Page 24 of Brazen

All this effort at getting to know someone when there was no spark was time I could have been with JT.

Or getting laid with someone I did feel a spark with.

I ignored that little nudge from my ovaries. They were still cooling off from the encounter with the hot, shirtless cowboy this afternoon at Wolf Ranch.

Maybe I just needed a boy toy…

I mentally shook my head as David kept right on talking.

No boy toy. Absolutely not. I couldn’t have that kind of complication in my life.

I took a healthy swig of my Merlot as I absently nodded.

David had picked me up and taken me to Orlando’s, the only fancy restaurant in town. It featured Italian food, with an Italian-American chef who had relocated from Chicago, according to David.

We hadn’t even received our meals, and he’d already mansplained just about everything here to me. Well, maybe not mansplained. I suspected he was one of those guys who talked too much when he was nervous. But it had been a pretty one-sided conversation so far.

“I mean, she thinks she’s going to take our kid out of high school in the town where all her friends are to live with her and this guy she’s known for nine months?” He scoffed. “I don’t think so.”

I glanced past him to the bar and did a double take.

Oh my God.

Sam sat at the bar, a beer in his hand. For once, the cowboy hat was off. His blond hair looked damp and tousled like he’d come from a shower. He wore a plaid collared button-down shirt with navy and turquoise stripes that made his blue eyes pop. The female bartender was trying to tell him something, but his gaze was firmly fixed on me.

What was he doing here? And now?

He came to ruin my date! The nerve!

He knew all about the date because he’d been there when David had asked. Except how had he known about coming to this restaurant unless he overheard at the shop. But how?

He grinned and tipped the beer in my direction.

What. The actual. Fuck?

“Will you excuse me for a minute?” I stood and put my napkin on my chair.

“Oh. Yes, of course.” David beamed up at me like I’d hung a double rainbow in the sky.

Yikes. This guy reminded me too much of an overeager golden retriever. Funny how I didn’t mind Sam’s over-the-top flirtations, but this was too much interest from my date.

I wondered what that said about me. That I had commitment issues? Or that I didn’t take Sam seriously. Or… I had no idea.

I guessed it had something to do with the fact that I was used to guys like Sam. I’d been surrounded by them growing up. I was used to their teasing. Their innuendo. Their chest thumping. All that male bullshit that I swallowed, so I could be one of the guys, so I could get my job done. I’d liked that kind of energy because it was all I knew. That was why I’d been attracted to that same swagger in Ted.

I knew how to handle those men. How to put them in their place. I didn’t have to worry about hurting their feelings because their egos were so big, they could handle rejection because they’d just smile and wink at the next woman, and they’d fawn all over them.

Like Sam. I wasn’t sure why he was here, but there was a woman at the bar ogling him right now, and all he had to do was spin around on the barstool, and he’d have her number.

I was his conquest-of-the-moment. Right now, I intended to lower Sam’s ego by a few notches.

I strode past him, purposefully bumping him as I headed to the hallway with the bathrooms.

He got the message and slid off his barstool to follow me. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it.

When we reached the hallway, I spun around, hands on hips. Before I could say anything, he gave me an appreciative up and down. “You look good.”

I’d worn a skirt and a halter top that tied behind the neck, with a pair of heels. It was the first time I’d worn heels in at least three years, and my ankles were already cranky.