Six Weeks To Catch A Cowboy. Brenda Harlen

I’d be stepping on your toes.”

      “What? No!”

      “Are you sure?” Megan asked. “I know you had a major crush on him in high school.”

      Kenzie could hardly deny it. Instead, she only said, “I got over that—and him—a lot of years ago.”

      “I had a crush on him, too,” Megan confessed.

      It was hardly a revelation. Most of the female contingent at Westmount High School had sighed when Spencer Channing walked through the halls, his hands tucked in the pockets of his Wranglers.

      “Of course, he never gave me the time of day,” her friend continued.

      “He was already a junior when we were freshmen—plus we were friends with his little sister,” Kenzie reminded her.

      “Which meant that we were never likely to get anything more than a brotherly nod of recognition,” Megan noted.

      It was true.

      Mostly.

      There had been the one time, the night before he was scheduled to leave town, that Spencer had looked at Kenzie as if he really saw her.

      As if he really wanted her.

      And maybe Kenzie had occasionally wondered if her life might have taken a different course if that night had ended differently. But she never dwelled on the what-ifs for too long. Because Spencer had been larger than life, with big dreams for his future, while she’d had much more modest plans.

      In the end, they’d both got what they wanted.

      Now he was a big-name rodeo star and she was a small-town massage therapist and, as decreed in the poem, “never the twain shall meet”—except maybe in her dreams.

      And yeah, there were still times when she dreamed about him, because she had no control over the direction of her subconscious mind. And apparently her subconscious mind believed that sex with Spencer Channing would somehow be different—and better—than sex with any other guy she’d been intimate with.

      “But I’m not just a friend of his little sister anymore,” Megan continued, oblivious to Kenzie’s meandering thoughts. “And he’s going to want a date for his brother’s wedding.”

      “The wedding’s in Irvine,” Kenzie reminded her friend.

      “And I’d love to go to SoCal in December. Going with Spencer Channing would just be delectable icing on the cake.”

      “Have you considered the possibility that he might not be all that anymore?” Kenzie wondered aloud.

      “Have you not seen the June cover of ProRider magazine?” Megan countered.

      “I saw it,” she admitted.

      Of course, she’d seen it. Because Spencer Channing was the closest thing to a celebrity to ever come out of Haven, Nevada, and as soon as the issue hit newsstands, all anyone could talk about was the local boy who’d made it big on the rodeo circuit. As if being able to stay on the back of an angry bull for eight seconds was some kind of accomplishment.

      Okay, maybe it was. She’d watched some of his competitions on TV, and she’d held her breath and curled her hands into fists, as if doing so might somehow help him hold on. And maybe she’d been excited for and proud of him every time he’d beat the buzzer. But still, it wasn’t as if he was changing the world. He was just playing at being a cowboy, as he’d always wanted to do, so that he didn’t have to grow up and get a real job.

      So yes, she’d seen the magazine. She even had a copy of it—and all the other magazines that had featured him on the cover or mentioned him in a footnote—in the bottom drawer of her desk.

      “If you saw that cover, then you know the guy who was all that in high school is now all that and a whole lot more,” Megan said.

      “The whole lot more could be staging and airbrushing,” Kenzie suggested.

      Megan pushed her empty plate aside. “I’m a little surprised by your lack of interest,” she admitted. “Of all the girls in our class, you had the biggest crush on him. If he ventured within ten feet of you, you’d get completely tongue-tied.”

      “It was embarrassing,” Kenzie agreed. “It was also a long time ago.”

      “You really don’t care that he’s coming home?”

      The only thing she cared about was that she might see him, and then have to face the memories and humiliation of the last time she’d seen him. When she’d thrown herself at him and practically begged him to take her virginity.

      Not surprisingly, he’d rejected her offer.

      She’d been both heartbroken and relieved when he left for UNLV the next day—and certain she couldn’t ever face him again.

      Over the years, he’d made regular if not frequent visits home, and Kenzie had always been careful to stay away from any and all of the places he might be.

      If Megan was right about the reason for Spencer’s return, and if he planned to stay in Haven for any significant period of time while his unknown injuries healed, it was inevitable that Kenzie would cross paths with him.

      But she was confident that when that happened, he wouldn’t detect any hint of the pathetic, lovestruck teenager she’d been inside the confident and capable woman she was now.

      * * *

      “Your two o’clock is waiting in treatment room four,” Jillian, the clinic receptionist, told Kenzie when she got back after lunch.

      She glanced at her watch. “Mrs. Ferris is early today.”

      “Mrs. Ferris canceled,” Jillian informed her. “She wasn’t feeling well.”

      Kenzie shook her head. “She complains that her treatment isn’t working but refuses to take any responsibility for the fact that she only shows up for half her scheduled appointments.”

      “And complains when we bill her for the ones she misses last-minute,” the receptionist added.

      “So who’s my two o’clock?” Kenzie asked.

      “A new patient rehabbing a shoulder injury.” Jillian sighed dreamily. “And, oh-my-god, does he have fabulous shoulders. And a smile that could melt any woman’s panties from across the room.”

      Though Kenzie was accustomed to Jillian’s outrageous and unapologetic objectification of their attractive male clients, the remark made her cringe—and glance around to ensure there were no other clients within earshot.

      “Not my panties,” she asserted confidently. Because only one man’s smile had ever had the power to do that, and that had been a long time ago.

      “I’m telling you, if you’d been five minutes later, I might have snuck into the treatment room to massage him myself,” Jillian said, then immediately amended her claim. “No, I probably wouldn’t have lasted more than three minutes.”

      Kenzie shook her head. “Does Mr. Panty-Melter have another name?”

      “As a matter of fact, he does.” The receptionist glanced down at her computer screen, where the scheduled appointments were displayed. “It’s Spencer Channing.”

       Chapter Two

      It couldn’t be.

      There was no way Spencer Channing was here. In Haven, yes. In her treatment room, no.

      “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t catch that.”

      Jillian touched the screen, where his name and number were noted in the two o’clock slot. “Spencer Channing,” she said again.

      Clearly.