“You liked that, did you?”
“Let’s just say I had some pretty wild wet dreams that night.” He slides his arms around my waist.
“Oh, did you?”
“Tiburona, you can turn me on like no other woman I have ever met. Pretty dress, black leather, combat boots, or high heels, it all does it for me.”
“Why?” I ask genuinely. I’m nothing special. I’m temperamental, moody, standoffish, and crabby, at best. I’ll rob, cheat, steal, and kill without a second thought. So why would anyone really want me?
“Why not?” is his simple reply. He’s perplexed about my inquiry. “You’re one a hell of a woman. One of the most unique I have ever met. How could anyone not be taken with you?”
I shrug. “I guess the way you see me and the way I see me is very different.”
“Isn't it always? That’s life. A different perspective is healthy, though. It helps clear away the fog.” He tilts my chin up.
“There’s definitely been a lot of fog in my life. Some is settling right now.”
Tate frowns. “Didn’t go as well with Stefania as you hoped?”
“Not in the least bit. She’s a goner. The Rayases are going to absorb the Deltoros, and there isn't much I can do about it.”
Tate stares at me thoughtfully. “You can use it as a fresh start. Reinvent yourself again. Move on, become someone else.”
“Someone else?” I ponder this. Who in the world would that be?
“You can get out of the life. Be free. Maybe . . . with me?”
“You?”
He does a little shrug. “We can both get out. Go straight. Be happy. Find a little house on a riverbank somewhere and raise goats and chickens.”
I grimace. “I’ll never raise goats and chickens. I’m no country girl.”
“Okay. You’ll polish your knives and guns, and I’ll raise the chickens. We’ll sell eggs at the local farmers’ market.”
“Sounds riveting.” I laugh.
“My parents were happy farmers once. It was a simpler life, but those times are my fondest memories.” He takes my hand and entwines our fingers.
“You raised chickens and goats?”
“And horses and pigs.”
“Where?”
“We had a family farm on the Texas-New Mexico border.”
“That makes a lot of sense.”
“What does?”
“Your cowboy persona.”
“Darlin’, it’s not a persona, it’s who I am. Down to my dusty Levi’s.”
“Don't call me darlin’.”
Tate smiles a brilliant smile. “I can’t help it. I know how much you hate it.”
