Page 48 of Rope Me In

“Wait, what are you doing?” she panics. Her hand flies out to land on my forearm. I try to ignore how nice it feels to have her touch me as Jake’s voice comes through on the other end.

“Should I be worried you’re calling me?” Jake asks.

“Can you cover for Presley and me tonight? She’s not feeling well, and I’m going to take her back to the ranch.”

Presley’s nostrils flare, and she looks equal parts relieved and pissed.

“You’ve got it bad,” Jake chuckles.

“Never you mind,” I snap. He hasn’t stopped ribbing me since the whole drunken “my Lemon” thing.

I’d hoped Presley wouldn’t have heard that through the phone, but by the confused look on her face, she had. Fucking great.

“You owe me, man,” Jake says, though his tone is playful.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll work all next week so you can go do whatever the hell it is you want to do.”

“Deal.”

“Want me to call someone to cover? I can hit up Tim; he mentioned he wants to help more.”

“I got it handled.”

“Thanks, Jake.”

“Tell Presley I hope she feels better.”

“Will do.” I hang up the phone and turn my attention to Presley, who still has her hand on my arm.

“You didn’t need to do that,” she says.

“It’s fine.”

“But you could come back and work.”

“Presley, relax. Let me take you home.”

She pulls back her hand as if she’s been burned, the opposite of relaxing. God, this woman drives me nuts.

I don’t know what’s going through her mind, and I want to know what happened inside Night Hawk. So as I turn the key to start up my truck, an idea forms in my mind.

“You wanna have some fun, Presley?”

Her head snaps to me. “I’m sick, remember?” she snipes. A sly smile takes over my lips—I’m glad to see some of the fire peeking back through.

“Trust me.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and glares at me. Her body language tells me everything I need to know about how much she doesn’t trust me, which is fair.

I let out a long breath. “I know we don’t know each other well, and you probably don’t think I’m a good man, but I swear I would never hurt you.” I pause. “Unless you ask me to.”

When the words have finished echoing between us, I wonder if I’ve gone too far, revealed too much about myself with that add-on. But…

If it wasn’t quiet in my truck, I would’ve missed her sharp intake of breath. I keep my eyes on her, and she shifts as if—is sheturned onby that?

Jesus, I need to stop that. No fucking Presley—she’s going through something.You’re going through something, a little voice in the back of my brain says, but I ignore it.

“Come on, Presley. It’s rare to get a night off around here, and you deserve to have a little fun. Everyone does. Just trust me, even if it’s only for one night.”