Smooth-Talking Cowboy. Maisey Yates

out. “So that you can offer on that land. Don’t think I haven’t forgotten.”

      “I like it when you play ruthless, Liv.”

      She sniffed. “Nobody calls me that.”

      “Good. Then it will be my pet name for you. I bet it will drive Bennett crazy.” He grinned, and he couldn’t help but notice that he was driving Olivia a little bit crazy, too. At the moment, she had the appearance of a ruffled wren. If she’d had feathers they most certainly would have been standing on end.

      “Let’s just go,” she said. “I bet everybody’s at the bar already.”

      “Now, here’s a chance for you to learn a little something. Sometimes it’s better to show up late.”

      She blinked, her brown eyes almost comically bland. “Why?”

      He chuckled. “Because it gives space for the imagination. For Bennett’s imagination. For him to imagine all the things we might have been doing in that time we weren’t in the saloon.”

      Her eyes remained blank for a split second, and then suddenly her face turned scarlet. “Oh.”

      “Sometimes taking it slow is the best way to take it.”

      She swallowed visibly, her fingers curling more tightly around her purse. “Right.” She lifted her chin, attempting to look imperious now, which was especially funny with that blush still lingering on her cheeks. “Oh, I suppose we’ve taken it slow enough. And if not, you can drive slow.”

      “No one tells me how to drive my truck,” he said.

      “You’re exasperating,” she said.

      “Sure. But, if I didn’t exasperate you, who would?” He moved along beside her and pressed his palm against her lower back. She stiffened beneath his touch, her shoulders going rigid. “Relax,” he said, leaning in, ignoring the sparks beneath his fingertips. “You have to look like you like it, remember?”

      She nodded wordlessly, and he guided her to the passenger side of his truck, opening the door for her.

      “Another thing a gentleman does,” he said, keeping his voice low.

      He offered her his arm, but she braced herself on the rest inside the passenger door, hauling herself up into the large vehicle and settling into the seat. Primly. As she had done the first time. If someone had told him a couple of days ago that he would have Olivia Logan sitting in his truck two times in one week he would have said they were crazy. But, here she was. Looking no more comfortable today than she had the other day.

      He shook his head and put his hat back on as he took his position in the driver seat, slamming the door hard behind him.

      “Bennett always opens the door for me,” she said as he pulled the truck out onto the main highway.

      “Well, good for him. I would expect nothing different. In fact, if he didn’t I’d have to have a serious talking-to with him. You know, kind of like an older brother thing.”

      “You’re not his brother,” she pointed out.

      “No,” Luke said. “But I’m older. Full of wisdom.”

      “Ancient,” she said drily.

      He took his eyes off the road for a moment, to look at that imperious little profile of hers. Her cheeks were still pink.

      He heard a phone notification, and saw Olivia lift her phone up and text quickly.

      “Who’s that?”

      “Do I owe you an explanation for all of my actions now?” she asked, her tone snippy.

      “I’m making conversation, Liv,” he said. “You know, since you’re in my truck and making conversation with someone else instead of with me.”

      “It’s my mother,” she said.

      “Checking in on you?”

      “Yes. She does that. She just wants to know what I’m up to.”

      “And what did you tell her?” He was genuinely curious how she was going to spin this story to her parents. He was also fascinated by the fact that her mother checked in.

      He’d been an orphan for all intents and purposes by the time he was sixteen, and before that, he had done a lot of the caregiving in his household. His only other real experience with a parent-type relationship was with Quinn Dodge, and while Quinn was definitely an involved father, he didn’t hover.

      “I told her I was going out with a friend,” she said.

      “That feels like an upgrade,” he said. “Though, you might have told her you had a date.”

      “No,” she said, “I mightn’t have. Because then she would want details, and she would want to know what time I was coming home, and she would want to make sure that I didn’t have anything put in my drink.”

      He laughed. “A little overprotective?”

      “Maybe. But we are close. She just wants to know what’s going on in my life.” He could tell that wasn’t the whole story, but he could also tell that she wasn’t going to give him much more right now. If she’d wanted to, she would have just come out and told him.

      And he didn’t do female excavation. He liked easy conversation; he didn’t like to dig. Because that meant getting down to the bits of people they didn’t want to share, which meant that they might want him to do the same in turn. He preferred stripping off layers of clothes to any other kind of stripping off of layers, thank you very much.

      And since Olivia wasn’t going to be stripping off any clothes for him—and he wouldn’t ask her to anyway—there wasn’t any point in courting any other type of stripping.

      “Well, that’s nice.” Except to him it sounded stifling more than it sounded nice.

      “It is. I have great parents. I’m lucky.” Her tone sounded distracted. Distant.

      “Sure,” he said.

      “You’re very difficult,” she said.

      “Yes,” he remarked, making his tone as contrite as possible. “It’s been said. Frequently. Mostly by you.”

      She sniffed loudly, and he imagined that there was a very haughty face accompanying that sniff. “It’s just... As far as I can tell you aren’t accountable to anyone or anything. I don’t understand that. I have my parents... I have goals... I have... Bennett.”

      “Technically,” Luke pointed out, feeling like an ass even as he said it, “you don’t have Bennett at the moment.”

      “You’re mean,” she said.

      “Am I wrong?”

      “No. But... I feel like a gentleman wouldn’t say that. And you’re so into pointing out what a gentleman does.”

      “That’s the trouble,” he said. “I’m playing the part of a gentleman. But don’t for one second confuse me with an actual gentleman.”

      At that exact moment, they drove down onto the town’s main street, and Luke spotted an open parking space against the curb across from the Gold Valley Saloon.

      He put the truck in Park, then looked at Olivia’s resolute profile. “Ready?”

      “Now who’s impatient,” she said, hands pinned firmly to the center of her lap, her eyes fixed straight ahead.

      “Not impatient,” he said. Except he felt something. A kind of restlessness rolling through him that left him feeling edgy. And he didn’t do edgy.

      He liked irritating Olivia—it was one of his great joys in life. He didn’t so much like it when she managed to poke her own little stick back at him and make contact.

      He got out of the truck, and he noticed