Run To You

into the cooler on his way.
    “You look hot,” he said, and handed her the bottle of water.
    “Thank you.” She wished she could see his eyes. See what he was feeling. See if his eyes were a smoldering gray like he was thinking she was sexy hot or just temperature hot.
    “It sounds like everything went okay last night.”
    She took a drink and lowered the bottle. “What I can recall.”
    He reached a hand toward her and brushed a drop of water from her bottom lip.
    She felt the brush of his finger in her belly and heart. The heat of his touch made her gasp.
    “Stella.” She didn’t need to see his eyes. Want smoldered in the hush of his voice.
    “I missed you last night.”
    “Shhh.” He softly pressed his finger to her lips. “Not now.” He dropped his hand. “Not here.”
    She wanted to ask him why and where and when. She wanted to know when he was leaving Texas. The thought made her feel a little panicky, but he was right. Here and now wasn’t the place.
    “Do you have a plan for what’s next?”
    “Dinner. Sadie’s cook left something called Texas campfire casserole in the oven.”
    “No.” He smiled and shook his head. “Where are you going after Texas?”
    With you . The thought jumped into her head. Unexpected but not shocking. It made no sense but felt logical. Right. She wanted to go wherever he was going. She had money. She could get a job. She swallowed past the lump in her chest. “I’m not sure. Where are you going?”
    “Home. I’m thinking of sticking around Nevada for a while. Not travel so much.”
    “Why?” She bit her bottom lip.
    “Tired of the road.”
    “Oh.” She hadn’t realized that she’d hoped to hear an altogether different answer until the clog in her throat made her chest ache. “Oh, yeah.” She bent down and grabbed two orange targets. “You’ve been on the road a long time.” She was falling in love with him. Falling fast with nothing to hang on to because the one stable thing in her life stood before her talking about a life without her.
    “You’re up, gyrene,” Vince said.
    Beau chuckled and turned away. “What’s the score?”
    “You’re still on top. Blake and I are tied.”
    Stella watched Beau walk away as she loaded the flinger. Her gaze wandered down the back of his wide neck and shoulders. His big arms strained the soft cotton of his sleeves, and the black T-shirt hugged his back and flat waistline. Her gaze got caught on the back pockets of his cargo pants and the bulge of his wallet. He had a good backside. Hard, smooth, almost as good as his front side.
    “I’m heading back to warm up dinner,” Sadie announced, and placed the pen and notebook on the table next to boxes of shotgun shells. “Do you want to come with me and make the salad, Stella?”
    Stella turned her attention to her sister. “Sure,” she answered when she would much rather stay and watch Beau’s behind. “What do I have to do?”
    “Open a bag of lettuce and dump it in a bowl. With your knife skills, maybe cut up a few veggies.”
    “I can manage that.”
    “Twenty minutes, Vince,” Sadie warned, and looked at her watch. “Dinner will be ready at seven-thirty.”
    “We’ll be there.”
    Sadie and Stella walked down the short path overgrown with weeds toward the row of elms and cottonwood. “If I don’t give them a time limit, they’ll be at it all night. Two Navy SEALs against a Marine. No way they’ll let him win.”
    Stella and Sadie jumped in Vince’s black truck parked next to the Escalade and headed the half mile to the house. “I can’t imagine Beau losing at anything,” Stella said. “He’s so . . .”
    Sadie glanced over and looked at her through gold-tinted sunglasses. “So what?”
    “Capable.” She glanced out her window at the barn and the horses in the corral. “He seems so good at everything he does.” Everything from getting her safely out of her apartment in Miami to fooling around in a Dallas hotel.
    “How well did you get to know each other?” Sadie asked as she parked the truck by the back of the house.
    Stella thought about her answer while the two of them walked the short distance to the back door. She didn’t want to say too much, but she didn’t want to sound like she was hiding something, either. “I like him.” Their boots thumped across the hardwood of the kitchen and Stella tossed her hat on the kitchen table. Her feelings were so new, a tangle of love and uncertainty knotting her stomach, and she