“So Jogi, Sandy tells me you’re a photographer?” Ward handed a bowl of pasta salad to Jogi across the patio table. His eyes held more intensity than the simple question warranted, which made Sandy want to either scold her brother or dissolve into a panic attack.

“That’s right.” Jogi took the bowl with a smile, then turned that smile to Sandy.

“He’s an amazing photographer,” Mrs. Templesmith added from Ward’s side. “You should see the photograph he took that won the National Park Services contest earlier this summer.”

Sandy tensed, studying Jogi out of the corner of her eye. Even though she’d explained her reasons behind entering the competition for him, that damn photo had caused more problems between them than she wanted to remember.

“I’m sure it was the subject matter and not the photo itself that won the judges over,” Jogi said. He was scooping pasta onto his plate, so Sandy couldn’t see his eyes. “Sandy looks so carefree in that snap.”

She grinned and blushed, but her heart trembled. Things were good between them right now, but no relationship was perfect. Why did she feel like she’d been entrusted with something precious that she was going to break at any second? And for that matter, what had happened to the brash, confident woman she knew herself to be? This was why she hated relationships.

“How’s that plagiarism thing going?” Sandy’s mom asked, forcing Sandy to pay closer attention to the conversation.

“It’s….” Jogi started, then turned to Sandy. “You should probably ask my lawyer about that.” He winked at her.

Of all things, she flushed with pleasure, both for the saucy wink and the fact that he put so much faith in her. “I tracked down the guy’s mailing address and sent him an official Cease and Desist letter.” She shrugged. “The ball’s in his court.”

“It just burns me up that people think they can steal someone else’s work like that,” Sandy’s mom went on, shaking her head as she put an ear of corn on her dad’s plate. “No salt on that, Wainright.”

“Yes, Benita,” Wainright sighed.

“What burns me up is that Ronny Bonny could cheat so badly on Friday night and still make the finals,” Rita said, stabbing pieces of pasta salad with her fork.

“Yeah, what gives?” Ward asked. At least his intensity was directed at someone other than Jogi, though Sandy never had liked it when he got a bug up his butt about something. Her dear brother tended to go overboard.

“The only thing I can work out is that the judging isn’t as fair and impartial as it’s supposed to be,” Wainright said.

Sandy stopped mid-chew. She swallowed, but it didn’t go down easy. None of it did. “You think one of the judges scored Ronny higher than he should have because he was, I don’t know, convinced to make sure he and Natalie made it to the finals?”

Her stomach burned. It had to be Guy. Who else would have such a vested interest in the outcome of the competition? Who else did they already know was in Richard Bonneville’s pocket?

Jogi must have come to the same conclusion. The frown he wore was far more irritated than she was used to seeing on him.

“Why would any of the judges manipulate the results?” Benita asked.

Sandy exchanged a look with Jogi. Should they come clean and confess the bet they’d made with Guy? And if they did, how bad would the fall-out be?

“I bet it was Guy Sedgewick.” Rita saved them the trouble. “He’s always off playing golf with Richard Bonneville.”

Benita made a disapproving sound as she cut into her barbeque chicken. “I don’t like the way Richard has been cozying up to Guy lately. Abigail doesn’t like it either.”

Sandy and Jogi both froze in the middle of eating. They exchanged another look, then both turned toward Benita. “How do you know that?” Sandy asked.

Her mom shrugged. “I play bridge with Abigail on Wednesday nights.” Which was code for the group of women who got together for wine tastings and gossip once a week. “She thinks Richard is trying to buy Guy’s vote on the bank’s board.”

“I knew it,” Rita said with an acid snap to her voice. “How did someone like Guy Sedgewick end up on the board anyhow?”

“He owns shares in the bank,” Wainright answered. “All of the board members do.”

“Richard Bonneville is the second-highest shareholder besides us,” Benita informed Ward. “He’s been trying to wheedle his way into controlling the bank for as long as I can remember.”

“He’s been trying to take over everything in town for years now,” Rita added.

“The Bonnevilles have been trying to take over Haskell since day one,” Sandy said in a dark murmur.

“What happens if the board votes you out as CEO next week?” Ward asked.

Wainright shrugged as all eyes turned to him. “I go into retirement. We continue to own the bank, but we would lose active control of its activities and policies.”

Sandy put down her fork, staring at her plate. The specter of losing the bank had hung over her since the dance competition began. Before that even. But it had never felt as real as it did in that moment. Likely because it was finally hitting home that they’d made a deal with someone who wasn’t above cheating to win.

“You’re not going to lose the bank,” Jogi said with an optimism that contrasted with the mood spreading around the table.

Wainright sent him a weary smile from the head of the table. “It’s nice of you to think so, son.”

