The Last Cowboy Standing. Barbara Dunlop

a half step ahead.

      For some reason his voice was starting to grate.

      “I’m coming,” she answered, peering at Travis a moment longer.

      Then she determinedly went ahead, setting a course for the panel discussion, determined to ignore Travis’s presence, but fully aware of his form in her peripheral vision.

      She wondered if he had a cell phone. If she knew the number, she could send him a text and ask him what he was doing in the hotel. It occurred to her that Caleb likely knew. She could text Caleb and ask him for Travis’s cell. Would that be weird?

      “Over there,” said Randal, as they moved with the flow of the crowd through a set of double doors.

      Astrid was waving at them from a classroom style table, on the aisle, halfway up the room. Seats were filling fast, and the panel participants were taking their places at the front of the room. Danielle parked her shoulder bag under the table and took the seat next to Astrid. She draped her purse over the back of the chair, while Randal sat down next to her. Odette and Nadine arrived, and they squished one more chair into the table, pushing Randal’s shoulder against Danielle’s.

      “Just like old times,” he joked in her ear, harkening back to their days in law school.

      Astrid leaned forward, looking across Danielle to answer Randal. “At least we don’t have to write the bar exam this time.”

      Randal gave her an easy smile.

      The moderator spoke into the microphone, asking people to get settled, and the rest of the audience quickly took their seats.

      Though the speakers were well-versed in their specialties, and the debate was lively, Danielle couldn’t get her mind off Travis, wondering if he was still in the lobby, and what had brought him there in the first place.

      Two hours in, when one of the audience members wandered off on an arcane point of law to do with protocols for the functioning of supranational tribunals, she gave in and slipped from her seat. Randal looked surprised and none too pleased at having to move his seat to let her pass. She took her purse but left her shoulder bag, letting everyone think she was going to the ladies’ room.

      She’d be right back. The odds that Travis was still out there were overwhelmingly small.

      But, there he was.

      One of the uniformed women had stepped out from behind the now-empty conference check-in desk and was talking and laughing with him. His gaze lifted, and he caught sight of Danielle. She stopped, not exactly sure what to do. She could still pretend she was going to the ladies’ room, avoid even acknowledging him.

      He didn’t move, and neither did she.

      Finally, she decided this was ridiculous. She wanted to know what he was doing here, and she’d go and ask him. She started across the mostly empty space, occupied only by hotel and conference staff, and the odd delegate who, like her, had stepped temporarily out of their session.

      Her heels clicked on the marble floor. She was conscious of every step. Travis’s face was impassive, but he kept watching as she grew closer.

      “Sounds good,” he said to the young, blonde woman. “I’ll talk to you later.”

      Then he nodded to Danielle. “Hi there.”

      The woman watched over her shoulder with obvious curiosity as she moved back to the long registration table.

      “What are you doing here?” Danielle asked without preamble.

      “I was getting a coffee, but then Melanie and I started chatting.”

      Danielle cast a reflexive glance to the woman who wasn’t even hiding her interest. “I meant, what are you doing at this hotel? You said you were at the Blonde Desert.”

      “When the Emperor Plaza found out I was a bull riding champion, they comped a suite.”

      “Did you flash your belt buckle?”

      He grinned. “Never thought of that.”

      “How did they know?”

      Travis nodded toward the closed door of the meeting room. “He in there with you?”

      “You mean Randal?”

      “You still think it’s just business?”

      “Absolutely.” More than ever. In fact, she was embarrassed now that she’d ever thought it might be something else.

      Travis cracked a mocking half smile.

      “What?”

      “For such a smart woman, you’re really not a very smart woman.”

      “Yeah? Well, for such a dumb cowboy, you really are a dumb cowboy.”

      If she’d hoped to get a rise out of him, it didn’t work. His expression never faltered.

      “You’re reading way too much into this,” she told him, glancing guiltily toward the meeting room, thinking she needed to get back there and catch the end of the session.

      “No, I’m not,” said Travis.

      She decided to put a stop to the debate. “He’s got a girlfriend back in D.C.”

      “Not a very good one.”

      Danielle folded her arms across her chest. “Now, that’s just absurd. You don’t know a single thing about her.” Danielle didn’t even know her name.

      “I know he’s thinking about cheating on her.”

      “You’re clairvoyant as well as a bull rider?”

      “You don’t need to be clairvoyant to read lust in somebody’s expression.”

      Danielle’s thoughts faltered, taking her down a worrisome pathway. “Was it me?”

      “That he’s lusting after?”

      “No. I mean, did I say something, or do something to make it look like I was interested in him?”

      Travis rocked back ever so slightly. “Are you interested in him?”

      “No. I mean, I don’t think so. But I could be one of those women.”

      “One of what women?”

      “The ones who don’t want a guy, but don’t want any other woman to have him, either. I mean, maybe when I heard he had a girlfriend, I subconsciously started getting jealous.”

      “You’re not one of those women.”

      “How do you know for sure? I might be.” What an incredibly distasteful character trait.

      “It’s not you. It’s him. He sends out possessive vibes for about a hundred yards.”

      “We haven’t seen each other in four years.”

      “Doesn’t matter,” Travis confidently drawled.

      The sound of applause drifted through the walls. Seconds later, four sets of double doors opened across the lobby, people spilling out in a steady stream. She guessed that answered whether or not she was going to catch the end of the session.

      “Here he comes,” said Travis.

      Danielle followed the trajectory of his gaze.

      “Straight for you.”

      “He’s got my bag.”

      “A convenient excuse.”

      “A gentlemanly act.”

      Travis coughed out a laugh.

      “You just can’t believe you might have it wrong,” she challenged.

      “He’ll ask you to lunch,” Travis predicted. “And when you tell him you’re having lunch with me, it’ll kill him. He’ll say or