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“You weren’t born knowing all of that, though,” she said, determination clear in her voice. “You learned. So can I.”
Sage tore his gaze from hers and glanced around the coffee shop. He needed a minute to get ahold of himself. To keep from ordering her to stay off the damn mountain. Conversations rose and fell from the dozens of customers gathered in the sunlit restaurant. An occasional burst of laughter rang out, and the scent of coffee and hamburgers hung in the air. Coming here to the coffee shop had seemed like a good idea at the time. With the amount of tension he’d been living with the past few days, he’d figured that taking Colleen to a crowded place in the middle of the day was one way to help him keep a tight grip on his control. Naturally, that wasn’t working out as he’d planned. Pretty much nothing had since he’d first met Colleen.
Shaking his head grimly, Sage noticed the number of strange faces among the crowd. Tourists were streaming into Cheyenne already, clogging up the streets and making the restaurants even more crowded than usual. Soon, the summer crowds would be arriving. By the end of July, thousands would be here for Cheyenne Frontier Days, reliving the Old West and enjoying the world’s largest outdoor rodeo. There would be ten days of parades, carnivals and food fairs. For a second, he thought about the rodeo itself and remembered what it had been like to ride in front of thousands of cheering people.
Of course, it wasn’t just the rodeo that drew people to Cheyenne. Summer was filled with tourist attractions from the eight-foot-tall painted fiberglass cowboy boots situated all over the city to the carefully staged, G-rated “gunfights” acted out daily by the Cheyenne Gunslingers. There were tours, art festivals and so many other activities, people came to Cheyenne and poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the local economy.
As for Sage, he tried to stay on the mountain to avoid all of those people. He spent summers working with the horses and trying to forget that there was a world outside his ranch. Right now, though, summer was still months away and Sage’s mind was preoccupied by the thought of Colleen, midwinter, all alone on the mountain. Cold dropped into the pit of his stomach and stayed there.
He shifted his gaze back to hers and barked, “You can’t do it.”
“Excuse me?” Her face went blank for an instant, and then her cheeks flushed with color and her eyes started firing sparks at him.
“Maybe I put that the wrong way,” he allowed, since he hadn’t been thinking at all when the words shot from his throat.
“You think?”
* * *
Colleen felt a quick spurt of irritation, then squashed it again quickly. Yes, Sage was being a little authoritarian, but he had backed off quickly, too, hadn’t he? It was in his nature to take command. She could tell that by the way he stood, so tall and alert, his gaze constantly darting around his surroundings, as if checking for any problem that might arise. He was the kind of man who would always do what he could to keep people safe—whether they appreciated it or not.
And now, he was trying to protect her. Which made her feel good enough that she was willing to overlook the fact that he was also trying to keep her from doing what she’d always dreamed of doing. Actually, she could hardly believe she was out with him. Again. And the past few times she’d been with him had absolutely been dates.
Even Jenna agreed that this had moved way beyond him wanting closure after his father’s death. There was something else going on here. They rarely talked about J.D. anymore, instead sharing stories about their lives and talking about everyday things. So if it wasn’t about his dad, what else could it be? She wasn’t sure, but she had decided to simply enjoy this time with Sage for as long as it lasted. Because she knew, at the heart of it, she just wasn’t the kind of woman to capture and hold the interest of a man like him.
“I didn’t mean that you can’t,” he was saying and Colleen came up out of her thoughts to focus her attention on him. “What I meant was that you can’t just decide to live in what could be dangerous terrain while knowing nothing about survival.” Colleen couldn’t help it—she laughed. He looked so serious. So...growly. A small, tiny part of her thrilled to hear him trying protect her. But the reality was, she took care of herself very well.
“You make it sound as though I’m talking about moving to the middle of nowhere. This isn’t the frontier, Sage. I’ll be perfectly safe.”
“Probably,” he agreed, “but the country—especially the high country—can be dangerous.”
