Summer Nights (Fool's Gold #8)

He wanted to stop and tell everyone he wasn’t the bad guy. That he and Annabelle had jointly agreed to have sex and the fact that he didn’t want to marry her when it was over didn’t make him a jerk. All he’d done was…was…


He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and swore. He’d told her he’d used the experience to get her out of his system. As if she were some kind of virus he had to get over. They’d had amazing sex and then he’d walked out. With her throwing things at his head.

He hadn’t meant it the way it had come out, but he didn’t get points for being stupid, either. He looked back at the feed store, then shook his head and walked to his truck. He’d stepped in it big-time. The question was, what was it going to take to fix things?

* * *

ANNABELLE CHECKED THE invoice against what had been ordered. Adding new books to the library’s inventory usually made her happy. Today it was less about the thrill and more about whether or not she could concentrate. The fact that she could focus on work would be enough of a win, she told herself. Happiness would follow with time.

The good news was Shane might have been a jerk, but he hadn’t broken her heart. They hadn’t been together long enough for that to happen. So while she had a bruised ego, she wouldn’t have scars. She felt a little foolish for having misjudged him, but everyone got to make a mistake now and then. It was what she did about the mistake that would speak to her character.

She turned away from her computer and stared out the window. What bothered her the most was that she’d been so wrong about him. She’d been going around all happy that Shane was one of the good guys—nothing like her ex. But in the end, he’d been a lot more like Lewis than she wanted to admit. He’d used her for his own purposes, not once thinking about her feelings.

Someone knocked on her office door. She glanced up and said, “Come in,” at the same time, only to realize Shane was standing in the doorway.

Immediately her heart began to pound and very specific parts of her body cheered in anticipation. Her stomach clenched, her thighs felt a little quivery and the sense memory of how he’d felt inside of her made it difficult to think about anything else.

All right. Maybe she wasn’t as over him as she should be.

“Do you have a second?” he asked.

He looked good, she thought bitterly. All tanned and strong, wearing those worn jeans, the ones that were faded and soft looking. Why couldn’t he have grown a hump in the past two days? Or a second, small but unattractive head?

She motioned to the chair across from her desk and laced her fingers together on her lap.

“Is this a library issue or something else?” she asked.

“Something else.”

She waited. Whatever he had to say, she would listen, then answer and send him on his way. She was calm. She was controlled. She would gather her strength from the spiritual remnants of the powerful Máa-zib women who had first come to this part of the country. And if that didn’t work, she would go crying to Charlie. Because she was pretty sure Charlie could beat up Shane. Or at least give it a good try.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I behaved badly.”

She stared at him. “Really? In what way?”

He drew in a breath. “Come on, Annabelle. You know what I’m talking about. After we had sex I said I was leaving because I’d gotten you out of my system.”

The words were just as harsh the second time around, but she told herself not to react.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said. “Not exactly.”

She continued to wait. If he wanted to find his way out of this mess, he was going to have to do it alone.

He ran his hand through his hair then looked at her. “I’ve been obsessed with you from the first second I saw you dancing on that damn bar.”

Her chin came up. “You saw that?”

“Oh, yeah. I walked into Jo’s Bar one of my first nights back and saw you dancing. It was like taking a bolt of lightning to the gut. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. It was all I could do not to pull you over my shoulder and carry you off somewhere.” He gave her a sheepish smile. “They arrest guys for doing stuff like that.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“I got out of there as fast as I could, but you were in my head. So I asked my mom to find me a nice girl. Someone…boring and not very exciting.”

His reaction to seeing her dance on the bar had gone a long way to making her feel better. But now all those good feelings fizzled. “You mean someone like a librarian?”

He nodded sheepishly. “She mentioned you and you seemed safe, but then you showed up and I was lost.” He leaned forward. “I’ve told you about Rachel and that you remind me a little of her. But it isn’t you, it’s me. That feeling that I have to have you. It was bad with her, but it’s worse with you. Hell, even my horse has a crush on you.”