Page 70 of Crossed Wires: The Complete Series

The last time he’d worn a suit was at his father’s funeral. He and Hunter had been fourteen. That suit had been bought at the local Target store, nine hundred kilometers from Farpoint Creek. It had looked nothing like the designer get-up he wore now.

He looked…different.

“Dylan?” Monet’s voice floated to him through the door. “Is everything okay?”

He plucked his hat from the changing room chair, started to put it on his head, stopped and looked at his reflection again.

He was wearing a suit that cost more than his work truck. Did his hat really go with it?

“Dylan?” Monet called again.

He bit back a curse. After the amazing day they’d shared, he didn’t want to fuck up her exhibition opening by going as the Down Under Wonder.

Dropping his hat back onto the chair, he opened the door and stepped out.

Monet’s swift intake of breath made his stomach clench, as did the slow inspection she ran over him.

He held out his arms, giving her a grin. “What do you think? Do I pass muster? Scrub up okay?”

She didn’t answer for a second, just looked at him, her eyebrows pulling into a frown.

He fought the urge to fidget. Maybe she hadn’t understood him. Or perhaps his scruffy hair and unshaven stubble ruined the way the suit looked. God knows a razor hadn’t touched his jaw since he’d flown out of Farpoint over three days ago and the only comb he owned was his fingers.

He looked down at himself, his bare feet somehow incongruous at the end of the black tapered dress pants. “No good?”

“There’s something missing,” Monet answered, a second before sliding past him into the changing room, her delicate scent teasing his senses.

Bloody hell, he wanted to follow her in there and do wicked things to her body.

She stepped back out, reached up and placed his hat on his head, her lips stretching into a wide smile. “Nowthat,” she murmured, “is good. Better than good.”

She dropped a kiss on his mouth, a quick brush of lips to lips, before stepping back.

The urge to grab her hips and haul her close rushed through Dylan, and it was only the sudden appearance of a sales assistant that stopped him.

So much for being safer out of the apartment, Sullivan.

The man gave the shoulder seams of the jacket a little tug. “This is a very nice cut, no? But the hat?—”

“Is perfect,” Monet cut him off, her eyes doing that twinkling-gleam-of-mischief thing Dylan couldn’t get enough of.

Twenty minutes later, Dylan paid for his new suit, a pale blue shirt, socks, boxers and a pair of black boots that wouldn’t last a day of work on Farpoint with his credit card.

His Farpoint Creek Cattle Station credit card.

He snickered, imaging Hunter’s face when his brother was doing the books later that month.

Serves him bloody right for not calling me back.

“You know,” Monet’s hand slipped around his biceps as they left the store, “you didn’t need to wear a suit tonight.”

He cast her a sideways glance, the chilly air tugging at the brim of his hat. “Would I be the only bloke therenotin a suit?”

She rolled her eyes. “You’ll be the only Australian cowboy there.”

Dylan’s stomach tightened. “Stockman.” They walked a few steps, the wave of pedestrians washing past them giving Dylan the sense he was the only Australian cowboy inNew York. Period.

“Is there something wrong?”