The Rebel and the Cowboy (The Carmody Brothers Book 2)

by Sarah Mayberry

  “Be kind of cool to hear one of our songs on the radio,” Rory said. “And the studio time would come in handy if we want to start selling stuff online.”

  Again, they looked to him, and Casey shrugged, even though his heart was sinking. The Whiskey Shots were his escape, his happy place, an indulgence he allowed himself to feed the part of his soul that needed music. He’d never harbored dreams of the band hitting it big because he’d always known they’d need to go on the road to build a profile to get anywhere, and he wasn’t in a position to walk away from his obligations on the ranch. He’d thought the other guys were in the same place—they’d explicitly talked about being a local band and having other commitments when they first formed two years ago.

  And yet right now there was no doubt that all three of his bandmates were keen to take a shot at the big time if the opportunity presented itself.

  “Hey, if you guys want to put a song in, let’s do it,” he said, but even he could hear the lack of enthusiasm in his own voice.

  “You don’t want to?” Danny asked.

  Casey shrugged again. “I don’t lie in bed at night dreaming about us selling out stadium concerts. That was never what the Shots were about for me.”

  “Sure, none of us jumped into this with stars in our eyes, but the Shots have been pulling bigger and bigger crowds. You honestly telling me you don’t feel a bit of an itch to see how big this thing could get?” Danny asked.

  Casey could see they didn’t understand where he was coming from. He was loath to reveal too much about private family business, but he felt as though they deserved an explanation for his tepid response.

  “We’ve got some money problems out at the ranch at the moment.” He could feel heat rising up his neck as he spoke, but he owed the guys some background so they understood where he was coming from. “We’re pretty much cutting everything to the bone. I can’t afford to take time out to do anything more with the band than what we do now. I can’t let Jed, Jesse and Sierra down like that.”

  “Sorry, man. I didn’t realize,” Danny said, looking about as uncomfortable as Casey felt.

  “We’re not exactly shouting it from the rooftops. And we’ll come good. It’s just tight right now, you know?” Casey said.

  Wyatt was nodding as though he understood. “Louanne’s father has been saying the same. Lost too much feed to game during the winter, and the market’s been low for too long. It’s a bad combination.”

  “And don’t get me started on the tariffs,” Rory said.

  Danny held up his hands to stem the flow. “Don’t ruin my post-jam buzz, boys.”

  Casey laughed along with the others, but he felt bad. He didn’t want to be the handbrake holding everyone back.

  “Fuck it, let’s put a song in. Just to see how we do, like a benchmark,” he said.

  He didn’t say it out loud, but there was bound to be plenty of competition. Worrying about winning was pretty much the definition of putting the cart before the horse.

  “We’ve said for a while it would be cool to be able to make our stuff available online,” Rory said. “I know we can record on Danny’s setup here if we really have to, but some real studio time would be good. If we win, we can just blow off the huge recording contracts we’ll be offered left, right and center and tell Garth Brooks we’re not interested in touring with him.”

  The guys all laughed again.

  “All right, I’ve gotta go, but we should all have a think about what song to put in,” Wyatt said, shouldering the strap for his keyboard carrier.

  “Everyone picks one song, and we’ll vote. Deal?” Rory suggested.

  “Cool,” Casey said.

  He walked out to his truck with the guys, waving them off before reversing out of Danny’s driveway and heading back to the ranch. As always, he felt himself get tense as he approached the spot on the state highway where his parents had died thirteen years ago. It had been fast—a head-on collision—but Casey never drove this way without thinking about them and that night.

  Ten minutes later, gravel crunched beneath the wheels as he turned into the driveway. Band practice had pushed their houseguest from his mind and the sight of her beaten-up black van in front of the barn made him blink with surprise.

  Kind of funny, given how much he’d been thinking about her, on and off, ever since he’d met her this afternoon. Despite his best intentions.