A chill swept down Sandy’s back, not just for the consideration her father was showing Jogi, but because he’d called him “son”.

“I know so,” Jogi went on with even more confidence. “If the Bonneville family thinks they have to cheat and manipulate people to get what they want, then clearly they don’t have enough solid ground to have their way through legitimate means. And since you do—” He shrugged. “I think you stand a good chance of winning.” He turned to Sandy at the end of his small speech and smiled.

She smiled back, but her gut roiled with uncertainty.

“Why on earth didn’t you start dating this guy sooner?” Ward asked, sending Sandy a teasing grin.

Self-consciousness made Sandy’s already frazzled nerves fray harder. “That’s none of your business.” And she wouldn’t be able to explain the relationship’s false start without making herself look like an idiot.

Thankfully, Jogi kept his mouth shut and turned his attention to eating.

“You’ve bit off quite a mouthful with this young lady,” Wainright said with an impish smile.

“Dad,” Sandy sighed.

“She’s always been a handful,” her dad went on. “Ever since she was a girl.”

“Really?” Jogi glanced up at last, his grin growing by the second. “Sandy’s never talked about her childhood.”

“I’m sure I have,” she protested, heat flooding her face.

“You were the same as a kid as you are now,” Rita said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sandy was ready to debate her.

Rita laughed. “Calm down. I just meant that you always knew what you wanted and went after it, no matter who told you no or that you couldn’t do something.”

“That’s the truth,” Benita agreed. “You remember the time Mrs. Lindbergh, your fourth-grade teacher, told you girls couldn’t participate on the flag football team?”

Sandy still felt a twinge of defiance when she thought of that day. “I showed her,” she said with a flickering grin.

“You played football?” Jogi asked with a laugh.

“Only because they told me I couldn’t,” she answered.

“Or how about the time you auditioned for the part of Scrooge in the school’s Christmas play?” Ward joined in the reminiscing.

“I got the part too, didn’t I?” Sandy sat a little straighter.

“And let’s not forget that first time Ronny tried to ask you out,” Rita said, gesturing with her fork.

Sandy had to fight to maintain her smile. Not even Rita knew how things had gone down that night. Sandy had only been a sophomore in high school, barely old enough to know what went on between boys and girls. She sure had learned that night. Ronny had cornered her behind the gym during a soccer game and tried to stick his hand up her shirt. When she’d pushed him away, he’d informed her that that’s what girls were for. He’d told her to her face that her only purposes were to look good on her back with her legs spread, to pop out babies, and to keep a clean house. She’d punched him for that—something he’d never told anyone either, probably to save his pride. And while he swore to her that he’d get what he wanted from her someday, she’d also sworn that no man would ever make her feel like a parking place for his dick and his DNA. Ever.

“Actually,” she said aloud. “Let’s totally forget the first time Ronny asked me out. And every other time too.”

Rita humphed and stabbed at her pasta salad some more. Benita shook her head and made her disapproving sound. Wainright and Ward both looked like they wouldn’t mind going to find Ronny right that minute to wring his neck.

Jogi was the only one who kept his sly grin. “Good thing Ronny is going down on Friday,” he said.

In spite of all the frustration Ronny had always brought her, Sandy smiled. Then she laughed. “He is going down, isn’t he?”

“With my moves? You’d better believe it.”

Something warm spread through Sandy’s chest, cancelling out all of the annoyance and disgust Ronny had left her with.

“You going to be able to dance with your wrist like that?” Ward asked, nodding to the Ace bandage wrapped around Jogi’s hand and wrist.

“It’s healing nicely,” Jogi said. “I’ll be a hundred percent in no time.”

“That’s what I keep trying to tell these people,” Wainright added with a teasing grin. “But watch out, they tend to think anyone with any sort of bump or bruise is a complete invalid.”

Rita and Benita spoke over top of each other, each complaining that Wainright wasn’t taking his health seriously and reminding him he wasn’t out of the woods yet. Ward shook his head at them, a broad smile on his face. Sandy would have joined in with her mother and sister, but she was too distracted by how contagious Jogi’s optimism was. Why had she ever tried to push him into doing things the way she thought they should be done in the first place?

On second thought, she didn’t want to answer that question, not even internally. She had a bad feeling high school Ronny would be involved in the answer.

The conversation moved on as they finished dinner, but the weight of all the questions bearing down on Sandy didn’t let up. She helped her mom clean up in the kitchen while Rita and the guys started up a conversation about photographic techniques and gadgets on the patio. That was as close as she was going to get to a reprieve from thinking about things, and it wasn’t much of a reprieve at that.

“I like him,” Benita said as they loaded the dishwasher.

“Who, Jogi?” Sandy asked.

