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Fiona tried to concentrate on lining up the bulletin for Sunday, but images of Wyatt kept popping into her head and distracting her.

Images of him striding across the motel room toward her, naked.

Images of that lopsided grin of his as he towered over her, naked.

Images of him lounging on the bed after sex, naked.

Damn! What was it about the man that he couldn’t keep his clothes on, even in her thoughts?

“How’s it coming?” The reverend poked his head around the corner, looking mildly sheepish. “I hate to ask for another favor so soon after yesterday, but I need someone to run down to the printer’s and pick up the posters for the carnival.”

Fiona grimaced. “It’s okay. I could use a break from this anyways. Maybe when I get back the thing will line up like it’s supposed to.” She got to her feet and reached for her purse hanging on the back of her chair.

“Thanks. I owe you one.” He disappeared for a second, then turned back. “And thanks for showing Wyatt around yesterday. I’m hoping he likes it enough here to stick around. He can fix just about anything and we sure could use the help.”

“Not a problem.” Now was her chance to find out a little more about her sexy cowboy. “He seems like a nice enough guy. So what’s his story?”

Mac shrugged. “Not much to tell. Wyatt and I were in the army together. When we got out we went our separate ways, but I ran into him at that tent revival thing I went to a few months back. Had a few beers, and got to talking. Seems like he’s been drifting since he got out.

He’d been dating a girl in his hometown for a few years before he got called up.

They were exclusive, but not engaged or anything like that.

The girlfriend moved on while he was away in Afghanistan and neglected to tell him.

When he got home, he found them in what he thought was his bedroom.

It hit him kinda hard. Not like they were serious, but he felt betrayed.

Everything in his hometown reminds him of her, so when I offered him a job up here, he jumped on it.

Now we just need to make sure he stays.”

Fiona could have kicked herself. Of course, she remembered Mac going off to the tent revival meetings, in the same town where she had very brilliantly gone looking for some action.

Still, how was she supposed to have realized that a guy who frequented religious gatherings also went barhopping and bull riding on Saturday nights?

Then again, who was she to talk? She worked for the church all week, went trolling for one-night stands on Saturdays, and then sang in the choir on Sundays. She just didn’t expect anyone else to live that kind of double life.

“Fiona?”

She looked up to find the reverend staring at her.

“Huh? Yeah?”

“I asked what you thought of him. Wyatt. Sometimes he comes across as a little rough around the edges but really he’s a super nice guy once you get to know him. He’d give you the shirt off his back.”

She tried to quash the mental image of a shirtless Wyatt. “He seems okay. We didn’t spend a lot of time together yesterday. He needed to get settled in.”

Mac gave her a quizzical look. “Of course not, but I’m sure you’ll see lots more of him once he starts work. He’s going to take this week to get the lay of the land and start next Monday. If you think of anything that needs to be done, just make a list and give it to him.”

Fiona gave a rueful snort. “It’s going to take him a while to catch up. We’ve been patching and making do for quite some time now.”

“True. I have to run now, so if you could just drop the posters in my office that would be great.”

“Okay.” Fiona followed him out into the hallway and then headed down toward the parking lot and her truck.

* * *

The posters were already packaged and ready when she got to the print shop. She hefted the box in her arms and headed back to her truck. She’d had to park three blocks down from the store. Ever since they’d put in that trendy new coffee bar, parking on this street had become a nightmare.

The throaty growl of a motorcycle coming down the road behind her sent a sensual chill down her spine. Surely Wyatt hadn’t followed her from the rectory? And why didn’t that thought piss her off nearly as much as it should?

A cherry-red Yamaha V Star 650 roared past her, leaving her to cope with sudden disappointment. As if she’d hoped he’d follow her. Damn, she was starting to obsess over this guy.

Not good. Not good at all. He was a guy, first strike against him.

By some bizarre quirk of fate, he’d shown up after what she expected to be a one-night stand, and had the nerve to be even better in bed the second time around.

