Page 46 of Drifter’s Heart

I squeeze her ankle gently. “You’ve had a shitty ex break into your house this week, and we fought. Do I care that you hung out with another man? Kinda. Am I worried I’ll lose you to him? No.”

“Cocky, aren’t you,” she says softly, dropping a hand to run her fingers over the scars that populate the backs of my knuckles.

“Honest,” I counter. “Your brother knows that. I don’t do bullshit, Winnie.”

“I know.” Her hand stills. “I danced on the stage. I danced to every song. On a freaking pole. It was my idea.” She shrugs again, but her tone is sour.

I wait.

“And you know what? His music was great. The audience loved him. I got a load of applause. Thanks so much.” The tang of bitterness is in overdrive now.

I scoop an arm around her lower back. “Is Sally home?”

She shakes her head. “School’s out on break. Lanie and Cord came to take her. Again. I actually don’t have work. And I finally got to see Lanie’s belly. She said sorry. Everyone’s fucking sorry.” Not a tear is in sight.

I know this version of Winnie. She can hold out for years on her own. This is Winnie Rand in survival mode. The girl I’m fast falling for. Or maybe I fell for her a long, long time ago, and now I’m seeing who she really is to me, away from Coyote Falls. Who I want us to be.

“You came home alone.” It’s a statement, not a question. I already know the answer.

“Did you want to open the door to Hottie Rock Star McNurse?”

“Fuck it.” I slap my thigh with my other hand, make her jump for shits and giggles, and suppress a grin at the end result anyway. “I knew I got his name wrong.”

Winnie stops shredding flowers like she’s a gothic glitter princess and glares at me. “You are not coming inside.”

“Nope. But you’re coming outside. Go. Shower and pack a bag, or don’t. But you’re heading north with me and Dustan.”

“Who’s Dustan?”

“The kid I’m entering in your brother’s rodeo.” I take perverse pleasure in her overt shock as Winnie stares at me, her mouth hanging open. I close it gently and rub my thumb across her jawline. “It’s okay to need a rebound or two after all the shit that’s happened to you. I’d just prefer if the rebound wasn’t me.”

She leans toward me, her eyes sparkling. “You’re entering a rider in Cord’s rodeo.”

“Yeah?” I watch her warily.

“Does he know that you’re doing this?”

“Ah.” I release my hold on her, both jaw and ankle. “No. No, he doesn’t.”

Winnie cuddles her dismembered flowers and bounces on the step, standing to shower me in sparkles. “I have to see this. Hold these.”

Suddenly I’m holding headless flowers and I’m encrusted in glitter. “Winnie?”

She’s back in record time, scrubbed clean with only the random speckle glimmering in her hair. Her eyes are back to their own color, including her black eyelashes that I brush a thumb across to check.

On impulse I lean and kiss her. When she doesn’t pull away, I trace my tongue across her bottom lip and taste her sweet strawberry-and-chocolate flavor. “That’s not toothpaste, gorgeous.”

Winnie pants softly for me, less than decent even when she’s wearing jeans and a white tee that only enhances her full breasts, which I ache to cup and squeeze to hear her moan. I curse Dustan in my head for being in my truck, but I’ve made the younger man wait for us too long already.

“I had a jam donut for breakfast on the way home. So what?” Sassy Winnie is back and she’s sexy as fuck. “Hold this?” She throws her duffel bag at me and saunters toward my truck, stopping when she spies Dustan spread out across the back seat in his purple pants and lime-green shirt. “Ah, West?”

“Yeah?”

“I thought you said he was a rider, not freaking sideshow alley all on his own.”

“He mighta said the same thing a minute ago when you were covered in glitter and neon and wearing hotpants,” I lie. Dustan would have called her a queen. Hell, he still might. “Get in the truck.” I offer the command gently and kiss her again.

“Stop that,” Winnie murmurs, toying with the buttons on my shirt. “Are you going to drop me at Coyote?”