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shift.”
    “That’s the only kind we rich playboys drive,” he mocked, finally getting a smile from her.
    She handed him the keys. “You win, hotshot, but when the blizzard starts, don’t beg me for help.”
    “I wouldn’t dream of it. Besides, the prospect of a blizzard raises all sorts of interesting possibilities for tonight.”
    “You must have a really rich fantasy life, Mr. Ames.”
    He smiled. “It’s getting better all the time.”
    * * *
    They saved the shopping for last. It was probably just as well. Garrett wasn’t at all certain she was going to survive the impact of seeing Joshua emerge from a dressing room in jeans, a Western shirt and boots. It didn’t seem to matter that the boots had a spit-polish shine or that the jeans were still stiff. If the man had been perched on a barstool in Angel Dawson’s saloon, she’d have labeled him a cowboy. A devilishly handsome cowboy, she admitted ruefully, as whipcord lean and hard as any one of the hands at the ranch.
    “What do you think?” he asked.
    “You’ll do.”
    “That’s the best you can come up with?” he retorted, sounding genuinely disappointed.
    Garrett found herself grinning. He reminded her of the five-year-old Casey dressed in one of Garrett’s fancy Sunday dresses, lipstick smeared across her face, her tiny feet tucked into Garrett’s high-heeled shoes. That same hopeful expression had been in her eyes when she’d said, “Mommy, how do I look? Am I as pretty as you?”
    Remembering that, she patted Joshua’s arm. “You’re very handsome,” she conceded. “There’s just one thing missing.” She walked over to a display of cowboy hats, picked out a black one and brought it back.
    “I thought the good guys wore white,” he responded.
    “They do,” she said, standing on tiptoe to settle the black one on his head at a rakish angle. As she leaned into him, her breasts brushed his chest and her breath snagged in her throat. Breathless, she felt herself trapped by the intensity of his gaze and the utter stillness that fell over him. Expectation pulsed between them. With the hat in place, she suddenly seemed unable to figure out what to do with her hands. As if they had a will of their own, they dropped to his chest, lingering for no more than a heartbeat, just long enough to feel the thudding of his heart, to take in the vitality and warmth his body promised.
    As if she’d taken a dare, only to discover that the price was way too high, she jerked her hands away. “We’d better be going.”
    Regret shadowed his eyes, but he nodded agreeably. She was so busy being thankful because he didn’t argue that she wasn’t prepared to have him hurry her from the store straight down the sidewalk and into a restaurant they’d passed earlier. She balked at the door, but the scent of spices, the cozy warmth of a fireplace and Joshua’s hand firmly on her back propelled her inside.
    “We should leave now, before the snow gets any worse,” she said.
    It was a sensible suggestion, but she delivered it so mildly she couldn’t really blame him for ignoring it. The real truth of the matter was that she didn’t want to go. The air of anticipation that had been flirting with her senses ever since Joshua’s arrival the previous afternoon was having an odd effect on her. After all these years, she was remembering what it was like to have her blood run wild and feverishly. She was rediscovering the thrill of being desired. And, she admitted, she wasn’t ready for it to end quite yet. A nice restaurant seemed like the perfect place to indulge herself in Joshua’s attention without any threat of an intimacy she couldn’t handle.
    She flirted outrageously, watching the flare of heat in his eyes with feminine satisfaction. When his fingers skimmed across hers, she tried to analyze why such an innocent touch could make her pulse race, then gave up and simply enjoyed the effect. With every sip of wine, she became less cautious. It had been so