Page 8 of Slow Hands Cowboy

He had been left with two small children, so there really wasn’t another side to it.

Either way, Addison wasn’t interested, though that didn’t mean she hadn’t heard the rumors about Nolan and Cody.

And Walker.

Just thinking about Walker made the back of her neck feel prickly.

“Who is that?” Lydia asked, her eyes large as she looked over at Nolan.

“Oh, I went to high school with him. He’s a year older, but… you know, just one of the Cowboys.”

“Just one of the Cowboys? This is a common sight? Like he’s basically a bushtit?”

“I don’t think he’s⁠—”

“You just have men that look like this wandering around – oh dear God.”

The look on Lydia’s face turned liquid, and her cheeks were scarlet, and Denisha looked about the same. Even Anna was suddenly blushing, and Addison didn’t need to be a psychic to know who had just shown up. Because Nolan was good-looking. Cody was handsome.

Walker was on another planet. He was otherworldly. His looks were the kind that made everyone stop, just like this, and stare. It didn’t matter if you had seen him one time or 100 times, he was going to have an effect. Women, straight men, everybody stopped to look at Walker.

He was tall, with broad shoulders and a wicked gleam in his blue eyes. His blonde hair was shot through with gold, always with the perfect amount of wave running through it. And even if it was covered with a cowboy hat, you could tell that it was perfect.

Just like now.

Riding up to the group like a knight in shining armor, or a cowboy out of a fantasy.

And she would be lying if she said that her heart didn’t jump up into her throat, making her limbs feel tingly and her whole body feel like it was on edge.

The trouble was, even though she knew several things about Walker, that he was off-limits, that he was absolutely the wrong man to have a dalliance with, that she couldn’t afford the kind of reputation-damaging gossip that would come from having even a physical-only hook-up with him, that they would kill each other if they even tried, it didn’t stop her body from reacting to him. It never had.

“And how is everything so far?”

Her bridesmaids were no help at all. They fluttered, they practically swooned.

“Everything is great,” Denisha said, smiling brightly and looking at Walker as though he had brought her a special delivery of the moon and the stars.

“That is great to hear. I’m Walker Grayson, and I am the coordinator for this event. Please reach out to me if there are any issues. I thought I would join you on this lovely trail ride.”

“Thank you,” Addison said, smiling, and not showing any of the discomfort that she felt, because why? It was best to just pretend that she was neutral about him. That she didn’t remember him from any other point in time. Didn’t have a whole history with him in high school that was negative, honestly.

It was how she had approached this entire thing.

As if there had never been a thing wrong between them.

“Great. Let’s get moving.”

They all mounted their horses and started on the trail. It was a more advanced ride, because they all had experience. Denisha had done competitive dressage, and Anna had grown up on a sprawling ranch. Lydia had done show jumping, and while Addison had never been competitive, her father had considered it essential that she learned to ride properly.

It was one of those aspects of an accomplished lady.

And Addison was very accomplished.

She had learned to ride in the English style, she had learned piano, flute, and for a while, she had taken up pennywhistle, but that had been just an interest of her own.

She had tried painting, had dabbled in sculpture, and mosaic.

Her father had kept her and her brother in lessons all throughout their childhood, because it was important, he said, that people had interests, that they had something about them to keep them occupied, and the undertone of that was that if you didn’t, then you would be hollow, and anything could come along and fill that hollow space.