Cowboy Country: The Creed Legacy / Blame It on the Cowboy. Delores Fossen

you, right here and right now.”

      Carolyn gave a twittery little laugh. “You have a conscience?”

      Lame.

      The single shot of fresh coffee had long since finished processing itself, but neither of them paid any attention to it.

      Brody’s mouth kicked up at the corner, but the expression in his eyes was soft. “Believe it or not,” he replied, “I do indeed have a conscience. And it’s telling me not to screw up.” A pause, another quirk of his mouth. “So to speak.”

      Color flooded Carolyn’s face, and heat suffused her traitorous body. “Gee, thanks,” she said, somehow keeping her tone level, despite what felt like a million tiny universes colliding within her.

      His grin went full-throttle then.

      It wasn’t the least bit fair.

      “A while back,” Brody went on, mercifully lowering the wattage on his grin, “I asked you for a second chance. I meant it, Carolyn. Even if this doesn’t go anywhere—whatever it is that’s happening between you and me—I think we should explore it.”

      Carolyn couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even swallow past the lump in her throat. So she just looked up into Brody Creed’s damnably handsome, deceptively earnest face, powerless against him. Hoping and praying he hadn’t already guessed that.

      Fat chance.

      He curved his right index finger under her chin, lifted ever so gently, so their gazes locked with an almost audible click, like the tumblers in a lock.

      “Carolyn?”

      “I’m listening,” she whispered. And she was. With her whole being, body, mind and spirit.

      Again, the wicked grin flashed. He nodded once. “So do you have an opinion?” he teased. “And, if so, how about letting me in on it?”

      “There is—” Carolyn had to stop, clear the frog from her throat, before she could go on. “There is apparently something...well...going on, here. And I think, most definitely—maybe—we ought to find out what it is. Sometime.”

      Mischief danced, cornflower-blue, in Brody’s eyes. He arched one eyebrow and waited, calm as a seasoned fisherman with a trout on the hook.

      “But not immediately, mind you,” Carolyn clarified. “I mean, the sensible thing to do would be to forget the whole stupid idea and pretend we never had this conversation. But—”

      “But...?” Brody prompted, his voice husky.

      He was still standing too close.

      “But I’m not feeling very sensible at the moment,” Carolyn admitted, on a rush of breath.

      “Me, either,” Brody said, and the twinkle was back in his eyes. “But one of us has to be strong, here. Somebody has to be responsible. So I’m telling you flat out, Carolyn Simmons—no matter how badly you may want me, I’m not available.”

      Carolyn smiled wryly, calm on the outside, every nerve jangling on the inside. “Thanks for straightening me out on that score,” she said, pleasantly surprised that she was able to strike a breezy note. “What happens now?”

      “We do the thing up right,” Brody said, sounding confident. “Starting with a few ground rules.”

      “Ground rules?”

      “Yeah,” Brody told her. “No sex, for the time being, anyhow. And both of us can see other people if that’s what we want to do.”

      Carolyn hoped the pang that last stipulation gave her didn’t show on her face. She was sort of seeing Bill Venable, and sort of not seeing him, but she already knew he’d never be more than a friend to her, nor she to him.

      Bill loved Angela.

      And she, God help her, was still hung up on Brody.

      “What?” Brody asked, when she didn’t say anything.

      “If you want to go out with Joleen Williams,” Carolyn said loftily, “that’s certainly your prerogative.”

      The twinkle in Brody’s eyes turned to temper. “Did I, at any point in time, say I wanted to date Joleen?”

      “You didn’t have to,” Carolyn said. She folded her arms. “It’s quite obvious.”

      “I don’t know how you figure that,” Brody said, clearly irritated. “Do you see Joleen standing around here somewhere, waiting for me to help her on with her coat or pin a corsage to her party dress so we can go out on the town?”

      It just went to show a person, Carolyn thought, how quickly a spring breeze could turn into an ill wind. Not more than a minute before, she and Brody had had all they could do not to have sex right there in his brother’s kitchen. Now they were practically at each other’s throats.

      “You’re the one who wanted to keep their options open when it came to dating,” Carolyn pointed out, proud of being—okay, sounding—so collected and reasonable.

      “And you’re the one who’s already dating,” Brody bit out.