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  “Okay,” Ginny said.

  As he’d hoped, her mood brightened again. She hopped up from her chair, ready to go. He laughed and tossed the money for their bill and a generous tip on the table and let Ginny pull him out the front door and down the street toward the Mehlerhaus Bakery.

  As they neared the bakery, he spotted India standing in front of her store talking to a man in a suit. He couldn’t hear a word they were saying, but he knew instantly he wouldn’t like it if he did. Because judging by body language alone, the guy was flirting with her. It proved way more difficult than it should be for him to stick to his side of the street. India’s flirtations and dating life were none of his business.

  Then why was it also difficult to concentrate as Ginny and Keri talked about possible cake designs? Why did he keep glancing out the window and fighting the urge to tell the guy to back up, to put more distance between him and India?

  “What do you think, Dad?” Ginny asked, dragging his attention back where it should have been in the first place.

  “What, sweetie?”

  Keri pointed toward a cake design in the book on the front counter, a princess in a blue dress.

  “Sure, whatever you want. It’s your birthday.”

  As Ginny wandered over to the display case to look at cupcakes, Keri closed the book of cake designs but didn’t take her eyes off Liam.

  Liam pulled out his wallet and handed her a credit card.

  As Keri ran it through the card reader, she glanced out the front window. “They’re not a couple,” she said. “Not that I don’t think he’s trying.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “India and the guy she’s talking to, just in case you were wondering.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Coming from most people, her words would have annoyed him. But there was something about Keri that he liked. She came across as a no-nonsense kind of woman, one who said what she thought without trying to beat around the bush. He respected that.

  “And India’s a good catch,” Keri said.

  “I don’t think we have much in common.”

  “You can’t know that until you really get to know a person, can you?”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but his brain fritzed out on him. The only thing that bubbled up was that he did want to ask India out, against all logic.

  Keri handed his credit card back to him. “Take it from someone who knows. Sometimes we’re destined to be with the one person we’re sure isn’t for us.”

  Keri’s words banged around in his head all afternoon as he got back to work supervising the replacement of some of the lights and checked out the sound system at the rodeo arena. Maybe if he just stayed away from India, he could get through the rodeo and return home to where he’d evidently left his sanity. But damned if he didn’t look up to see her driving into the fairgrounds.

  Was the damn universe trying to tell him something?

  She waved when she got out of her car and started walking toward him.

  He glanced at her flat shoes. They weren’t exactly sturdy, but at least they weren’t heels. Maybe she’d stay on her feet today.

  She eyed the arena behind him. “Everything’s looking great.”

  “Yeah, we’re almost ready, which is good since competitors will start rolling into town in a few days.”

  “I came by to see if you needed anything else from me because I’m going to be busy with some other things for a while.”

  His jaw stiffened when he thought that maybe the guy in the suit was one of those things. But maybe all she meant were the events occurring alongside the rodeo, maybe her class for little girls. “No. You’ve done your part on the rodeo.”

  She nodded and looked past him toward the barn. “That’s a pretty horse.”

  “Yeah, that’s Mars.” He glanced toward where he’d left his horse tied to the hitching rail outside the entrance to the barn. “I had a friend trailer him down this morning since he was already on his way to Bandera to pick up another horse.”

  “He’s huge.”

  “But a total softie. Come on and say hello.” Liam headed toward the big roan but looked back when he noticed India hadn’t moved.

  “He looks like he could squish me.”

  “But he won’t.” Liam extended his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation and to his surprise, India took it. He was struck again by the dainty softness of her skin, but he liked it.

  When they got close to Mars, Liam felt a shiver go through India. “I promise he won’t hurt you.” He took India’s hand and placed it against the side of the horse’s neck.

  “It feels softer than I imagined. I thought horsehair was coarse.”

  “It can be, but I take very good care of my animals. And Ginny loves brushing the horses. They probably love her more because she babies them.”

  India looked up at him and smiled. “And you let her.”

  “Yeah.” He watched as India tentatively moved her hand along Mars’s neck. “So tell me how a Texas girl manages to never ride a horse, especially when you live in an area surrounded by ranches.”

  India’s hand stilled, but she didn’t remove it from the horse. “We didn’t have horses, and I never really had the opportunity to be around them much. The one time I was at someone’s house who had a horse, it tried to bite me.”

  “You’ll be happy to know Mars isn’t a biter, not even if you feed him. Want to try?”

  India retrieved her hand and took a step back. “I don’t think so.”

  “As I tell Ginny, you won’t get over a fear unless you face it.” Not giving her a chance to think about it, he retrieved a bucket of grain hanging just inside the barn and extended it to her. “Go ahead, fill up your hand and hold it out to him.”

  “Really, I don’t think this is for me.”

  “I promise he won’t bite. And if he does, I’ll let him bite me, too.”

