Page 66 of Boston (Coral Canyon: Cowboys #12)
L ark McClellan could not believe that Cash Young had roasted vegetables , number one.
They were actually seasoned with salt and pepper and perfectly done—not too crisp, not too mushy—number two.
The idea of ordering an all-meat pizza and then adding his own vegetables…Lark had not imagined Cash to have that depth.
“So?” he asked when she didn’t moan and roll her eyes and tell him it was the best bite of food she’d ever put in her mouth.
“It’s good,” she admitted, though she didn’t even want to give him that. Why, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps her own attraction to him irritated her and put her in a bad mood, because he’d literally never done anything to her to warrant her dislike of him.
Other than life is so easy for him, she thought. The cowboy didn’t even have a job, so of course, he could take cooking classes, and learn how to properly season vegetables, and look up all the new places that existed in Dog Valley that hadn’t when she’d grown up here.
“I didn’t know you’d be coming in today,” Cash said.
“I didn’t know I owed you an itinerary.”
He chuckled and took another bite of his pizza. A stab of guilt moved through Lark, and she sighed as she took a bite too. Cash watched her, those dark eyes missing nothing.
The man had ridden bulls for a living, and blast him all the way back to Texas, Lark had looked him up online.
He’d been really good, and he’d been Pro for five years, right at the top of the listings.
The man knew how to work hard, and in fact, he seemed to be in better shape now than he’d been in August.
She’d come for a brief weekend in October after ending things with Danny for good.
She’d simply needed to get away, and her parents’ house only stood three hours from campus.
She’d put up with Cash while watching movies on her tablet in bed, but she’d had classes and responsibilities to return to.
Lark told herself that she didn’t like Danny all that much anyway. As a friend, sure, but not a boyfriend.
“Who were you talking about earlier?” she asked as Cash picked up a second piece of pizza and bit off the tip. An errant floret of broccoli fell to the box, and he picked it up and put it back on his slice.
“What now?”
“You were saying something about someone who doesn’t even like you.” She cocked her eyebrows at him, practically daring him to deny it.
His face reddened, and he shook his head. “Ain’t no one.”
“Yeah, sure seems like it.”
He grinned, chuckled, and took another bite of pizza.
Nothing she did ever seemed to unsettle him, and that only made her want to try harder.
What would it take to irritate him, to make him snap back at her the way he had the first time they’d met?
For some reason, she really wanted to push his buttons the way he pushed hers. She just hadn’t found a way yet.
“What about you?” he asked. “It’s the holidays. You didn’t get an invite to your boyfriend’s house? Or want to bring him here?” His tone suggested so much more, and Lark wanted to make up a fake boyfriend on the spot. Anything to not have to tell him that she didn’t have anyone in her life.
Besides, that’s not true, she told herself. You have Jet and Wade, and Momma and Daddy, and Clarissa and Ella. She had good roommates in Idaho, and yes, she could have gone to Ella’s grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving, but she’d wanted to come home, despite her parents not being here.
“I don’t have to tell you anything about him,” she said.
Cash chuckled and finished his second piece of pizza. Lark still had her first, and she bit off one of the chewy ends, appreciating a good bite of bread.
“Yeah, I know what that means,” he said, reaching into the box for his third piece.
“What does it mean?” she asked around her mouthful of garlicky, buttery bread.
“It means you broke up,” he said, pinning her with that black-eyed look.
How did a person come to be so dark anyway?
she wondered. He didn’t wear his cowboy hat indoors, but his midnight black hair looked like it’d been professionally styled for a pro bull rider photo shoot that would happen in the next minute.
It swept to the side and sat just a little bit long in the back so that it almost touched his collar, and Lark wanted to run her fingers through it more than anything she’d ever wanted before.
She fisted them and got up to put some distance between them. “Do you have anything to drink in this place?”
“Yeah,” he said, and she felt the weight of his eyes on her as she moved over to the fridge and opened it.
Lark once again found herself trying to get her eyes to stop lying to her. The fridge sat full of food, and not just leftovers in Styrofoam containers and doggie bags, but real food . Where did he even get fresh corn in the winter, and a cantaloupe?
Did he peel that and de-seed it and eat it? Lark couldn’t imagine him doing so, though now she fantasized about being that cantaloupe and letting him handle her with those big hands of his.
Lark’s body turned hot, and she leaned further into the fridge in an attempt to cool herself down. “This is ridiculous,” she muttered to herself.
“The root beer is my favorite,” he said. “But I’d be willing to let you have one.”
Her eyes finally landed on the drinks on the top shelf. “I’ll just have water, thanks.” She pulled out a bottle, surprised that Cash had put bottled, filtered water in the fridge.
She closed the fridge and twisted off the top of the bottle. “Do you cook?” In the next moment, her eyes landed on an open binder on the island.
Cash yelped, which sent Lark back into the fridge. The scraping of his chair against tile filled the room, and he jogged over to the island, leaned over, and grabbed the book. He slammed it closed, and with one palm resting on it, he looked at her.
“I don’t want you to see that. It’s for Thanksgiving.”
“What have you got in there?” she asked, the cold from the water bottle seeping into her hand, but the idea of taking a drink completely forgotten. She blinked at him, and he blinked back. A line appeared between his eyes as he frowned, and then he straightened and tucked the book under his arm.