And he hadn’t blurted out anything about their tryst, or their second one for that matter, to his best buddy the reverend. Her boss.

She hated to admit it but he might actually be a good guy. Not all men were like her ex. Following the disaster of her marriage, she suspected she might be incapable of trusting anyone ever again. After all, her ex had seemed like a real nice guy too.

Until he wasn’t.

She looked over at the tables outside the coffee shop.

Most of them were full of the younger crowd, talking and laughing, the girls flirting and the boys flirting right back.

She vaguely remembered being that young and carefree and full of hope.

Funny. When she was with Wyatt, she almost felt that way again.

Young and full of hope. Not exactly innocent but then innocent was overrated.

Sex was way more fun when both participants knew what they wanted and how to get it.

She smiled to herself. The man definitely had the whole sex thing down to a science.

“Fiona!”

Oh great. Now she was hearing him when he wasn’t even here.

She glanced around just to make sure. Nope.

No Wyatt. She shifted the posters to her left arm and rummaged around in her purse for her car keys.

One of these days someone was going to invent a car key that just appeared when you needed it. It would save a whole lot of time.

“Fiona! Didn’t you hear me calling?” Wyatt jogged up to stand beside her.

She stood there, key in one hand and a box of carnival posters in the other. Where the hell had he materialized from? “Yes. No.” She managed to get the door open and shoved the posters onto the passenger seat. “I thought I heard my name but I didn’t see you. Are you stalking me?”

Wyatt leaned on the side of the truck. “Could you blame me if I was?” He eyed the beat up old truck. “Brings back memories, doesn’t it?”

She tried not to laugh. She really did, but he just looked too cute, and too hopeful leaning on the old Chev. “What memories? We had a quickie in a parking lot after a few drinks. Hardly the kind of thing you want to remember the next day.”

“On the contrary.” He moved quickly and she suddenly found herself caged between two very muscular arms. “I remember an amazing sexual encounter that was over all too fast. Luckily for me, the lady was willing to give me another chance to prove my worth as a bed partner.”

He lowered his head to capture her lips in a fleeting kiss that left her tingling in parts that really shouldn’t be tingling during office hours.

She felt the heat staining her cheeks even as she peered around to make sure no one was watching. They weren’t. The world around continued on its mundane existence, oblivious to the fact that her life was spiraling out of control.

“I have to get back to the office.” Well that sounded lame!

He smiled gently, and she had to wonder if he knew just how much his mere presence upset the careful balance she’d established after her disastrous marriage.

Mac might have mentioned her past, but the reverend had no idea how bad things had been.

He’d just accepted the fact that a woman would relocate to the far side of the continent for a fresh start after divorcing her husband.

Wyatt cocked his head to the side, which somehow made him resemble a mischievous puppy. “Mac can be a slave driver for sure, but I bet he wouldn’t be too upset if you told him you were having lunch with a friend.”

She raised a brow. “A friend? Is that what we are?”

He grinned as if he knew she was wavering. “Friends with benefits. I’ll settle for that for now while I work on the next stage.”

“The next stage?”

Wyatt leaned forward, his lips brushing against her ear. “Lovers. So much better than friends with benefits.”

Fiona let out a high-pitched squeak as she ducked under his arm and hurried around to climb in the driver’s side of the truck.

Wyatt’s warm chuckle followed her. Settling into the driver’s seat, she found herself thigh to thigh with Wyatt, who’d swung up into the passenger seat, putting the posters up to perch precariously on the dashboard.

“What are you doing?”

He gave her an innocent look. “I was hoping for a ride back to the rectory. Mac told me you were here picking up posters for the carnival next month.”

She harrumphed. “You don’t need a ride from me. You must have had wheels to get here. Where are they now?”

He sighed theatrically. “On my bike, but it needs a new tire. I managed to pick up a nail in it and they don’t have the size I need in stock. They have to get it shipped in from the next town so it won’t be here until tomorrow.”

