The Cowboy's Little Surprise (11 page)

Chapter Eleven

Tina watched as Cole grimaced and ran his thumb along the edge of his plate.

“I don’t believe this,” he muttered.

“You wanted this,” she countered, swallowing a nerve-induced giggle.

He looked at her thoughtfully. “You always give a man—”

—what he wants?

The words hung in the air. She knew exactly why he had cut himself off. Unwilling to help him, she said nothing. But she wondered. Putting his arm around her as they’d sat on the couch at the Hitching Post... Insisting they needed to catch up...

Just what did
he
want from
her
?

The thought made her grab her glass of sweet tea for something steady to hold on to. She couldn’t believe this situation, either. Dinner. A night out. A
date
with the father of her child—the man who had once left her in the dust.

She had accepted his invitation for an entire list of reasons. Not analytical reasons, she was ashamed to admit, but a list of purely emotional
ifs
.

If Andi and Jane hadn’t pressed her, insisting they would babysit and claiming they needed the time to reconnect.

If that statement hadn’t once again left her on the outside looking in at them.

If turning down Andi’s perfect excuse for her to accept Cole’s invitation wouldn’t have made her look foolish.

If Jane’s interest in the man who now sat across from her hadn’t brought to life the teeniest bit of green-eyed jealousy.

And if, heaven help her, her reunion with Cole hadn’t unleashed feelings she found impossible to push away. Conflicting feelings that bounced between one emotional extreme and the other. At one end, spine-strengthening pride. At the opposite end, raging, fingertip-tingling, butterflies-in-the-stomach desire.

Cole pushed his plate away and scooted his chair closer to hers.

Her throat tightened, but she couldn’t seem to lift her glass of sweet tea. Praying she would survive this evening, she met his gaze.

“I’d have taken you someplace in Albuquerque or Santa Fe,” he said. “Heck, I’d have settled for a restaurant here in town, limited though our options might be. And you wanted supper at the Lucky Strike.”

“Of course,” she said, widening her eyes. “They have the best burgers in the county.”

He muttered under his breath.

“Yummy, Uncle Cole,” Scott said.

“The best,” Robbie agreed.

“Yeah,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes. “But are you finished yet?”

The three kids looked expectantly at Cole. Tina bit her lip to hide her smile.

“I am now,” he said evenly. “Let’s go pick out some bowling balls.”

“Yeah!”

The metallic screech as the kids shoved their chairs away from the table barely registered over the noise in the crowded snack bar.

“We were lucky to get a lane reservation,” she said brightly as she and Cole followed the kids. “The Bowl-a-Rama always draws a crowd on league nights.”

“Yeah, I remember that. The place to be in Cowboy Creek.”

“Yes.” But not the place to be
for them
as a couple.

Starting in grade school, all the kids had bowled together in groups. Later, they started pairing off. She and Cole were never a pair. Technically, tonight, they were more like part of a team.

And that was her most important reason for accepting Cole’s invitation. As she’d told him on their way into the building, she was upholding her end of the deal and giving him another opportunity to be with Robbie.

In her heart, she hoped for a chance at so much more for her son. For herself. For them all.

When Scott ran to the lane to throw his first ball down the alley, Cole came to sit beside her. Close beside her...in the row of molded plastic seats that couldn’t be moved or even shifted.

She refused to back away, as she had at the corral yesterday.

She pretended to watch Scott, yet she couldn’t focus on anything but the man beside her. Her senses seemed hyperfocused on everything about him. The sight of his sturdy hand and strong, tanned forearm contrasting with the crisp, white fabric of the Western shirt he had rolled up almost to his elbow. The touch of his sleeve and the heat beneath it against her shoulder. The heady scent of his aftershave. The sound of his laugh... That same laugh that had sent her skittering away from him. That low, deep, sexy laugh that made her pulse pound.

She missed only the sense of taste—and she would go on missing it, too. Tasting Cole wasn’t on the Lucky Strike’s menu.

