Cowboy Country: The Creed Legacy / Blame It on the Cowboy. Delores Fossen

swallowed hard, raised her chin and bravely interrupted, “It’s only a trial membership. I was curious, that’s all.”

      “She’s swamped with guys wanting to get to know her,” Kim said, warming to the topic all over again.

      Another wine bottle was opened and passed around.

      Carolyn sloshed some into her glass, avoiding Brody’s eyes when she shoved the bottle at him to keep it moving.

      “Are you sure you ought to...?”

      At last, Carolyn looked at him. She flashed like a highway flare on a dark night, because she was so angry.

      Because she was so beautiful.

      “I’m of legal age, Brody Creed,” she said, slurring her words only slightly.

      The others were talking among themselves, a sort of distant hum, a thing apart, like a radio playing in the next house or the next street, the words indistinct.

      “Besides,” Carolyn went on briskly, before he could reply, “I’ve only had two glasses.”

      “Four,” Brody said quietly, “but who’s counting?”

      “It’s not as if I normally drink a lot,” she informed him, apropos of he wasn’t sure what.

      “Have another tamale,” Brody counseled, keeping his voice down even though they still seemed to be alone in a private conversational bubble, him and Carolyn, with the rest of the outfit someplace on the dim periphery of things.

      “I don’t want another tamale,” Carolyn told him.

      “You’re going to be sick if you don’t eat something,” Brody reasoned. He didn’t think he’d used that particular cajoling tone since Steven and Melissa’s last visit, when he’d been appointed to feed his cousin’s twin sons. He’d had to do some smooth talking to get them to open up for the pureed green beans.

      “That’s my problem, not yours,” Carolyn said stiffly.

      “Around here,” Brody said, “we look out for each other.”

      She made a snorting sound and tried to snag another passing wine bottle, but Brody got hold of it first and sent it along its way.

      That made her furious. She colored up again and her eyes flashed, looking as if they might short out from the overload.

      Brody merely held her gaze. “Eat,” he said.

      She huffed out a sigh. Stabbed at a tiny bite of tamale with her fork. “There,” she said, after chewing. “Are you satisfied?”

      He let the grin come, the charming one that sometimes got him what he wanted and sometimes got him slapped across the face. “No,” he drawled. “Are you?”

      It looked like it was going to be the slap, for a second there.

      In the end, though, Carolyn was at once too flustered and too tipsy to respond right away. She blinked once, twice, looking surprised to find herself where she was, and swayed ever so slightly in her chair.

      “I want to go home,” she said.

      Brody pushed his own chair back and stood, holding out a hand to her. “I think that’s a good idea,” he replied easily. “Let’s go.”

      Kim and Davis, Conner and Tricia—he was aware of them as a group, rimming the table with amused faces but making no comment.

      “I guess I have to let you drive me, don’t I?” Carolyn said.

      “I reckon you do,” Brody said. “We’ll take my truck. Somebody can bring your car to town later.”

      Carolyn, feisty before, seemed bemused now, at a loss. “But what about washing the dishes and...?”

      “Davis and Conner can do the cleaning up.” Brody slid a hand under her elbow and raised her to her feet, steered her away from the table and into the kitchen, Barney sticking to their heels like chewing gum off a hot sidewalk.

      He squired her to the truck and helped her into the passenger seat, careful to let her think she was doing it all herself.

      Barney took his place in the backseat of the extended cab.

      Once he was behind the wheel, Brody buzzed his window and Carolyn’s about halfway down. She was going to need all the fresh air she could handle.

      “You’re going to hate yourself in the morning,” he said easily, as they drove toward the gate and the road to town.

      He’d only been teasing, but Carolyn’s sigh was so deep that it gave him a pang, made him wish he’d kept his mouth shut.

      “It might not even take that long,” she said sadly. “I’m—I’m not used to drinking and I—well, I’m just not used to it, that’s all.”

      Brody reached over, gave her hand a brief, light squeeze. “That’s pretty obvious,” he said gently.

      “I feel like such a fool,” Carolyn lamented, refusing to look at him.

      “Don’t,” Brody said.

      She looked down at her hand, where his had been rested for a second, and frowned, seemingly surprised to discover that he’d let go.

      “You probably think I’m pathetic,” she went on, staring straight through the windshield again.

      “Nothing of the sort,” Brody assured her gruffly.

      “Getting drunk. Signing up for a dating service—”

      Before he needed to come up with a response, she turned to look at him, straight on. And she was pea-green.

      “Stop!” she gasped. “I’m going to be—”

      Brody stopped, and she shoved open the door and stuck her head out.

      “Sick,” she finished.

      And then she was.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      IF SHE’D DELIBERATELY set out to make a lasting impression on Brody Creed, Carolyn thought wretchedly, as she stared at her wan image in the mirror above her bathroom sink later that evening, she couldn’t have done a better job.

      First, being the proverbial bundle of nerves, she’d had too much wine at supper. Then, with ultimate glamour and grace, she’d thrown up, right in front of the man. Just stuck her head out of his truck door and hurled on the side of the road, like somebody being carted off to rehab after an intervention.

      “Very impressive,” she whispered to her sorry-looking one-dimensional self.

      With the spectacle playing out in her mind’s eye, Carolyn squeezed her eyes shut, mortified all over again. Brody had reacted with calm kindness, presenting her with a partial package of wet wipes and following up with two time-hardened sticks of cinnamon-flavored chewing gum.

      She’d been too embarrassed to look at him afterward, had hoped he would simply drop her off at home and be on his way again, with his dog, leaving her to wallow privately in her regrets.

      She couldn’t be that lucky.

      Instead of leaving her to her misery, he’d told Barney to stay put, insisted on helping Carolyn down from the truck and escorting her not only through the front gate and across the yard, but also up the outside staircase to her door.

      “I’ll be all right now,” she’d said, when they reached the landing, still unable to meet his eyes. “Really, I—”

      Brody had taken her chin in his hand; sick as she was, the combination of gentleness and strength in his touch had sent a charge through her. “I believe I’ll stay a while and make sure you’re all right,” Brody had replied matter-of-factly.

      Though