While I rearrange some of the lamps and vases atop our new reclaimed wood dresser, my shop assistant Sarah comes over, handing me a maple latte.
“Thank you! You’re a life saver,” I tell her, taking a sip.
She arches a pierced eyebrow. “As good as the ones I used to make?”
“No one will ever make a cup as good as you,” I tell her honestly.
Sarah was working as a barista at Bison Brew down the street when I met her. We started chatting and one day she told me she was miserable working there now because her ex-situationship still came in for coffee every day and treated her like a stranger, like nothing more than an employee. Didn’t even tip.
I was outraged on her behalf and offered her a job as my shop assistant on the spot. Not just out of pity, either. If she could speak with such passion about a literal bag of coffee beans, I knew she’d make a fabulous sales associate.
“How was the charity auction last night?” she asks.
I shrug. “Never made it.”
I tell her the story about the dog and meeting Slade.
She goggles at me. “You spent the night with Slade Rhodes?”
I feel my face heat. “I didn’t spend the night with him. It was just a few hours at the vet while we waited for the dog to come out of surgery. She’s doing great, bythe way.”
I make a mental note to call the vet clinic on my lunch break. The dog is the whole reason any of this happened, and I’m worried about her.
Sarah waves that away. “Cool, cool. Tell me more about Slade.” She props her chin on her fist. “I think he’s my favorite Rhodes brother. There’s just something about a broody hockey player, you know?”
“You know all the Rhodes brothers?” I ask.
“Not personally. Obviously. They’re famous and they’re, like, Marble Falls royalty. Everyone knows them.”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re new here.” Her eyes widen. “Oh my God, do you think he’ll invite you to Wild Rose Ranch?”
“What is that?”
“Lila! Come on. This is your new home town. You’ve got to catch up on all the major players here. Wild Rose is legendary. They’ve filmed movies there. I heard some billionaire tech bro tried to buy it for a hundred million dollars and the Rhodes family turned him down.”
Sarah seems dazzled by all of that, but I grew up with money and I know better than to be impressed by it.
“Oh,” I say, arranging our new shipment of handmade ceramics. “Okay.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re so weird sometimes, Lila. You get excited by a dusty old chair but a family of rich, famous, smoking-hot cowboy brothers does nothing for you.”
I think about those dark green eyes staring into mine. Those big rough hands lifting me over that fence like I weighed nothing more than a feather, when I definitely have the curves to prove otherwise.
I wouldn’t say that one certain smoking-hot cowboy does nothing for me. I’d say entirely too much, actually, for a man I spent about three hours with while covered in pinkfeathers.
I really should have left well enough alone and not Googled him. Because now I know what Slade looks like in full gear on the ice. I’ve seen the sheer size of him with those hockey pads on. That dark, smoldering glower of concentration during games. I’ve seen that power and athleticism in motion.
I know he’s a man who can skate backwards on the ice and body slam another giant athlete into the boards at high speed. I know those powerful arms that wield a hockey stick like a weapon can also gently carry an injured dog. That those big hands span my waist as he lifts me over a fence, as carefully as if I was made of glass.
And then my traitorous brain goes one step further and starts thinking what it might feel like to have that kind of strength used in an entirely different context. Nothing between us, no fence, just those hands on my hips as he?—
Okay, it’s been way too long since anyone touched me that way.
I try to change the subject. “In any case,” I say, “I’m sorry I missed the chance to do my part for the animal shelter. I got all dressed up in that silly bunny costume for nothing.”
Sarah scrolls through her phone. “The website says they pulled in forty-four thousand last night.” She looks closer at her phone. “Woah. Ten thousand of that was for a date with you.”
