Page 10 of Haunted Spurs

She launches into a rant about how antisocial I’ve become and how she’d basically pictured me living out my days as a cloistered nun.

“No, it’s true,” I reply in the flattest, most bored tone I can manage.

“Selene Dusk! That is absolutely something you do not keep from me! Are you or are you not my best friend?”

“Actually, last time I checked, I was your client…”

“Fine!” she snaps, with the triumphant tone of someone who just called checkmate. “Then, as my client, I’m ordering you to sign up for this reality show to unblock your creativity.”

What the fu— I literally just walked right into that.

I take a resigned breath and grab the pumpkin muffin. I bring it to my mouth, sinking my teeth into the chocolate edge just to find a shred of comfort in this mess of tears and contract traps. At least I’ll have something good to eat…

The bell hanging on the glass door of the Pumpkin Spice Café jingles merrily.

I look up, the muffin frozen halfway between the saucer and my mouth.

Oh shit.

No. This can’t be real. It’s basically statistically impossible.

And yet, the doors have just swung shut behind a massive figure who takes up half the coffee shop. Broad shoulders packed into a tight T-shirt, faded jeans, heavy boots, and that dark Stetson pulled low over his brow… It’s the “new cowboy” I remember way too well to mistake.

My survival instinct completely overrides rational thought.

With the muffin shoved in my mouth and my phone still pressed to my ear, I do the only thing, the one logical move my short-circuiting brain can come up with.

I slide off my chair and duck under the table.

“Hey, what’s all that racket?” Jessica’s voice blasts through the phone.

“Shhh!” I hiss, pulling the muffin away from my mouth with my free hand.

“What?”

“I can’t talk right now,” I whisper.

“Oh hell no, you don’t get to hang up on me like that,” she yells, completely ignoring the fact there’s an emergency.

“Shhh!”

“What the hell is going on?!”

Dammit. I pull the phone away, frantically searching for the side volume button with my thumb. She’s too damn loud. Jessica’s voice is booming like a megaphone.

“I can’t talk right now,” I murmur into the mic, curling tighter around the table leg. “He just walked in…”

“Who?”

Trying to peek out, I lean a little too far forward. Thud.

“Ow!” I curse under my breath, banging my head hard against the wooden beam under the tabletop. The jolt makes me drop my pastry. The muffin falls and rolls across the floor. My pumpkin-chocolate paradise—gone.

I look down, cautiously stretching out a hand to retrieve it.

“Well, hey there.”

I freeze. The male voice—low, raspy, and laced with that damned, unmistakable amusement—is right beside me.