The Trouble With Cowboys (5 page)
“Kellan,” she said without looking up.
He sidestepped into the row, like he planned to sit next to her. She jumped out of her skin a little at the idea, recovering soon enough to spread her sweater and purse across the bench. “Sorry, these seats are taken.”
He stopped, leaning against the back of the pew. “You’re here with Jenna and her son, I’m assuming?”
“How did you know?” Looking at him up close, he was even hotter than she recalled, with a crisp button-down shirt and a clean-shaven face that highlighted his strong jaw. It looked like he’d tried to tame his wavy brown hair with gel and a comb, but judging by the bits and pieces falling all over his head, he’d had little success. Which was fine with her. She preferred them with a hint of wild.
Horrified to have let such a thought slip into her head, she cleared her throat and did a mental head smack.
“I see them whenever I attend. Rachel here today too?” He licked his lower lip, his gaze wandering with blatant appreciation over her dress.
It was all she could do not to raise the hem a few inches to give him a better view. She drew a flustered breath. “No. She says she sees God clearer on the open range.”
Kellan rocked on his heels, grinning. “I’m likely to agree with her.”
“Then why are you here?”
He looked at her, quiet like, his eyes dark.
Oh.
He started toward her again. Amy scrambled across the polished wooden bench until Kellan’s hand clamped onto the back of the pew, halting her progress. Resting a knee on the bench, he ducked his head toward her ear, smelling good enough to devour.
“You’re blocking my light and I’ve got to read this Bible,” she blurted frantically. Damn it. Rule number five down the toilet. Unbelievable.
He grazed her temple with his nose and little shivers crawled through her limbs. “I’ll move out of your light in a second. After I give you fair warning.”
“Warning about what?”
“You should know I’m going to sit a few rows behind you. And I’m going to have my eyes on you the whole time.” A heavy sensation started between her thighs. She bit her lower lip, fighting the urge to offer her mouth to him right there in the middle of church. “And after the service, I’m going to ask you to dinner. You think about how you’re going to answer.”
He straightened and she didn’t miss the strategically placed cowboy hat covering his midsection. Filthy mind she’d been cursed with, her first thought was to knock the hat away so she could get a good look at what he was hiding behind it. She blew a strand of hair off her cheek, annoyed at herself. Thank goodness she was at church, because she needed some godly housekeeping to scour the dirtiness from her thoughts.
At least she managed to stop herself from craning her neck to watch him walk away. Score a point for her pride with that brief moment of self-control.
A few minutes later, Jenna and Tommy returned from the restroom. Jenna settled Tommy next to her and produced a bag of toy cars from her purse, dropping them on his lap. Then she poked Amy on the shoulder. “He’s here. Sitting four rows back.”
“Who?” Playing innocent never worked for her, but she had to try.
Jenna raised a brow suggestively. “Your cowboy.”
“He’s not
mine
. In fact, I’m assigning him to you.”
mine
. In fact, I’m assigning him to you.”
“I told you, he’s not my type.”
“No! Not like that. You said you wanted more responsibility at the farm. So I told Kellan you’d be contacting him this week to negotiate a beef supply contract.”
Jenna’s shoulders shook with a silent chuckle. “Oh, sweetie, since you’re in Catcher Creek to stay, you’re going to have to stop tormenting yourself. Quay County is ranch country, densest population of cowboys this side of the Texas border.”
“Why do you think I hightailed it out of town when I was eighteen?” Actually, that had nothing to do with her decision to leave, but she needed to persuade Jenna any way she could.
“The way I see it, you can either surrender to your cowboy fetish or swear them off cold turkey.”
Amy rolled her eyes heavenward. “I swear them off cold turkey every day. Doesn’t do me a lick of good.”
The organist opened the service with a quiet song. The minister, a tall, lanky middle-aged man Amy didn’t recognize, stepped front and center. Everyone got to the business of praying and singing hymns, a ritual as comfortable and familiar as it was uplifting.
Usually.
