It hadn’t mattered. In the moment, he’d simply been a decorative cowboy. A sort of monument to the absurdity of all that she was doing. Staking her claim in a small town and doing so with an emblem of redneck debauchery.
Completely counter to anything she would normally do. Completely counter to anything she normally was.
But now he was there. Actually in front of her. Not just a fantasy. Not that human version of the late-night pint of ice cream that you ate under the cover of darkness, while pretending it never happened in the bright light of day. No. Unlike the empty container of ice cream, he was now in front of her.
And she hid. She hid behind the post right next to the counter, praying that her coffee would come up soon and she could beat a hasty retreat, because she couldn’t even fathom the idea of having to face him, speak to him, anything. He had seen her naked. More than that, he had pinned her against the wall and licked her... Down there.
And that had seemed perfectly reasonable at the time.
So many things seemed perfectly reasonable when you were turned on. At least, she had discovered that. Because she had done a whole lot of things with him that had seemed absolutely and completely fine. In the moment. Aroused beneath his touch spreading her legs and begging for more seemed as unremarkable as ordering a coffee.
But when fully clothed and not ready to beg for his touch, it seemed... A little extra.
And he’d seen that. He couldn’t unsee it. She was sure that he couldn’t, because she couldn’t unsee him. She mentally undressed him. With every peek that she sneaked past the pillar, she saw his skin. Not the black T-shirt he was wearing. Not the black jeans. She cast a beseeching glance behind the counter, which did no good. She could hear him ordering. And she looked around again to see those masculine hands set on the countertop as he leaned in. There was a different girl at the register, with swinging butterfly earrings that looked young and silly, and no ring on her finger.
She looked up at him and grinned.
Mallory felt churned up inside.
He chuckled, and she felt it down between her thighs.
Was he flirting with Madame Butterfly Earrings?
She darted back behind the pole again. It didn’t matter. He could flirt with whoever he wanted. He wasn’t her boyfriend—he was her fantasy. Her dirty secret. Yes. And dirty secrets could only be dirty if they were secret. And they can only be secret if they were secret. And she needed to get out of here right now.
She was dying. Of horror.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, her drink passed across the counter just as he finished making his order. He started to come toward her, and she ducked around the other side of the post, holding her coffee. Then around to the other side. Her heart was thundering fast, and she could swear that she felt him. His presence. And she did a side step toward the front door, letting it swing shut behind her, her heart lodged firmly in her throat. She started down the sidewalk, trying to move as quickly as her legs could carry her, when she nearly ran into her sister-in-law.
“Mallory?”
“Oh,” Mallory said.
“Mallory, what are you doing here?”
Mallory scrunched her nose and tried to smile, but she had a feeling she’d only just achieved a grimace. “Surprise?”
Iris shook her head. “It’s crazy, but Rose told me that she thought she saw you the other night in the Gold Valley Saloon, and I told her that was impossible because you were in California.”
“I was,” Mallory said quickly. “In California. I’m here. Today.” She was a liar. But hey, she was fiercely guarding her fantasy. Her fantasy that was currently right on her heels. And what small-town hell was this?
“I just... I was coming to talk to you and Griffin today. I... Have made some changes. And I... Need to talk to you about them.” She finished extremely lamely.
“Oh,” she said.
“Yeah. I... If you’re around later... I’d like to come and talk to you and Griffin.”
“Sure,” Iris said. “I mean, you know you can always talk to me.”
She didn’t know her sister-in-law that well, but she loved her. Loved her effortlessly because she had brought Griffin back from the brink of the darkest pit any person could have ever been in. Griffin wasn’t really living when he’d met Iris. Griffin was a man with one foot in the grave. His detachment from the family, his misery had been so intense that Iris had wondered if he would ever be able to come back from it. But he had. Through loving her. And because of that, Mallory loved her without question and without fail. But, this wasn’t really a conversation she wanted to have twice.
“I better save it. I need to be caffeinated. Is there a... A time that would be good or...”
“Yeah, sometime this afternoon. Really, anytime. Griffin and I spend the later part of the day together. I’m just... Headed to the bakery. Did you want some cake?”
The door to the coffee shop swung open and she tried not to panic. Because it might be her man.
“Yes,” she said. “Cake.” And crossed the street quickly, arm in arm with Iris, toward the Cookie Jar, her sister-in-law’s amazing bakery that she had just opened a few months earlier.
Griffin owned the building, and that was how the two of them had met. Mallory had a feeling that the version of the story they told was heavily censored, but it was okay. She didn’t need all the gritty details. She sipped her coffee while Iris put together a box full of goodies.
“I’m staying by myself,” she said, looking at the cookies, cupcakes and pastries that her sister-in-law had put into the box.
“Well. I don’t know. Consider it a welcome gift? How long are you going to be here? Can you at least tell me that?”
“Awhile,” she said. “I... Like I said, I’m making some changes.”
“Well, I hope they’re good changes,” Iris said.
“I think they are. I hope they are. No, I know they are. I do. I’m... Oh, I really need them to be.”
“Well we’ll see you this afternoon.”
“I’ll be completely sugared up by then.”
“Works for me.”
But, she would need to tell Griffin that she was here. She couldn’t just roll into his family dinner. And that was how she found herself driving up the long, winding dirt road that led to Echo Pass and the new house that her brother had finished building for himself and his wife.
Just the thought of it made her happier. Griffin being happy made her happy. When they’d been separated, when she’d been back in California and he’d been here, and she’d called him all the time, and sometimes he didn’t answer... She had been sure she would lose him. She really had.