and started checking her battery connections.
Corrosion had built up and she damned herself for not shelling out the hundred bucks to buy a new one before leaving L.A. But she was on a budget. One that barely allowed for the secondhand shoes on her feet and the designer skirt she’d picked up at a thrift store in Hollywood. Clothes that made her feel like a million bucks even though her bank account reflected anything but. Still. If she’d learned anything from marketing guru Livi, it was that success was all about projecting a certain image. About building a brand.
And her brand as a high-powered executive for the next big website did not involve shoving her face under a hood and praying for divine intervention.
She thought about going back inside and hunting down Livi. Her friend, never short on cash thanks to a decent trust fund from her parents, had picked up her own rental car when they’d arrived in town so that they could split up and cover more territory. The rental wasn’t anything extravagant—this was Lost Gun, after all—but it ran. They’d met here at the kick-off dance after Sabrina had spent the day at the fairgrounds while Livi had visited a nearby working ranch rumored to employ the hottest ranch hands in the entire county. Livi would give her a lift back to their motel.
Sabrina weighed her options. Calling or texting were both out because Livi was notorious for ignoring her phone when in the arms of a hot, hunky man. That meant Sabrina would have to go back inside and risk running into Billy Chisholm again.
She ditched the idea and fiddled a few more minutes with the connections. Sliding behind the wheel, she cranked the engine again.
Click. Click. Click.
“It’s flooded,” Billy’s deep voice slid along her nerve endings and put her entire body on instant alert. He leaned down, his handsome face filling up the driver’s window. The scent of clean soap and raw, sexy male teased her nostrils. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”
She blew out an exasperated breath and reached for her cell phone. “I guess it’s time to call a tow truck.”
“Good luck.”
She eyed him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That there’s only one tow truck in town, sugar, and it belongs to George Kotch,” he murmured as if that explained it all. When she didn’t seem the least bit enlightened, he added, “He’s about a hundred years old and tires out real easy.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s already after ten. By now, he’s already eaten his bowl of ice cream, taken out his dentures and called it a night. Hell, he’s probably been asleep a good five hours or so.”
“Lovely,” she muttered.
“On the bright side, he’s up at the crack of dawn. He’ll surely have you out of here and over at the filling station by the time they open. You’ll get first dibs in the garage.”
“Lucky me. What about a cab service?”
He shook his head. “Red’s got a thing for TV. Started with soap operas and progressed to late night TV.”
“Good Samaritan?”
His grin was slow and extremely sexy. “At your service.”
“You want to give me a ride?”
His grin grew wider. “In the worst way.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re talking about more than just driving me somewhere?”
“Because I am.” His expression grew serious and his eyes glittered. “I want you and I’d bet my next buckle that you feel the same even if you don’t seem all that anxious to admit it.” He glanced around at the parking lot full of cars. Yet there wasn’t a soul around. Everyone was back inside, dancing and drinking it up. “Seems like fate if you ask me. You run off in a tiff and bam, the car won’t start. Maybe someone upstairs is trying to tell you that I’m not such a bad guy.”
“No, you’re a cowboy.” Which was worse. Much worse.
At the same time, there did seem something almost inevitable about the way he’d shown up right when she needed a hand. That, and he was right. She did want him. More than she wanted her next breath. Her last relationship had been nearly a year ago and she’d been flying solo ever since. She craved a little physical contact in the worst way. So much so that she found herself thinking about him and the way he smiled and smelled and looked so indescribably good. And all when she should have been thinking about the website and how they were going to make their quota.
Yep, she had a craving, all right. One that wasn’t going to go away unless she satisfied it in a major way.
“I’m staying at the Lost Gun Motel,” she heard herself murmur.
Something dark and dangerous and oh so mesmerizing sparked in his violet eyes. “Well, what do you know? So am I.” He opened the car door. “My pickup’s just right down the row.” His grin faded and a look of pure determination carved his expression. “Let’s go.”
Warning bells clamored in her head, but the only thing she seemed conscious of was the frantic beat of her heart.
The excitement.
The anticipation.
The need.
“Just so we’re clear,” she managed to say despite the heat zipping up and down her spine, “this is just sex. We won’t be exchanging phone numbers or going out on a date or anything like that.”
He nodded. “That’s the last thing I want.”
“I’m not interested in getting to know you as a person. This is just physical.”
He nodded. “Purely physical.”
She squelched an unexpected rush of disappointment at his words and concentrated on the trembling in her hands and the desire coiling in her belly. “Then lead the way.”
4
BILLY CHISHOLM’S HANDS actually trembled as he shoved the key into the lock of the Lost Gun Motel, a clean but ancient establishment just off the main strip of town. It had been a long, long time since he’d been this worked up. This hot. This hard. This...anxious.
The knowledge would have been enough to send him running for the next county if the circumstances had been different—if Sabrina had been any of the dozens of marriage-minded women who’d been in hot pursuit since his oldest brother had found the love of his life and gone off the market.
Now Billy was the resident bad boy, which wasn’t a bad thing on account of he liked being bad. He liked making noise and breaking rules and living life.
He liked the rush from all three.
At one time, so did every available woman in town. The trouble was, where they’d once wanted a good time back in high school, they now wanted a walk down the aisle. Marriage. Kids.
They wanted Billy Chisholm to grow up, man up and settle down, and each and every one thought she’d be the one to make it happen. To rope, tie and tame him before he knew what was happening.
Not this cowboy.
He liked being single. Hell, he loved it. He didn’t have to answer to anyone. To worry about anyone. To hurt anyone.
He was the offspring of the most irresponsible man in the county. Silas Chisholm had been a two-bit criminal who’d pulled off the most impressive heist in the county, before pissing it away because of a case of white lightning and a lit cigarette. And all without a thought for his three young sons. The man had been selfish. Unpredictable. Unreliable.
Bad to the bone.
And out of all three boys, Billy was just as bad.
But while he looked like Silas, and even acted like him on occasion, he also knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of someone else’s bad decisions, and so he’d made