Trouble in a Stetson Read Free Page B

Carlysle
    heat, she’d swept her curls up carelessly. Several dipped down to brush along the back of her neck. She’d nearly made it to the honky-tonk when a big black truck marked with the sheriff’s crest on the door pulled up beside her.
    “Just what do you think you’re doing?” Sam didn’t look like a happy camper. His dark eyes, shaded beneath the brim of his Stetson, were narrowed. Yep, downright mean-looking.
    Lola turned and looked at him. “You have some nerve asking me a thing like that after practically ignoring me all week. I don’t like your bossy tone. Just because you are the law around here gives you no right.” Lola cocked her hip and planted her fists on her hips. Damn the man! She could’ve sworn she heard Sam growl and then he sent his gaze over her body like a hot lick.
    “What the hell are you wearing?”
    “What?” Lola swept her arms out and looked down at herself. “You don’t like cherries?”
    “Fuck!”
    Lola was sick of his mixed signals. She knew damn good and well he wanted her yet he avoided her. She sighed. “Look Sam, I’m thirty years old and I’m not about to start game-playing with you. Yeah, you’re hot and all that but I’m done with men who give off mixed signals. You either want me or you don’t. Obviously you don’t so hit the road, buddy.”
    “Now, Lola—”
    “I mean it, Sam. Beat it. I’ve got other fish to fry tonight.” With that final salvo, she held her head high and walked the last half-block to the entrance of Chaps. She felt his stare on her back the entire way. Well, she’d only spoken the truth. She was all up for an affair with the handsome sheriff because, let’s face it, there was a definite connection but she’d be damned before she’d let him ignore her and then get all affronted just because she happened to be out on the town.
    18
    Trouble in a Stetson
    Roxie and Emily were already seated at a table in the darkened club when she arrived. Both were nursing something cold that would offer up a nice buzz. A plate of nachos sat between them.
    Scowling, Lola plopped into a chair. “Hey ya’ll,” she said before grabbing a nacho and biting down.
    “Damn, get this woman a margarita,” Roxie said flatly.
    “Looks like she needs one,” Emily added, lifting her hand to the waitress on duty.
    Lola looked at her friends, feeling that instant connection she always had with them. “How about ten? I’m sick of men I tell you. Sick, sick, sick.”
    “Who do you want me to kill for you, honey?” Roxie, a tall, very pretty brunette leaned back in her chair, one dark brow raised.
    “The sheriff. He’s got to go.”
    Emily, also brunette but more on the petite side of things, propped her elbows on the table. She looked ready to do battle. “I’ll hold him down while Roxie smacks him in the nose. So he’s being an ass, huh? What did he do? Heck, that first day in the café he couldn’t take his eyes off you.”
    “Yeah, I know,” Lola sighed and thanked the waitress for the frosty margarita she’d set down in front of her. Running her finger around the rim, she gathered up a bit of salt and stuck it in her mouth. “I swear, just looking at the man makes me shiver and then there was that thing where he caught me when I fell.”
    Emily’s eyes went wide. “Huh? Fell?”
    “Yeah, spill it,” Roxie said, leaning forward in anticipation of a story. “What happened?”
    So Lola told them all about the spider and her fall and about how she landed right on top of Sam, owner of that big, hard cock. Emily started laughing first and then Roxie and before she knew it she was laughing too. But then she went serious. Huffing out a breath, she sipped her drink. “But ever since then he’s been avoiding me like I have a 19
    Regina Carlysle
    disease or something and then tonight, before I walked in the door he pulls up and glares at me, questions what I’m wearing and gets all pissy. I’ll never understand men.”
    “Avoidance,” Roxie