Page 109 of Slow Hands Cowboy

“Sounds good,” he said. “Do you have a plan for the evening?”

“I’d really like it if you could introduce me before I make my speech.”

That jolted him like a punch in the gut. “Do you really want me to do that? You have Anna. Or your dad, I mean, he’s the former mayor.”

She nodded. “I’ve thought of all that. You have been a big part of this campaign at this point, and it would be meaningful if you did it.”

Something felt unsettled in his gut. “Yeah. True. But you know I can’t be... It can’t go on forever.”

“No, I know.”

She looked away, and the wounded look in her eyes made him feel bruised. He reached out and took hold of her chin, tilted her face upward so that her eyes met his. “Sorry. You’ve got me until you don’t need me anymore.”

And that would be soon enough, he was sure. Because she was Addison Carey, and at the end of the day he was Walker Grayson. So what did she need him for, really? She might feel like she was getting something out of this, and it might be true. True that their fake relationship had created the buzz that she needed. She would win this election, handily, he had no doubt. If people had been unsure of who was running before, or who she was, they did know now.

He would go back to the way he’d been before. His life would go back to the way it had been. Someday, she would find that perfect man that would give her this life. The one that she deserved, not the bullshit life that Alan had been offering her. Or maybe it hadn’t been bullshit, but it wasn’t something that made her eyes sparkle. Wasn’t something that made her happy. And damn it all, he would have said that he didn’t really want Addison Carey to be happy, but now he did.

Now that he realized there were parts of their souls that were more the same than they were different. Now that he knew her. And maybe she would find that life, partly because of him. Partly because of this. There was something satisfying about that. To know that he might be a crucial piece of her journey. Even the shitty things she had done to him in high school that didn’t seem so shitty now, because it just felt like teenagers, hurt, wounded teenagers who had been affected by the actions of the adults in their lives doing the wrong thing. Because they were trying to deal with their own wounds, and doing it badly.

But as an adult man with enough wounds to keep him busy tending for the next decade or so, he knew that he couldn’t expect more out of their past selves. He could barely expect more out of himself now.

“So other than that, and the kind of marketing and prep that we’re doing, the ticket sales, not much is happening. I have a feeling that will be the big one.”

“Good.”

“My vacation rental will be available for me to go back to soon,” she said.

“Also good,” he said, but there was a twisting sensation low in his stomach. Didn’t feel all that good, to be honest. Even though he had said that it was.

“We should go out tomorrow night,” he said, his own impromptu suggestion surprising him.

“We should?”

“Yeah. We should. Because it would be good to put in another appearance before this event, don’t you think? Well, yeah.”

“We can go out for barbecue. Hit up the old saloon. No one will expect you to go rolling into that tourist trap.”

She laughed. “No they won’t. And I’m not sure that it’s the place?”

“No, it’s absolutely the place. Promise. Just trust me.”

“Okay.”

When they finished dinner, he helped her clean up, tried to get her to go sit down in the living room and not do the dishes since she had cooked everything, but she refused.

Then afterward, he went into the living room and sat down on the couch, and he looked up and saw her standing in the doorway. Wearing nothing but the apron.

“God,” he said. “You’re going to kill me.”

“Oh, don’t die, Walker, then you’d be of no use to me.”

“This is going to be the death of me.”

What a way to go.

She walked over to the couch, reached behind her back and undid the waist tie on the apron, then reached up and undid the one around her neck, letting the sweet piece of pink fabric fall to the floor, leaving her completely naked in front of him.

She was a work of art. She was everything that he had ever fantasized about and more. Everything that he had ever wanted.