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SWEET-LOVING COWBOY
Coming Fall 2018 from SMP Swerve
Chapter 1
People came to the western themed bar, Kinky Spurs, for the live country music, a ride on the mechanical bull, and the famous off-the-charts-hot chicken wings capable of bringing men to their knees. They even came for the sexually charged nightly roping game between the customers to win a free dinner. For Chase Blackshaw, the best thing about Kinky Spurs wasn’t the place itself, it was a person within its wood-paneled walls.
Harper McKinney.
Dressed in the Kinky Spurs uniform of a T-shirt with Kinky Spurs written across her chest in bold white calligraphy and tiny denim shorts, Harper was everything beautiful in this world.
With her warm hazel eyes and honey-colored long hair, she stunned with a natural beauty that had come to her later in life. Chase remembered when Harper had left River Rock, a town nestled in the Colorado mountains, to attend culinary school in Denver a few years back; she was awkward and young. She’d returned a breathtaking woman whom Chase couldn’t ignore. Every awkward thing about her had turned into sexy confidence.
Standing behind the bar, she caught him looking at her and aimed a sultry smile in his direction, hardening his cock to steel. This was their game. She’d tease, he’d tease back. The game was becoming old. He wanted the real deal.
A greasy aroma spilled from the kitchen, drawing him forward. To her. He passed the empty stage where the country music band would play later that night, weaving his way through the scattered tables. The bar was quiet save for a soft hum created by reruns of the football game playing on the flat-screen TVs and soft chatter among the dozen customers there for dinner.
When Chase slid onto the stool at the bar, she moved in front of him. “Your usual?” she asked, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Please.” He stared at her darting tongue, the way her teeth grazed her lips.
She avoided his gaze when she fetched his drink, her cheeks flushing a pretty pink. He restrained a groan as she bent at the waist to grab his favorite craft beer, Foxy Diva, from the fridge below the liquor bottles. A ravenous hunger overwhelmed him, forcing him to glance at the stranger next to him, the one with the brunette sitting on his lap.
“Oh my God, what did you do?”
The high pitch of Harper’s voice caused him to snap his head forward, finding her wide-eyed stare. He followed her gaze, discovering blood dripping from his hand onto the reclaimed wooden slab of the bar. “Shit. I’m sorry.” Now aware of the warm wetness, he scooped some napkins off the bar, wrapping them around the small laceration on his index finger. “I cut myself earlier on a saw. I thought the bleeding had stopped.”
Harper frowned, peeling back the napkins, examining the laceration for herself. “By the looks of it, you need stiches.”
“It’s fine,” he countered.
She gave the laceration another look, then rolled her eyes. “Actually, it’s not fine at all. Come on, there’s a first aid kit in the back.”
He stayed put on the stool. “Nah, it’s good.” What he needed was a beer, food, and a little time with Harper. Those three things always seemed to right his world.
Harper’s expression turned hard, her hands on her hips. “You are bleeding all over the bar. First, that’s really gross and unsanitary for the other customers. Second, stop being a big baby and follow me.”
Beside Chase, the man chuckled.
Chase rose, giving the guy a grin. “Careful. I still have that saw.” He left the guy, who wisely shut up, behind him, following Harper as she ducked under the bar to lead him into the back. They passed the kitchen, full of stainless steel appliances and tables, where the cook was too busy to notice them passing.
Harper made it to a small office and pointed him inside. “Sit.” He dropped down into the client chair while she left him, returning a minute later with a first aid kit. “Since you refuse to go get stitches, let’s hope this works.” She took a seat at the desk and pulled out sterilized wound-closure strips from the first aid kit and began cutting them. After she’d cut the second strip to size, she asked, “Are you okay?”
“Besides having a cut finger, yes.”
She took the napkins away, placing them beneath his hand to catch the blood. “You sure?”
Chase gave her a hard look now. “It’s a cut, that’s all. I’m fine.”
She hesitated. Then, “You look tired.”
“I’m fine.”
“You do realize you’re saying ‘I’m fine’ a lot, which indicates that you’re totally not fine.” Her wise eyes flicked to his, seemingly reading right through him. “Besides, it’s not like you to cut your finger on a saw.”
“Precisely,” he agreed. To stop this conversation that was going nowhere, he leaned forward, watching her lips part in a blatant invitation for him to claim her, and winked. “Truly, Harper, the only problem right now is that my pride is being crucified.”
She laughed softly and inspected the wound on his finger. Blood continued to seep down his hand onto the napkins. Chase didn’t need to discuss how exhausted he felt. The heaviness was there in his damn bones. But that was expected, considering his company, Blackshaw Construction, was at the end of a three-month job that his two brothers had entrusted to him. They were turning their late father’s cattle ranch into a guest ranch, where guests could come run cattle alongside the Blackshaw Cattle Company cowboys.
