imagined all that sexual desire directed right at her.
Then again, maybe she had imagined it. If he’d really wanted to spend time with her, he certainly knew where she lived. Yet he hadn’t made an effort to contact her, and now, as she and Wally walked toward the game booths, she wondered if whatever she’d felt between herself and Dylan had been all in her head.
Or perhaps he was one of those guys who played with women’s emotions. Maybe the thrill for him was in the chase, and God knew she hadn’t run very fast. Okay, she hadn’t run at all. In fact, she’d stood perfectly still while he’d pulled up her shirt. She’d even moved his hands to cover her breasts.
She and Wally tried their luck at a few games, and Hope finally won a pink plastic ruler after tossing rings on pop bottles. She put her prize in her fanny pack, and by the time she found Paul and Shelly eating hot dogs and drinking beer, the sun hung low in the sky. The carnival lights kicked in and the food booths lit up. Hope’s stomach growled, and she and Wally grabbed two corn dogs with extra mustard before joining the small group that had gathered amongst the picnic tables set up behind the food stands. Wally abandoned her to eat with the other children and Shelly introduced Hope to her friends. They all seemed very nice, and while she ate her corn dog, the owner of the Buckhorn filled her in on his secrets to tossing a good toilet.
“It takes pure muscle to toss a toilet that far,” Burley said as laughter a short distance away drew her attention over his left shoulder. Like a magnet, her gaze settled on a tall, lean cowboy in a battered straw hat.
Dylan Taber leaned one shoulder against the Pound of Fries trailer, his arms folded across his chest, absorbed in conversation with several women standing in front of him. His sudden appearance at the fair was as unexpected as the warm flush spreading across Hope’s abdomen and up her chest. Her crazy heart pounded in her ears, and she pretended to listen to Burley, but in reality she didn’t hear a word.
Dylan lifted his gaze and his eyes locked with Hope’s. He looked at her across the distance, his head cocked to one side as he listened to the women speaking to him. At the sight of him, hot pleasure settled low in Hope’s stomach, and she couldn’t stop the smile that curved her lips. She waited, but Dylan didn’t acknowledge her in any way. She couldn’t tell by his expression if he felt the same pleasure or warm flush, or if he felt anything at all. He simply looked at her, his handsome face unreadable. Then he looked away.
“Stanley told me you’re writing a magazine article about Hiram Donnelly.”
She returned her attention to the man standing in front of her. “Yes, I am,” she said, her thoughts scattered, her emotions chaotic.
“Hiram and I were third cousins,” Burley told her. “When he was little, his daddy ran over him with a tractor. So we all pretty much figured he was damaged from an early age, only it took years for it to surface.”
Oh, geez, not again. A few days ago she’d been cornered at the post office by a group of Minnie’s friends. They’d wanted to assure her that Minnie had been a God-fearing Christian who would never do anything illegal. When Hope had informed them that kinky sex wasn’t necessarily illegal, and that even Christian women enjoyed a bit of kink once in a while, they’d looked at her as if she were speaking the Devil’s tongue.
“Anyway, his family would appreciate it if you’d mention that the rest of us are normal,” said the toilet-tossing champion. He sniffed and crossed his big arms over his barrel chest. “And none of us believe in spanking of any kind.”
“I’ll remember that,” Hope assured him and she excused herself. She moved to a trash can to throw away her corn-dog stick. Around her, people talked and joked, filling the tent with the kind of ease and laughter that came from knowing one another all of their lives.
Someone lobbed an empty cup into the trash, and she strolled through the crowd toward Shelly. She felt very alone, but it certainly wasn’t the first time in her life she’d felt alone while standing in a crowd of people.
A big, warm hand grabbed her from behind, and she looked at the strong fingers wrapped around her upper arm. She turned and glanced up into Dylan’s face. He still didn’t appear very happy to see her.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said.
“I didn’t expect to come.” He dropped his hand and cool air replaced the warmth of his palm. “I haven’t been in town on the Fourth for several years.”
“Did you get called into work?” she asked and watched his lips form the word “no.”
Like most everyone else at the fair, he’d gone completely native in a blue-and-white striped shirt that snapped down the front and at the cuffs. Instead of his usual Levi’s, he wore dark blue Wranglers. His belt was made of tooled leather, and the sliver buckle had two T’s in the center and must have weighed five pounds. “Then what brought you to town? Do you have an uncontrollable desire for a corn dog?”
“I have an uncontrollable desire, but not for a corn dog,” he said, then gave her an all-over perusal, starting at her feet. Slowly his gaze traveled up her legs and thighs and rested on the front of her black tank top where the logo
He pointed to her shoulder. “Nice tattoo.”
“Thanks. I thought it made me look like a biker chick.”
One brow lifted and disappeared within the shadow of his hat. “You don’t look anything like a biker chick. First off, you need leather and a bad attitude.” He paused for a moment before he added, “But come to think of it, you just might have the attitude part.”
Hope didn’t have an attitude, she just didn’t put up with a lot of crap.
“If you were a biker chick, you’d have to listen to your old man and sit on the back of his hog.” He bent his head over hers. “And quite frankly, honey, you strike me as a woman who likes to drive.” From ten feet away, someone called his name and he placed his hand on the small of her back. “Come on,” he said in a low, husky voice that sent shivers up her spine. “Let’s go shoot some squirrels.”
“Squirrels?”
He led her away from the food booths, and at that moment Hope would have followed him anywhere. “You want to shoot squirrels?”
“Yep.”
She would have followed him to the moon, the end of the earth, or shooting squirrels, but she had to admit that it was weird, and not a typical date. “I suppose they taste just like chicken,” she reasoned.
“I wouldn’t know.”
They moved down the midway, past the crowded food stands to the relatively deserted game booths. Most people had taken a break to eat, and the Shoot a Squirrel game was empty except for the carnival worker. She’d seen the booth earlier but had forgotten about it, because not only didn’t she have any desire to shoot a BB gun, each game cost the exorbitant price of two bucks.
She glanced at the five happy squirrel targets, then looked up at Dylan. One side of his face was lit by the light pouring from the booth; the other was covered in shadow. “When you said you wanted to shoot squirrel, I thought…”
“I know what you thought.” He removed his hand from the small of her back and pulled his wallet from his pocket. He handed the carnival worker, named Neville, ten dollars and was given two BB guns. “We’re going to have a contest,” Dylan said as he shoved his wallet into his back pocket. “I get two games and you get two. You also get a free practice round.”
She took the gun and held it at arm’s length. “What makes you think I need practice?”
“Just a wild guess.” He smiled, a slow and sensual turn of his mouth. “We’re also going to place a little side bet.”
“You don’t think I have a chance of winning do you?”
“Nope.”
He was probably right. “What’s the side bet?”
Dylan leaned his gun against the booth. Then, without a word, he stepped behind her and positioned her gun against her shoulder. He placed his warm hand over hers and positioned his finger over the trigger. “Now squeeze the trigger,” he said next to her right ear. She did and the BB hit the tarp behind the first squirrel. He folded her within the warmth of his solid chest, and the hairs on the back of her neck tingled as she fired again. The shot hit a bushy-tailed target happily munching on an acorn. “The secret to a steady shot is knowing how to handle a loaded weapon,” he said just above a whisper as he cocked the gun for her. “It takes a smooth motion of the wrist… and a slow, firm squeeze of the trigger.” The third shot hit the third squirrel with a loud ping that sent Hope’s nerves pinging through her body. “You look like a girl who’d be good at nice, smooth strokes and a firm squeeze.” The fourth target fell, and then the last. “Are you, Hope?”
