Almost A Bride (Montana Born Brides) by Sarah Mayberry

interior light came on, and he saw her face properly. She looked sad, and more than a little lost.
    “What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked.
    “ Why?”
    “ Because I asked.”
    She studied him for a beat. “Nothing, I guess. Except for collecting my car.”
    “ I’ll pick you up at seven. Wear your swimsuit, and bring a change of clothes.”
    She blinked. “My swimsuit.”
    “ Seven sharp. Don’t keep me waiting.”
    She thought about it for a second, then she slid from the car. “I don’t suppose there’s any point asking what we’ll be doing or where we’ll be going?”
    “ Correct.”
    She shut the door, shooting him a look through the window to let him know she didn ’t think he was funny. He gave her a mock salute, then put the car into gear and backed out of the driveway.
    When he reached the road and glanced back, the lights were on in her townhouse, the door safely shut.
    He paused for a moment, thinking about what she’d said to him, what he’d seen. Then he headed for home. He had an early start tomorrow.
     

Chapter Seven

     
     
    The electronic screech of the alarm clock woke Tara at six-thirty, and she batted the damned thing off the bedside table in a futile attempt to silence it. It kept squealing from its new position on the floor near the foot of the bed, and she threw back the covers with a disgusted grunt.
    Which was when she registered she was the proud owner of a throbbing headache, and that her right shoulder was inexplicably sore. Then last night came back to her and she realized that her sore shoulder was perfectly explicable, given that the mechanical bull had tried to rip it from its socket several times last night.
    The clock was still nagging at her, so she crawled to the end of the bed and switched it off. She flopped back onto the mattress, lying on her belly, her sore arm hanging over the side of the bed, and wondered what Reid would do if she texted him and told him she ’d changed her mind about their outing.
    He ’ll just turn up anyway.
    He would. He ’d knock on the door and honk his horn and bully her until she got dressed and went with him—wherever that might be—so she might as well suck it up and have a shower and try to choke down some breakfast.
    The shower was good, the hot water easing some of the stiffness in her shoulder, but food wasn ’t something she could do, she decided. She’d never been a great drinker, but she’d had two hangovers in the space of a week—one from her vodka night with Scarlett, and today’s doozy. Probably time to ease up on her alcohol consumption for the foreseeable future.
    She swallowed a couple of painkillers and was just stuffing a towel and underwear into her backpack when she heard the rumble of Reid ’s truck.
    She went to the door but hesitated a moment before opening it. She wasn ’t sure how she felt about last night, about what he’d done and the things she’d said to him. She definitely felt exposed—that was not up for debate—but she couldn’t decide if she was annoyed with him for dragging her out of the bar or grateful or maybe even touched that he cared enough to do what he’d done in the first place.
    But her feelings had always been complicated where he was concerned. From the moment he walked in the door at Bozeman PD, she ’d been drawn to him. At first she’d told herself it was natural that she’d be curious about him after she’d heard the other guys talk about him so much. He’d only served as a Patrol Officer for four years before heading overseas to work in private security, but enough of the guys who’d trained and worked with him were still around that she’d heard plenty of stories about Reid Dalton.
    Then they ’d been on foot patrol during their first week of being partnered together, and he’d reached out to catch her when she’d stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk, and she’d been forced to admit that what she felt for him was more than simple curiosity. The echo of