She opened it a few seconds later to find Spur Chappell standing there, looking absolutely scrumptious in a pair of black slacks, polished and shined cowboy boots, a pale yellow shirt, open at the throat with a tie in brown, yellow, and blue knotted loosely around his neck. He wore a dark brown cowboy hat, and every single piece of him went together like magic.
“Heya, Olli,” he said, his voice made of deep, dark waters, sweetened with honey. He looked down to her heels and back to her eyes. “You look amazing.”
“Thanks,” she managed to say. How had she never acknowledged how handsome he was? His dark hair held plenty of silver in it, on both his head and his face. He smiled, his lips parting to reveal straight, white teeth. Everything about him screamed wealth and power, and Olli remembered how much he intimidated her.
“Do I pass?” he asked, turning in a slow circle. The man had no idea what he did to her pulse, and Olli contained it behind a smile of her own.
When their eyes met again, she shrugged one shoulder. “I suppose so. The hat is at least the one you wear to church.”
“These boots are brand-new,” he said. “Never worn on a ranch.” He lifted one foot as if she couldn’t see them herself.
“I like the half-tied necktie look too,” she said, reaching up and flipping the bottom of his necktie. “Very cowboy casual.”
“I can be buttoned up, if you’d like,” he said, his fingers following hers and touching the tie, then his collar.
“No,” she practically yelled. He looked at her again, something catching between them. She couldn’t look away from him, and he couldn’t seem to look away from her either. “I like it,” she said, much quieter. “It’s sexy.”
“Sexy,” Spur repeated, his eyes now dropping to her mouth. They rebounded so fast, Olli thought sure she’d hallucinated his eye movement. He wasn’t thinking about kissing her. That would be an impossibility.
This was just dinner to get to know each other better, so they could trick the investor. Nothing more.
“Should we get going?” Spur asked, backing up a couple of steps.
She hadn’t invited him in, and she said, “Yes, just a sec,” and quickly retraced her steps to the kitchen counter to grab her phone-wallet. “I’m ready.” She stepped outside and closed the door behind her, telling herself nothing more, nothing more, nothing more over and over again as she walked with him down the sidewalk to his truck.