One Wild Cowboy (10 page)

Ginger bucked a little, trying to shake the blanket off.

Dylan calmed the mustang with a touch and a gentle word. He returned to get a light-weight training saddle, and brought it back. He set it atop the blanket and watched Ginger buck a little once more.

As Dylan expertly steadied the mustang, Emily said, “I think I'm going to have to speak to him.”

He reached around and fastened the girths, so the saddle and blanket would stay on. Finished, he stepped back. He motioned for Emily to let go of the bridle. He took the cloth lead and began the process of driving the mustang around the pen, once again diverting her attention from the unfamiliar weight on her back.

Watching everything that was going on Emily kept pace with Dylan.

“I don't think that's a good idea,” Dylan said as Ginger kept trying to buck the blanket and saddle off.

“Why not?” Being careful to stay clear of the powerful hind legs of the horse, Emily shot a glance at Dylan.

“That will only encourage him. He wants your attention—he doesn't care how he gets it.”

“Then what do you suggest I do to discourage him?” Emily asked, exasperated. “He's seen us together on what at least looked like a date. He saw us kissing. He found me here, with you. Judging from what just happened, none of that matters. He still thinks he has a chance.”

Dylan shrugged and stopped driving the mustang away. “We could get engaged.” The reckless words were out before he could think.

Shocked, Emily turned toward him. “Be serious,” she murmured clearly irritated that Dylan could suggest something so ludicrous. “We're not in love…not anywhere near it!”

Dylan stepped closer. “So marrying me is out?” he drawled, wondering if maybe Xavier Shillingsworth was right, if—in Emily's estimation—he wasn't in the McCabes' league for anything long-lasting.

“Definitely out,” Emily said firmly.

 

D
YLAN WAS JOKING
, wasn't he? Emily thought. He hadn't really meant he wanted them to get engaged. Yes, they'd slept together, enjoyed each other's company and shared a love for horses, but beyond that they barely knew each other! So his suggestion couldn't have been for real. Perhaps it was some sort of test….

The question was why he'd want to appraise her that way.

Obviously, something had happened in his discussion with Xavier Shillingsworth. Something that he didn't want to talk to her about…

“You know my reputation with relationships…?” Dylan asked flatly.

Emily nodded. “That you're never going to be tamed by any woman…so no one would buy us becoming engaged.” She forced herself to be logical. “Least of all my family. And trust me, we really don't want them stepping in at this point and getting involved.”

Dylan studied her with a brooding expression. “Because they'd disapprove?”

“Probably,” Emily was forced to admit. “Unless they thought we were right for each other.”

Because we were in love.

She fell silent. “Not that I'm interested in giving up my freedom to get married, either,” she said. “Besides, I doubt even that would discourage Xavier. He has such an overinflated image of himself.” She paused. “I guess it's just going to take time and repeated rejection. Surely, he won't want to wait around for that long. I mean he strikes me as kind of an immediate-gratification type of guy.”

He gave her a long look. “That's what worries me.”

Emily waited.

“Sooner or later, Shillingsworth is going to figure out he's not going to get what he wants from you. When that happens, he's going to want you to pay for the rejection and he's going to lash out and try to hurt you in whatever way he can. And the place where you are the most vulnerable…”

With a start, Emily realized where Dylan was going with this. “…is the Daybreak Café,” she finished for him.

Dylan nodded grimly.

Emily realized his assertion was true to a point. Her restaurant did matter to her immensely. But there was a place in her heart that was even more vulnerable—the place where her feelings for Dylan resided.

“About dinner,” Dylan said, an hour later when the training was completed and all three mustangs were quartered in their paddock for the evening.

Emily tensed at the mention of their nondate. Her pretty forehead furrowing, she walked with him toward the house. “You still want me to cook for you this evening, don't you? As the loser for our bet?”

Dylan grinned enthusiastically. Maybe the two of them weren't meant to be lovers, but that didn't mean he didn't relish every second he spent with her.

Enjoying the disheveled state of her silky molasses hair, as well as how pretty she looked in her shirt and jeans, he asked, “Okay with you if I leave my truck parked right in front of your building all evening, instead of the alley behind?”

A pink flush flooded her sculpted cheeks as she stopped just short of his front porch. “You want everyone to see your pickup and figure out you're at my place,” Emily deduced, not quite happily. “Including Xavier.”

Especially Xavier, Dylan thought.

He sat down on the top step. Taking her hand, he tugged her down next to him. “Do you want to discourage him, or not?”

Emily heaved a disgruntled sigh and stretched her long shapely legs out in front of her. She wiggled her toes and
examined the flower pattern on her red cowgirl boots. “I do.”

Dylan planted a hand on either side of him and leaned back to stretch the kinks out of his body, too. Tilting his head toward Emily, he continued, “Then you have to make the kid understand in every way possible there is no chance for him to edge his way in.”

Emily twisted her lips and studied Dylan with narrowed eyes. “This is a competition, isn't it?”

Actually, it was a hell of a lot more than that. Although how to explain…

Finally, Dylan shrugged. “For him it is, maybe.”

“And for you?” she asked, nudging his thigh playfully with her knee.

