Bedded Then Wed Read Online Free PDF Page B

to take a chance. It was a small one, after all, and if things did work out, the payoff would be big. Everything she’d ever dreamed of.
    And if it didn’t, she was the only person who would ever know her wishes had been for more than a casual relationship. She was the only one who would be hurt.
    Taking a deep breath, she returned the cup to its saucer, then lifted her eyes to his. “All right.”
    “Good.” He shifted in the booth, digging his wallet out of his hip pocket, peeling off bills and dropping them onto the tabletop. Then he slid out and got to his feet. “I’ll pick you up at six.”
    Without a backward glance, he stalked out of the diner, leaving her alone with her coffee and uneaten pie.

    If she were smart, she told herself for the fiftieth time, she would have called Mitch up and told him to forget about tonight.
    He hadn’t exactly acted like Prince Charming back at Rosie’s when he’d walked out on her. And he hadn’t asked her out tonight, so much as told her when to be ready. For that alone, he almost deserved to be stood up.
    Yet here she was, poised in front of her full-length mirror, checking her appearance one last time before he arrived.
    She’d already fixed a supper plate for Pop and warned him she would be gone for the evening. She had no idea where Mitch intended to take her, but she assumed dinner would be involved, so she hadn’t bothered eating herself.
    Then she’d come upstairs and torn apart her closet in search of something decent to wear. Without a destination in mind, it made dressing difficult, but she’d finally settled on a denim skirt and pale-yellow peasant blouse.
    Looking at her reflection now, she adjusted the gold chain at her neck and tucked back a few thin strands of hair that had slipped out of its clip.
    Through the open bedroom window, she heard Mitch’s truck pull up to the house and her father’s greeting as Mitch got out, slamming the door behind him.
    She took a deep breath, straightened the hem of her top, then slid her feet into the black mules she’d pulled out of her closet earlier. Regardless of the butterflies tap-dancing through her belly, she’d agreed to go out with him. Beneath the layers of nerves that had her all but jumping out of her skin, she was even looking forward to it.
    “Emma, honey,” her father shouted up the stairs. “Mitch is here.”
    As though she wasn’t already keenly aware of his presence. Her arms had broken out in gooseflesh the minute he’d turned into the drive.
    “Coming,” she called, when she found her voice.
    He was waiting just inside the kitchen, near the front door. His black Stetson was in his hand rather than on his head, tapping against the side of his denim-clad thigh.
    “Hi,” she said when his gaze lifted to hers.
    “Hi.” He scanned her from head to toe, then met her eyes again. “You look nice.”
    As compliments went, it wasn’t the best she’d ever received, but knowing that Mitch didn’t dole them out very often to anyone, she decided to accept.
    “Thank you. You, too.”
    He was dressed in jeans and a plaid button-down shirt, the same as usual, but he always looked good to her, so the compliment still fit.
    “Ready to go?”
    She nodded, grabbing a light jacket from the coatrack beside the door.
    “You two have a good time,” her father called out from his seat at the kitchen table. He waved them off, barely sparing them a second glance as he dug into his dinner.
    Mitch closed the door behind them, then walked her to the passenger side of his truck and helped her climb in.
    “So, where are we going?” she asked once he was behind the wheel and they were headed down the long dirt driveway to the main road.
    “You’ll see.”
    She raised an eyebrow at his less than enlightening answer, but he kept his eyes on the road and couldn’t see the look of consternation she shot him.
    Ten minutes later, they pulled into the parking lot of the Silver Spur, one of the most popular