Page 6 of My Cowboy Boss (Lucky River Cowboys #2)

Flint

I walk outside and go to the barn where I can make a phone call away from the interested ears of my brothers. I call ‘Nado, a buddy in Nevada, who works investigations with a security firm and ask him to do a background check.

Then once he calls me back, I’ll know if Arizona is anything like the former ranch manager who screwed my family over. We’re still looking for his skeezy ass but it’s like he vanished into thin air. I hate that he was in our lives. Hate that we trusted him. It’s my fault. I should have…

Hell…I rake my fingers through my hair. I don’t know much about anything at the moment I’m so tied in knots.

If Arizona’s like that…like our former ranch manager…if she lives to take advantage of people, would I be able to hand her over to the sheriff’s office? I pace back and forth in the barn. No. I wouldn’t. Because fuck it all, Wilder’s right. I do have a thing for Arizona as he labeled it.

Would I give what’s going on my heart that same label? No. Because I know exactly what it is. I like this woman. I can’t call it love or maybe it’s that I don’t want to because frankly that scares the shit out of me. You love someone and you get vulnerable.

I learned to love my found family, and I would die for them. And it would kill me if anything bad happened to any one of them. That same feeling burns through me at the thought of something happening to Arizona.

Please let me be wrong about her.

Not knowing for sure is driving me insane. I can’t hang around here with my dick in my hand bracing for bad news. I saddle up my horse and take off.

As he gallops across the pastures, and the sun beats down on me, I feel my body beginning to calm. Being here on the ranch out where there’s nothing but land as far as the eye can see always centers me.

I left this place years ago and for a while I worked as a bounty hunter in Nevada. The bail jumpers who hurt the innocent…I tracked them like a hound dog. I can’t stand people who prey on others. I guess maybe that’s a hangup from my childhood.

I made good money doing what I did but I put everything except my living expenses toward rescuing people who couldn’t rescue themselves. Runaway kids. Domestic violence survivors. I helped them get safe places to live and paid their bills until they got on their feet.

I liked working as a bounty hunter, but Lucky River is in my blood, and though I tried to ignore that call, it kept calling me home. I never should have left to begin with. I’ve been a cowboy since my dad adopted me and now I know there’s nothing else I want to do.

I spend some time riding until the knots in my stomach unravel and my head is on straight. Then I direct the horse back toward the house. There’s work to be done and I need to take care of it.

I get back and jump in to help Marshall repaira tractor.

“I think we can piece this thing together one more season, but I don’t know if it’ll last beyond that,” he says.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” I say. I don’t want to borrow any more trouble than what’s already on my plate.

We work through until late afternoon. Until my phone rings and it’s ‘Nado. His nickname is short for tornado because he used to be a storm chaser until he got a little too close to a tornado and it flipped his truck.

I rip off my gloves and tuck them into my back pocket before I answer.

He launches right into what he found. “Her legal name is Arizona. She studied writing in college. Lost both parents when she was a teenager. She has a sister named Aspen who raised her. It was that sister who graduated with a business degree and was recently in a car accident and broke some bones according to a post I found on social media.”

Recently in a car accident. The words swim in my brain long after ‘Nado ends the call. I’m betting the timing for that coincides with the start of the job here.

I return to the house intending to confront her.

I want her to confirm the truth. And then I’m going to fire her for lying.

I think. It’s what I should do. She lied to me, and I don’t know what else she might lie to me about.

I’m afraid to let her stay. Afraid to love her.

Afraid it’s already too late and I don’t want to think about that.

I fling open the office door. Arizona is in tears.

White hot anger blooms through my body and I clench my fists. “Who upset you?” I bark out. “Who do I need to beat up?”

Arizona

The call has left me shaken. Donna drove Aspen to her follow up appointment and it turns out she has an infection at the surgical site and there’s a possibility the bone in her leg isn’t healing properly.

Which means more hospital and doctor bills, but I’m not really worried too much about that. I worry about her.

I know she’s frustrated, and she’s concerned about everything. But she’ll never let on how much everything bothers her.

“It’s not a big deal,” my sister had said a few minutes ago, her voice full of fake sunshine. “You just concentrate on work. I’m not going to let this beat me up. Tomorrow I’m even going out with a friend for the day so don’t you worry about me.”

I had pretended to be okay when I was talking to her but after I got off the phone, everything began to hit me. I burst into tears. My sister is hurting, and I can’t take away her pain. I feel so damn helpless.

In the midst of my sobfest, the office door opens and Flint walks in. Hot and sweaty and far too handsome.

I hurriedly turn my head and wipe at the tears. Pull yourself together. Act like a professional and pretend you know what you’re doing. I can’t afford to lose this job now with my sister needing more time to heal.

“Who upset you?” he snarls as he glares at me. “Who do I need to beat up?”

“I’m fine,” I say, a bit shocked by his reaction. Is he feeling protective? Over me?

I duck my head so he’s not in my line of vision because he’s too tempting for me to stare at for long. But when I try to type in information from the livestock paper files into the online database, my hands shake. I’m a nervous wreck.

I’m upset about Aspen and too aware of Flint as a man. I’m still having dreams I have no business having about my sister’s boss.

I shake my head to banish that thought from going to naughty places and squeeze my thighs together. I force myself to concentrate on the work, thankful there’s not much time left before I can leave. After I type in the wrong numbers twice, I mutter a curse.

“My folks say you need a tour of the ranch.”

I pause and look at him, surprised he’s still there.

“Your folks…I don’t understand.”

“To better understand the work you do.”

He sounds like he’s making that up.

He’s looking at me with a gentle expression on his face like he can’t stand that I was crying.

But grump that he is, he’s probably uncomfortable with my emotions.

I don’t want to tour the ranch. I want to go home and change into my comfortable pajamas.

I want to spend time with Aspen and convince myself just because something bad happened in the past doesn’t mean it will again.

“Come on,” he says, raising the office window higher before he walks away.

“The air is running,” I say to his back but he doesn’t slow.

I sigh, save my pitiful progress in the system, and then follow him out.

Outside, the sky is perfectly blue and I take a deep breath of fresh, clean air.

As we walk toward the barn and a brown and white blur streaks past us.

“Oh!” I take a step closer to Flint, stopping myself just in time. I’d almost clutched his muscled forearm. “What was that?”

“Another one of River’s rescue dogs. That one is Bandit. He’ll steal everything that’s not nailed down. I found a pair of my sunglasses, one of my boots and the TV remote half buried in Mom’s flower garden beside the house.”

“Ah, I see. I think River helping animals is sweet,” I say.

“My brother has a good heart.” Flint glances over his shoulder. “Just stay alert for the crow. He likes to sneak up behind people and suddenly caw. The last time he did that to me it was dark out and I spilled my coffee on my jeans. For a second I thought I’d pissed myself.”

I laugh at that.

“He and the rooster don’t get along. They both want to run this place.” Flint grins down at me.

That smile…it does things to my body. I look away.

“You were upset back at the office. Are you okay?” he asks in such a sweet tone that I want to launch myself at him and say I’m not.

“I had a hard day,” I tell him. “I lost my parents as a teenager and today I was reminded of that.”

“Are you all alone then?”

I hesitate but then say, “I have a sister. She’s my best friend and raised me after my parents were gone.

We’ve struggled a lot financially and emotionally this past year.

” I can’t help the pained laugh that spills from my lips as I try to downplay the depth of the wound I carry.

“It’s hard and sometimes I just want someone to hug me. ”