Dylan ignored the heat the brief touch generated. With effort, he concentrated on the facts they could discuss. “As your pretend boyfriend, it's my job to protect you, Ms. McCabe.”

She wrinkled her nose at the unexpected formality. “And that's all there is?” she pressed, searching his face. “There's no ego involved?”

Leave it to Emily to ask the really hard questions, Dylan thought moodily. “Of course there's ego involved.” He felt compelled to be honest. “I'm a man, and you're allegedly with me. How would it look if I let that little know-it-all continue to make your life a lot harder than it has to be right now?”

Something shifted in Emily's eyes. Her teeth raked her lower lip even as her voice betrayed little emotion, “So this is all about your manhood.”

It's all about protecting you, Dylan thought, but he wasn't sure how she would take that. “I don't want to see you hurt. I imagine none of your other friends or family do, either.”

Again, something shifted. It was almost as if a force field went up.

“Okay.” Emily rose abruptly and favored him with a brisk, efficient smile. “I'll see you at the café kitchen at eight o'clock.”

 

“S
OMETHING SURE SMELLS GOOD
,” Dylan said an hour later, when Emily met him at the front door of the café.

Emily sure looked good, too—although he had to wonder at her choice of a Daybreak Café T-shirt and a very worn pair of jeans. In contrast, he was dressed in his best shirt and pants.

Emily accepted the bottle of wine he'd brought with a smile, took his hand and guided him inside. “I'm glad you think so,” she said in that excessively cheerful voice she used when welcoming patrons to her café.

She set the bottle on the counter and led him into the kitchen. There, already laid out on the stainless-steel prep table was a flatiron steak with jalapeño butter and a cheese enchilada on the side.

“I'm thinking of adding this to the lunch menu. What do you think?” Emily turned to face him, her attitude surprisingly professional.

The notion that this evening might turn out to be special swiftly faded.

Dylan chided himself for hoping otherwise. Of course a multitasking woman like Emily would put the task of cooking dinner for him to good use and use the experience to further enhance her business.

She gestured for him to sit down on the lone stool and then waited for him to taste.

Figuring he may as well, Dylan lifted a fork. In this, he was not disappointed. “It's delicious,” he told her sincerely. “I think it would be a hit.”

Emily set another plate in front of him. “What about the enchiladas?” She picked up her notebook and pen and began
to scribble notes. “Were they hot enough? Too hot? Would you prefer a different kind of cheese in them, say Monterey Jack or jalapeño-Jack instead? Longhorn or mild cheddar cheese and onion filling is traditional, but queso blanco also adds something special.” She sighed, thinking, then pushed several more plates at him for tasting. “But I don't know…I'm trying to appeal to the masses. And what about jicama slaw, instead of the traditional Southern?” Emily asked him rhetorically. “I tried that for a while, and to tell you the truth, it didn't go over all that great. The jicama has a taste that doesn't appeal to everyone.”

“I think what you need here to advise you,” Dylan said finally, when he could get a word in edgewise, “is a restaurant critic.” He was only half joking. He knew what he liked. But everyone else…?

“Actually,” Emily said, lighting up like a sparkler on the Fourth of July, “that idea's not half-bad, Dylan! Thanks!” She got up abruptly and went to the phone. While he watched, half in wonder, half in irritation, she made a call.

“Hi, Holden. You know that guy you were trying to get me to meet?” Emily motioned to Dylan to keep eating, then turned her back to him and began to pace. “Yeah, Fred Collier. Right. Do you think you could bring him by here tomorrow? Lunch is fine. And tell him, if possible, I'd like him to hang around for a short while after closing, so I can talk to him.”

 

W
ELL
, E
MILY THOUGHT
, after Dylan left a short time later, that was one way to end an evening on an unromantic note.

Make a “date” with someone else while your current guest is still on premises.

So what if it had been about business?

The point was she was honoring her debt to Dylan—by making him dinner—and honoring herself by keeping her options open.

And not letting this mano a mano stuff between Dylan and Xavier influence her one way or another.

So what if she got all warm and gooey inside when Dylan got protective of her in that distinctly man-woman way?

He'd said it himself. It was ego as much as friendship pushing him to become her white knight.

When Xavier backed off, as the teenager eventually would, and the business with her matchmaking family and the café finally settled down, she would no longer be a damsel in distress in Dylan Reeves's eyes.

She'd be a great gal he had once slept with, and that was that.

Much as she wanted to pretend it would turn into something more…the practical side of her knew the odds were against it.

So she had to protect her heart—and concentrate on the real problems in front of her.

Like saving her restaurant from going into a decline it might not recover from.

Because she knew better than anyone, once a café was considered second tier, for whatever reason, it often ended up faltering. Because it was just too hard to do the work if appreciative patrons did not show up in droves.

Hence, when Dylan came in for an early breakfast, she was too busy to come out of the kitchen to say hello. Ditto when Xavier showed up, a bunch of red roses in hand. When the
Texas Traveler
magazine food reporter came in with Holden, however, she made sure the boyishly handsome “foodie” had everything he wanted. At the end of the lunch rush, she ushered him into the kitchen to see her work space and sample even more of the food.