  The expression on her face told him she was conflicted. At least some part of her wanted to face her fear. Finally, she took a tentative step forward and dipped her hand into the bucket. With her palm full of grain, she edged it closer to Mars’s mouth. When she got close, she closed her eyes as if she didn’t want to see the monster horse teeth preparing to chomp off her fingers.

  Liam placed his hand against her back to comfort her. At least that’s what he told himself. The fact was he liked touching her, and the more he did the more he wanted to. And he had no idea what he was going to do about that.

  Chapter Ten

  India tensed when she felt the warm breath of the horse against her hand, scared half to death that she was about to lose her fingers. She yelped when Mars touched her, but Liam’s hand at her back steadied her. At least as far as her fear of the horse was concerned. If she wasn’t so concerned about the horse, she was sure she’d freak out more about Liam touching her.

  “It’s okay,” Liam said. “Open your eyes.”

  She barely opened one and peeked out. What she saw made her open both eyes fully. Mars was eating out of her hand, barely nuzzling against her palm with his soft nose. She laughed at the sight, at how she was doing something she would have bet everything she owned she would never do.

  “He’s so gentle,” she said.

  Liam scratched the big horse between his ears. “He’s a good boy, aren’t you, buddy?”

  India watched, fascinated. She even got up the courage to stroke Mars between his big, brown eyes.

  “See, not so bad, huh?” Liam smiled at her, as though he were proud of what she’d accomplished.

  “No. But don’t expect me to be barrel racing anytime soon.”

  Liam laughed, and she couldn’t help thinking that she’d miss the sound of that laugh when he left Blue Falls
.

  “How about a little ride to start off?”

  “What?”

  “A ride, up the trail.” He pointed toward the trailhead at the edge of the fairgrounds, the one that wound up into the hills. “I took him for a short ride when he got here, but he needs to work out more of the kinks from the trip here.”

  “You want me to get on top of a horse?”

  “I bet you’ll love it. Nothing like it in the world.”

  She glanced back at the RV. “What about Ginny?”

  “She’s at Mia’s house. Jake says having her around keeps Mia’s mind off the upcoming treatment.”

  “That’s good, for both of them.”

  Liam placed his hand on the saddle. “So, no, you can’t use my kid as an excuse.”

  “I don’t know. Letting Mars eat out of my hand is one thing. Trusting him not to kill me is quite another.”

  “Mars has never thrown me, never put me in any danger.”

  “Yeah, but he’s used to you. Can’t horses sense fear?”

  “He won’t act any differently than normal because I’ll be with you.”

  “Oh.” The thought of Liam riding so close made her skin warm. She hoped he would attribute any evidence of that to the heat of the day.

  Before she could say anything else, Liam positioned her at the side of the horse. “Put your hands on the pommel,” he said, patting the saddle part in question.

  She opened her mouth to decline, but Verona’s words echoed in her head again. So she let him help her scramble onto the saddle. She was sure she looked like a fish trying to ride a bicycle. “Wow, that was graceful.”

  Liam laughed as he effortlessly pulled himself up behind her. “You didn’t end up off the other side on your face, so I call it a win.”

  India figured she would have laughed if she’d had any breath left. The feel of Liam’s long legs alongside hers, the way he was pressed close behind her, completely wiped out her ability to think coherently, to speak nothing of normal breathing and heart rhythm.

  When he wrapped his arms around her to take the reins, she sucked in a breath before she thought how that might sound.

  “You okay?” Liam asked.

  “Yeah, just nervous.” And not just about being way up on a horse, either.

  “Nothing to be nervous about.”

  Did he have to say that so close to her ear? The man must have been clueless if he couldn’t figure out how that might affect her. Of course, she hadn’t given him any reason to think she might be interested, had she? In fact, quite the opposite.

  She still didn’t know if she could risk letting her guard down, but she found she wanted to more and more each time she saw Liam. Not even Kevin’s second attempt to get her to go out with him that afternoon could keep her mind from wandering to Liam in the middle of that conversation. As if she were somehow attuned to his presence, she’d noticed him across the street as he and Ginny had stepped into the bakery. She’d been surprised by how much she wanted to get rid of Kevin so Liam wouldn’t get the wrong idea.

  With a gentle nudge, Liam set the horse in motion. India clung to the pommel so tightly it bit into her palms.

  “You’re not going to fall. I won’t let you. Trust me.”

  He couldn’t know how much those last two words scared her. Trusting people wasn’t something she’d ever been particularly good at, not when the two people she should have been able to trust the most had failed her so utterly.

  “So how long have you been riding?” she asked, trying to focus her attention on something other than her fear or the feel of Liam’s thighs pressed against hers.

  “Since my first memories,” he said. “I grew up on a ranch way out in West Texas, and my dad had me on a horse before I could walk. Heck, before I could crawl.”

  “But you decided not to be a rancher.”

