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She drew a bracing breath before continuing. “You said you already like my mom, but there’s a good chance you’ll change your opinion of her after you meet her.”
She started to turn away from him, but he caught her wrist. “Why? Anyone related to you can’t be that bad. As for me, I’ve been told I’m a pretty likable guy.” Instead of being offended, he was building his case.
Whether by accident or on purpose, the pads of his fingers slid above her pink knit glove, touching her pulse point. Since he wasn’t wearing gloves, his fingers felt cool against her skin. He’d ditched his coat and gloves days ago, claiming that late February was nearly spring. She couldn’t have disagreed more. Though the snow was gone, the mountain breeze had yet to lose its winter bite.
“That’s a good question.” To stall for time, she glanced away from him.
“Prim.” His fingers tightened around her wrist, drawing her gaze back to his. “If she’s got something against me, she probably has a reason for it. Just let me know what it is, so I can clear it up.”
“Fine. I’ll tell you, but only so you’ll understand there’s no clearing this up.” She really, really, really wished his thumb wasn’t resting on the tippie top of her pulse while she said what she had to say next. “So, here’s the deal. I told her about you.”
“Anything good?” His voice with a curious mixture of challenge and humor.
“I told her we were friends.” Her voice came out a little breathless. “Shoot, Shep. Maybe even best friends.” They’d grown pretty close pretty quickly. “I, um…didn’t tell her that part, though.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the relentless questions that would follow. You policemen have nothing on my mom when it comes to interrogation skills. Trust me.” She grimaced.
The skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled a little. “Still don’t see the problem.”
“You will shortly. At the very top of her list of Dating Don’ts is the Never Date Your Friends Rule. Right after that is the Never Date Guys in Uniform Rule.”
She was totally squirming now beneath Shep’s searching look and turning redder by the second. Heat spilled across her cheeks and burned a path down her neck.
There was a stretch of silence before he spoke again, this time in a huskier voice. “That’s only two strikes against me. I get one more before I’m out.” He lowered his hand to his side.
“This isn’t baseball, Shep.” She resisted the urge to rub her wrist. It felt like the blood was sizzling in her veins where his fingers had been wrapped around her.
“Whatever, Prim. We’re two consenting adults, which means I can ask you out if I want to. And you can turn me down if you’re not interested.”
“Please don’t,” she gasped. Without thinking, she reached out to grip his forearm.
“Don’t what?” His muscles flexed beneath her gloved fingers, escalating the awareness between them even more.
“Don’t ask me out.” She squeezed his arm tighter for emphasis, then lifted her hand to wave it between them. “I don’t want to give this up.”
“This?” He watched her hand with fascination.
“Our friendship,” she muttered, hating the extent he was making her explain herself. “Us.”
“No problem.” He didn’t sound nearly as bothered about the situation as she was. “If you change your mind, guess that means you’ll just have to do the asking.”
A giggle burst from her. She tried to muffle it behind her gloved hand, but failed and giggled again. “You say that like girls ask you out all the time.”
When his expression turned wry, her laughter dwindled. “They do, don’t they?” Of course they did! He was Shep Whitaker, for crying out loud — six foot two inches of rugged lawman. Very single, though she wasn’t sure how available he was. He didn’t date much. She knew him well enough to know that, but he didn’t seem in any hurry to ask anyone out, either.
He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
The sudden sinking feeling in her chest was inexplicable for a woman who’d just finished telling a guy she didn’t want to date him.
Shep dipped his head a little to gaze more fully into her face. “You alright there?”
“Not really.” She shook her head, unable to be anything but honest with him. It had always been that way between them.
He threw a hand into the air with a gusty sigh. “Now what?”
“It just hit me that, no matter what I do or don’t do, I’m going to lose you eventually.” She glanced away from him. “Some lovely gal is going to come along and snap you up, and I’ll be...”She stopped and finished the sentence inside her head.Without you.
