Cowboy at Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page A

control—normally.
    â€œI don’t know what got into me. Coming here…with you…tonight of all nights. And flirting with him. What am I doing here?”
    Amy slapped her own cheek so hard it stung. She had to get a grip, if not on Rasa, on herself.
    â€œIt’s your birthday. You’re thirty. You’re having a Margarita.”
    â€œA Flirtita,” Amy corrected. “Specialty of the house. And it’s strong. Too strong.”
    Or maybe it just seemed strong because she hadn’t had any alcohol for eight years.
    â€œMaybe I’ll try one.” When Rasa held up her hand to signal a waiter, Amy grabbed her wrist and lowered it.
    â€œOh, no, you don’t.”
    â€œSo, what’s wrong with flirting a little when a guy’s that cute?”
    I could tell you what’s wrong. If you had my memories, you’d understand.
    â€œYou might as well be dead if you don’t live a little,” Rasa said, waving his hat at him again.
    Dead.
    The charged word echoed in Amy’s bruised heart and soul as she shakily sipped her Flirtita and tried to pretend all she felt was a haughty nonchalance. She wasn’t about to tell Rasa, whom she barely knew, about her visit to the cemetery, which was partly why she felt so crazy and out of control tonight.
    When Rasa waved the cowboy hat again, Amyjumped up and grabbed it. “Would you stop?” The room whirled. She had to quit sipping this delicious drink.
    The hat was still warm and damp around the headband because he’d worn it and worked in it. She caught the sharp, masculine scent of his cologne. Hardly knowing what she did, Amy flipped the battered hat over and then glanced toward him again. Without even realizing her intention, she put it on her head. When it sank to midbrow, she spun it around on her head, feeling like a kid playing dress-up.
    Oh, God, what was she doing? Making a pass at a…stranger? Wearing his hat? She should have known the last place she should have come to was a cowboy bar with posters of cowgirls riding horses on the walls, not to mention Flirtitas. The posters and the sweet fruit drink mixed with vodka had made her feel crazy. All of a sudden she was remembering how it felt to be young and to ride like the wind under a blazing sun. To be happy. To trust in the beauty of life itself. To feel immortal.
    Amy’s hand tightened around the stem of her cold, wet glass. She had no right to flirt with anybody ever, even if he was dark and broad-shouldered and the hunkiest guy she’d seen in years.
    Flirtita or no Flirtita, hunk or no hunk, she couldn’t lose control. She was damaged and dangerous and therefore determined never to hurt anybody else, not even herself, ever again.
    â€œLook,” she began softly, removing his hat and placing it very firmly on the table. “Rasa, I don’t come to bars. I don’t pick up strange men. Especially not cowboys. I work. That’s all I do.”
    â€œWhy not cowboys? You prejudiced or something?”
    â€œNo. It’s because—” She looked up into Rasa’s dark, imploring eyes. “Just because.”
    â€œOkay, so you met one bad cowboy.”
    â€œNo!” You don’t understand. Again, she felt too near some dangerous edge. Defiantly Amy swirled her Flirtita glass so vigorously the liquid flashed like angry fire.
    â€œAre you going to punish yourself forever?”
    â€œYou don’t understand.”
    â€œBetsy has told me a little.”
    â€œReally? Well, she doesn’t know the half of it, okay?”
    â€œNot okay. Baby, he’s still watching you while he talks to that bartender. It’s not too late. Maybe you should go over there and—”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYou should definitely lighten up.”
    â€œIf I do that, anything could happen.”
    â€œSo let it.”
    Amy set her glass down by the beige Stetson. He’d looked so handsome in that rumpled