seen and understands. He knows what he’s doing to me.
‘There’s more to life than this, that’s all.’
‘Beau Donovan? Is that you?’
