Her Sexy Vegas Cowboy. Ali Olson

last stop of the evening, however, the alcohol was wearing off and she’d begun to get back to her old self, and her old self was very uncomfortable with the fact that she was walking into a strip club.

      She would have fun, though. How bad could it be?

      As she was ushered along into the side of the Sapphire Club designated for female clientele, her mind began to recoil at the mostly nude women leading the way to the other section of the club. Not because they were nearly naked—that could’ve been even a bit exciting if her drinks weren’t wearing off. It was because they were not the sexy alluring women she’d expected. Instead they looked like any other bored women stuck at work. With the exception of their clothing, of course.

      The men were worse. They were handsome, to an extent, and all had some pretty impressive abs, but as soon as the show began, Jessica knew she was not where she wanted to be. Something about it bothered her, and though she knew it was supposed to be fun to ogle the strippers, she just couldn’t bring herself to do it.

      After a few minutes, she made a decision. She walked over to Cindy, who was surrounded by giggling friends and dancing men in their underwear. Leaning in to her friend’s ear, Jessica pressed on Cindy’s arm to get her attention. “I’m going outside for some fresh air. It’s okay, I’m having fun,” she continued quickly, seeing that her friend was about to scold. “I just need to take a walk. Enjoy yourself and I’ll see you in a little bit!”

      She smiled as she walked away to show Cindy that everything was fine, then turned around and got out of there as quickly as she could.

      Outside, the air was fresh and clean. She took deep breaths of it, enjoying the sensation as it ran through her, just cold enough to tickle her lungs. She moved away from the door and began strolling, slightly unsteadily in her too-tall shoes, around the parking lot. She considered taking them off and walking barefoot, but she didn’t want to even imagine what kind of diseases she could catch if she stepped on something.

      She was a little disappointed in herself at first, thinking she should have stuck it out and tried to enjoy the show.

      When she thought about it, though, she knew it wouldn’t have worked. All the other women seemed to think those men grinding against them was fantastic, but it just wasn’t in her nature. She was only attracted to guys who were intelligent, never wasting time drooling over handsome men she didn’t know.

      Well, except for the one.

      Jessica pulled the folded paper from her purse, looking again at the blocky writing. She wanted to tell herself that he seemed smart, though she had no idea how she could’ve decided that in the few seconds of their interaction—he’d used a bookmark to give her his number, after all. Not that she had any idea what book it had been, but it seemed thick enough to be important and literary.

      It seemed much more likely that she was just as shallow as everyone else and swooned the moment she saw a sexy cowboy. That had to be all it was, which was a relief, in a way, because that would make him easier to forget.

      Jessica kept walking, considering for the thousandth time whether or not to call him. Then she had the urge to call her family and check on them, at least as a way to occupy her mind and stop herself from doing something incredibly foolish. But it was past four in the morning in New York, far too late at night to call without a very good reason.

      Her mom would kill her if she called that late, but it didn’t stop Jessica from wanting to feel near them. Since her father’s diagnosis a year ago, she had seen her family nearly every day, and even if it was a burden sometimes, the distance now clawed at her nerves.

      Not being around for four days, not helping with medicine, driving to the doctor visits and helping her mom and sister seemed an impossibly long time. What if something happened? She hadn’t been away more than two days at a time in the past year, and his six months to live had come and gone. He was still battling away, but she knew what could happen.

      When Jessica was asked to take Lacy’s place on the Vegas trip, her father was the one who did most of the convincing. He had squeezed her hand and said, “You need a vacation. Enjoy yourself for a few days just this once.”

      And now here she was, wandering through a strip club parking lot in the early hours of the morning. She doubted this was what he’d had in mind.

      Jessica finished her circuit of the lot and was beginning another when a small mob of people stumbled out of the entrance, laughing loudly and chattering at the top of their lungs. They had to be absolutely smashed. She glanced at the party to see if any of Cindy’s friends needed to be rescued, but none of them were in the group. There was someone she did recognize, though, and the sight stopped her in her tracks. She couldn’t have been more shocked if someone walked up and slapped her in the face.

      It was him. Straight out of her fairy tale and back into the real world, only not like her fairy tale at all. Aaron.

      At first she couldn’t believe it, but it was definitely Aaron from the airport. The same man, this time with his muscular arms wrapped around two women who were wearing little more than the strippers, and he was laughing and joking while staring down the too-low top of the girl on his right.