Long Hard Ride (Rough Riders #1)(66)

“So you’re saying he makes you feel young?”


“I’m saying he makes me feel like an old fool, Channing. He also makes me feel guilty as hell.” She rolled the beer can over her forehead.


“It felt like I was cheating on my husband.”


Channing let Gemma regain her composure before she said, “You can only do what you feel is right, Gem. But you’re neither a fool nor are you old. Didn’t you tell me if you were offered a second chance, you’d take it?” She hesitated. Screw politeness, Gemma would just ask her the question outright. “Are you resisting Cash because he’s Indian?”


“God, no. That don’t matter a lick to me.”


“Then what?”


“Besides the fact I’m a good ten years older than him?”


“Wasn’t Steve older than you? Why does age matter?”


“It doesn’t. Damn. It’s just…scary, okay? I’m set in my ways and I don’t know if I can change. What man wants to deal with that kinda stubborn woman?”


“Cash does, apparently.”


“So it would appear.” Gemma kicked Channing’s foot. “When’d you get so smart, girl?”


“I’m not feeling so smart. And let me tell you, I can totally relate to the guilt thing.” Before she chickened out, she blurted out everything that had gone on with her, Colby, Trevor and Edgard, only leaving out Trevor and Edgard’s secret, since it wasn’t hers to tell. She also puzzled out loud on why she felt like she’d been cheating on Colby with Trevor when she’d just kissed Trevor.


Gemma wasn’t as shocked as Channing thought she would be. “You know, I kinda wondered if that wasn’t the case with them suddenly picking you up as a new traveling partner. Those boys have a wild reputation.” She waggled her eyebrows. “So, two men at once, eh? I’ve always wanted to try that.”


Channing choked and barely stopped beer from coming out her nose.



“Of course, I never could share that little secret fantasy with Steve. To be the focus of the attention of two men? Yeah, sign me up.”


“Hello?” Cash said through the screen door. “I hear voices, you guys in here?”


Gemma froze. Her panicked gaze flew to Channing’s. Had he been eavesdropping on their conversation?


“Yeah. Come on in, Cash,” Channing said.


He sidled in, pausing just inside the door, practically wringing his black Stetson in his rough-skinned hands.


“What’s up?”


“Just wonderin’ if you gals were thinkin’ about goin’ to the opening dance tonight?”


Gemma opened her mouth to object but Channing shot her an arch look. “Yes, we are. Why?”


“Colby had two tickets and he sent me over here to give ‘em to you.”


Channing bit back the urge to ask if Colby had given Cash the two tickets because he didn’t plan on attending tonight with her. “Thanks.


Are you going?”


“I reckon I’ll pop in for a bit.” Cash stared hard at Gemma. “You will be dancin’ with me, Gem. Don’t try to hide because I’ll track you down.”


And he disappeared.


Gemma said, “Shit,” and drained her beer.


“Well, looks like our night just got a whole lot more exciting.”


Chapter Eighteen


Live country music twanged through the speakers. Hundreds of people were talking at once. Four fights had already broken out and he’d spent the last thirty minutes fending off the most persistent buckle bunnies he’d ever met.


It was only eight o’clock and Colby considered getting really drunk.


Especially when he looked over at the table where his family held court and the “surprise” his father had brought along.


A surprise by the name of Amy Jo Foster. The young woman whose family had been neighbors of the McKays for forty years. The young girl his father had stupidly decided might be a good candidate as Colby’s future wife.


Lord. And Amy Jo was just a girl of nineteen. She’d actually blushed when they’d been talking and his arm had accidentally brushed her breast.


His little sister Keely didn’t seem too thrilled Amy Jo had been invited to Frontier Days either. Even though Keely and Amy Jo were the same age and lived five miles apart, they’d never been best friends. Keely claimed Amy Jo was a goody-goody—the worst kind of insult hell-on-wheels Keely McKay could level on another person.


Colby studied his mother’s face from beneath his hat brim. Had Carolyn McKay been in on this surprise, too? Probably not. His dad had been browbeating him, claiming Colby needed a good woman to settle him down. His mother had assured Colby he’d want to settle down when he met the right woman.


His gaze strayed to Amy Jo. It wasn’t like she was ugly as a mud fence. She was pretty in a coltish way. Reed thin, all long arms and legs.


Long white-blonde hair and a pink complexion, near as he could figure because she blushed all the damn time. Enormous blue eyes the vivid color of the Wyoming sky. When she wore her hair in a pair of pigtail braids, she reminded him of the Swiss Miss Instant Cocoa girl. Or more accurately, her younger sister. Much younger sister.