Wild Cowboy Ways (Lucky Penny Ranch #1)(81)

She readjusted her position until she was sitting in his lap, tilted her chin up, moistened her lips, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Me, too. I’m making that promise to myself and sealing it with a kiss from you right here and now.”

Lips met lips in a fiery kiss that erased the argument. Tongues did a mating dance that included forgetting and forgiving, leaving Allie and Blake in a wonderful vacuum with room for only two beating hearts. The heat between them burned away the bad feelings and nothing mattered but the future.

“Wow! Just wow,” he said.

“Was it as good for you as it was for me?” she asked.

He traced the outline of her lips with his forefinger. “Better. So we’ve made our pact that we aren’t getting drunk off our asses ever again. Does that mean we’re going to watch each other’s backs to be sure we keep our word?”

She stood up and moved to the other end of the sofa. There was no way she could keep her mind on a conversation with his warm breath on her body and his arms wrapped securely around her waist.

“I like you, Blake Dawson.” She settled down with her back against the arm and sitting Indian-style, the robe covering her legs. Her heart said that she loved him, but she wasn’t totally sure that there weren’t a few drops of whiskey and tequila left in her blood that might be influencing the major organ in her body.

“I like you, too, Allie Logan,” he said, and smiled.

“Why?”

“You said it first so you have to tell me why you like me first. And I’m leaving my glasses on so I can see you, because your face does not lie.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He stared into her eyes. “Just how far does this ‘like’ business go?”

She inhaled and let it out slowly. “It’s real hard for me to trust anyone, and I have commitment issues after two years with a husband who left me for another woman. He was a lot like Mitch. He manipulated me into giving him what he wanted and made me feel guilty when I didn’t cave in. The only thing I refused to do was quit working, and that was a big thorn in our marriage.”

“Riley abused you?” Blake asked.

“Yes, but I was young, na?ve, and very stupid. I didn’t know that it was abuse. He’d sigh and say that he wished my job at least let me dress like a lady instead of a homeless person. But he had good qualities and we had good times. It wasn’t all bad. I guess that’s why I didn’t see the infidelity when it was right before my face.”

“That’s just wrong,” Blake whispered coldly.

She could feel the last of the ice chipping away from her heart. Was this what it was like to have a best friend, someone that a person could tell anything? “I don’t think my heart was broken but more relieved that I didn’t have to keep having the fight over my working situation. But my pride was in shambles. It was two years before I went out on a date and I figured out real quick that I didn’t believe a nice word the man said. It wasn’t him but me. I didn’t trust men.”

“And now?”

“I like you and I trust you, but I want to know why you introduced me to your brother as the woman who was fixing this house instead of your friend or since we’d been to bed, as your girlfriend,” she said.

He moved down the sofa and took her hands in his. “It was an awkward situation, Allie. Those women from the bar were in the kitchen. Your granny showed up looking like a half-drowned old madam. Don’t look at me like that. You know I’m tellin’ the truth. And then your mother came to get her. I wanted to tell you that I hadn’t slept with you and then turned around and slept with one of those women, but I couldn’t with all of them standing so close. And I didn’t think you’d want them to know that we’d had sex, and I didn’t know how to introduce you. And I’m battling this idea of us when you live so close.”

“What does my living close have to do with anything?” she asked.

“If things didn’t work out between us and there were hard feelings, well, we are neighbors. It’s complicated.”

Sitting there with her small hands tucked into his big ones felt right as if that’s the way life should be. “I don’t want you to leave the Lucky Penny, so please make it work. I’ve opened my heart to you. That’s why I like you, Blake. I can talk to you. I can argue with you. I can be drunk and shake the hell out of your house and you don’t judge me. You don’t talk down to me or make me feel like less of a woman because of what I do.”

He leaned forward and cupped her face in his hands. “You’ve had Deke as a best friend, but I’ve never had a best friend who was a woman, so this is all new territory for me. Why do I like you? Let me count the ways.”

She pulled a hand free. “You don’t have to be complimentary. Just knowing that you consider me a best friend is enough reason to like me.”

He captured her hand midair and kissed the knuckles. “What I feel for you goes far above ‘like,’ Allie Logan. I don’t know if it’s love because I’ve never really been in love before. But believe me when I tell you that I admire you for what you do. I think it’s downright sexy the way you can crawl up on a roof or fix a ceiling and honey, those cargo pants turn me on.”

“Kind of like that song ‘She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy’?” she said. “Only in reverse? He thinks my cargos are sexy?”