Free Boots and the Heartbreaker: Ugly Stick Saloon, Book 11 by Myla Jackson

ran her fingers down the front of his shirt. “We were so good in bed. Can’t we pick up where we left off?”
    Not really. The woman was too noisy and raked him with her claws. And not in a good way. He didn’t want to do it, but some women required the blunt truth.
    “Kylie, I have no intention of picking up where we left off. I’m not interested. I love someone else.” He gripped her arms, moved her to the side and ran after Fancy.
    “You could have been a little more sensitive, Colin,” Kylie yelled after him. “Damn cowboys.”
    Colin didn’t look back, his gaze panning the crowd, searching for Fancy. She couldn’t be that far ahead. He spotted her next to a merry-go-round, talking to her uncle and Colin’s mother.
    “Oh, there’s Colin now. He’s not lost at all.” His mother smiled and waved toward him. “Colin, honey, Fancy’s ready to leave. Carl would have taken her, if we couldn’t find you, but now that you’re here…”
    Colin captured Fancy’s elbow in his hand. “Thank you, Mom. I’ll handle this.”
    “Good.” His mother turned to Carl. “Let’s go.”
    As soon as the older couple stepped away, Fancy jerked her arm out of Colin’s grip. “You don’t have to leave on my account. I’ll find alternate transportation.”
    “If you want to go home, I’ll take you. Just give me a minute to explain.”
    She snorted. “Explain what? You’re entitled to whatever or whoever you want to do. I’m not your keeper.”
    Gripping her arm again, he led her toward the Ferris wheel and handed over two tickets. “Get in the seat.”
    She stood with her feet braced and her arms crossed over her chest. “I’m not going on the Ferris wheel with you.”
    “I would like the opportunity to talk. Uninterrupted.”
    Fancy shook her head. “No.”
    “We’ll just talk.”
    “No.”
    He lifted her hand and threaded his fingers with hers. “Please.”
    Fancy rolled her eyes and sighed. “I’m going to regret this,” she muttered. “Fine. I’ll ride the damned Ferris wheel with you, but it won’t change my mind.”
    Colin handed Fancy into the seat and turned to the operator, slipping him a fifty dollar bill. Beneath his breath he said, “I like the view from the top, if you get my drift.”
    The man winked and waited until Colin settled in the seat beside Fancy. Then he flipped a lever and set the Ferris wheel in motion and it rose to the top, around and back to the bottom, settling into a slow rhythm of revolutions.
    “I’m here. Talk,” Fancy said, staring straight ahead.
    “I haven’t gone out with Kylie in over a year. She wasn’t right for me and I told her that. It turns out she’s hard to convince.”
    At the top again, the Ferris wheel jerked and groaned.
    Fancy reached for his hand. “What was that?”
    Not above taking advantage of her when she was frightened, Colin scooted closer to her and tightened his fingers around hers. “It’s an old machine. They make noises. Probably needs a little oil.”
    “Okay. So why are you telling me about Kylie? Like I said, you have a right to be with whomever you want. I’m not stopping you.”
    “I’m telling you because the women I’ve been with before never worked out.”
    “Including me,” she said, her tone flat.
    “That wasn’t because we weren’t compatible. What happened between you and me was a timing issue. The other women weren’t right because they weren’t you.”
    There. He’d said it, opened his mouth and heart. He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to the backs of her knuckles.
    She didn’t pull away. That was a good sign. If she really didn’t want him to kiss her, she would have yanked her hand—
    Fancy jerked her hand from his. “Colin, I came back to Temptation to purge you from my life, not reunite.”
    His stomach lurched, from the ragged stop and start of the Ferris wheel and from her words. “You came to what?”
    “To get you out of my system. I need to move on with my life.”
    Hurt and a