Vampire Cowboy Read Online Free

demurely. “I hope you stay a while.” The first honest thing out of her mouth since she’d climbed into the buggy.
    “I am planning to,” he said and when she looked up at him, he smiled. “I’m quite enjoying my stay.” Uh oh. Her heart sped up and got a little noisy. Her breath caught in her throat. Did he mean he was enjoying being with her? She sure did hope so.
    Got to concentrate on getting out of Haley. I must stop thinking about this man that way. It doesn’t matter whether he likes me or not.
    Never mind that he was so darned good-looking that he made her heart race and every single inch of her yearned for his caress. She needed to sell her place. She tried to figure the best way to ask him if he was enjoying his stay enough to want to buy her little ranch while ignoring the fact that her breasts positively ached with wanting his hands on them, and her private region was all in a dither. But he started telling her about some of the places he’d been, and she told him about growing up in Kansas City, which he declared to be fascinating, and she forgot all about selling her place.
    “How did you come here to this remote, uh, paradise?” he inquired.
    “When my parents passed on, my brother and I had to decide who got what. There was the house in Kansas City and this place here, which belonged to my granddaddy from way back when.”
    “And you chose Haley.”
    “We, well to tell you the truth, we played a game of poker—”
    “Ah. A woman after my own heart.”
    “I lost.” She immediately wished she hadn’t said that.
    “I see,” he said. She thought she detected a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. The same twinkle that had appeared when she referred to Kansas City as “the big city”.
    They stopped beside a little stream. He helped her out of the buggy. Such a gentleman , she thought, but she was surprised that his hands were so cold. She wondered if he might try to kiss her after a while. And hold her and touch her. She sighed gently with delight at thought of his cool touch on her skin. She certainly wouldn’t shoot him in the foot. In fact, she longed to feel his lips against her own, she yearned to be in his embrace and if he wanted to warm those cold hands of his by running them up and down her back and along her sides, over her hips and her bottom, that would make her a very happy woman. Just thinking about those things made her heart do somersaults.
    She watched him as he bent to spread a horsehair blanket on the ground and then put the soft one on top of that. He certainly was a fine figure of a man, even bent over. He set out a couple of pillows and indicated that she should sit on one, which she did. That’s when Eliza remembered that she was ungodly hungry and her mind filled with thoughts of chicken. And rolls.
    Her eyes followed the picnic basket as he took it from the buggy. He placed it between them as he sat down across from her.
    He uncovered the basket and there was something—it had to be the chicken—in a big bowl next to something wrapped in a napkin. The top of a bottle stuck out of several layers of white linen. She prayed that there was a heap of chicken in that bowl and a whole lot of rolls wrapped in the napkin. While she was at it, she threw in a little prayer of gratitude that she didn’t have to eat green beans.
    “Champagne,” he said, smiling at her, his white teeth glinting in the moonlight as he lifted the bottle out of the basket. He pulled the cork out with a pop and poured the foaming, bubbling drink into two crystal flutes that he held in one hand. He handed one to her and they clinked glasses, smiling at each other, though neither made a toast.
    She took a sip and wrinkled her nose. It tickled and wasn’t nearly as sweet as she’d hoped it would be, but it was still pleasant. Mr. Hastings seemed to savor each sip he took, so Eliza resolved to do the same.
    She must have savored a little faster than he did, because her glass was empty by the time he