Outraged because she reminded him of all of the things in himself he hated.

And she was still beautiful.

Hell, it was no mystery why he’d gotten involved with her.

Remember when you didn’t think she was your type?

Yeah. He remembered it vividly. He also remembered the first time he had tried to hook up after he and Tansey had parted ways. And hadn’t been able to muster up even the tiniest bit of interest in the beauty queen he was chatting up. He had ended up going home alone. As he had every night since then.

Two years. It was a hell of a dry spell.

But he was too filled up with demons to want sex. That was the problem.

What you need is an exorcism.

He tried not to think about her, or how beautiful she was, or the fact that they were alone here, and it was pretty much prime time for the sort of exorcism that he was thinking of.

No way. Never again. Not her.

He already knew how that ended.

But you can only ever have relationships that end. So why not?

The carrots finished reheating and he put them on the plate, not caring at all how they were arranged, and then he covered the plate with a big domed lid, and started up the stairs.

He knocked on the door, and a few moments later, she opened it.

Her hair was wet, and she was wearing a white plush bathrobe. It covered everything. From the base of her throat down to her ankles. It was huge on her. But he was so very aware of the fact that she had just been in the shower. He could remember showering with her.

His hands moving over her slick curves... “Dinner,” he bit out.

“Oh. I didn’t realize it was room service,” she said.

“Yeah. This is a fancy ass establishment, Tansey. I figured you knew that. Since you’re the resident expert on the place.”

He walked in, and looked around, then he saw that the desk had space. But he stopped when he got over there, because her notebook was sitting there, and beside it...

Beside it was the cactus.

Before

He didn’t know what possessed him to buy a little neon cactus, didn’t know what possessed him to stick it in the cab of her truck before they departed for the next stop. But he did.

And when she came to find him when they got to Sedona, with the little light hanging from her finger, and a strange expression on her face, he felt something expand inside of him. “What’s that?”

“A reminder,” he said. “A talisman. Stay prickly. And remember to put a wall up when you get on that horse. Don’t think about anything but the ride.”

“What does a cactus have to do with a wall, Ace?”

“Because we were in the Cactus when we talked about it,” he said.

“Okay. Your symbolism sucks. But I’ll hang on to it.”

He watched her ride that night; she won. He went to find her after, and gave her a high five. “It was the cactus,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “It was not the cactus.”

“It was the damn cactus. You can’t prove that it wasn’t.”

That was how he found himself asking her out for a drink again. This time, they had two beers. Not just the one.

And she didn’t put quite so much space between the two of them when they left.

They had three nights in Sedona. She won every single one.

On the last night, it was three beers.

“Okay. So now I’m in the second position. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to buy me boots,” she said.

“The hell I won’t,” he said, jamming his finger on the table. “Have you not figured out that I don’t let anyone tell me what to do?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t really pondered you all that much.”

“Liar,” he said. It was a little bit more flirtatious than he had been with her.

She wasn’t his type.

That was the thing.

But she was awfully damn pretty in the bar light. And just after she finished her ride, even with those fluorescent lights shining down on her. She was pretty in every light—that was the thing.

But not his type.

“I never lie,” she said. “Not ever.”

“Because your daddy was a liar?”

“I assume he still is. He’s not dead, and his mouth is still moving.”

“Fair.”

“What about you, Flint?” She rarely called him by his name. She usually called him Ace. He didn’t know why. He liked it, though. “Are you a liar?”

“I try not to be.”

“That’s not very definitive.”

“How about this. I don’t know if I’m a liar or not. Because I don’t get close enough to anyone to need to lie.”