Fall for Me (Cowboys of Crested Butte 1)

“Really? You’re going to go there?”

“No, I guess I better not.”

Since it was unseasonably warm and dry for late March, Ben and Mark made plans to take Mark’s four-wheel drive up one of the mountain roads. They were like two little boys when they talked about it.

“What do you say? Liv? Paige?” Mark asked.

“Liv will be in, I will not,” answered Paige. “I have too much to do anyway. Go enjoy yourselves.”

“Liv, you’re sure you want to go?” Ben asked.

“Liv loves to ride in Mark’s Jeep and get all dirty, don’t ya?” Paige answered for her.

“Nothing I like more than getting dirty,” she smirked.

After a late lunch, they decided to take a different fire road back home. Before they got on the road again, Mark popped a CD into the player. A CB Rice CD.

“One of my favorite people gave me this CD,” Mark told Ben. “I like it, but she lurves it, so I’m humoring her.”

Mark turned toward her. “Been on any of their social media sites lately?”

Liv wanted to throttle him.

When neither Liv nor Ben spoke, Mark laughed nervously.

Ben didn’t know what to say. It was cute that she followed him on social media. It wasn’t a surprise, he’d seen her name, and her picture. He didn’t want to freak her out by contacting her, but he’d thought about it. That was after he met her again in Crested Butte, but before Vegas.

“W-e-e-l-l, I guess I said the wrong thing.” Mark joked.

“Have you, Liv?” Ben figured the best way to make her more comfortable was to talk about it.

“I haven’t.” She hadn’t even thought about it. Why would she? He was with her. Ben rubbed her shoulder, but Liv remained silent the rest of the ride home.

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Ben said after Mark dropped them off at her house.

“You must think I’m a stalker.”

“Why? Were you?” Ben tickled her. “Were you stalkin’ me, baby? Did you run into me with your inner tube on purpose, just to get me into bed?”

She rolled her eyes and scooted away. “No, I didn’t. But, we did plan to go to your show.”

“What show? The fundraiser?”

“Yeah. Paige and I were planning to go. I mean before she talked me into going to Vegas with her, we talked about getting tickets.”

“Nothin’ wrong with that, is there?”

“I did check out your social media pages, too.”

“That’s how I knew you were there,” Ben admitted.

“Where?”

“At the pool that day. I saw you in one of the photos.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I took a few photos that day at the pool. First I sent them to Jake. Then I posted a couple on our site. As I went through them, trying to decide which ones to use, I saw you. When you ran into me, I was trying to find you.”