Against Her Odds: when dedication meets desire Read Free Page B

This dress was not serious. For one thing, it was bright red and
white, so it was about as far from neutral as a person could get. It was also
cut a little bit lower than she usually wore her clothes.
    Cason helped her into the truck and she
tugged the dress down modestly as she gave him a smile of thanks. He couldn’t
help following the line of her legs with his eyes. Valerie wasn’t tall but she
had great legs, and the red pumps she was wearing showed them off perfectly.
    He hadn’t been joking when he’d said that
he couldn’t wait for people to see him with her. He hadn’t had much time for
dating since taking over the ranch and helping his parents settle into their
new home. It was nice to come out swinging with a woman who was both gorgeous
and intelligent.
    “Is Italian okay for you?” he asked as he
cranked the truck and backed out of the parking space.
    “Sure,” she answered with pleasure. “I love
Italian food.”
    “Me too,” Cason answered. “I’m a good cook
when it comes to plain old American food, but my pasta is always either too
hard or pure mush.”
    “Do you do most of your own cooking?” She
couldn’t picture it, but she supposed it made sense. Who else was going to cook
for him? She wondered if he was lonely out there all by himself. She got lonely
in her apartment in the center of town.
    “Yeah,” he said with a shrug. “Unless I can
get Mitch to cook for me. And, just in case you’re wondering, I never can. He
did heat up some soup for me once when I broke three fingers on my right hand,
but that’s about it. Oh, and his wife sends me bread twice a week. Bread isn’t
my thing either.”
    “Does Mitch work for you?”
    “Sort of, but if you put it like that he
might shoot me. He’s been the ranch hand ever since I can remember. He’s about
ready to retire, but he won’t admit it and I’m not real sure what he’d do
without Eden’s Edge to keep him busy.”
     
    The tone in his voice when he talked about
the older ranch hand gave Val another flutter in her stomach. She’d never been
the type to go crazy over cowboys. As a matter of fact, she’d always preferred
guys who weren’t exactly the outdoors type, mainly because she was emphatically
an indoors girl.
    Now she found herself studying his
suntanned face and remembering the feel of his rough, work worn hands and
really liking this particular outdoors guy. Slowly she grew more and more
nervous about her upcoming speech. He probably wouldn’t like it very much.
Weren’t these guys the type to want to settle down and have...well...babies and
apple pie? Maybe she should have pawned him off on Becky.
    Cason noticed her rub her stomach.
“Hungry?”
    She forced a smile and put her hand at her
side, glad he had mistaken her nervous gesture for a hunger pang. “A little.”
    “Well, lucky for you, we’re pretty much
there.” He eased the truck to a stop at a red light and pointed to the pretty
Tuscan style restaurant on their left. “The advantage to living in a small
town. Everything’s right at hand.”
    “Well, good,” she said, trying to keep her
voice casual, even though now she was really starting to wish that she’d turned
him down. This was too stressful. She was afraid that she liked him too much to
say what she needed to say.
    He opened the door for her and they were
seated in a small burgundy upholstered booth in a quiet back corner. The waiter
lit the candles on the table and left after taking their drink orders, sweet
tea for Cason and water with lemon for Val.
    Cason watched Val bite her lip as she
looked over the selections. He liked the way she absently brushed her hair away
from her face as she was thinking. He found his gaze drifting down to the V
shaped neckline of her dress.
    She raised her eyes to his and a slight
smile curved her mouth when she saw where he was looking. He gave her a smile
back. He wasn’t ashamed of it. He hadn’t stared too long, and he’d be damned if
he didn’t