Except today, she felt Kellan’s eyes between her shoulder blades. She felt his gaze on her neck when she bowed in prayer. And when she stood to sing, her skin tingled with heat, imagining him watching her ass. She smoothed a hand along the fabric near her hip to double-check that her dress hadn’t bunched, then scolded herself for letting a cowboy’s incendiary declaration get the better of her.
Except today, she felt Kellan’s eyes between her shoulder blades. She felt his gaze on her neck when she bowed in prayer. And when she stood to sing, her skin tingled with heat, imagining him watching her ass. She smoothed a hand along the fabric near her hip to double-check that her dress hadn’t bunched, then scolded herself for letting a cowboy’s incendiary declaration get the better of her.
Fanning herself with the program, she worked hard to concentrate on the pastor’s words instead of strategizing about the fastest way to remove a belt buckle.
“With Christmas around the corner, we’re taking the opportunity this month to reflect on the choices Jesus made in his life, the lessons we can learn from his decisions, and how those lessons matter in our modern lives. Every week of family worship in December, we are asking ourselves a simple question—What Would Jesus Do?
“There’s a lot of pressure on folks around Christmastime. Everywhere we turn, it seems, we’re pressured to do things we know aren’t in our best interest. For some of us, we’re tempted by material goods, to buy our family members gifts we can’t afford, to spend, spend, spend. Others may be tempted to cheat on a diet with that extra piece of fudge at a holiday party or drink one cocktail too many. All these temptations turn our focus away from the true meaning of Christmas. And so, today, the question I want you all to ask yourselves is, What would Jesus do . . . about temptation?”
With a snicker, Jenna elbowed her in the ribs. Amy sunk lower in the pew and fanned herself more vigorously.
Inspired by the pastor’s teachings, by the time his sermon was over, she’d practiced her polite refusal to Kellan’s dinner offer. Her life was complicated enough without adding a cowboy to the mix. She’d never met a single one worth her time or trust. The pastor said the trick to rejecting temptation was being prepared for it, to know it was coming, and have a ready response.
To prove Kellan’s powers of seduction were no match for her willpower, she resisted the urge to turn and locate him until the closing prayer of the service. When the congregation bowed their heads, she glanced over her shoulder to where Kellan sat. Staring at her.
Not really staring, but smoldering. She could’ve handled it better if he’d smiled or done something cheesy like winked at her. But his expression was fiery and unblinking, his eyes shadowed her with wicked intent, as though he were picturing himself stripping her dress off and running his fingers over her bared flesh. Or maybe she only wished he was thinking about doing that half as much as she was.
She jerked her face forward again, a hand on her chest, and let her breath out long and slow. So much for Plan A. The moment the pastor stopped talking, she’d sprint out the nearest side door and call her sister from the supermarket down the road to pick her up. After all, Pastor Schueller said the only surefire way to resist temptation was to run in the opposite direction.
Too bad for her that when the pastor released them, Tommy took her hand. “I want a doughnut, Auntie. You promised if I was good, you’d get me one with sprinkles. Wasn’t I good?”
Since Amy’s arrival in Catcher Creek, Tommy had clung to her like she might vanish into thin air should his attention waver from her. She turned, prepared to send Kellan packing with a searing glare, but he was nowhere to be seen. Relieved, she squeezed Tommy’s hand. “You were a perfect angel. Let’s get you a doughnut.”
She ushered Tommy through the double doors to the courtyard and saw Kellan talking with a girl a year or so older than Tommy. He bent over the refreshment table, giving Amy a full view of the same perfect ass that got her in trouble the morning before. She tried to shift her gears into reverse, but Tommy urged her on.
“I want the pink one, right there, Uncle Kellan,” the little girl said.
“Then that’s the one you shall have. And lucky you, because it looks like this is the last one with sprinkles.”
“Oh, no, Daisy,” Tommy wailed, stomping to the table and throwing his arms up. “That was for me.”
The little girl looked at the doughnut in her hand, then at Tommy. “We could share.”
“What a great idea, Daisy. That’s a nice thing to do.” Kellan patted the top of her head, then split the doughnut for the two kids.
Amy’s nipples hardened. Good grief. Who in their right mind got so turned on by a man breaking a doughnut in half that she wanted to grab him by the tie and kiss him senseless?