“It's all wonderful,” Fred Collier said, his kind green eyes shining with an admiration Emily found particularly gratifying.

Then he grimaced. “But I have to wonder where the crowds are. We've been here two hours, and the place has never been more than one-third full. While across the square, at the Cowtown Diner, the throngs have not abated in the least.”

Emily's shoulders sagged. She had been hoping the restaurant critic wouldn't notice.

With typical gallantry, Holden explained, “It's the fullpage ads and two-for-the-price-of-one meal coupons the franchise owner put out over the weekend in all the county newspapers.”

Holden paused and looked at Emily.

Surprised by her shock, he shrugged inanely. “I thought you knew. I thought that was why you called. Shillingsworth is planning to extend the offer indefinitely. The coupons are reusable.”

Emily's heart sank. “The diner will never turn a profit that way,” she said, rubbing at the headache starting in her temples.

“Unless it's by sheer volume of customers.” Fred Collier turned to glance out the window.

Sure enough, at two o'clock in the afternoon—usually a dead time for most restaurants—the Cowtown Diner was still busy as ever.

“Can you help her?” Holden asked his friend.

Fred smiled apologetically. “I'd love to, if and when your business picks up again. I only write about places that are standing room only, and right now, the Daybreak Café no longer qualifies.”

“Thanks for coming by.” Emily packed up some dessert for him and walked him out.

“Sorry about that,” Holden said, when she returned.

Emily stared out the window at the competition that was
swiftly becoming a real thorn in her side. “Don't be,” she told her big brother. “I needed a wake-up call. And this was definitely it.”

 

“Y
OU'RE GETTING
new outdoor chairs and umbrella tables now?” Dylan asked, later that same day.

The sound of Dylan's low, gravelly voice gave Emily a pleasurable jolt. Her heart had skipped several beats when he'd sauntered in for lunch half an hour ago but she'd been trying to ignore how ruggedly, casually handsome he'd looked in his soft faded denim shirt and jeans. It was bad enough she knew firsthand how his strong virile body felt pressed up against the naked length of hers without yearning to experience his hot, reckless brand of lovemaking again.

And now he was standing next to her once more, looking over her shoulder, studying what she had been studying.

“Yes. I am,” Emily replied, and damned herself for sounding breathless.

She put the receipt aside and looked up the weather forecast on her computer. The rest of the day appeared warm and clear, but there was a fifty-percent chance of rain every day for the rest of the week. Which could sabotage her plans.

On the other hand, to do nothing was to automatically lose.

She turned back to Dylan. As long as they were still “friends” who helped each other out… “I have a favor to ask. Are you available tonight to help me drive to San Angelo to pick them up?” There were others she could ask to help her, but for reasons she chose not to examine too closely, she wanted him to go with her.

Speculation glimmered in Dylan's golden-brown eyes. “Sure,” he said kindly. “Do you have a big enough vehicle?”

Trying not to feel too grateful he was in her life—for that
might mean starting to depend on him past the temporary time frame they'd agreed upon—Emily nodded. “I reserved a moving truck that will handle it all.”

They set up an early departure time, and in half an hour, Dylan was at her door, ready to go. They took his pickup to the truck rental place and arranged to leave it in the lot there while they went to San Angelo.

Naturally, Dylan wanted to drive. A little overwhelmed by the sheer size of the truck, Emily had been hoping he would volunteer. She was independent, but not foolish enough to take on more than she could handle.

“So how did the lunch date with the food critic go?” Dylan asked casually, as soon as they were on the road to San Angelo.

“Fred Collier was a nice guy.”

Dylan slanted her a glance she couldn't quite read. Too confident to be seriously threatened, he teased, “Good-looking?”

“Yes.” Emily volleyed back, just as playfully. “Although I was more interested in what Fred might be able to do for my business.”

Dylan sobered at the magnitude of the problems she was facing. “And…?”

Tension stiffened Emily's spine. “He's not going to write about the Daybreak Café, at least not right now.” Briefly, she explained.

Dylan listened quietly, then shook his head in commiseration. “I'm sorry.”

So am I.
Emily settled more comfortably in her seat, shifting slightly to the left. Finding comfort in the intimacy swiftly springing up between them, she shrugged and forced herself to be as matter-of-fact as the situation required. “Holden's friend has a point. As did you, in a roundabout way.” She
studied Dylan's ruggedly handsome profile. His hair was rumpled and dark stubble rimmed the lower half of his face. He looked sexy and impatient. As impatient as she. “I have to be ready to compete a little more aggressively if I want the café to remain a viable business. And that means answering customer complaints a lot more responsively.”

Hands competently circling the wheel, Dylan glanced at her curiously. The open collar on his shirt exposed the strong column of his throat. He had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to just below the elbow.

Emily forced her gaze away from the sinewy strength in his arms, and told herself she was grateful for the seat between them.

She turned her attention back to business. “People have complained about the lines to get in since shortly after I opened two years ago. I don't have room for any more tables inside and to be honest, I liked the idea of having a sought-after commodity in such a small town.” She laced her fingers together. “I thought the demand gave my place a sort of cachet not necessarily shared by some of the other larger restaurants in town.”