The Twins' Rodeo Rider. Tina Leonard
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worried, “we’ve never had a woman doing the actual competing. It’s all wrong. Maybe the legend doesn’t work in reverse.”
The two women stared at her.
“We don’t know,” Jane said. “It’s never been done.”
“Well,” Cosette said brightly, “never mind. That’s why we have a matchmaker in town.”
Suz wished she felt better with Cosette on the case, but there was that teeny matter of the misfire on Mackenzie’s first marriage. “Thank you. The thing is, with Daisy determined to win Cisco’s heart, I would have done better in a bake-off. Daisy can’t cook. And I can’t swim.”
“Yes, perhaps this didn’t get set up properly. But Cisco won Daisy fair and square last month,” Cosette reminded them. “He swam the race, he came in first place. The competition was fierce that day, and Squid—”
“Squint,” Jane and Suz said, trying to be helpful because on occasion Cosette’s native French hit a bump or two.
“Squint had his shot. But he came in dead last.” Cosette shook her head. “There’ll be no wedding for him in Bridesmaids Creek.”
And Squint was the only bachelor who saw Daisy as something she wasn’t. The handsome SEAL thought Daisy was a misunderstood bad girl, with a hidden heart of gold.
Although there was as much of a chance that Squint just had the hots for Daisy. Either way, he’d pulled up with a leg cramp, beaten even by Daisy’s gang of five bad boys. “Someone needs to save Squint from the legend.”
“Could be,” Madame Cosette said cheerfully. “But magic isn’t really tweakable. What we have here in BC is magic.”
“Ty says we’re just a town of carneys selling our small-town shtick.”
“Is that the word he uses?” Jane wondered.
“When he’s being polite. Other times, he goes for a little more flavor in his comments. However, since his marriage to Jade—after the legend worked on his behalf—he’s more inclined to lay off the flavoring.” Suz breathed a sigh of relief when Cisco appeared in the doorway, backed up by the sheriff, Squint and Sam. She perked up so he’d see her.
It was like he had radar—Suz was sure of it. He came right to their table, doffing his tan Stetson respectfully.
“Ladies,” Cisco said.
Cosette squished over next to Jane, both their ample forms filling the booth, so that Cisco would have no choice but to slide in with Suz. Which he did, not appearing to notice their friends’ obvious ploy to get them together.
His mind seemed elsewhere, which wasn’t good, as far as Suz was concerned.
“What about us?” Sheriff McAdams asked, clearly hoping for an invite to scoot himself and his buddies into the booth, too.
The booth would have accommodated them, but Cosette absently flopped a hand toward an empty one. “That spot’s open.”
The three men went off, looking comically disappointed. Suz slid a glance at Cisco, checking out his big, handsome, very sexy self.
“Have you had your chocolate cake?” Cisco asked.
She shook her head. Cosette and Jane pushed out of the booth. “I’ll get it,” Jane said.
“I’ll help. Tea or water?” Cosette asked Cisco.
“Milk and coffee, please.” He turned to Suz, and Suz’s heart seemed to melt inside her.
“Can we talk about the race next weekend?”
She nodded. “Talk away.”
“You don’t seem all that enthusiastic.”
“I’m not.” Suz concentrated on the scent of man and woodsy cologne, and the realization that he seemed to have no intention of taking up the space across the tabletop where Cosette and Jane had left a vacant seat. “I told you, I don’t really swim.”
He grinned at her, slow and easy, lighting a fire in her body where it hadn’t been lit before. “I’ve taken that into consideration, and I have a plan.”
“You do?” Suz stared at his mouth, completely oblivious to Jane plunking down their cake and Cosette spilling a little coffee. You couldn’t expect the matchmaker not to be a little nervous, Suz decided when she looked up and realized Cosette was mopping up coffee faster than you could say, “Cleanup in booth one.”
She went back to considering Cisco’s rugged face.
He smiled at her again, completely ruining her ability to remember that Daisy, the mean, mean girl of Bridesmaids Creek, who’d written the book on mean after her father had scribed the first chapter, had won Cisco just a few short weeks ago. No, all she could think of was why she’d never before realized that Francisco Rodriguez Olivier Grant had such a sexy, steamy set of lips.
She’d been so reaching when she’d told him she didn’t want to kiss him. Keeping distance was her specialty; she’d done it all her life. The truth was, she was pretty certain and would bet the farm—that being the Hanging H where she and her sister had grown up and currently lived—that this man knew exactly what to do with his mouth in very special, woman-pleasing ways.
He smiled at her. “I’m going to teach you. And when I get done with you, Suz Hawthorne, you’re going to be able to swim like a mermaid.”
Holding Suz Hawthorne, even in the cold, cold water of Bridesmaids Creek, was every bit as mind-bending as Cisco had imagined in his dreams, and then some. She was soft and cute and dainty, and there was a part of his body that stayed warm no matter what, just from the contact. He held her plank-style so she could rotate her arms, which she did in paddleboat-wheel fashion.
Staring at her butt in the wet suit wasn’t going to make the definitely warm area—a lesser gentleman might even term that area of his body as hard, but thanks to the wet suit it was a concealed difficulty—any less warm. She was like a slippery seal with curves, wriggling in his hands, but she was making a good-faith effort to learn what he was trying to teach. And she hadn’t complained about the water temperature once.
Which was the thing he’d always admired about Suz—she was tough. In a delicate sort of way. If she were a man, she would have been a great SEAL candidate.
“You’re doing fine. But that’s enough for today.” Cisco helped Suz from the water to the bank, ostensibly guiding her so she wouldn’t slip and fall back in, but really so he could keep his hands on her a little longer under the respectable guise of swim coach.
“So what do you think?” Suz faced him as she toweled off. It looked like she might want to shiver a little, but wasn’t going to give in to it.
Secretly, he was dismayed by the fact that Suz really couldn’t swim. “At this short-straw party that was held in my honor, did you happen to mention to anyone that you couldn’t swim very well?”
Suz shook out her hair. “No. I didn’t think I’d be short straw. I’ve always been pretty lucky.”
So she didn’t think swimming for him was necessarily a good thing. Cisco was about to move on to his next salient question, namely: Was there anything else she could think of to be done to avoid the Curse, as he now thought of Bridesmaids Creek’s very potent charms, when the nightmare of his nightmares roared up on her shiny motorcycle.
Daisy hopped off, shed her helmet and glared. “What’s going on?”
“Cisco’s giving me a swimming lesson.” Suz fluffed her hair, spraying a few final water droplets. “What’s going on with you?”
Daisy’s glare could have cut fog. “You’re cheating.”
This