Her mom gave her a knowing smile. “Who else did you think I meant?

She had to give her mom that much. An uncertain smile spread across her face. “I think I like him too.”

“You think?” Her mom raised one eyebrow.

Sandy shrugged while her mom fit the last of the glasses into the dishwasher’s top rack. “Mom, did you ever imagine me settling down, like some TV mom, with a husband and kids?”

Benita laughed. “No.”

Sandy couldn’t decide if that was reassuring or worrying. “Why not?”

“Because you’re not the type,” Benita answered without hesitation.

“Then why did I go and get caught up in a relationship?” she sighed, blinking up at the ceiling.

“Because the right man came along at the right time.” Once again, Benita answered without hesitation. Sandy glanced to her in surprise. Benita went on, straightening and crossing her arms. “Why do you think you got involved with Jogi?”

The question was the last thing Sandy expected. Mostly because it was something she’d never asked herself. She could easily give her mom a pat answer, but something deep within her wanted to hear the answer as much as Benita did.

“I dunno,” she started, leaning her hip against the kitchen counter. “Jogi is sweet and funny and talented.” He was sexy as hell too and amazing in bed, but she wasn’t going to tell her mom that. She tilted her head to the side. “He never made me feel like I was some sort of exotic prize to brag to his buddies about.”

“Something tells me he knows how it feels to be exotic in Haskell, Wyoming.”

Sandy hummed in agreement. Then she shuddered. “I don’t want to think that I like him for the same reason that I always got singled out.”

Her mom let out a gentle laugh and rubbed Sandy’s arm. “Then stick to the first part, how he makes you feel. Or doesn’t.”

“He makes me feel….” She couldn’t think of the right words to express her emotions, no matter how hard she searched her vocabulary. Until the obvious hit her right between the eyes. She smiled. “He makes me feel like myself.”

“There you go.” Her mom grinned, then leaned in to give her a hug. “And between you and me, with all the ways a man can make us feel, that’s all that really counts.”

Her mother’s words stuck with her as they finished clean-up and when Jogi offered to walk her home. For whatever stupid reason—a reason that probably involved Ronny and all her high school experiences—she’d never stopped to consider that having a man in her life could make her more who she was instead of less. It was a nice realization to have.

“You turned a little pensive at the end of dinner there,” Jogi said, reaching for her hand, as they walked the short distance from the Templesmith house to his apartment in the twilight.

“Oh, it was nothing.” She waved her free hand. “Just questioning my motivations with men for the last ten or fifteen years of my life.”

“Is that all?” Jogi laughed.

“Yeah, that’s it.” She grinned at him. The fact that he smiled back at her without trying to dig deeper or make a case out of everything she said sent warmth spiraling through her. Maybe the right guy had come along at the right time.

After a short pause, Jogi went on with, “You realize that after what you said back there, I want to beat Ronny in the dance competition—and everywhere else—more than ever.”

“Absolutely,” she said. “And you don’t even know the half of it.”

“I can probably guess the half of it,” he laughed. The fact that he did laugh instead of grilling her or demanding to know more set her at ease.

“Are you ready to find out what the dances will be for the final tomorrow night?” she asked.

“Absolutely. Maybe we should take another day off for practice too.”

She grinned at him, heat infusing her. “We didn’t spend much time practicing that day.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” When she arched a brow at him, he continued with, “They say that dancing is all in the hips, after all.”

She laughed loud enough to snag the attention of a Haskellian walking on the other side of the street. “We didn’t exactly use our hips either.”

“Well, maybe we could remedy that tonight.” The suggestive spark in his eyes was an instant turn-on.

Funny how one guy could get her blood pumping with a suggestive comment while another could make it run cold. Then again, maybe it wasn’t surprising at all.

“I think a little extra, nocturnal practice might be just the ticket,” she said, swaying closer to him as they walked. “A little birdie told me that one of the final dances is going to be the tango.”

“The tango? Really?” Jogi’s face lit up. “We can definitely get in some practice for that one tonight.”

She laughed. It felt good to joke with him, especially since that joking would end up in a horizontal position in no time. She squeezed his hand, leaning her head towards him and kissing his cheek as they walked.

“Have I told you how glad I am that fate paired us together again?” she asked.

Jogi laughed. “It wasn’t fate, it was Quintus Haskell.”

She giggled. “Remind me to send him a big old fruit basket or something.”

“He deserves more than that.”

“Okay, Fruit of the Month Club, then.”

“That’s more like it.”

They reached the door to Jogi’s apartment and paused. Jogi took out his keys and unlocked the door. “You coming up?” he asked, a far more interesting invitation in his eyes.

Sandy grinned. “Of course I am.”