Closer To You (Tales of the Sweet Magnolia Book 1) by Amanda McIntyre Page B

is a tad hard to swallow.”
    “A tad...a tad hard to swallow?” She laughed. “I came home from a long day at work and peeled down to my skivvies to cool down from the heat of the apartment because the super hadn’t bothered to fix my air conditioner and for an instant, an instant…I close my eyes. The next thing I know I’m being was awakened by some cowboy who reeks of leather and horses, beating down my door to tell me that my girls are violating some rule about shopping in town.”
    She took a deep breath, letting it out in a frustrated sigh. A palatable silence followed her tirade.
    “Now let’s look at things with a clear head, here,” he suggested amiably, but Lil was far from feeling amiable. “It’s possible that what happened, you know, between us, maybe caused you to have these ideas, these,” he hesitated,
    “hallucinations.”
    Really? “No Jake, I am not hallucinating this.”
    He continued as though he hadn’t heard her. “Maybe you need some rest from your duties here. A few days up in Carson City? Some fresh mountain air? Let
    Paddy take care of things for a while around here….”
    Lil stared at him, not believing what she’d heard. He thought she’d gone over the edge and was having a breakdown—because of him. Lord in heaven. “You listen here….” She walked up to him, squared her shoulders and looked into his fabulously, dark, yet, frickin’ amazing eyes. “If you think that I just made this up out of some delirious episode due to you and me—” she waved her finger under his nose “—well, you are not as bright as I thought.” There . She nodded punctuating her thoughts.
    “Your need some rest. I can hear the tension in your voice.” His smile meant to be friendly irritated her even more than his cockamamie idea. The platonic pat on her arm made her thirst for blood. He sent her a pointed look. “Think about it.” He tipped his hat and quietly left, leaving the door open wide.
    “You’d probably leave the seat up on the toilet…if you had one,” she called out angrily. He tossed her a casual wave but didn’t look back. Lil gritted her teeth and stormed back in the room, slamming the door so hard that it bounced back open, and she had to walk over and slam it shut again.

Chapter Six
     
    “The future?” Jake chuckled quietly, shaking his head as he glanced through the packet of papers he’d received by express from the state governor giving Jake his support for the appointment to Deputy Marshall. But Jake’s mind over the past few days since leaving Lil hadn’t been on his future. Though he ought to be ecstatic to have the governor’s backing, the truth of the matter was all he could think about was Lilly.
    And his body burned.
    Jake’s mind whirled in a sea of confusion. Lillian was like no woman he’d ever met. Being away from her had given him perspective. He realized that she possessed an inner strength that most women he knew didn’t seem to have—a fierce independence and yet she had a vulnerable side that didn’t always add up to the independent and bawdy image she tried to portray. The woman was a quandary, there was no doubt, and had a body for sin. Jake sighed and leaned back in his chair, exhausted from lack of sleep.
    “Problem, Sheriff?”
    Jake’s eyes sprang open. He didn’t remember seeing the prisoner in the cell when he’d come in an hour ago. Then again, his mind wasn’t exactly where it ought to be these days. He heaved a weary sigh and leaned forward, shuffling through the papers that he had little interest in reading. “Nothing that I can’t handle, old man.”
    The prisoner sat on the threadbare cot, his hands fisted over his knees. He’d probably been a bit rowdy at the saloon the night before. Nate, his new deputy appointed while he was incapacitated at the Magnolia, must have brought him in.
    He seemed fairly harmless.
    Bored with his thoughts, frustrated that he couldn’t seem to stay on task, Jake spoke to the