Red's Hot Cowboy by Carolyn Brown

he was tired to the bone and sick of cookies and milk. It would serve him right for not bringing her a nice quiet night like she’d wanted. Hell’s bells, she hadn’t been a bad child that year but he’d damn sure treated her like her name was right up there on the top of his shit list when he dumped all those people in her lobby at one time.
    Wil stopped on the lobby side of the counter and leaned on it. “Austin tells me you were a big-shot banker. What happened?”
    “I quit because I wanted to be my own boss and Aunt Pearlita left me the motel. Mother said I was making the biggest mistake of my life. My friend, Jasmine, said she was jealous of my spunk. Austin encouraged me to move here, but I got to admit sometimes I wonder if I bit off more than I can chew.” She talked fast and kept her eyes away from his lips. She stepped out around the counter and straightened the few magazines on the table between the two recliners. If it had been a real date he would have kissed her good night at the door. She turned around to find him right behind her.
    Already in motion with a step forward, she couldn’t stop and ran right into his chest. His arms wrapped firmly around her and she looked up. One second she was sinking into his dreamy eyes, the next she was melting into a steamy kiss that sent waves of liquid desire shooting through her body.
    He broke away but kept her in his embrace for several seconds. “Well, good night, Red. Thanks for being my date for the night.”
    “Date?”
    “Yep. It felt like a date. You looked like a date. And a good night kiss sealed it. It was a date. I’ll call you later.” He walked across the floor and out the door. She had to lean on the counter to keep her jelly-filled knees from collapsing, but she watched that sexy strut until it disappeared into the darkness.
    “Dammit, Austin! You started this whole thing when you moved to Terral. I figured if you could make a drastic change then I damn sure could,” she muttered as she rounded the end of the counter and sat down at her computer. But she couldn’t keep her mind on her work. She kept thinking of how much fun she’d had at the party and how she’d missed flirting and dating and kissing and the whole nine yards.
    Home? Even though she owned the motel and had moved into the apartment it still didn’t feel like home. Austin had said that when she had first inherited the watermelon farm she had thought of it as Granny’s place until she’d made up her mind to keep the farm, plant and harvest watermelon crops, and make watermelon wine. After that she felt like she was going home every time she started toward Terral from Tulsa and that she was leaving a part of her heart when she had to leave Terral.
    Pearl had one advantage over Austin, who’d been thrown in the middle of Small Town, USA, like a chicken in a coyote pen. Austin hadn’t known anyone. She had no friends other than Pearl’s Aunt Pearlita. Pearl had Austin and the O’Donnells and in a pinch she could call on Rosa if she needed anything. She couldn’t remember when Rosa hadn’t been a fixture at the Longhorn Inn. She had tried to talk Rosa into staying on when she took over, but Rosa told her that she had only worked the past five years because of Pearlita, and it was time for her to retire.
    Thank God for Austin, Rosa, and the O’Donnell family or she’d have been out in the cold just like Austin had been. The O’Donnells were 100 percent Irish on both sides of the family. They loved and fought with passion and if they were your friends, nobody messed with you and got away with it. She had no doubt the whole bunch would come to her aid if she needed them.
    Her thoughts went to the O’Donnell brothers.
    Dewar was shorter than Rye but just as handsome. His face was more angular and he had a scar across his cheek, a gift from busting a bronc when he was a teenager. He’d flirted with Pearl a few times, but nothing he’d ever said made her giddy like a wink