  He figured it was because she was so different from the women he knew locally. Her skin was city-pale, and her tattoo and short hair marked her out as a rebel. Then there was the frankness in her gaze, a quality he found undeniably hot.

  He parked beside his brother’s truck, then grabbed his guitar and headed inside. Jed was in the kitchen making himself a coffee when Casey entered and he raised his eyebrows and lifted the jug, silently asking if Casey wanted a cup.

  “Thanks, I’m gonna grab a beer,” Casey said, helping himself to a bottle from the fridge.

  “How’d practice go?” his brother asked, stirring sugar into his coffee.

  “Good. Same as usual. Fine-tuned the new song.”

  “The one you’ve been working on lately? It’s a good one.”

  “Thanks, but it still needs work.” He took a pull from his beer, then did his best to sound casual. “You met our houseguest yet?”

  “You mean our tenant? Yeah, she came up to the house to talk to Sierra after you left.”

  “Kind of interesting,” Casey said.

  “In what way?”

  Suddenly Casey felt incredibly transparent. He shrugged casually. “Apparently she’s an artist, or something like that.”

  His brother gave him a long look before hiding a half-smile behind the rim of the coffee mug. “Yeah, I heard that.”

  “I’m going to go check on the horses,” Casey said.

  Before he exposed himself any more.

  “I’m turning in after this,” Jed said, raising his mug. “So I’ll see you in the morning. Still set to go into town first thing?”

  “Yep, all good.”

  Casey exited via the kitchen door, stepping onto the porch. His boots were loud on the wooden planks as he made his way to the steps at the front of the house.

  Why on earth did he bring up Eva King with his brother? So he could talk about her? Fish for more information?

  Dumb. Now Jed was going to give him hell. And God help him if Sierra ever got wind of him being interested in their temporary tenant.

  He didn’t bother switching on the light in the barn, not wanting to disturb the horses unnecessarily. He did a quick check on their two pregnant mares, making sure they had enough feed and water. He was rubbing the swollen side of a heavily pregnant mare when he registered the faint sound of music coming through the barn wall. He cocked his head, trying to discern what it was.

  The syncopated beat clued him in before he discerned the lyric of Chet Faker’s “Talk is Cheap.”

  Interesting choice.

  He pictured Eva in the trailer, listening to Chet Faker while she did…whatever it was she did. Painting? Drawing?

  He shook his head, turning toward the door. He seriously needed to stop thinking about Eva King. He was starting to come off as desperate, even in the privacy of his own mind.

  He stepped out into the dark yard and was just in time to catch sight of something in his peripheral vision before their new tenant walked into him with a startled yelp.

  “Oh my God. You scared the crap out of me,” she said.

  The only light source was the stars overhead but he could see she had one hand pressed to her chest, as though checking to make sure her heart was still in residence.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “No, it’s my fault. Normally I would have used the light on my phone but the reason I’m out here is because I need the charger and I left it in the van,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh.

  She’d changed out of her jeans and T-shirt into a tank and what looked like a pair of men’
s boxer shorts. The laces on her Chuck Taylors were undone and he guessed she’d been ready for bed when her phone died.

  “There’s a switch in the trailer for the barn lights. And another one just here. Sierra should have pointed them out to you.”

  He indicated the waterproof switch to the left of the main door to the barn.

  “She probably did and I forgot. Sorry for the drama. I had no idea my voice could get that high.”

  “No drama. Grab your charger and I’ll show you the switch in the trailer,” he said.

  She hesitated a fraction of a second before responding. “Sure. Great. Thanks.”

  She walked the final few feet to her van and unlocked the side door, pushing it wide on its sliders. An interior light came on, bathing her in a yellow glow. She leaned into the van, one foot propped on the floor, rummaging for the charger.

  He allowed himself a single brief glance at her toned legs before looking away.

  “Got it. Was starting to think I must have left it in Salt Lake City last night,” she said, sliding the van door shut.

  He watched as she carefully locked it again.

