“Sometimes, there are things more valuable than money. I was thinking that maybe he could bunk with Ernest.”
Sam was referring to the ranch hand who had been at Homecoming Ranch for more than twenty years. Ernest Delgado had lived in the bunkhouse forever, never marrying, never leaving except once a month, to see his mother in Albuquerque.
As for the bunkhouse, there wasn’t much bunking to it—from what Libby had understood from Luke, Ernest had been the only one to ever have bunked there.
“I can’t drive Tony back and forth every day,” Sam said, sensing her hesitation. “And apparently, neither can you. All he wants is to get out of that run-down house for a while.”
“Here?” she asked, and rose up on her toes to peek over Sam’s shoulder at Tony.
Sam leaned closer to her so that he could shut the door behind him, presumably so that Libby wouldn’t stare at Tony. “Here, while he works. It’s a bunkhouse, Libby. I don’t think Ernest would mind the company for a couple of days. Is that a problem?”
What was that she smelled, cologne? It was nice cologne, too. He did have a date!
He glanced at his watch again.
“Are you going on a date?”
Sam slowly lifted his gaze from his watch. “Was there an answer to my question in there somewhere?”
“No, I changed the subject. It’s not a problem, there’s your answer. So why don’t you want me to know you’re going on a date?”
He cocked his head to one side and looked curiously at her. “Why are you so interested?”
“Who says I’m interested?”
“Oh, I don’t know, because of the way you keep staring at me and firing questions.”
“I’m not staring,” Libby retorted. “I’m making conversation. You told me to be nice. I’m being nice.”
“You’re not being nice,” he said, his gaze dipping to her mouth. “You’re being nosy. There is a fundamental difference between nice and nosy.”
Libby gasped with indignation. “Pot and kettle!” she said, poking him in the chest. “You’re always nosy, asking me where I’ve been and if I have a golf club in my car, et cetera and so forth.”
“That’s because I am a law enforcement officer, and you are a law violator. I have the right to do that.”
“I don’t get the big deal,” she said. “If you have a date, why don’t you just say so?”
Sam sighed. He folded his arms across his chest. “Okay, I have a date. Satisfied?”
“No!” she cried with disbelief. “You said you didn’t have a girlfriend!”
“I didn’t say anything,” he corrected her, and rubbed his thumb across her cheek.
Libby swayed backward. “What?” she demanded, touching her fingers to tingling skin. “What was that?”
He tucked his thumb in his mouth. “Cake, I think.”
She tried to rub away the shiver his touch had put in her cheek. “So I guess I know why you totally ignored me today,” she said pertly.
He smiled a little. “Did I ignore you?”
“Totally ignored me.”
“Why would a date make me ignore you? That makes no sense.”
“Then why did you ignore me?” she demanded, propping her hands on her waist.
“I didn’t. But I realized I don’t have anything more to say to you. I’ve warned you, I’ve tried to counsel you, but you are clearly determined to do things your way. So, enough said. Life goes on. I go on. I’ve done my job.”
Libby was rendered temporarily speechless. There was something about him stepping back and away from her that made her feel unsteady. It made her feel awful, really—she had never meant to push him away. “Just because I don’t agree with everything you say doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be friends.”
“Friends,” he repeated, as if he found the suggestion ridiculous.
She suddenly reached around him for the door. “But go ahead, go on your date.” She opened the door a little too hastily, and it hit Sam in the back.
His gaze darkened, and he caught her wrist. “I swear to God, you are the most stubborn, intractable, infuriating woman I have ever known. One day you want me to leave you alone, and the next you are upset because you think I ignored you.”
“I am not upset—”
“Don’t lie to me, Libby Tyler. You’ve got irate female written all over you.” He pushed back against the door and in doing so, yanked her closer to him. She was suddenly staring into his eyes, which were silently, and effectively, daring her to deny it.
Libby couldn’t deny it. She wasn’t certain she could even speak, because suddenly, everything in her felt crooked. She was in that small space of teetering between righting herself and falling, her thoughts flailing about, looking for balance. Her gaze slipped to Sam’s mouth. His very lush mouth. A mouth she had never noticed until this very moment. “So?” she said. “It’s a free country.”
He pressed his magnificent lips together, pulled her even closer, and lowered his head, dipping down so that he was eye level with her. In a voice dangerously low, he said, “If I hear that free country shit from you one more time . . .”