Catching Calhoun. Tina Leonard

he was getting to know a woman. An artist such as himself was particularly attuned to the range of expressions each female possessed.

      She might be affecting his barometer of sexual attraction, but this female’s needle gauge was hovering right around the Back-Off-Buddy range.

      “Thank you for understanding about the children,” Olivia said, opening the truck door. “They are always scouting for men. Although I will say that they’re a little more enthusiastic about pitching you.”

      “Thanks. I think.” He let her get out of the truck, though he was sorely tempted to take her fragile little wrist and pull her back inside for a goodbye kiss that would make her think ten times before she shut that door in his face.

      However, the combination of her switch turned off and her lips budded with displeasure signaled he should keep his tendencies to himself for the moment. He also sensed sweet talk was not the way to crack her defenses.

      Damn, she was a puzzle.

      “I’m good with puzzles,” he murmured out loud.

      “I beg your pardon?” She halted before shutting the door.

      “Oh. Never mind. Sorry.”

      “It sounded like you said ‘I’m good with puzzles.’”

      “No.”

      She looked at him suspiciously. “Have a good afternoon.”

      “Goodbye,” he said, his meaning clear. Might as well join the game of hard-to-get since that seemed to be her seduction of choice.

      But she closed the truck door without even a moment of regret or coyness, and Calhoun realized she really wasn’t up to anything more than what she’d said: asking him not to buddy up with her kids.

      The whole thing hurt his feelings a helluva lot more than it should have.

      So it startled him when she tapped on the driver’s side window a few minutes later. It rattled him, he admitted, because he’d figured she was long gone with dust trails behind her. He opened the door. “Did you forget to spoon out the last chunk of my feelings? Come back to play the last song as the lights dim at the bar and Calhoun goes home somewhat annoyed and depressed?”

      Olivia blinked. “Why would you be depressed? You don’t even know us.”

      He shifted, pushing his back against the seat cushion. “What am I supposed to do, Olivia, if I see your kids again? Walk on by?”

      Her eyes opened. “The rodeo’s only going on for one more night. After that, it won’t matter.”

      “No, it won’t—but, to be honest, I’ve never had a woman ask me to stop being friendly to her kids. And I will admit that it kind of sucks.” He frowned. “I don’t see what harm I’ve done.”

      “You haven’t. It’s very difficult to explain, Calhoun, but my children are sort of…thinkers. Worriers, if you will. And they try to manipulate their environment. In this case, the environment is you.”

      He really didn’t know what to say to that much honesty.

      She looked at him, and he could tell she was embarrassed.

      “So you’re saying I’m just a target for their attention?”

      “Right. One in a long line.”

      Ouch. He didn’t like to be in long lines anywhere, unless it was a cattle parade at the rodeo.

      With a sigh, she said, “This isn’t easy to say about my children. But I’m sure you can appreciate my position as a single parent.”

      “Sure. You don’t want your kids scoping out potential fathers.”

      She frowned. “Fathers? I don’t think that thought ever entered their mind. They have my dad as a father figure.”

      Hmm. He hadn’t considered that. They did have a version of the classic nuclear family. “So what do they want from me?”

      “The question is better posed as ‘What do you want from us?’ Because I think that’s where the problem comes in.”

      He ran his hand through his hair and put his hat back on. “Look, I think my M.O. is pretty simple. I just want to kiss you. And if being friendly to your kids comes along with the package, I’m cool with that. They’re a different sort of crew, but what you don’t know, because you don’t know me well enough, is that I’m kind of at home with strange characters.”

      “Kiss me?”

      Her eyes were open with something like shock, or maybe alarm. Calhoun considered that. Clearly, kissing him had not crossed her mind. Pow! One more sock to the ole ego. Man, this woman had her sex switch permanently lodged in the Off position, and it would take a god of Herculean enterprises to move the damn thing.

      “A kiss is not exactly asking you to jump off a bridge, you know,” he said sourly. “Pardon me if I thought you might, you know, find me attractive. Like I do you. Although you are getting on my nerves with your lack of response to my manly attributes.”

      She started to laugh. He thought it sounded more like nerves than amusement, though, so he decided to go with it. “Share the joke.”

      “I can’t. There’s no joke. Really. It’s just that…you don’t want to kiss me, cowboy. Trust me.”

      “I think I will be the judge of my sexual desire, thank you very much,” he said. “But let me find out for myself so I can be honest with both of us.”

      Calhoun swept Olivia into his lap, just the way he’d been dying to do since meeting her, and he planted a kiss right on her lips. Olivia didn’t move, probably from surprise, so he cradled her face in his hands and began a more gentle assault on her locked-down security position. Softly, he moved his lips against hers, then lightly ran his tongue across her lips before pressing his mouth against hers over and over again.

      And everything in his jeans went straight to attention. He might have burst a seam somewhere. Yowza, this little mama smelled good, she felt great, and her mouth was made for his.

      He could spend a lifetime kissing her.

      Calhoun shoved her out of his lap. “You’re right. I didn’t want to kiss you.”

      She gasped, and then, to his everlasting surprise, she slapped him one across the face before whirling off.

      Now, granted he’d been hit harder in his life, and goodness knows, it had been more a whisk than a smack that she’d landed—but it was the intention that startled him.

      The little minx. And he still had an erection—blast her curvy little rump that had heated his zipper as she’d sat in his lap. “I’m pretty certain she’s annoying me,” he muttered. “She tried to slap me, and I still have the itch to go after her. Where I come from, I know that would be considered a bad omen!”

      Especially since he’d been fibbing to save his soul.

      He had wanted to kiss her. And he wanted to do it again—soon.

      THE WORST THING a man could tell a woman, Olivia decided, was that he didn’t want to kiss her—after he’d insisted upon it. The arrogant cowboy! Once again, her theory about cowboys was proved true. The Elusive Sexy Cowboy was the most devastating thing that could happen to a woman.

      He’d managed to tear apart the first budding of her heart without even trying.

      Maybe not actual budding, she thought. Maybe just a scratching of new growth hidden beneath a winterized girdle of dormant seed, but she’d felt the stirring. Like a new plant turning toward the sun, she’d felt herself warming to Calhoun. A surprising ray of hope had lit inside her when he’d put his mouth against hers, touching her kindly and gently, awakening feelings she’d never known she could possess.

      It had felt so wonderful to kiss him. He had no idea how much she’d delighted in finding that