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any pointers?” she asked.
    â€œI date women in heels, Anna. I’ve never walked in them.”
    â€œWhat happened to helping me be a woman?”
    â€œYou’ll get the hang of it. It’s like...I don’t know, water-skiing maybe?”
    â€œHow is this like water-skiing?”
    â€œYou have to learn how to do it and there’s a good likelihood you’ll fall on your face?”
    â€œWell, I take it all back,” she said, deadpan. “These shoes aren’t silly at all.” She took another step, then another. “I feel like a newborn baby deer.”
    â€œYou look a little like one, too.”
    She snorted. “You really need to up your game, Chase. If you use these lines on all the women you take out, you’re bound to start striking out sooner or later.”
    â€œI haven’t struck out yet.”
    â€œWell, you’re still young and pretty. Just wait. Just wait until time starts to claim your muscular forearms and chiseled jawline.”
    â€œI figure by then maybe I’ll have gotten the ranch back to its former glory. At that point women will sleep with me for my money.”
    She rolled her eyes. “It’s nice to have goals.”
    In her opinion, Chase should have better goals for himself. But then, who was she to talk? Her current goal was to show her brothers that they were idiots and she could too get a date. Hardly a lofty ambition.
    â€œYes, it is. And right now my goal is for us not to miss our reservation.”
    â€œYou made a...reservation?”
    â€œI did.”
    â€œIt’s not like it’s Valentine’s Day or something. The restaurant isn’t going to be full.”
    â€œOf course it won’t be. But I figured if I made a reservation for the two of us, we could start a rumor, too.”
    â€œA rumor?”
    â€œYeah, because Ellie Matthews works at Beaches, and I believe she has been known to service your brother Mark.”
    Anna winced at the terminology. “True.”
    â€œI thought the news of our dining experience might make it back to him. Like I said, the more we can make this look organic, the better.”
    â€œNo one ever need know that our relationship is in fact grown in a lab. And in no way GMO free,” she said.
    â€œExactly.”
    â€œI don’t have any makeup on.” She frowned. “I don’t have any makeup. At all.”
    â€œRight,” he said. “I didn’t really think of that.”
    She reached out and smacked him on the shoulder. “You’re supposed to be my coach. You’re failing me.”
    He laughed, dodging her next blow. “You don’t need makeup.”
    She let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re just saying that.”
    â€œIn fairness, you did threaten to castrate me with your car keys earlier.”
    â€œI did.”
    â€œAnd you hit me just now,” he pointed out.
    â€œIt didn’t hurt, you baby.”
    He took a deep breath, and suddenly his expression turned sharp. “Believe me when I tell you you don’t need makeup.” He reached out, gripping her chin with his thumb and forefinger. His touch was like a branding iron, hot, altering. “As long as you believe it, everyone else will, too. You have to believe in yourself, Anna.”
    He released his hold on her, straightening. “Now,” he said, his tone getting a little bit rougher, “let’s go to dinner.”
    * * *
    Chase felt like he had been tipped sideways and left walking on the walls from the moment that Anna had emerged from the bathroom at his house wearing that dress. Once she had put on those shoes, the feeling had only gotten worse.
    But who knew that underneath those coveralls his best friend looked like that?
    She had been eyeing herself critically, and his brain had barely been working at all. Because he didn’t see anything to criticize. All he saw was the kind of figure that would make a man