“I just told you, I don’t want you to see it until Thanksgiving.
” He glared at her out of the corner of his eye as he went around the island and opened the cupboard above the microwave.
He stashed the binder there, and then faced her again.
He folded his arms and settled his weight on his back leg.
“And what would you do if I told you I did cook?”
“I don’t know,” Lark said. “Ask you what’s for dinner?”
Cash stepped closer, his arms falling to his sides.
Lark wanted to back up, but she’d frozen.
Her mind went blank, and her extremities turned numb, and yet Cash came closer.
He looked down, and Lark followed his gaze.
His fingers came dangerously close to hers, and then he pulled them back, as if an invisible force field had repelled him.
He stood at least eight inches taller than her, and when he looked up, he only moved his eyes to meet hers. “What do you want for dinner, Lark?”
Oh, this man could not say her name, not like that. Or ask her what she wanted in that deep, cowboy drawl. Uh-uh. Nope. He couldn’t.
And yet, he had.
“At the risk of sounding arrogant, I can probably make whatever you want.” He nodded his chin slightly toward the fridge, and then back to her. “I might have to go to the grocery store, but I wouldn’t mind the trip.”
Lark swallowed, her throat so dry and her mouth feeling gross with the scent of sausage and broccoli. She couldn’t speak standing this close to Cash. He’d be repulsed, and then she’d never have a chance with him.
You don’t want a chance with him! she screamed at herself, but her mind and her heart didn’t seem to be in alignment, because Lark definitely wanted a chance with Cash.
So many things tumbled through her thoughts, from What will Jet think?
to You’ve already sworn off cowboys, to It sure would be awesome to have some homemade chicken pot pie for dinner.
Cash’s fingers finally touched hers, breaking through that invisible barrier. Lark sucked in a breath, which echoed through the kitchen. Cash’s smile started to slowly spread across his face, as if he knew she’d laid awake at night thinking about him.
The hand holding the bottle of water ceased functioning, and her fingers lost their grip.
The water bottle fell, first hitting the handle on the fridge door, which tipped it toward Cash.
He had the reflexes of a bull rider, and he stepped back as the water arced through the air from the open top in one moment, and then hit the floor with a plasticky crash and water gushing everywhere in the next.
“Whoopsie,” Cash said, and she wondered where this man had come from.
Tall, dark bull riders didn’t say “Whoopsie,” and they didn’t grab towels from where they hung neatly on the handle of the oven and bend down and start cleaning up the mess she’d made.
He retrieved the bottle and put it in the sink, and by the time he’d finished cleaning up, Lark’s mind had thawed.
“I wouldn’t say no to a chicken pot pie and a really big green salad,” she said, throwing down the challenge. “With ranch dressing and homemade croutons.”
Cash leaned against the sink and considered her, that strong mouth staying flat. Oh, how she watched it and couldn’t look away.
“All right,” he finally drawled. “I’m definitely going to have to go to town though, because we’ll need day-old bread for the croutons.” He raised his eyebrows, as if asking her to give him something hard to make. “And chicken pot pie also takes a while to bake.”
He turned away from her and moved over to the very end drawer next to the pantry. “I should head out now, what with the drive there and back.” He glanced at the clock. “Should be fine, though. It’s just about getting that crust nice, and golden, and brown.”
He pocketed his keys and reached for his cowboy hat, which he’d hung next to the door that led into the garage.
He wore jeans and a dark gray t-shirt that seemed too small only through the bicep and across his shoulders and chest, but hung loosely everywhere else.
The cowboy hat was black, of course, to match everything else about Cash.
“Any other specific requests while I’m in town?” he said. “Something for lunch tomorrow after church, perhaps?”
She found herself gaping at him once again, for she did not imagine the mighty Cash Young to be a church-goer. His eyes flicked to the cabinet above the microwave.
“I was going to practice a couple of things tomorrow after church. Maybe I should surprise you.”
“All right,” Lark said, and she really needed another bottle of water to ease the parched quality in her throat. She flicked her gaze to the cabinet above the microwave too, because he was delusional if he thought she couldn’t reach it.
“Now I see what’s happening.” He took the few steps and opened the cupboard door and retrieved the binder. “You really have no respect, do you?” He grinned as he said it, and then brushed by her as he added, “I just need to grab my jacket.”
He went down the hall toward the master bedroom, and it took Lark a moment to catch up to the situation.
She flew into her room too and grabbed her hat and gloves.
She made it back to the kitchen and living room before he did, and when he saw her standing there with her purse over her arm and her winter gear in her other hand, he stopped.
“What’s going on here?”
“I’m not letting you go to town by yourself,” she said. She took her balled up gloves out of her hat and pulled that down over her ears. She gathered her hair and pushed it back over her shoulders and nodded at him.
Cash’s smile only grew, and Lark wondered what he saw. “For all I know, you’ll just call the Branding Iron and order a chicken pot pie and then pretend like you made it.” She shook her head. “Nope, I’m going with you.”
With that, she spun on her heel and strode toward the garage, every cell in her body vibrating with pure excitement to be stuck in the cab of a truck with Cash for an hour—each way—as they drove from Dog Valley to the grocery store, and back.
Ha ha! She just HAS to go with him! Preorder CASH now!