Page 23 of Risking it for the Cowboy

He hit the brake to see her running off the step and across the grass, into the road barefoot, chasing him as wind flapped her cardigan and messy bun. His blasted heart leapt with hope as she blinked those bright green gems, silvery in stormy predawn.

She held out her phone, hastening to open the contact, fingers shaking. “G-Give me your number.”

He stared at her. Something had spooked this girl. But if he had a kid, would he want them coming home to find his fling doing the walk of shame out his door? No. Cut her some slack.

He watched her chew her lip.

“Unless … you don’t want to anymore…” She began to withdraw her phone “It’s just, I thought you had a proposition.”

He snagged her phone before it was out of reach. Tapped his number hastily, sensing wave after wave of tension from her.

She saved it, nodding, backing up—

He reached out and snagged her fingers next. Felt her tense like that flinch last night.

“You’ll call?” he asked, because despite her change in heart, she still seemed wary.

His phone buzzed. Text.

He tapped it, pressing the computerized audio.

“From. Tyler.” His cousin. “Storm brewing. High winds growing. Need help STAT. Cows need herding. Need to secure structures. You’re better at rounding up the heifers.”

Shoot…

She was biting that lip, and he reached out, plucked it free. Hit the gas, rumbling down the back road, eyes darting to his rearview to watch her grow small in the distance. Would she call? The stormy air blew in, and he turned on the AM to the weather. Shit, there was a bad storm coming through. Possible tornado? He accelerated, when he passed a beat-up white pickup, and saw a face he hadn’t seen in a long time…

Jason Thompson? What a piece of shit. The music scene had hated his cheating ass and was glad to be rid of him.

What the hell was that asshole doing out here at five-thirty in the morning?

Chapter Nine

Two weeks later. Nacogdoches, Texas. Saturday

T.R. checked his phone again. Six-thirty p.m. The sun was glowing barley yellow over the pasture through his shop door.

“Kiss me like it’s your last goodbye…”

His song was on the local radio, droning amid the rhythmic heartbeat of an air compressor, like an insult. Because tonight was his band’s first gig since two weeks ago, and his boys were hoping he’d finally nailed down the hot banjoist. Soon enough, they would realize he hadn’t.

He tossed the lug wrench back into the drawer as a pulley whined across the cattle yard, as a flatbed ground its gears and beeped, backing up, as Jayce, his wrangler, shouted directions from the hay door to align the flatbed loaded with bales beneath it.

“Naw, keep going … park it there!”

After the tornado that had barreled through the holler two weeks before, that fateful morning, and a storm two nights ago when Tyler’s son Seth, caught in a mudslide, had been hospitalized, the farm buzzed with commotion.

Perfect Harvard Tyler, for the first time in his A-plus Eagle Scout life, was a mess. None of them had slept that night, though if T.R. were honest, he hadn’t slept in two weeks.

And as if to pour salt on T.R.’s wounded pride, Tyler’s new girlfriend Heart Carvahlo was Charlie Bradford’s best friend who’d gotten lucky with Ty that same night the blond bombshell had plied her banjo and twined her roots into T.R.’s heart. Tyler and his sons had fallen head over heels for her, though Heart had left after Seth’s accident, because Tyler was a pain in the ass to love.

He’d held out so much hope that Charlie would call. He’d almost gone back to her house.

He’d even begged Heart for her friend’s number, though Heart had said, if she’d wanted him to have it, she would have given it to him.

Look, with a girl like Charlie, just … trust me, you’ll have to be patient.

Heart wouldn’t say any more except something about sisters before misters.