Page 4 of Cowboy Heat

I see my Jeep’s scrunched-up hood, and I wonder if I match it. My hands shake their way up to my head and come back with blood. I feel fine, but I also feel like ants are crawling under my skin.

Maybe I’m not fine.

My thoughts scramble a few different ways, and I realize only after the fact that I’ve been waiting for something to break me out of my little trance. I jump at a noise over my shoulder.

“Are you okay?” The voice comes from the other side of my rolled-down window. A deep, smooth thing that doesn’t fit with my situation.

I realize it’s Beau Montgomery, and in the dim light from my tree-bounced headlights, he looks concerned.

“Miss Lawson, are you okay?”

It’s an easy answer but not one that’s easy to give, apparently. Instead, I blurt out the first thought that pops into my head. “Kissy.”

Beau tilts his head like a dog who’s trying to find out where the dog whistle is blowing from. “’Scuse me?”

“My name,” I try again. “It’s Kissy.”

Beau takes this information with a nod, but then is all about the Jeep, me, and the tree. “How do you feel? What’s hurting?” He opens my door and cuts off the ignition. His arm grazes my knee, and I finally acknowledge that my legs are still where they should be. They feel fine. The rest of me too, I realize after a beat.

A beat in which Beau has unbuckled my seatbelt and is all eyes on me.

“I feel fine. My-My head hurts a little, I think. I’m bleeding there.”

Beau bobs up and down, gaze on my hairline. He nods confirmation. “You’re bleeding. Did you hit your head on the steering wheel?”

That’s a question I probably need an answer for. I shrug. “My coffee cup hit me. Guess I’m lucky I drank the stuff already. I’d be angry if I wasted it on a swerve.”

He gives short laugh.

The sound is more than I heard from him during the tour. It makes me feel like I should explain myself, even though this stranger doesn’t need to know why I’m in a ditch.

“It was a cat,” I say. “My dad always told me it was safer to hit an animal than try to avoid it, but my body said ‘no, ma’am’ and I swerved instead. Did you see it? The cat?”

Beau turns toward the road. “I don’t see one.”

I curse real low.

I feel more like myself and shake my head. I flinch at the throbbing. “I’m never going to hear the end of choosing to swerve.”

Beau moves around. I see the flash of his phone screen next. He responds without looking up, “No one ever knows what they’ll do in a situation until they’re in it. I bet half the people who say to hit an animal would swerve in a heartbeat too.”

It sounds reasonable, but I see he’s typing in a nine and then a one, and I yell. “Don’t call the police! I’m fine!”

Beau’s finger hovers over that last one. I guess I sound adequately repulsed by the idea of him calling in help. “You’ve been in an accident, and your head is bleeding. You could have a concussion.”

I bite down on the pain. “I went into a ditch is all, and honestly, I’m pretty sure I hit the brakes before I went in. I probably only hit the tree going, like, five miles an hour. Plus, if you call in help, all you’re going to get me is an ambulance bill I can’t afford and Deputy McLennan. I haven’t liked that man since I was a sixteen, and I can assure you he feels the same.”

Beau isn’t calling now but he isn’t moving, either. “You could still have a concussion. You need to get seen.”

I sigh and finally start getting out of the Jeep. He makes room for me but holds out his hand next to my arm. He’s not touching me, but I bet if I sway even a little, he’ll have me done up in a makeshift stretcher of his arms.

If he wasn’t a stranger, and I hadn’t just hit a tree, I might think on that scenario a bit, since there’s no denying he’s a looker. My dating history may be a disaster and a half, but I still react to lookers.

When I first saw him after getting to Blue Lolita earlier, I took a full few seconds to look him up and down from the cover of my Jeep. He’s tall, six foot at least, and he’s got this lean but firm deal going on that tells me he either watches what he eats or works out enough that it doesn’t matter. Or maybe it’s a combo of the two. He walks like he knows what discipline means, and he’s real respectful with his words. His hair, though, is a bit messy on top. It’s a nice dark brown with shorter sides to it, like he wanted order with a touch of chaos in his style. He has blue eyes that seem to have changed shade with the sunset. They were ice blue when I was saying hello, but now, they’re looking like the deep end of a pool. He has a dusting of stubble along his jaw, and I can’t see if it’s a shadow I’m looking at or a scar along his face.

I decide to be polite and not ask.

I also decide to try my best not to sway and think of how good-looking he is, because it doesn’t matter in the long run.