Page 148 of Cash

Wyatt just laughs. “Good luck.”

Reaching for the condo’s front door, Mollie glances at me and frowns.

“You’re not wearing your hat?”

I flip her car keys around my finger. “You said the restaurant was nice. Figured baseball hats were a no-go.”

“Not your baseball hat.” Mollie darts into the bedroom, emerging a second later with my hat in her hand. “This hat.”

Heart skipping a beat, I look at the Stetson. Look up at her. “Aren’t I trying to win your mama over, not scare her away?”

“You’ll win her over. And you’ll be wearing this hat while you do it.”

I take the hat from her. “I’m confused. She hates cowboys, right?”

“She hates people who don’t keep their promises.”

“But the hat—it’s gonna rub it in her face, the fact that I’m not at all what she wants for you.”

Mollie takes the hat back and goes on her tiptoes to set it on my head. “Once she gets to know you, she’ll realize you’re exactly what she wants for me. I’m dating a cowboy. One who’s a very good man. The sooner she accepts that, the sooner we can all move on from all these dumb assumptions we have about each other.”

My heart’s doing backflips now. Leave it to Mollie Luck to continually leave me speechless.

She’s not trying to change me. To dress me up or smooth over the fact that I got rough hands and a rougher past.

In fact, she’s putting all that front and center.

Mollie doesn’t have anything to hide. I’m not gonna hide either.

I smile, hard. Cup her chin in my hand and lean down for another kiss. A pulse of lust hits me square between the legs. You’d think we hadn’t fucked in the shower just now and made love in her cushy king-size bed before that. Never mind the head she gave me last night and the orgasm I gave her afterward as she held on to the headboard for dear life.

“How long you think lunch’ll take?” I growl.

She laughs, her breath a warm gust against my cheek. “A couple of hours.”

I glance down at her dress. “Glad you’re not wearing pants. Will make the whole car thing a lot easier.”

“What car thing?”

Smirking, I open the door. “You’ll see. Let’s go.”

I swat her ass, and she laughs again.

I wanna hear that sound for the rest of my life. But her mama could very well cut that life short if I don’t win her over today.

Pressing my hat onto my head, I follow Mollie to the elevator.

This ain’t the first time I gotta cowboy up.

Sure as hell won’t be the last.

The restaurant isnice.

It’s the kind of place with white tablecloths and waiters wearing jackets. Well-heeled diners sip wine from enormous glasses and pick at elegant salads and perfectly blackened slabs of salmon.

We’re still in Texas, though. I’d feel out of place in my nicest pair of jeans and white button-up if there wasn’t a hat rack, crowded with all kinds of cowboy hats, beside the hostess stand.

I feel eyes on me as I take off my own hat and run a hand through my hair. Mollie’s lips twitch.