Tex Times Ten. Tina Leonard

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      Tex didn’t like the sound of that. “Meaning?”

      “No man leaps away from a woman like his pants are on fire, when a moment before he was sucking at her lips like a drowning man sucks air. Maybe your intimacy issue returned full force.”

      He bit the inside of his jaw. His pants were definitely on fire, but he shifted so she couldn’t notice. “I’m trying to be a gentleman. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

      “Oh, please. You think that if you kiss me and like it too much—maybe even make love to me again—you’ll end up at the altar like your brothers. You don’t want to fall in love. Which is perfect as far as I’m concerned, because I’m the last girl who wants to see a wedding ring.”

      There went that unattractive prescient side of her. “I could kiss you all day and not fall in love,” he lied, his pride in full force. “Heck, I could kiss twenty girls and not fall in love! Marriage is not a good way for men to live. All that devotion and fidelity stuff is hard on a guy.”

      “Guess you won’t have any trouble with that raffle, after all,” Cissy said.

      He didn’t like the gleeful smile on her face. “Sounds like the most fun I’ll have all year.”

      “I’ll have to come watch.”

      That hadn’t entered his thoughts, and he wasn’t certain he was entirely comfortable with Cissy watching women bid on him. “Uh—”

      “I could be a mole bidder and drive up your price,” she offered.

      Did he hear revenge in her tone? “A mole bidder?”

      “You know, every time someone bids, I outbid them, so that they have to bid again. Of course, I have no intention of buying you.”

      Trying to ignore her obvious disinterest in him—where was the jealousy, for heaven’s sake?—Tex puffed out his chest. “How much do you figure I’m worth?”

      “Ten, twenty bucks?”

      His brows shot to his hairline. “Oh, come on. Be real. I’ve still got all my teeth!”

      “Well, that does count for something,” she said reluctantly. “How’s your continence?”

      “My what?”

      “You know. Your…you know.” She gestured to his jeans.

      “Oh, my continence!” he exclaimed. “I can go all night.”

      “You don’t say.” Her gaze swept his jeans and then lingered a moment more. “And you’ve got a full head of hair,” she said. “I think you’ll fetch about fifty bucks. I’d bid on you,” she said with a sigh, “but I’m financially embarrassed these days, and Lord only knows I wouldn’t know what to do with you if I won you. I suppose I could put you to work in the rose garden out back. I know how much roses appeal to you, those secretive buds of romance.”

      Though he knew she was tweaking him, it was getting on his nerves. He’d just kissed her. Darn it, she should be acting more…more, well, appreciative. And interested. After all, he didn’t go around kissing just any girl. In fact, he hadn’t kissed anybody in a long time. Nobody since her.

      Maybe that was his problem. He was out of practice. He was taking it all too seriously. “I need a trashy girl to purchase me,” he said.

      “Oh, yes, the only type for you.”

      “Well, there’re reasons for that.”

      She frowned at him. “Thanks for bringing me the cake, Tex. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to sleep now. I’ve got to work tomorrow.”

      He nodded, noting the distance in her tone. “All right, Cissy. I’ll tell Hannah you’re doing fine.”

      “You do that,” she said absently, turning away.

      And darn it, she didn’t even seem to notice when he raised the window. Glancing at her, he realized her thoughts were somewhere else. She’d pulled some pictures from a drawer in her nightstand, but he couldn’t see what they were. Caught between bravado and bragging, he decided there was no other way to get her attention back on him.

      He jumped.

      Then he waited for her to look out to make certain he was in good health, his head crooked around so that he could see her expression.

      She closed the window. The lace drapes fell together.

      “Damn,” he said to himself, limping toward his truck. “Even superheroes get a little applause for exiting out of windows!”

      But Cissy hadn’t seemed to care, much like she hadn’t seemed impressed when he’d ridden that bull to victory, twice. Only this time, he’d kissed her for real. And pulled away fast. He hadn’t been prepared for how much he wanted to have her. The feel of her beneath him all slick and compliant in that silk had made his brain pulsate with fire! He’d had to stop himself from…

      He frowned. She hadn’t seemed as rocked as he had.

      So then he dove out a window. “Damn,” he said again.

      She was supposed to notice.

      CISSY FORCED HERSELF not to fly to the window and peer out to see if Tex was okay. That lunatic! But what could a woman expect from a man well versed in the daredevil sport of bullriding?

      “You are so not father material,” she muttered, swiftly flipping off the bedside lamp and going to the window to surreptitiously peek through the lace drapes. He was limping, the creep! “That’s what you get for being so desperate to avoid my kiss,” she told his retreating form. “Now you’re only worth forty bucks.”

      And he wasn’t husband material, for sure—not that she was looking to mine the fields of bachelors. But Tex had proved that she’d never be able to count on him. The man broke into her bedroom and then leaped out her window.

      “I can’t trust you,” she said as he drove off. “And if I need anyone in my life right now, it’s someone I can trust.”

      She had a family to raise. “I can just see him teaching my kids to have a wild hair like his,” she murmured, picking up the picture once again. Her eyes clouded over as she looked at the faces of the tiny people who depended on her. Counted on her.

      “I need stability in my life,” she told herself as she crawled into bed. “Stability. And someone who doesn’t call wedding cake un-wedding cake and then cut it with a hunting knife!”

      Getting up, she grabbed the box off the dresser and slipped the cake under her pillow. “I’ll just ignore Mr. Superstitious’s dire warning,” she said. “It’s not like I’d dream of future husbands, anyway.”

      More like she’d have nightmares. Of Tex.

      “WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?” Mason demanded as Tex limped into the ranch’s main house. It was just the two of them living there now, and that fact alone was starting to string Tex’s nerves tight. Mason was not a pleasant roommate.

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