Robbie’s first ball went straight for the gutter. His crushed expression broke her heart. Then Cole went to stand beside her son—their son—and her heart developed another crack. He put his hand over Robbie’s to help steady his arm for his next roll. The ball made its exceedingly erratic way down the lane. In excruciatingly slow motion, eight pins fell. Robbie gave a happy shriek and threw his arms around Cole’s waist, and her heart crumbled to bits.

In her turn at the lane, she rolled a strike. All three kids cheered and held their hands in the air. Laughing, she went down the line, giving them double high fives.

Cole had risen to take his turn next. When he raised his palm, she hesitated for only a moment, then high-fived him. He caught her fingers and squeezed lightly.

“The guys brought a ringer in, huh?” he asked. He smiled at her. “
Game on,
lady.”

Shaking her head, she went back to her seat.

She hadn’t come here tonight to compete with him.

Cole bowled a strike, ran the gauntlet of hands on his way back, and gave her another high five that left her palm warm and tingling. Wanting to hold onto the feeling, she curled her fingers into a fist in her lap.

As he dropped into the seat next to hers again, he draped his arm across the back of her chair. When he had wrapped his arm around her at the Hitching Post, both his touch and his warmth made her want to lean into him...just as she fought against doing now.

After swallowing hard, she said, “At least you’re being a good sport.”

“Not like I had a choice about all this,” he muttered. He made a gesture that took in the kids, the lanes and the Lucky Strike.

When she had come downstairs to meet him tonight, he had been waiting for her in the sitting room. As she entered the room, Rachel and the boys had swarmed past her, roughhousing and ready for a night at the bowling alley, thanks to the discussion she had just had with them in the dining room.

All because she had come to her senses about the idea of a night on the town alone with Cole. Much as she wanted to be with him, she had to think about what was best for Robbie.

Cole sat glowering at her, but his expression didn’t fool her. He had paid attention to her all through dinner, smiling at her as he joked with the kids, drawing her into the conversation when she grew quiet, holding such steady eye contact with her at times that they might have been the only two people in the room.

She might have been special to him.

His interest fanned her hopes of finally getting closer to what she’d always dreamed of having. Cole and a family. But she couldn’t let herself fall for those hopes or believe in those dreams.

Once again, pride shot through her. “You did ask for
all this
, you know. And you deserve it, for twisting my arm to get me to agree to come out with you.” Still, a tiny twinge of guilt ran through her. “But you didn’t invite the kids along. I did. I’m happy to pay—”

He leaned closer.

She clutched her hands in her lap.

“You can expect to pay for this, all right.” With one finger, he traced a path along her chin, not touching her lips but close enough to make them tingle. “And don’t worry about needing your calculator. I won’t look for reimbursement in cash.”

* * *

O
N
THE
RIDE
HOME
, Tina managed to force half her mind to focus on the kids’ chatter and fought with the other half to keep it from straying to Cole.

She gave up altogether on trying to control her body.

From nerves, she had licked her lips so often, they felt dry, leaving her craving another drink of sweet tea. Or a taste of something she might enjoy even more...

Despite the caution she’d given herself, anticipation raced through her. Though they rode the final miles to the ranch along flat, unpaved road, when Cole pulled into the parking area behind the Hitching Post, she felt as if they had just taken a roller-coaster ride.

She glanced over at the back porch. In the kitchen doorway, Jed stood as though he’d been on sentry duty waiting for them to return.

Cole came around to her side of the truck to open her door, just as he had done outside the Bowl-a-Rama. The gesture touched her this time, too.

Then she saw he hadn’t backed away.

He stood only an arm’s length from her, making it impossible for her to exit the truck without brushing up against him. Well, if he still wanted to play games...

“’Bout time you brought those kids home again,” Jed called. “Get in here, you rascals, you’re about to miss out on the popcorn.”

Cole stepped back.

Ignoring her surge of disappointment, she climbed down and moved aside.

After they left the bowling alley, they had dropped Scott off at Layne’s new apartment. Now Rachel and Robbie tumbled from the backseat of the truck, nearly knocking her over in their dash to the porch.

“Kids,” Cole muttered.

