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Cowboy Billionaire
Cowboy Grump
Cowboy’s Nanny
Cowboy Billionaire Triplets Series
Cowboy Bosshole
Cowboy’s One-Night Stand
Broken Cowboy’s Promise
Cowboy Billionaire Brothers Series
Damaged Cowboy
Cowboy Player
Doctor Cowboy
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Cowboy Billionaire Sneak Peek
Rhys
Austin, Texas. Late August
“If today never happened again, I’d be one happy son of a bitch.”
Today had been one of those days:whatever could go wrong, did.When an executive assistant mistakenly shipped an order to the wrong client, well, that had been an honest mistake. But after that, the day quickly went to hell, complete with liquid nitrogen canisters exploding in a heating tray, and someone getting the bright idea to toast a day’s work using Petri dishes from a Mad Cow test as shot glasses.
Now half the team was in quarantine, scheduled for a series of MRIs and blood tests to make sure they were not showing signs of bleeding from their eyes.
I stepped into my third-floor apartment, toeing off my shoes and tossing my jacket over a kitchen chair as I beelined it to the fridge to liberate a bottle of ice-cold Lone Star.
Slumping into a chair, I took a swig and pressed the cool bottle to my throbbing temple. I was only twenty-six, but I felt like I was pushing sixty. If this was the kind of headache I’d be getting for the rest of my life as a biochemist, I’d rather return my degree and take up tree-hugging in the Redwood National Park, tie-dye shirt included.
After another swig, I opened the fridge again and took out the rest of the casserole my neighbor Missus Myrtle made for me every Sunday. She was a sweet octogenarian with two opinionated Maine Coon cats and a couple of grandsons that had come over a few times. I played handyman for her most weeks, and she cooked for me every Sunday. It worked out because I may be a so-calledgenius, but my cooking skills stop at making coffee and putting bread in the toaster.
After I popped the casserole into the oven, I slipped into a quick, if not quiet, shower. Even with the window closed and me under the spray, I still heard cars honking, semis rumbling down the street, and chatter from the neighbors below -- specifically, a woman screaming at her cheating ex.
The sounds were muffled, but were the usual city noises, so different from the ones back home on the wide-open ranches of Hill Country. There you could hear an owl screech for miles, the river rushing by, and the ground tremble as the horses took off.
“God, what I’d give for a breath of country air,” I rubbed the stiffness at the base of my neck, “and a slice of Aunt Rose’s apple pie.”
A country boy at heart, while I dreamed about horses at night, I woke to do serum metabolic profilingon herds. I knew what hoof rot looked like, just as I knew the bacteria that caused it. Years ago, after I’d graduated from MIT and was packing for my move to the city, Aunt Rose had looked at me, patted me on the cheek, and said, “You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.”
She was right.
I wanted to go home, but I had made a life here. Even if I did pick up and leave, what for? A ranch that my brother owned? What would I do there? I had been born into ranch life, but I had not truly fit there… matter of fact, I didn’t fully fit here either.
I was too smart to be country and too country to be a geneticist.
Sighing, I shut off the water, wrapping a towel around my waist as I stepped out of the shower, and gazed into the mirror. Disheveled sandy brown hair curling at the ends—just like my dearly departed Daddy -- framed blue-green eyes -- just like my mom’s. Only this time, the dark circles under my eyes were getting darker. I rubbed a hand over my cheek and sighed at the stubble on my jaw and chin. I’d deal with that tomorrow.
