The Bull Rider's Redemption. Heidi Hormel
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“Fine. What Van Camp Worldwide is doing. Since your last name is Van Camp, I’d say it was you, too.”
“I submitted a concept plan.” She didn’t need to tell him anything until she was ready.
“Are you trying to ruin my town because I dumped you?”
She couldn’t stop the laugh. “I have an MBA from one of the best business schools in the US. I’m in line to become CFO of VCW. Why would I care about a teenage fling?” He stared at her, as if he was expecting her to really answer his question. “You actually believe that? That you dumped me? You must have very different memories than I do.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and didn’t blink. “I know I didn’t call you after that last show. I know you asked about me.”
He sounded triumphant. She checked his denim-blue eyes for mischief. Not an iota of levity. He was dead serious. “I was eighteen when we parted ways and on my way to Milan then college,” she said, not adding that she’d nearly given up on college to stay with him. She’d been a stupid-in-love girl then. “I never thought about you until I was assigned to come to Angel Crossing.”
“I know the ‘first time’ for a girl is a big deal.”
Dear Lord. She definitely remembered their first time. It hadn’t been a magical moment and was a memory she’d rather forget. They both had been nervous and inexperienced. The disappointment had been epic. “It must have been a big deal for you, too, since you told anyone who would listen.” She sounded snippier than she’d planned. She must still feel a little resentment. Who would have known?
“I apologize for that. My mama taught me better,” he said, dropping his arms and dipping his head.
She’d accept his meager apology. “Thank you. It’s a little late, though.”
“I’d have said it sooner, but my buddies kept ragging on me that a college girl who’d been to Italy wouldn’t be interested in a cowboy who was still in high school.”
She shrugged and took a sip of beer. He might be right but she still would have liked to have heard from him. To know that she wasn’t just some stupid, macho, cowboy conquest. “Would you like a beer?”
Danny hesitated, his blue eyes darkening to something akin to the brightening of a morning sky. “Thank you.”
She indicated that he should sit and went in to get him a beer from her limited stock. She’d invited him to have a drink because it was polite. There might be a little bit of the old chemistry. The tingly spark was just an echo of what they’d felt, that intense connection that happened only with a first love. He’d been her first love before he’d been her first lover. She smiled as she thought of their first and only time. His hands had been shaking so badly she’d had to unzip her own jeans.
“Here you are,” she said as she handed him the beer and pushed away the old memories. She had a job now. Get the properties VCW needed and convince the town to agree to their rezoning requests and restrictions, which would make Rico Pueblo possible. She couldn’t worry about what she’d heard about Danny. That he was starting a rehab and contracting business by buying properties in the same area VCW had slated for its entertainment zone.
He looked at the bottle carefully. “I never pegged you for a beer drinker.”
She shrugged. “The label has a horse’s head on it.”
He took a sip and then said, “You went to Wharton business school? I remember you saying that you wanted to be a designer.”
“I thought I wanted to follow in my mother’s footsteps. But my talent was more about the numbers and less about creating the perfect hemline. I switched gears partway through my undergrad program. What about you? Weren’t you going to go to your mom’s alma mater?”
“That was my mom’s idea anyway and I tried, but you know what I thought about school. When I started winning big at the bulls and bringing in a decent living, I knew if I went full-time I’d make it.”
“I can’t imagine your parents were thrilled you quit college.” She could imagine her own parents’ reaction, if she’d done something like that.
“They just wanted me to be happy. I can always go back to school, with all of the online classes.”
She nodded. “I heard you’ve become a builder or something?”
He talked about his work, then about his family, including his nearly new niece. “Jessie and Payson were so excited when she got pregnant, and now that little Gertie is here, they’re awful. Jessie has taken thousands of pictures and sends me all of them. See,” he said, passing along his phone with the picture album app open. Clover could hear and see the love he had for the baby. She would never have imagined that of the swaggering cowboy he’d been. Perhaps he really had changed. After all, she had. Being the prettiest girl in the room had stopped being important to her.
“So when are you going to settle down and have babies yourself?” she asked—because it seemed like what she should ask, not because she was dying to know.
“Would need to find the right woman.”
Clover refused to think about why she was relieved to hear that.
Danny went on. “What about you or your brother? Any little Van Camps?”
“Knox, well... He’s Knox. I’m focused on my career and working with VCW.”
“No boyfriend? No fiancé?”
She shook her head. “What about you?”
“Between my business and being mayor, I just don’t have the time.”
“That doesn’t sound like you. You said you could always make time for the ladies.”
“I said that in an interview when I was twenty-one and just won a buckle. You kept up with me?”
She may have followed his career...a little. Anyone’s first real boyfriend would hold a special spot in their heart. “I lived in Texas. I didn’t have much choice but to follow you and everyone else I knew from bull riding.”
“Good recovery.” He laughed, his blue eyes bright with humor. “I’d better get going. I don’t want Mama piddling in the apartment.” He unfolded himself from the chair and she stood, too.
“It was good to visit,” she said like the Texas beauty queen she’d been.
“Same here.” He didn’t move and his gaze remained on her.
Clover’s breath quickened just a little. That old flush of heat and desire worked its way through her. How could this be, more than ten years after that summer? Danny smiled slowly as he put out his hand to shake hers. She grasped it, exquisitely aware of the calluses scraping her palm, making her stomach dance with desire. She pulled her arm a little toward herself, feeling the passion that simmered between them. Danny didn’t hesitate but stepped into her, keeping their hands firmly clasped and placing his mouth over hers. Her neck arched and her lips eagerly sought his.
Cotton candy and popcorn. Clover. The taste of her hadn’t changed, taking him back to that summer. The heat and passion, the fear and uncertainty. His hand moved along her familiar and new curves. Every one of them fit into his palm just right, despite the frequent numbness that made the grip in his right hand uncertain. He took one more deep taste of her, then pulled away.
“I’ve got to go,” he said, turning and walking down the hill toward his apartment, where he’d find beer in the fridge and a dog waiting for him.
“Danny Leigh,” Clover yelled at him, losing her beauty-queen coolness. “Sticking your tongue down my throat doesn’t change anything.”
He