Page 104 of Slow Hands Cowboy

Her heart twisted. “No, I do. You know, I wanted them after I got established. Probably not until after I finished my term. Assuming I win. Or maybe I will want them during my term. But, now my whole timeline is off, so who’s to say.”

“What’s that they say about plans?”

“Man plans, God laughs.”

“Oh, I thought it was something about them making an ass out of you and me.”

“I think that’s assuming.”

“What are plans but assuming you can run the world?”

He had a point. And she felt hollowed out. Just sad and sorry. But there was no point living in the past, she supposed. It was all well and good to get another perspective on all the things that she had done, but she didn’t want to live in that space anymore.

“You know, knowing all of that, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me even more. You really didn’t have to do that.”

He pulled his truck off the dirt road and into what almost looked like a dry riverbed. Just a long, narrow channel of sandy earth between the rolling hills. “I did. I had to do that. Because the version of me that I was back then, no matter how much I didn’t want to like you, I would have loved to prove that I could be your knight in shining armor. I would have loved to prove to you that I wasn’t who you thought I was. So I had that chance. And it meant something to me to do that. To be that.”

“Well, you are definitely my knight in shining armor and more.”

She wanted to kiss him, wanted to touch him, but he turned the engine off and got out of the truck instead. She followed suit.

“We’ll sleep out here tonight. I’ll make a fire ring, and we can have a campfire. We have plenty of defensible space around here, so it shouldn’t be risky. But of course we won’t leave it unattended.”

He was obviously not wanting to talk about all of that right now.

And fair enough. They roasted sausages over the fire, and she found it all oddly satisfying. She had never really wanted to camp, but she was enjoying doing it with him.

Both of their sleeping bags were in the back of the truck, next to each other, and she climbed in the back and sat there, watching the sun go down as he made sure the fire was completely stomped out.

“I brought some camp coffee-making supplies,” she said. “For tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, I have plenty of coffee-making supplies, don’t worry about that. I have a coffee maker that just plugs into the truck.”

Of course he did. Walker did like his gadgets.

It was part of that puzzle. Because here he was, sleeping out in the bed of his truck, but she had seen his house.

“Do you like nice things because you like them, or because you want other people to see you having them?”

He turned to look at her, his eyebrows lifted. “Both.”

“Okay. Just wondering.”

“I like nice things, but I’m also happy to rough it out here. I’m used to living a pretty spare existence, so this doesn’t bother me one bit.”

He got into the back of the truck with her, and they were both bathed in the pink glow of the sunset.

And she just wanted him. Wildly. Desperately.

Wanted to make up for what she had done back then, wanted to solidify what she had discovered now, wanted to forge something entirely new right along with it. A braided rope of past, present, and future that felt so strong inside of her, but was also something she couldn’t quite understand.

The intensity of it.

But she wanted to be new, and different, braver and bolder.

She wanted to do things she never would have done before.

So with all that pink sun on her skin, she stripped her shirt off over her head. Let the outside air touch her bare breasts, which had never happened before.