Can't Resist a Cowboy by Elizabeth Otto Page B

obvious.
    “I don’t love Carrie.” Whoa, did that feel wrong spouting out between his crazy puffy-feeling lips.
    Both brothers laughed. “Right.” Tucker kicked back his chair, slouched down and stretched out his long legs. “Sooner you admit it…sooner you can get that girl in bed.”
    Levi grabbed Cole’s shot glass and downed the whiskey with a sudden thought of naked Carrie. Sleek, smooth, long-legged, naked Carrie. He’d already had her in bed, a long time ago. Calling his name as he made her come. And then he’d walked away. He couldn’t ask her to go with him, not when it meant taking her away from the security of her family, and not after the promise he’d made Darren.
    “Wrong. I think she hates me a little.”
    Tucker snorted. “You stupid son of a—”
    Levi grabbed the edge of the table to keep from falling off the top of the world. This. Damn. Chair. “Your wife let you…talk like that?” That was it, he was falling. He tipped, his fingers losing their grip.
    “She don’t… let me do…anything.” Tucker wagged a hand at him—maybe it was just a finger—no way to tell because his eyes were closing.
    Levi made a last-ditch attempt to stay upright. He glanced past Tucker. Damn, it looked like Sophie standing there…and Rylan. And then a head of curly blond hair peeked in between the two women.
    Oh shit, there’s Carrie Lynn . And he went for the floor.

Chapter Thirteen
    “Well, this is unexpected.”
    Carrie stood next to Rylan, whose arms were crossed over her pregnant belly. Cole and Levi tipped toward each other, neither of them actually making it to the floor. Instead, they made an awkward pyramid with their shoulders butted and their heads pressed together. Tucker was slumped in the chair, head thrown back, apparently out cold.
    She’d had a great time in Missoula at the spa. Hair, nails, skin, all shiny and refreshed. Carrie was still tingly inside that the girls had asked her to come along, seeing how they didn’t really know her that well. Growing up here, she’d been the only girl and had gotten used to hanging around adolescent boys real fast. Even now, she found she related to men more than women, but Sophie and Rylan had made her feel completely welcome. She had half a mind to go home and enjoy the afterglow, and let Levi steep in his own intoxication.
    The dining room table was littered with empty whiskey bottles, glasses, spilled liquor and…peppers. Carrie eyed the vegetables, many stabbed with forks and half eaten, the smell nearly singeing her nose.
    “Yikes.” She pulled back from the strong, spicy odor.
    Rylan heaved a sigh. “I can’t believe they mixed Maeve’s peppers with whiskey. There will be so much pain tomorrow.”
    Sophie nodded, hands on her hips, with a grin that implied she wouldn’t mind kicking her husband out of bed and hearing him thunk onto the floor. Carrie swept a gaze over Levi. The sight of him leaning like a fallen tree against his equally drunk brother was stupidly funny. All it would take was for one of them to shift or twitch, and they’d both go crashing down.
    “Better wake them up,” Carrie suggested. “Cold water will do it.” It only took a minute for the other women to return with full glasses. Carrie put a hand on Levi’s shoulder, trying to see his face behind his mop of curls. She put another hand on Cole and stepped back. “Go for it.”
    The water came down; the men roared to life. Levi’s arms came out on either side of his body, his fingers making a fist in Carrie’s shirt. He jerked back in the chair, pulling Carrie forward so she launched onto his lap.
    She gasped, her hands clutching his hips to brace herself. Behind her, Cole made a fuss as Rylan helped him up. A chair crashed. Sophie swore like a sailor. Jaxon blubbered apologies. The bewildered look on Levi’s face, combined with the water dripping off his curls onto her forearms and the ruckus behind her, made laughter well up inside. It bubbled up in