Cowboy Crazy by Joanne Kennedy

me, though.”
    Her eyes flicked downward and away, her cheeks flushing.
    “Want to go for that beer?”
    She swallowed. “Sure.”
    She gave him a stiff little nod and he wondered what had happened to the woman who’d kissed him a moment ago. She was all tense now, and he couldn’t think of a thing to say to her as they headed past the bright lights of the midway and made their way through the dimly lit parking lot. He usually found it easy to talk to women. He talked, they giggled. Then they went to bed, and he didn’t have to talk anymore. But that obviously wasn’t the way it was going to go tonight.
    Most of the concession stands were closed for the night, but a string of plastic chili pepper lights glowed red against the buff canvas of the beer tent. The catcalls and whoops of celebrating cowboys drifted through the canvas and swirled on the night air, mixing with the sharp scents of spices and barbecued meat. Sarah kicked a stone with the toe of her boot and sent it skittering across the walkway. Lane looked down and froze.
    “What’s with the boots?”
    She pulled her wallet out of her pocket and pulled out a five for the cover charge, ignoring Lane’s efforts to pay. “Nothing.”
    She edged through the crowd and plopped down in a folding chair, swinging her feet under a long table that looked like it had been borrowed from a school cafeteria. A couple guys waved at Lane, but he nodded and sat down beside Sarah, bending down to tug at the hem of her jeans. “Let me see those.”
    They were brown leather cowboy boots, square-toed and unadorned. They weren’t girlie fashion footwear with fancy tooling; they were working boots. Judging from the worn, scuffed leather, they’d been used and used hard.
    She pulled her foot away. “They’re cowboy boots. Is that a problem?”
    “Real cowboy boots.”
    She tucked her feet under her chair and he knew he’d scored a point. He just didn’t know how.
    “No city girl has boots like that.”
    “This city girl does.” She shrugged and looked away. “They come that way these days.”
    This was getting interesting. He’d seen the so-called “distressed leather” boots they sold in stores. Sarah’s were the real thing, broke in, broken down, and used damn near to death.
    He was sure now that she was lying about the horse thing. And he definitely wanted to go on with the game.
    ***
    Sarah glanced around the crowded interior of the tent, searching for familiar faces. Humboldt was far enough from Two Shot that she might go unnoticed—but there was a chance somebody would turn up who knew her when .
    When she’d been dirt-poor trailer trash. When she’d been the daughter of a drunk, the only defender of a family that fed the gossip vine like Miracle-Gro fed potted plants.
    “Shit,” she muttered, then winced. She wasn’t thinking. She hadn’t been thinking when she let him kiss her, and she hadn’t been thinking when she swore like some spunky heroine in a Reba McEntire song, either. He was scoring points right and left, and she was losing the game big-time.
    “Sorry,” he said, surprising her. “It’s not exactly the Ritz. I just thought this would give you a sense of the kind of people you need to deal with, the kind of minds you’re looking to change.”
    She nodded, realizing she’d almost forgotten the whole purpose of the evening. It was hard to squelch her old self—the self that would have given her right arm to go to the rodeo with a guy like Lane, share a kiss in the shadows, go for a beer and maybe a dance. It was a redneck girl’s definition of fun.
    But Sarah knew now that there was a price to pay for fun. Her sister had paid that price and Sarah had been careful ever since—the responsible sister. She tipped out one foot, frowning down at her worn-out boot. When things went wrong, you had to have a plan. That’s where Roy had gone wrong. He hadn’t planned on the accident. He hadn’t planned on Flash selling for next to nothing.