The Last Cowboy Standing. Barbara Dunlop

doing anything tonight that I have to leave in Vegas.”

      “I’m talking about dancing. What is it you have in mind?”

      “Absolutely nothing.”

      She and Travis had come close to...well, close to something a couple of years back when he’d rescued her from a derelict barn. He’d mostly been amused, and she’d mostly been angry. But after they got back to his ranch house, and she’d showered and borrowed one of his sister’s robes, there’d been a moment, a very long moment, when he’d look like he wanted to kiss her.

      Her desire for that kiss had been so strong that it frightened her. She’d reacted defensively, uttering some patently untrue and hurtful remark. It had worked. He’d backed off. But it had also made him angry, and their relationship had never recovered.

      * * *

      “I see your drink is empty,” Travis couldn’t help saying to Danielle as he escorted Nadine to their table. He raised his brow in a question.

      “That’s your cue to dance with him.” The woman called Astrid nudged Danielle with her elbow.

      It was her cue to dance with him. Although he fully expected her to shoot him down, he had to take the chance. Danielle was in front of him, and he wanted to touch her. It was as simple as that.

      Nadine dropped into her chair at the table, crossing her shapely legs and taking a drink of something frozen and orange. “Go for it, Danielle,” she breathed. “The band’s great.”

      Danielle shook her head. “I’m not—” But then she stopped. Her eyes went wide, and she focused on a spot behind his shoulder. “Sure.” She rose to her feet. “Why not?”

      Travis glanced behind him, finding a smartly dressed man in his late twenties. He was clean-shaven. His light brown hair was slicked back, slightly shiny, neat around the ears. He wore an expensive, pin-striped suit, with a white dress shirt and a purple tie. The handkerchief in his pocket matched the tie, and his gaze was intent on Danielle.

      “Dani,” he opened with a dazzling, white smile.

      “Sorry, Randal,” she spoke breezily, linking her arm with Travis’s. “Just about to dance.” She all but dragged Travis toward the dance floor.

      “What was that?” Travis asked, as he turned her into his arms.

      “What was what?” she asked, all wide-eyed innocence.

      “What was up with the guy back there?” He settled a hand on the small of her back.

      “Nothing.” She took a breath, placed her hand on his shoulder and stepped into the smooth jazz music.

      She felt so good in his arms that he almost let her get away with it. The dance floor was crowded. The breeze from the open window ruffled her hair. Man, she was beautiful.

      But he was too curious to let it drop. “You were about to turn me down. Don’t pretend you weren’t. Then that guy showed up, and you changed your mind.”

      Danielle gave her short, brown hair a little toss. It was soft and trendy, long across her eyes, wispy at her neck. “I didn’t expect to see you in Vegas.”

      The longer he held her in his arms, the less he cared about the other guy. “Is that your way of telling me he’s none of my business?”

      “He is none of your business. But that’s my way of telling you I don’t want to talk about him.”

      “Okay by me.”

      “Thank you.” There was an edge of sarcasm to her voice.

      Travis was used to that. “I didn’t expect to see you in Vegas, either.”

      “I’m attending an international law conference.”

      “Interesting?”

      “It is if you like international law.”

      “Not exactly my forte.”

      “That’s true, isn’t it?”

      “Why are you smiling?”

      “Because, you’re in my world now, cowboy.”

      He didn’t exactly know what she meant by that. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to pursue it, either, since it would likely mean they’d end up arguing. The way he saw it, Vegas was as much his world as hers.

      “You saw me ride?” he asked instead.

      “The girls dragged me along.” She paused. “Bull riding is not exactly my sport of choice.”

      He wasn’t about to take offense. He’d have been shocked speechless if she’d confessed to a secret love of bull riding. “Where were you sitting?”

      She pulled back to look at him, her gaze quizzical. “Why?”

      He wanted to know if he could have possibly seen her after his fall, but he wasn’t about to explain that to her. “I wondered if you had a good view.”

      “Fourth row, across from the chutes.”

      “Good seats.” He could have glimpsed her on the way down, maybe filed her image away in his subconscious and brought it up when he hit the dirt. It was possible.

      She frowned. “I’m not sure being closer makes it any better.”

      “Are you trying to pick a fight?”

      She hesitated almost imperceptibly. “We never seem to have to try.”

      Travis’s skin prickled in warning, and he glanced around the room, catching the glare of the man who’d approached Danielle at the table. “Who is that guy?”

      “I thought we’d moved on.”

      They might have moved on, but the other man obviously hadn’t.

      “Are you dating him or something?” Travis asked.

      “No.”

      “No to dating him, or no to or something.”

      She drew her arms from him. “This was a bad idea. I’m going back to the table now.”

      “He’s waiting for you.”

      She reflexively turned her head, but Travis stopped her with a gentle palm on her cheek. “Don’t look.”

      She stilled.

      “He’s staring daggers into me. If I’m gonna have to fight, you’d better warn me now.”

      She gave a weary smile and a small shake of her head. “Nobody’s fighting.”

      Travis gathered her back into his arms, and she picked up the rhythm again. His body gave a subconscious sigh, and he drew her closer this time, her chest brushing his, thighs meeting as they moved. She was exactly the right size, exactly the right shape. She fit perfectly into his arms.

      “I’m pretty sure I can take him,” he mused, breathing in the fresh fragrance of her hair.

      “His name is Randal Kleinfeld. I knew him in law school.”

      “In the biblical sense?”

      She tipped her head back, dark eyes chastising him. “You are insufferably rude, you know that?”

      Travis might be rude, but Randal was intensely possessive. Not that Travis blamed him. Even he could see that Danielle was a gem, a beautiful, sensuous, fiery gem of a woman. And for the right man, there’d be no looking back.

      “Did you date him, Danielle?”

      “It’s business, Travis. He wants to talk to me about a job. With his firm. They’ve made me an offer to move to D.C.”

      Travis didn’t like the sound of that. If she switched firms, she would also switch clients. She might never come back to Lyndon Valley on business with Caleb.