“Gotta love ’em,” she said.

“Not tonight. I’m off duty as of now, at least until tomorrow.”

She heard the relief in his voice. In the space of a day, he spent such limited time with the kids. How would he ever handle being a full-time daddy?

When she moved, intending to pass him, he leaned one shoulder against the truck and crossed his arms, settling in. “Going somewhere?” he murmured.

She looked beyond him toward the hotel. Jed and the kids had gone, leaving the porch empty and the back door securely closed. Long habit must have made Jed turn out the porch light.

They stood in darkness except for the low lamps lining the walkway and the soft glow of a cloud-covered moon.

“Enjoy yourself tonight?” he asked.

“Yes, actually. The kids all had fun. So did I.”

“Yeah, I could see being with them was right up your alley.”

A nervous giggle escaped her. “That was an awful pun.”

“I could stop talking.”

She swallowed. “You seemed to enjoy yourself, too. It’s a shame you don’t get to see Scott more often. You don’t know him very well, do you?”

“I’m getting to know all the kids around here now.” He shook his head. “But no, I don’t know Scott well. After Layne’s first divorce, she would come my way for a weekend once in a while. I saw him a few times then, but he was just a baby. Once she remarried, those trips came to an end. Terry tended to keep them close to home.”

Close to Cowboy Creek, the hometown Cole had avoided till recently.

“And now he’s made her leave their home?” she said.

He shrugged. “Technically, he asked her to move because he’s selling the house. The money from that will help her out. Provided he turns over her share. He’s not so hot at sticking to his promises,” he muttered. “But that’s what I’m here for.”

“That’s what big brothers
are
for,” she said, smiling.

“Yeah. Anyhow, she’ll manage.” He glanced away. “But she might not have the kind of happy ending you like.”

She swallowed a sigh. After all these years, he still knew her so well.

“You didn’t have a happy ending, either, did you?” She half turned from him and rested back against the truck. “I mean, with what you told me about getting left at the altar. You must still be dealing with the hurt.”

He shook his head. “It was a crazy notion, trying to get together when we barely knew each other. No hurt. No harm, no foul. I was only out the price of a ring.”

But you did try. How can you say you don’t believe in marriage?

Before she could find a way to ask the question, he glanced quickly toward the hotel, then back again.

His eyes shining, he looked down at her and said, “I’d walk you to the door to say good-night, but as I’m staying at the hotel, that’s my door over there, too. And I don’t know where your room is.”

“The family wing.” She blurted the words in relief. He wouldn’t attempt to walk her to
that
door, not when he knew how that would raise their chances of having an audience. Here, they were alone.

She still didn’t know how she felt about that.

One side of his mouth curled, carving a deep dimple into his cheek, as if he’d read her mind and found her thoughts amusing. “‘Family wing?’”

She nodded. “Down the hall, past Jed’s den and the kitchen. Jed and Abuela and Robbie all have their rooms down there, too.”

He didn’t respond.

She toyed with the end of her braid.

He looked down. “In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you without your hair all tied up.”

The comment reminded her of Ally, who always urged her to let her hair loose, to wear bright colors. To lighten up and brighten up. To get a life. She reminded her best friend she preferred neutral colors and patterns that didn’t stand out. She told Cole now what she always ended up saying to Ally. “I’m a hotel bookkeeper-slash-waitress-slash-whatever-help-is-needed. The hairstyle is practical.”

As she lifted her braid, intending to slip it over her shoulder, Cole reached up to touch the woven strands.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Their gazes locked.

For a fleeting moment, they were teenagers in the back of his truck, stealing kisses and on the verge of making love... He had reached for her braid and begun to tug on the elastic at the end of it. Laughing, she had pushed his hands away and managed to distract him...

Now, he gave her a full smile that took her breath away. “I think it’s time for us both to stop talking.”

He ran his finger down her bare arm, raising a trail of goose bumps. Warning lights flashed in her brain. Too many negatives, too many reasons she shouldn’t be with him like this, too many memories proving why she shouldn’t let him get any nearer.