Free Bad In Boots: Colt's Choice by Patrice Michelle Page A

women might find you attractive, Mace.”
    Mace raised his eyebrows. “Just some women?”
    Elise laughed at his cockiness. “Yes, some women. You can’t possibly have them all to yourself.”
    Mace turned to go. “Yeah, but it sure is fun tryin’.” He walked off toward his office chuckling.
    Elise turned back to her computer. Mace was right. She should try to make it up to Colt. She waited until eleven-thirty and then told Mabel she had to run an errand. Knowing Colt typically worked through lunch, she went out and bought sandwiches for them.
    The office was quiet when she got back. Mabel and Mace must have gone out to grab something to eat. She reached up and lightly rapped on Colt’s closed door.
    “What!” he barked.
    Oh boy. This was going to be fun.
    Elise opened the door with a flourish and said, “Lunch is served,” as she walked in carrying a white paper bag.
    Colt looked up from his desk, his eyebrows pulled together, frustration written all over his face. “Unless it involves you, naked and laid out like a sampler platter, I’m not interested.”
    Her insides turned to butter at his vivid description. He might be blunt, but the man certainly did have a way with words. “You have to eat, Colt.”
    Colt grunted as he looked at the bag in her hand. “What’s that?”
    She held up the bag. “I brought you a sandwich.”

Chapter Six
     
    After Elise handed him a sandwich, Colt watched with growing anticipation as she sashayed behind his desk and settled her lovely butt on the surface. As she proceeded to eat her own sandwich, he looked up into her face. She had her dark hair pulled back in a clip, giving him a full view of her face. It was such an expressive face with high cheekbones and a stubborn chin. But right now, her lips were driving him wild. As she chewed and stared down at him, it was all he could to swallow the food in his mouth.
    He didn’t want her to know how much it bothered him that she left without so much as a word to him. He’d spent a long Friday night with Evan trying to figure out what was wrong with his bull. The animal was so agitated he’d acted stoned. Evan—the best vet around to be so young—decided to test his urine. Sure enough, faint traces of Jimson weed laced the sample. Even though the animal’s urine only had enough of the toxic plant to whack him out, he was so messed up, he was throwing himself against the barn and the barbed wire fence.
    Anger boiled through Colt at the discovery. The hallucinogenic wild plant only grew in the spring and it was summer. This stunt had Riley written all over it, but there was no way to prove the bastard did it.
    Coming home in the early morning hours, he knew it was too late to call Elise. He fell into bed with the knowledge he’d see her the next day and they’d have all weekend together. When he’d discovered she’d left town, he didn’t like the sense of panic that gripped him. He knew his raging emotions stemmed from the fact he hadn’t been able to touch her, to slide against her sweet flesh the way he wanted.
    Over the course of the weekend, Colt had moved from irritated mode to “maybe it was for the best” mode. By the time Sunday rolled around, he’d started to wonder if she’d changed her mind about Texas and gone back home to stay. If she really had left for good, maybe it was best he didn’t get to know her better. While he was doing his laundry that weekend, her panties fell out of his jeans back pocket. He picked them up and frustration filled him all over again until it slowly burned into simmering anger. He admitted to himself he’d never wanted a woman as much as he wanted Elise.
    By Sunday night he still hadn’t heard from her, nor did she answer her phone, he began to worry. But he didn’t know who to call since Marie was on vacation. He’d decided to give her until Monday and then he’d dig out his documents with her home address in Virginia to call her family and check on her.
    When he’d