Gone Country (Rough Riders #14)(26)

“Did you hate it?”


“No, I liked it. Part of the program was taking an aptitude test. I scored high on strategy. So I’m working my way down the reading list my counselor suggested.” He paused and swigged from a bottle of water. “What about you?”


“What do I read? Nothing outside of assigned homework and even then only enough to pass my classes. Reading isn’t really my thing.”


“But I’ll bet you read cookbooks,” he pointed out. “Man. I still think about that sandwich.”


So in a way he had been thinking about her. Cool. “Do you read only during slow times on your shift? Or do you read at home?”


“Most nights after I work I’m wiped out and I just go to bed. But my dad is home this weekend and he mentioned hanging out.”


Didn’t it just figure? There went her hope they’d run into each other at a party tonight after the football game.


“My dad never says, stick around son, we’re gonna drink beer and fix that piece of shit Mustang we’ve been working on for four years. But last night he made a specific point of telling me to make myself available.”


“What do you think that means?”


Boone shrugged. “Maybe old Dax wants to break it to me that he found himself a girlfriend.”


“How old is your dad?”


“Really old. He just turned thirty-eight.”


“Can you imagine having a kid right now like your dad did at your age?”


“Way to ruin my happy buzz.” He raked his hand through his hair. “That’d be a freakin’ nightmare.”


“Tell me about it. There was this girl in my class last year who got pregnant and kept the baby. Rielle got pregnant at sixteen and kept her daughter. Then there’s my Grams who gave my dad up for adoption. Seems like you’re screwed no matter which option you choose.”


“Sometimes I wonder if I’da been better off if my mom had done that. No doubt Dax would’ve been happy to be off the parenting hook. Maybe I would’ve ended up with rich adoptive parents like your dad did.”


Took a second for that to sink in. Then she stood in front of him and glared. “That was a shitty thing to say. How would you like it if you’d been given up and found out years later that your biological parents ended up married anyway? Oh, then they had more kids together? But after my dad found out years later, he’s come to this family to try and sort it out, where he’s so obviously a McKay as you like to point out with me, but yet he isn’t. He chose to face her choice every day instead of ignoring it and going about his…rich man business—which is just another thing you assume and that pisses me off because my dad earned what he has by working his ass off. So I know this situation has to bother him because it bothers me.” With her angry eyes locked to his the cold seemed to hit her all at once and she began to shake.


“Hey.” Boone’s strong fingers circled her wrists, staying her retreat. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking and I just said the first stupid thing that popped into my head.”


Her gaze dropped to his mouth. Lips that full should look girly, but didn’t on him. Yet she couldn’t help but think, pretty mouth; not so pretty words spilling from it.


“Sierra?”


“What?” she snapped.


“Don’t be pissed off at me.”


“Don’t expect me to forgive you for that total dick comment.”



Boone tugged her closer until the outsides of her legs were wedged between his knees. “You so mad you’re shaking?”


“Maybe.” Sierra could feel his body heat, but it didn’t warm her; it caused her to shiver again.


“I am sorry.”


She looked at him and saw real remorse in his eyes. “I can see that now.”


“Good.” His fingers slid down and he clasped her small hands in his larger ones. He frowned. “You’re not mad. You’re freezing.” His assessing gaze moved across her upper torso. “Where’s your coat?”


I left it in the truck so I didn’t make a bad fashion statement. Like she’d admit that to responsible Mr. EMT. “Uh. I forgot it.”


“Christ. Don’t you know how fast it gets cold here?” Boone released her hands and shrugged out of his flannel-lined corduroy jacket. Then he draped it around her shoulders, pulling it around her arms and chest. “Better?”


Sierra stared at him, resisting the urge to sniff the inside collar of his jacket, where his scent was the strongest. “Thanks.”


Then he gently freed her hair from beneath the collar. Nothing about his movements was flirtatious, but her heart raced when his fingers brushed her skin. Especially when his hands smoothed her hair back from her face, slowly, from her scalp to the ends that stopped above the jacket pockets covering her breasts. “You warming up?”


She was practically hot now. Mostly in the face. “Yeah. I’ll give it back before I go.”


He waved her off. “Keep it. I’ve got another one in the cab. I’ll swing by and pick it up sometime.” He grinned. “Maybe you can fix me lunch again.”