How to Lasso a Cowboy. Christine Wenger

ran to the guest room, where Dustin was on the floor facedown. Turning his head, he looked up at her, then winced in pain. He was wearing only a pair of white boxers.

      “Are you okay?” Jenna knelt down on the floor next to him. She touched his shoulder and ran her hand over his arm. His skin was tanned and warm to her touch, his body tight and muscled. “Anything broken?”

      “I’m fine,” he said quickly. “Just feeling foolish. I tripped.”

      “Let me help you up, Dustin,” Jenna said. “I don’t see how you can do it alone.”

      Dustin shook his head. “Thanks, but there’s no way you can lift me. I’m too heavy. Just get that chair over by the desk and hold it still. I’ll use that as leverage.”

      She held the chair in place and watched as Dustin slowly raised himself up from the floor, dragging his cast. She couldn’t help noticing the play of arm, shoulder and back muscles as he pivoted onto the bed, tired.

      “Let me cover you up,” she said.

      “Thanks,” he said, avoiding her gaze.

      “Maybe you’ll let me help you more, Dustin. You could have seriously injured yourself.”

      “I’m fine.”

      “Blockhead,” she muttered under her breath.

      “What’s that?”

      “Blanket. I’ll get you a blanket.”

      She found a brightly striped serape and covered Dustin with it, averting her eyes from his too-perfect body and noticing the circles under his eyes instead.

      “Are you willing to admit now that you need my help?” she asked.

      He chuckled. “Nope.”

      She shook her head. “You stubborn … um … ah … bull rider.”

      “Aww … such praise.” His eyes were half-shuttered, but she could still see the twinkling blue hue. “You’re the best, Jenna. I mean it.”

      She’d waited years to hear him say that.

      “Close those blue eyes, cowboy. We’ll talk later.”

      “Can’t wait to catch up. I want to know what you’ve been doing. I want … to know … all about you.”

      He was out. Sleeping. And she was walking on sunshine.

      Maybe Dustin wasn’t Mr. Right. But he might be Mr. Right Now.

      So what was she going to do about it?

      Chapter Two

      As Dustin slept, Jenna spent the afternoon helping Andy with his reading. He was making painfully slow progress, but it was progress just the same. They still had a lot of work to do yet.

      “Sound out the word, Andy,” she advised. “You’d know the word if you broke it down to smaller words or sounds.”

      “Cot … ton … wood,” he said slowly.

      “It’s a tree,” Dustin said from the doorway.

      He was hanging over his crutches and looked more than a little rumpled.

      “Hey, Uncle Dustin!” Andy said, his cute little face brimming with happiness. “Did you have a good sleep? Aunt Jenna said that it’s important, that you’ll get better faster.”

      “That’s just what my doctor said, buckaroo.” He smiled at Andy, then turned to Jenna. “I didn’t mean to disturb your lesson.”

      Andy answered instead. “You didn’t.” He slid his chair away from the kitchen table and looked hopefully at his aunt.

      “Can I go now?”

      “Finish the paragraph first,” Jenna said.

      He pulled his chair back and glanced at the page. “The cot-ton-wood tree is found in North America and can live many, many years.”

      Dustin cleared his throat. “The cottonwood tree is a good, sturdy tree, Andy. We had one on my father’s ranch, and he found out that it’s been around for four hundred years.” He paused. “That’s almost as old as your father.”

      Andy giggled until Jenna thought he was going to fall out of the chair. Then Dustin pointed to the reading workbook and Andy sobered.

      “The cottonwood tree is found in North America and can live many, many years,” Andy read once again, then turned to her. “Just like Uncle Dustin said.”

      “I think we can stop for today, Andy,” she said with a sigh.

      Dustin put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I saw a basketball hoop hanging from the barn wall. What do you say we shoot some hoops?”

      “Awesome!” Andy replied.

      “You’re going to have to spot me some points,” Dustin said.

      “Don’t do it, Andy,” advised Jenna. “Dustin was an awesome basketball player in high school, and an awesome quarterback, besides being a champion rodeo rider.”

      Dustin raised an eyebrow and looked at her strangely. “So, you remember that much about me from high school?”

      “Well, you were Tom’s best friend. He always talked about you. Besides, I went to the games. I saw you play.” Absolutely she remembered him. Who wouldn’t? He’d always been the perfect jock.

      Dustin’s eyes twinkled and a smile lit his face. He seemed … pleased by her answer.

      Then he winked at Jenna, and her mouth went dry. Darn it. One wink from him in her freshman year of high school would have provided her with four years’ worth of joy. But they weren’t in high school anymore—and she’d have to remember that.

      “I want ten points,” Andy insisted.

      “I’ll spot you ten points only, and that’s highway robbery,” Dustin protested good-naturedly, continuing the banter.

      Jenna knew that the big, lanky cowboy would give Andy anything that he wanted. She knew Dustin’s generosity from talking to Tom, and it never failed to tweak her when it came to the boy’s birthday, just a bit.

      It seemed like Dustin always knew the perfect gifts for a growing boy—a dirt bike, a basketball, a bat and glove—whereas she saw to it that he had a supply of nice clothes for school and books befitting his age.

      Of course, Andy’s excitement and thankful hugs would be for the fun things, rather than the practical, so Jenna was grudgingly glad that Dustin’s gifts made Andy happy. Sure, she could have given him toys and such, but he was growing so fast, and needed clothes. Besides, she always felt the need to be his stand-in mother in the place of the ever-unhappy and lethargic Marla who’d think about shopping for Andy when school was well underway.

      As she put together a lasagna for dinner, she could hear the easy dialogue between Dustin and Andy through the open window.

      “You shoot like a girl,” Andy said.

      “I’m on crutches, for Pete’s sake.”

      “I want twenty points from you. Twenty. Even though you shoot like a girl, you still can shoot,” Andy said.

      “No way, kiddo. We settled for ten.”

      “Hey, we didn’t shake on it.”

      And on and on it went. Jenna slipped the lasagna into the refrigerator and went outside to join them.

      “Want to play, Jenna?” Dustin asked when he saw her approach.

      “I was just going to watch.”

      “C’mon and play along with us. You can be on my team,” Dustin said.

      “That’s not