Was he telling the truth or trying to con her? “I didn’t know we had a motorcycle shop in town.”

Wyatt nodded and pointed out the front windshield. Sure enough, a big sign on a cement building kitty-corner to their parking space proclaimed: “Jackson Bros. Motorcycles -- sales, repairs, accessories.”

“Oh.” She’d never noticed it before, but then again she’d never had any interest in motorcycles.

“You can phone Mac and get him to verify my story. Would that help?” He looked so sincere, and the resemblance to a hopeful puppy reappeared, though she was pretty sure he was playing her. It was her turn to sigh theatrically.

“You know he’s going to say okay so why bother? He’s your old army buddy after all.” A scary thought occurred to her. “What have you told him about us?”

“You mean like how you were all over me in the parking lot, and how your clothes practically melted off you in the motel?”

Fiona rolled her eyes. She was pretty sure if he’d gone that far, Mac would have mentioned it. Or just fired her for conduct unbecoming a church receptionist. “They did not melt off.”

He grinned, settling into the seat and reaching for the seatbelt. “I didn’t tell him anything. I’m a gentleman. I don’t kiss and tell.”

“I thought you were a cowboy or a biker. Or something like that.”

“A gentleman cowboy.”

Fiona buckled her own seatbelt and started the truck. “You weren’t much of a gentleman the other night.” She muttered the comment under her breath.

Wyatt turned to face her, his eyes shaded under the brim of the ever-present cowboy hat. “You weren’t looking for a gentleman the other night. You were looking for something else entirely, and that’s exactly what I gave you.”

Okay. He had a point, and he had definitely given her what she wanted. She really should just shut up now, but her personal life had never intruded so far into her public life, and she was definitely outside her comfort zone.

The silence stretched out between them as she navigated her way through the traffic and headed home. Surprisingly, it was a comfortable silence. They were less than ten minutes away when Wyatt finally spoke.

“I like you.” He held up his hand as she opened her mouth.

“No, hear me out. I like you and I’d like to have a relationship with you.

A real one, not a one-night stand, or a few brief and hurried encounters when no one’s looking.

That’s just sex, and as much as I enjoy it, I want more.

I know the way we met probably isn’t the best foundation for a real relationship, so I have a proposal. ”

“What kind of proposal?” Fiona pulled off to the side of the road and put the truck in park. This was not a conversation she wanted to have while navigating traffic.

Wyatt turned to face her, his expression earnest. “We go back to square one. Hands off. I court you like you deserve, take you out to dinner, the theater, whatever it is you like to do. We get to know each other before we jump back into the sex. Hands off until you say you’re ready to commit to something deeper. What do you say?”

What did she say? It was a very generous offer, but her first reaction was dismay that he’d be willing to give up having sex with her so easily. “So I can see other guys too?”

“Not a frickin’ chance!” Wyatt narrowed his eyes. “Unless you want to see just how much of the biker image is window dressing and how much is real. I’m willing to back off and court you properly but I’m not going to share. We do this, it’s me and you.”

“What if I decide I don’t want to see you anymore? If this thing doesn’t work out?”

His eyes twinkled, and he raised his eyebrows in mock dismay.

“Impossible! What woman could say no to an amazing package like this? Looks, brains, an awesome bike, and as a bonus, I’m church approved.

You want me. You’re just not ready to admit it yet, so I’m willing to give you some time.

” He must have seen the fear flicker in the depths of her eyes, and his expression sobered.

“Please. I think we could have something really special and I’m willing to do what it takes to make it happen.

If you give me a chance, but decide that you truly don’t want me to pursue you, I promise I’ll walk away. No questions, no hassles.”

Could she trust him? That was the million-dollar question, and there was really only one way to find out. Plus, whether she was willing to admit it or not, he had a very valid point. There really was something between them, something more than just sex.

She nodded slowly. “Okay. I’m willing to give it a try.”

His smile was so bright it could have lit up the entire town. “Great! So how about dinner tomorrow night?”