Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was frustration at myself for missing my damn turn. Or maybe it was because I’d spent too long letting men like Heath—loud, angry men—intimidate me into silence and letting them tower over me like I owed them something. Either way, I straightened my spine, lifted my chin, and met his glare head-on. “Is there something I can help you with?”
His jaw ticked. “You could’ve. Four miles ago.”
My eyes narrowed as I studied him with confusion, wondering what mileage had to do with his apparent anger towards me.
“You don’t recognize me?” he growled, brows drawn tight.
I looked him over slowly. He did look kind of familiar. But… “Can’t say that I do.”
The cowboy expelled a harsh sigh then as he threw his arms up and waved them wildly in the air. “How about now?”
I stared, quickly becoming convinced that this guy was out of his mind. But then it hit me.
No. Way.
It washim. The man on the side of the road just outside of town. Shirtless. Sweaty. Waving like a maniac.
A slow grin pulled at my mouth as I leaned back. “Oh yeah. I guess I just didn’t recognize you with your shirt on.”
His eyes narrowed into slits. “Care to explain why you just blew past me?”
“Blew past you?” I echoed mockingly. “Hmm, let me think. Um, maybe because you were a strange, half-naked man in themiddle of nowhere.”
“I wasnot half-naked,” he whisper-shouted through gritted teeth, scanning the room like someone might be eavesdropping.
Spoiler: they were.
“Look,cowboy,” I snapped, making the word sound like an insult. “Maybe where you’re from, women pull over for men having topless tantrums on the side of a deserted road. But where I’m from? That’s how you end up a headline on the nightly news. So, no, I didn’t stop. And no, I’m not sorry.”
His hands landed on my table as he leaned down, invading my space and instinctively making me recoil. My breath stuttered before I could stop it. Not because I was scared ofhim, exactly, but because my body still hadn’t learned the difference.
“Look,princess,” he bit back, matching my tone, “you don’t get to roll into town with your shiny car and don’t-talk-to-me sunglasses, acting like basic human courtesy is beneath you and treat us like peasants who should be grateful just to breathe the same air you do.” He leaned in closer, lowering his voice to a rumbly growl. “Nobody here’s bowing down or falling to their knees just because you say so.”
A slow, reckless smirk curled my lips. “Maybe some of us like seeing a man on his knees.”
What the hell?
My brain immediately slammed on the brakes. I wish my mouth had done the same.
Since when do I flirt with cowboys?Angrycowboys, at that.
Instinct kicked in then, and my muscles tensed. My heart thudded, and I braced for the snap I’d been conditioned to expect…but nothing came. Just…silence, and the flicker of surprise in his eyes.
He grinned at me, but there was no warmth in it. “Oh, yeah?” His voice dropped to a low murmur. “Well, the only time I’d be on my knees is when I’m beggin’ God to take you and that spoiled attitude and drag you straight back to whatever gated hell you came from.”
I blinked, stunned for a beat, before rage flared in my chest. Hot and instant.
He glared a second longer, then pushed away from the table as he turned on his heel and stalked away.
“Screw you,cowboy!” I shouted after him. “Andthat horse you rode in on.”
And—whoops!—noweveryone in the diner had turned to look at us.
He looked back, a smug smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Very original, princess,” he said coolly. “And by the way…next time you’re ‘running for your life to avoid becoming a headline,’ maybe try staying on the damn road.” His eyes flicked toward the diner window, where my car sat crooked in the gravel.
I blinked as my stomach dropped.
No.
