Page 2 of Ride Me Cowboy (Coyote Creek Ranch #1)

“Inside?” Her eyes fly to the house behind me and then her fingers are fidgeting with a delicate silver necklace she wears, running over it from side to side in a way that’s distracting, and not just because for a second, my gaze drops to her breasts, and I become conscious of the fact she’s a woman.

Not like I wasn’t aware she was a woman, but I mean, as a man notices a woman.

How long’s it been since that happened? My hand shifts to my hat, touching the edge of it.

It was before dad died. I was dating a girl from the nearest town—Goodnight.

It wasn’t serious, and after he passed, the suddenness of it all, the fact this place became mine to run, I didn’t have time for her.

For anyone. I haven’t had time ever since.

Meaning it’s been more than a year since I’ve so much as looked at a woman, much less known the pleasure of one.

Which makes it particularly inconvenient to be thinking about Beth’s breasts right now, and the way they swell sweetly against her snow-white shirt, the way her hand had been all soft like silk, or the petals of one of the roses behind her.

“The office is inside. Your bedroom, too, come to think of it.” Now that is not exactly convenient, but it’s how Reagan organized it.

“She can’t sleep out in the bunk house, Cole, and you know it. ”

I vaguely remember grunting some kind of agreement—at the time, I hadn’t particularly cared where the bookkeeper slept. There were plenty of bedrooms in the house, and plenty of space too. What would it matter if, for three months, some woman Reagan hired crashed in one of them?

Well, it felt like it mattered now. But even wracking my brains, I can’t come up with any alternative.

It’s been a long time since the guest house was fit to house a person, though it was on my never-ending list to see to that.

At one time, it had four bedrooms and its own kitchen and living area, not to mention sweeping views of the plains that led up to the mountain in the distance, with the creek running just behind it.

But an ancient Cyprus tree had fallen and landed right on the roof a few years back, and by then, things on the ranch were tight enough to mean we just had to leave it.

The room above the stables could be fixed up to use, but that’d take a week or so, at least.

“You got a bag?” I ask, glad that some part of my brain seems capable of going through the motions.

“Yeah, I can get it.”

I’ve grown up with tough ass women all my life, but I’m still a cowboy and a Donovan, and it’s not in my nature to leave a woman to carry her own bag if I’ve got a free hand.

“Nah, let me,” I say, moving to the trunk, and pressing the catch to open it. Inside is a small suitcase, more hand luggage size. Not what I’d expected this woman—who gives off serious high maintenance vibes—to travel with.

“This it?” I shoot her a glance, to find her fidgeting with that necklace again, looking from her bag to me. She nods warily.

Warily?

Look, I’m a big guy, I know that. I’m easily six and a half feet, and I’m broad, strong, because you need to be out here, doing the work I do.

I can calm a bull long enough to stay on for a good stretch, ride a horse for days, outrun a coyote if I have to.

Okay, maybe not quite, but you get my drift.

I guess I cut an imposing figure but most people around these parts know me well enough to know I’m also the last person on earth to be afraid of.

I’m the guy who saves you, not scares you.

This woman looks like a greenhorn at its first rodeo—terrified and trembling, like a slight breeze would knock her down.

She nods though, as if she’s steeling herself, and when I tilt my head toward the house and start walking that way, I notice she stays a good few feet to my left, like she doesn’t want to risk accidentally touching. Which suits me fine.

I pull open the door for her and watch as she enters, her expression a mix of uncertainty and curiosity.

Those ice blue eyes roam the large entrance way, cluttered with family photos my parents hung over the years that no one’s dared touch since mom passed.

She always had cut flowers on the antique hall stand—you wouldn’t believe the smell on a summer’s afternoon.

It filled every single room. Jasmine, gardenias, it was sweet like honey and heavy in the air.

Back then, when mom was alive, the house never had a speck of dust.

A hint of something like shame curdles in the pit of my belly, because on the list of things I care about in a day, the state of the house is pretty low down.

Don’t get me wrong, I clean up after myself, but that’s about all I do. I notice now that the walls could do with a fresh coat of paint, and there’s grime along the baseboards.

“Which way?” She turns back around to face me and despite the way she was keeping her distance outside, somehow, we’re almost toe to toe now, so I see the way her blue eyes fleck with something like silver and her lashes, long and dark, fan her cheeks as she blinks.

“Kitchen’s through there,” I nod toward an archway and hang back a bit as she walks off, quickly, her high heels making a clicking noise against the wide, terracotta tiles.

High heels! Has the house ever seen a pair of those?

Somehow, I doubt it. My mom wasn’t really one for dressing up, and my sister Cassidy’s more at home in boots than heels.

The kitchen is a large, open plan space with a heap of windows showing a view of the ranch. She gravitates toward them, looking first to the hills in the distance and then toward the garden right near the house.

In the hutch under the kitchen counter, Boots flicks an ear lazily and opens one eye.

He’s mostly retriever, mixed in with Collie, we think, because he’s got rusty red fur all over, except his feet, which are a creamy white—hence the name.

He’s eleven now and spends most of his time flopped on the floor, wherever he can find the sun.

Never mind that he’s not supposed to be in the house.

That rule got broken a long time ago and none of us has ever bothered to enforce it.

“It’s so peaceful here,” Beth says, in a way that almost seems to come from the deepest parts of her soul. Like she’s never known peace before. Like she’s been craving it her whole life.

“Where are you from?” I ask with a good attempt at a relaxed, conversational tone, as I move into the kitchen and flick the coffee machine to life, reaching down to scratch the top of Boots’ head.

She glances across at me, hesitation in the lines of her face, as though I’ve just asked her for the nuclear codes. “New York,” she says, finally, glancing back to the windows, but not before I catch a hint of pink in her cheeks.

“I mean, more recently.” I grab out two mugs and hook one under the machine, then press a button so the kitchen fills with the aroma of coffee beans.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand?” she says, walking toward me now and hovering on the other side of the kitchen island.

“This is a long way from New York. I presume you didn’t uproot yourself for a three-month contract.”

“Oh.” Her eyes fall to the coffee cup in the machine.

“Yes, I—,” her tongue darts out and swipes along her lower lip.

I somehow manage not to let that get under my skin, not to notice it in that annoying way I’d noticed her breasts and her soft, smooth skin.

She lifts a hand and pulls her long hair over one shoulder, toying with the ends.

“Sorry,” she says, dropping her hand away immediately.

I frown. “What for?”

Her eyes pierce mine for a second before she fixes her gaze on a point over my shoulder.

“Is it—does anyone else live in the house?”

“Besides me, you mean?” I prompt.

She nods quickly.

“My brothers Beau and Austin are here most of the time. My other brother Nash is in Phoenix, but he comes back a fair bit. My sister Cassidy is studying in Utah, but she’ll be home later in the summer, and there’s Mack—Mackenzie. An intern.”

“Oh, okay.” She relaxes a little, offering a tight smile. “Great.”

And even though I don’t make a habit of rescuing people the way my dad did, I hear myself say, “You don’t need to worry, Beth. I ain’t gonna bite.” Her eyes widen and she looks stricken and relieved all at once.

What the hell has Reagan gotten me into?