Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 20430 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 102(@200wpm)___ 82(@250wpm)___ 68(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 20430 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 102(@200wpm)___ 82(@250wpm)___ 68(@300wpm)
Because honestly, I’m not remotely sure either.
“Almost missed out on tonight myself, took a little family heart to heart to get me to come out.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been a bit of a lonely man, Cassie. A jaded one too. Love doesn’t come easy in Burly. Just a matter of population statistics and the like.” He wraps his hands around my waist as our pace matches the music. “That I came here on a whim and found you? It’s saying something to me.”
“Not just coincidence throwing me your way, and you my way?”
“God, fate, whatever you want to call it… It all just works in mysterious ways sometimes.”
I chuckle. I expected to put any hopes of love on hold when I came here for my aunt and uncle. Twenty-somethings like me didn’t call small towns like Burly home, so I wasn’t expecting to find anyone suitable to date.
“It’s a lot to think about. And my current question is why is this the slowest song imaginable? I always imagined country, line dancing, or whatever it’s called, was a whole lot more lively than this.”
“Sometimes it’s nice to take it slow. It’s more passionate, and you can savor it. Better that way. It’s something you can say about a lot of things, to be totally honest.”
“Like what, Cash?”
“Kissing is one of them. A good, long, passionate kiss.”
I blush. “I wouldn’t know.”
“How about I show you then?”
I look at him with wide eyes of surprise. “Are you serious?”
“Absolutely serious.”
Then he does it.
He kisses me. Right in the middle of the dance floor, with perhaps the whole town watching, as well as one of my best friends.
It’s intense. Powerful. He literally takes my breath away, and I soon find myself leaning into him, my tongue meeting his.
I’m panting when the kiss ends, and continue to stare at Cash with disbelief.
That was sudden and gutsy.
But I can’t say I didn’t like it.
3
CASH
She breaks away from me, giggling wildly.
I’m infatuated with this woman and I’m falling for her hard. I’m mentally kicking myself for being so stubborn, realizing I may have missed her if Rye didn’t show up and bicker at me for making myself miserable.
I’ll have to thank him later.
“Well then, I definitely wasn’t expecting that,” she says as we continue to keep pace with the song, which is beginning to wind down.
“I don’t like screwing around. I just wanted to give us what we both wanted.”
“So that means kissing girls you just met?”
“Only if they give me every nonverbal signal in the world that they’ll be into it. And you were screaming those nonverbal signals, I’ll have you know.”
I can sense she’s a bit younger than me and also is definitely a bit more inexperienced in the ways of love. I’m a willing teacher, especially when my student is hitting all the right buttons like she is.
One more strut, and the song finally ends. She’s red as hell, shaking her head. She takes in the scene around her. “Well, no one is looking at me as a source of unintentional comedy. So I guess I have that.”
“You danced beautifully.”
“I think I can thank you for keeping me from doing anything stupid.”
“No one dances alone. It’s a team effort. You’re more graceful than you think you are.” And more beautiful too, but I think I’d told her that enough in the past five minutes. You kind of have to let the compliments breathe a little to make sure they come off as sincere.
She looks back to her friend, who toasts her with a drink. He’s starting to look a little blitzed, and red in the face in a way that is not the same as the kind of red I’m making Cassie.
“It’s getting late,” I say, realizing the ballad was the band’s finale. The singer is going through a bunch of thank yous and cheers. It’s not even midnight, but I guess for a town like Burly? That’s still pretty late. An awful lot of us get up at four in the morning to tend to the chickens. “You got a ride home?”
“I came here with Danny.”
“Is he in any shape to drive you?”
She looks back and sees his sorry state.
“Not really. But I don’t think I should be getting a car with some cowboy I just met either.”
I cackle. “Let me show you something, Cassie.”
“Hmm?”
“Just follow me.”
I lead her outside as a lot of others are taking their leave from the saloon. A lot of them did come in cars, or on motorcycles.
But Burly’s a bit different from other towns. You’ll see someone in a recent model Toyota next to a truck from the 1980s... and right next to something from the 1880s.
“Behold, my trusted steed.” I go over to Monterrey, and stroke his mane. He whinnies in approval as he chomps through his oat bag.