Trish Milburn - Having the Cowboy's Baby

When they reached the Ice Cream Hut, Logan led her to the window. “Get whatever you want.”

Mari Brewer, the teenage daughter of Larena Brewer, the inn’s head chef, saw Skyler first. Then her eyes widened when she spotted Logan. It seemed to take a good bit of effort for her to shift her gaze back to Skyler.

“Hey, happy birthday. Sorry I couldn’t make it to the party.”

“Thanks, and don’t worry about it. I just made a quick getaway.”

“Don’t blame you.” The way Mari looked at Logan, it was obvious she would have chosen time alone with the hot guy over a building full of people, too.

“Blue Falls is growing on me.” Logan placed one hand along the lower part of Skyler’s back but propped the other forearm along the ledge outside the serving window. “Seems every woman I meet here is pretty.”

Mari smiled and laughed a little.

“Cut it out,” Skyler said, and nudged him in the ribs with her elbow. “We’re here for ice cream, not for you to hone your flirting skills.”

Instead of behaving, Logan leaned closer to the window and Mari. “Sorry, beautiful, but I think she wants me all for herself.”

Skyler rolled her eyes. “You are impossible. Mari, can I get a scoop of blueberry, please?”

“Sure.” Mari looked at Logan. “And for you?”

“Vanilla.”

When Mari turned to scoop the ice cream, Skyler faced Logan. “Vanilla, really? You don’t seem like a plain vanilla sort of guy.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I’m sweet enough without all the fancy flavors.”

Skyler snorted. “Sweet is not the word that comes to mind.”

“Then what word does?”

Skyler accepted her ice-cream cone. “You can just keep wondering about that one.”

A stream of words scrolled through her mind, but three stood out brighter and bolder and truer than all the rest. Sexy...as...sin.

But he knew that, so she wasn’t about to pad his ego by admitting her thoughts out loud. Instead, she left him waiting for his ice cream and headed toward one of the benches that sat next to the lake. The moon was rising, its reflection glittering on the surface of the water.

When Logan joined her, he sat close enough to put his arm around her. Part of her told her to shift away, but that was the part that was always so careful. Though she couldn’t explain it, tonight she wanted to pretend she was someone else, someone who wasn’t so wrapped up in the “right” way to do everything.

“This is nice,” he said after several moments went by.

She took a deep breath of the cooler night air. “Yes, it is.”

“More your speed than jumping out of airplanes?”

She smiled and glanced at him. “Understatement of the century.”

“Bet you never expected to enjoy it.”

She refocused on the water and really thought about it. Skydiving wasn’t something she would have done on her own, too many things that could go wrong, but was she glad she’d been forced into it?

“No. I still get nauseated when I think about actually doing it, but the view was incredible.”

He bumped his shoulder into hers. “See, not so bad living a little.”

“I live just fine, thank you.” She took another bite of her ice cream, hurrying to keep it from melting down the sides of the cone and all over her hand.

“That right? So what do you do on days when you’re not jumping out of planes?”

She wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I own the Wildflower Inn.” She pointed across the lake at the lights of the inn.

“That right? How many beds there?”

Skyler looked up at Logan just as he licked his ice cream. Good grief, that action made her sizzle all over. “Um...” What was she trying to remember? Oh, yeah, number of beds at the inn. She imagined Logan lying on one of those soft fluffy beds.

The lights on the Ice Cream Hut went out, cloaking Skyler and Logan in darkness. It was enough to jerk her out of her careening thoughts, ones so unlike her it was as if she’d suddenly discovered another personality inside herself.

“Thirty,” she finally remembered to say. “Well, thirty rooms. Some are singles, some doubles, a mixture.”

Logan chuckled. “I do make you nervous.”

“Yes.” Way to go, admit it again, give him even more ammunition. Make yourself look like more of a ninny.

Unable to sit still, she jumped to her feet and walked toward the garbage can to toss her trash.

“What, you don’t like cones?” Logan asked.

“No. I like to eat ice cream out of them but don’t like the cones themselves. I know, weird quirk.”

“We all have them.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s your quirk?”

He took the crunchy last bite of his cone, chewed slowly, making her nervous as he watched her without answering, then swallowed. “I like redheads.”

She laughed. “And blondes, and brunettes.”

He got to his feet and walked toward her. When he stood less than an arm’s length away, he reached around her to pitch his napkin. “But redheads who like blueberry ice cream most of all.”

Skyler laughed and realized that despite his corny lines and cocky self-assurance, she liked him. He was good for a laugh.

And for kissing.

As if he could read her thoughts, Logan pulled her to him and lowered his lips to hers. Beyond the blueberry flavor coating her tongue, she tasted the vanilla. Something about the mixing of flavors sent a burst of heat through her and had her hands finding their way up his chest. Even through the fabric, she could tell he had the kind of chest that made covering it with a shirt a crime.

She moaned into his mouth at the thought, and that seemed to toss fuel on the fire beginning to blaze between them. Logan pulled her even closer, so close that she felt his arousal. If she’d thought she was buzzing with desire before, that had been nothing compared to the zing that went through her now.

His hands ran up her ribs and brushed the underside of her breasts. She gasped, but another kiss captured her surprise.

The sound of a car starting barely registered, but when light suddenly illuminated them, Skyler startled enough to end the kiss and take a step back from Logan. Right as loud music filled the night air, Skyler realized the car belonged to Mari and she’d gotten a good show as she left work for the evening.

Skyler spun away, turning her back toward Mari’s car. Not that it mattered. Her face was likely flaming enough to light up the night more than Mari’s headlights.

As Mari took off, letting the darkness settle again, Logan walked up behind Skyler. Trying to gather up some common sense, she didn’t give him the opportunity to pull her to him again.

“I need to get back before India and Elissa call out the cavalry.”

He didn’t argue but rather took a step back and extended his hand toward the sidewalk, inviting her to proceed ahead of him. She took a shaky step then another. Her nerves continued to buzz even though Logan didn’t make any attempt to touch her. How crazy was it that she already missed the feel of his hand around hers, the warmth of his body pressed against hers?

Still, crazy or not, she couldn’t get the idea out of her head as they walked past businesses closed for the night. The closer they came to the music hall, the more she slowed her pace, knowing that when they reached the hall, that would be the end of being with Logan. And despite the fact they were little more than strangers and he was too cocky for his own good, she couldn’t deny he made her feel like no man ever had, daring and wonderfully nervous and...alive.

She might have lost her mind, but she didn’t want to lose that other Skyler quite yet. It was her birthday, after all, and it was time she gave herself a present. As they reached the narrow opening between Tumbleweed Books and Rand’s Western Wear where the city had built a tiny park, Skyler stopped walking.