That’s right—Amy Sorentino, the easiest lay in Quay County.
That’s right—Amy Sorentino, the easiest lay in Quay County.
Once he got the kids settled, Kellan straightened to his full height and regarded Amy from beneath the low brim of his Stetson. Amy grabbed a glazed old-fashioned and shoved it in her mouth before she smashed her own record time for rule breaking.
“Did you enjoy the service, Amy?”
“Yup,” she said with her mouth full.
“I did, too, except for one point. It’s my opinion that the tricky part about temptation, what Pastor Schueller was remiss in mentioning, is recognizing the difference between good temptation and bad.” He raised a hand and she angled her face toward his approaching fingers, anticipating his touch. Instead, he flicked at her cheek. “Errant sprinkle.”
“Thanks.” She swallowed and licked at the corners of her lips. “I disagree. I think most people know bad when they see it.” And thank you, Kellan, for bringing her mind around to the sermon. With the pastor’s words in her head, she was confident she’d be able to keep her desires in check. In fact, she was ready to meet her temptation head-on. “Are you going to ask me to dinner now?”
His eyes shifted, taking in the noisy courtyard full of parishioners. “Not yet.”
She opened her mouth, ready to give the obstinate man her answer anyway.
“Aunt Amy? I need a napkin.” She smiled at Tommy, whose face had gone pink with frosting and sprinkles. “You need more than a napkin, buddy. I’ll take you to the restroom and wash you up.” Without looking in Kellan’s direction, she grabbed Tommy’s hand and hustled off.
Jenna ran into them in the vestibule.
“Here, take Tommy. You can pick me up at the supermarket when you’re done.”
“What?” Jenna called after her.
“I have groceries to buy. See you there.”
She tore across the sanctuary, ducked through the door behind the organ, and skidded into a dusty side room with an exit she remembered from Tommy’s baptism four years earlier. Bursting out onto a narrow breezeway between the sanctuary and the administrative offices, she chanced a look over her shoulder as she jogged. The coast was clear. She was running like a yellow-bellied coward, but at least there weren’t witnesses.
Kellan’s imposing form materialized at the end of the breezeway, blocking her progress. He folded his arms over his chest and propped his shoulder against the wall.
Amy yelped and lurched to a halt. “You scared me.”
“Sorry about that.”
She took in his casual stance. “You don’t look sorry.”
“I’m ready to ask you out.”
“Oh.” She tried to calm her racing heart, breathing deeply. Impossible. “Go ahead.”
“Amy, may I make you dinner at my house on Friday?”
She was ready with her answer. “No. Not a good idea. Sorry.”
“Why?”
“Rule number one. I put it in place for a reason.”
“Rule number one,” he muttered, swaggering closer, his thumbs hitched on his belt buckle. Not that she was looking there. He stopped close enough to touch her. She took another step back and bumped into the wall. “Amy, may I have dinner with you?”
“No.” The word was little more than a note on the wind.
She flattened her palms against the cool stucco wall as her eyes trailed a vein in his neck from where it began at his shirt collar to where it ended at the locks of hair peeking from beneath his Stetson. Something shifted inside her, something carnal and potent. She waited for him to touch her, arching her back, thrusting her breasts up, desperate to feel his hands on her body. What he did, though, was far more dangerous.
With a blazing expression in his eyes, he unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled his sleeves to his elbows. “All this fancy stuff . . . I don’t think it’s for me,” he murmured.
The tie was off next, stuffed into a pocket. Maybe he heard her ragged intake of air because his gaze shifted to her lips as he unfastened his belt and dropped it to the ground. The metal buckle clanged on the cement. He loosened the top three buttons of his shirt, then tipped the brim of his hat lower over his brow.
Oh, damn . . .
She rocked to her toes and lassoed his neck with her arm. His hat tumbled off as she brought her lips to his. His hands wound into her hair. Crushing her to the wall, he devoured her. Thoroughly and without mercy, pinning her in place with his lower body as his lips and tongue caressed her. She snaked an arm around his side and grabbed his rock-hard ass.
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