  “No. I guess it was one of those classic ‘can’t wait to get away from the middle of nowhere’ stories. I hit the rodeo circuit pretty early. The road appealed to me, even though riding resulted in a few broken bones, a couple of concussions, more bruises than I can count. If not for Ginny, I might still be on the road full-time. Even with her, I can’t totally give it up. I get to missing it.”

  “So you compromised with running your company?”

  “You could say that, but I like it, too. Keeps me in the business, even when I’m not riding.”

  “I guess you had Ginny riding pretty young, too.”

  “Yep. I have this picture of us on a horse when she was a month old, our first picture together.”

  “What, no pictures of you holding the pink, wrinkly newborn?”

  She couldn’t tell for sure with the movement of the horse, but she thought she felt Liam stiffen for a moment.

  “I wasn’t there when she was born.”

  “Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to pry.”

  “No apology necessary.” He guided Mars off the trail onto a flat, open area. “See anything familiar?”

  “You can see right down Main Street from here. I had no idea.”

  “I’m guessing you’ve never been up here. Not exactly a trail for high heels.”

  She swatted his arm, eliciting a laugh.

  “So what do you think of your first horseback ride so far?”

  “It’s nice.” She leaned forward and rubbed the side of Mars’s neck. “You were right about him.”

  “I’m right about a lot of things.”

  India turned halfway and gave him a raised-eyebrow look. “That so?”

  The moment his gaze met hers, she wondered if she’d made a mistake making eye contact.

  “It is.” His words didn’t sound like playful banter anymore. “Like I think the two of us should go out tonight.”

  “What?” Didn’t she sound like a genius, as if she couldn’t grasp the meaning of his words?

  “Out to dinner.”

  She broke eye contact and turned back around to stare down at her hometown, the town Liam was just passing through. “Is this part of your plan to get Verona and the others to lay off the matchmaking?”

  “No. I just want to take a beautiful woman to dinner. Simple as that.”

  “Oh.”

  Liam laughed. “You sound surprised.”

  “I am.”

  “Are you really?”

  “Yes. I didn’t think you liked me very much.”

  “Do you think I take women I don’t like on horseback rides?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose not.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  “I didn’t say that.” She squirmed on the saddle but froze when her bottom bumped back into him. She gulped at the hardness she felt there.

  “Then it’s a no.”

  She licked her lips and swallowed against the dryness invading her throat. “I didn’t say that, either.”

  “Then what are you saying?”

  She shook her head, unable to think clearly. “This isn’t a good idea.”

  Liam placed one of his hands on hers and squeezed gently. “India, it’s just dinner. We’ve both been working hard, you probably more than me since you have so many irons in the fire. I think we’ve earned a night off and a nice meal, don’t you?”

  She took a deep breath. “Well, if you put it that way, I guess I could eat.”

  “Good answer. Guess we should get back then unless you want your date smelling like a barn.”

  India had the strangest, most-unlike-her feeling that she’d like Liam Parrish just fine, no matter how he smelled.

  * * *

  IF INDIA DIDN’T STOP PACING her living room, she was going to dig a trench right down the middle of the floor. She looked at her cell phone again, considering whether she should call Liam and cancel. Y
es, it was cutting it close. He should be here any minute. But could she really go out with him and maintain her resolve to keep things on a professional level? Because she didn’t want to allow herself to fall for him, not when everything about giving in to her temptation felt as if it would end in disaster. And, honestly, she had enough potential disaster hanging out on the horizon.

  No, she couldn’t go through with this. Better to just keep things how they were, get through the rodeo, and he’d be gone. Then maybe she could refocus all of her energy on figuring out the best way to ensure the security of her business.

  She’d dialed the first two digits of Liam’s number when she heard his truck pull into her driveway. She stood frozen, halfway to the third number, as she listened to the sound of his truck door closing.

  She canceled the call and closed her eyes. When had she become such a chicken? She was perfectly capable of having a meal with a man without it having to mean more than friendship. She was strong enough to manage it tonight even though she was insanely attracted to Liam. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d hidden her true feelings.

  After he knocked, she waited a couple of seconds before moving toward the door. She didn’t want to seem too anxious to see him. The friendly, casual greeting that was on her lips died when she saw that he’d replaced his usual jeans and button-up shirt with a dark suit, crisp white shirt and deep blue tie.

  “I never thought I’d say this, but you’re a bit underdressed for dinner,” he said with a mischievous smile.

  She looked down at her white slacks, gold sandals and tan top with a Cleopatra-style neckline. Then she looked back at Liam, just in case she’d imagined the suit and tie. Nope, still there.

  “I think maybe you’re a mite overdressed for the Primrose.”

  “We’re not going to the Primrose.”

  “Um, the other choices are even more casual than the Primrose.”

  “Not in Austin, they’re not.” He glanced at his watch. “If we’re going to make our reservation, you’ll need to hurry. I couldn’t get anything later.”

  “Where are we going?”

  He leaned toward her a little. “It’s a surprise,” he said in a faux whisper.