Austin: Second Chance Cowboy

And here she’d been talking nonstop about herself. How self-absorbed could one woman be? “So, how is your shop doing?”

“I’m not going to talk to you about my store. That’s work, too. You’re just going to have to think of something far more interesting.”

The jibe was given kindly, not mean-spirited at all. But it did serve to remind her that she had little else in her life besides her job.

Shoot, she couldn’t even seem to give up a Sunday.

In defense, she said, “Austin, I’m not like all the other women you date.”

The smiled vanished. “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

She could have cursed her tongue. Now he was probably going to ask why she’d even brought up the other women. And then she was going to have to admit that she hadn’t been able to get the picture of Austin hugging Vanessa out of her mind.

But since she’d started, she continued on. “I’m just saying there’s more to me than just being a good-time girl with a lot of great hair.”

“Hey, now. Hair?”

“I’m just saying that Vanessa sure has a lot of hair for being a nurse in a medical practice.”

He sat up straighter. “Wait a minute. You’re talking about Vanessa Anderson?”

“Yes, though I bet you know plenty of Vanessas.” Now that it was all out in the open, she felt worse than catty. But how could she backtrack without seeming like more of a fool? “You know what I’m talking about, Austin,” she said with a whole lot of bravado. “Vanessa must have more hair spray in that head of hair of hers than Miss Texas.”

He scowled. “There’s nothing wrong with her hairdo. She’s got pretty hair.” She knew that. That was the problem. “And, she’s got a good brain and a good heart, too. She’s a nurse, Dinah. And she’s married!”

“She’s a real pretty nurse. So, did she check you out?”

Stuffing the remainder of his sandwich in his plastic grocery sack, he glared hard at her. “Jeez, Dinah. I never thought you were the type of person who went around stereotyping others. Especially not other women, and especially not on a whim, just to be mean.”

Did Austin Wright just say whim? “I don’t stereotype.”

He got to his feet. “I think you must. You’re talking about Van like she’s got nothing for nothing just because she’s a beautiful woman who’s embraced her share of the Walmart beauty aisle.”

“I saw you hugging her.” Even as the words spewed out of her mouth, she felt ten times as foolish. And suspiciously like a stalker.

“I was thanking her.”

“For giving you a shot?” The moment her question left her mouth, she ached to take it back.

“I was thanking her for a lot of things, not that it’s any of your business.”

Dinah folded her arms over her chest. “I bet everything between you two was all business, all right.”

“You don’t know a thing.” A muscle in his jaw twitched as he chose his words. “I think you’re a real fine policewoman, Dinah, but at the moment, I’m thinking you’ve got a real prejudice toward me. And for the record, I just want to say that I’m plumb tired of it.”

His words, and the unspoken hurt that lay behind them, made her cheeks flush. “I don’t—”

“I think you’ve gone out of your way to give me more than a wide berth because of who my father is. And because of our past.”

She felt more than a little sucker punched. “That’s not true. I went over to your place for dinner on Saturday night.”

“You know that was a fluke. Usually you avoid me like the plague.”

“I—I don’t…” she sputtered. It was a whole lot easier to call him a liar than to admit he was right.

“I think it might be truer than you want to admit.”

Because she had eagerly hoisted an empty brain on Vanessa so she wouldn’t have to look at her own insecurities, Dinah fended off his words by holding up her sandwich. “I don’t think there’s a reason in the world for us to continue this conversation. To make it easy for you, I’m going to stay right here and eat this while you move on.”

Looking down at her, his too-handsome features were marred as he scowled. “Don’t worry, Sheriff Hart. I won’t make a point of sharing a bench with you anytime soon.”

Wisely, she kept her mouth shut as he sauntered off. But boy, howdy! What was it with him and her reaction to him? All he had to do was be within breathing distance and she turned into some kind of high-strung, nagging witch who made petty comments about other girls in town.

That definitely wasn’t her.

Gazing at her sandwich, she did what she usually did best. She analyzed things. Maybe her problems with Austin stemmed from the memories he triggered?

His wild ways made her remember too much. The way she used to run around without half a care in the world and a chip on her shoulder. She’d made mistakes, some in an inebriated fog that had made it almost impossible to recall them in detail.

Now when she looked at Austin or heard about his escapades, it brought back all those memories. Including the way she’d once plastered herself to him in a kiss that was so hot it could have set their clothes on fire. Even the memory of it made her ache with embarrassment all over again.

Now so glad she hadn’t eaten more than she did, she wadded up her napkin and she tried that excuse on for size. Was that really the root of her problem? Austin merely brought back memories?

Chewing, she thought about it some more and tried to convince herself of that fact.

And then realized that while a person could fool a lot of people some of the time, it was near impossible to fool yourself.

Not more than once, anyway. Tossing the rest of her sandwich in the trash, she stomped to her office, checked her emails, then two hours later got into her cruiser and headed back over to the high school.

When they visited before, she’d been pleased to realize that Mrs. Marks had been willing to accept Dinah’s suggestions for getting some of the kids back on track. They’d both agreed that getting to know the kids better was key, so she was going to visit a couple of classrooms.

Dinah had a feeling getting the kids to trust her was going to be something of a challenge. After all, when she had been in high school, the last thing in the world she would’ve wanted to do was visit with a sheriff.

Suddenly, she remembered what Flynn had said about those puppies of Angie’s. Picking up her cell, she called Angie and asked if she could borrow a couple of the stray pups for a few hours.

She could use the puppies as a reason to talk to the kids. Talk to them about the dangers of dropping off stray animals.

A lot of people would go out of their way to avoid the sheriff. But a pair of cute, cuddly puppies?

Now, that was a whole other story.

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