  “Not a lot of grand theft auto around here,” he said. “You probably don’t need to stress about security.”

  “Old habits die hard. I grew up in Detroit.”

  “You still live there?”

  “I’ve been based in LA for the last few years,” she said.

  She was standing a few feet away, but the darkness made their conversation feel oddly intimate. He was acutely aware of her bare arms and legs, as well as his own reaction to her presence.

  Gut tight, senses heightened, pulse a little fast.

  Get a grip, dude.

  “I’ll show you the switches, for next time,” he said, gesturing toward the barn.

  “Cool. Thanks.”

  She followed him as he walked to the waterproof switch mounted to the left of the barn door.

  “This’ll give you light here and down the pathway,” he said, flicking it on.

  She laughed as they were bathed in light from the gooseneck lamps mounted either side of the door.

  “That was almost Biblical,” she said.

  “The miracle of electricity.”

  She shot him an appreciative look, her mouth curling at the corners.

  “So there’s another one of these in the trailer?” she asked.

  “Next to the fuse box.”

  She fell in beside him as he walked past the barn and down the gravel path beside it.

  “So what do you guys farm here? Or grow. Is that even the right term?” she asked.

  “We’re a cattle operation, mostly, but we also breed horses for ranch work. Crop-wise, we grow our own feed as much as we can, but that’s about it.”

  “So next time I’m eating a steak, I should think of you guys?”

  “If you like,” he said, glancing across at her.

  She looked at him at the same time and their gazes clashed and held for a long beat before she broke the contact. They’d reached the Airstream and he paused at the foot of the steps.

  “Okay if I go in?” he asked.

  “Hey, it’s your trailer, not mine,” she said.

  “It’s yours for the next two nights,” he reminded her.

  He opened the door and stepped inside.

  “This box set into the wall is the fuse box. And this switch here turns the barn lights on and off,” he explained.

  Eva stopped just inside the doorway, her attention focused on the fuse box. “So it’s a two-way switch, then?”

  “That’s right. You can turn it off here, I can turn it on at the barn, and vice versa,” he said, demonstrating by flicking the light off.

  With the loss of the barn lighting, the only illumination came from the reading lamp above the bed and Casey was suddenly acutely aware of how alone they were, and how close she was.

  “Thank you. I promise I won’t ambush you in the dark again,” she said.

  He turned the barn lights back on, and the shadows—and intimacy—receded.

  “No harm done,” he said, turning to go.

  He expected her to step back, out of the doorway, but she didn’t immediately move and for the second time that night they were standing too close. He could smell her perfume, something sweet and earthy, and couldn’t seem to stop his gaze from sliding from her face to her body. Which was when he made the discovery she was braless beneath her tank top, her nipples clearly visible against the fabric.

  He forced his gaze back to her face and knew she’d caught him looking. The world seemed to still as they stared at each other, the silence thrumming with a hundred unspoken thoughts, most of them dirty. He’d wondered if she was as aware of him as he was of her, and now he knew.

  She’d thought about him in the hours since they’d met, in the same way he’d thought about her. He could see it in the way she swallowed, the slight flush to her cheeks, and the barely visible flutter of her pulse at the base of her neck.

  He’d never felt so drawn to a woman before, so compelled and fascinated. Everything in him wanted to close the distance between them but at the same time the sheer intensity of his need made him hesitate. And then she stepped back down the steps, retreating outside, and the potential of the moment drained away like water from a bathtub. Taking his cue from her, he exited the trailer.

  “Thanks for your help. I appreciate it,” she said.

  “You have a good night,” he said.

  Lifting a hand in farewell, he walked away from what could have been and didn’t stop until he was in the privacy of his own room.

  Sinking down onto his bed, he reviewed what had just happened and let out his breath on a frustrated sigh, annoyed with himself for not following his instincts.

  She’d wanted him. He’d seen it in her eyes.

  Then he ran a hand through his hair and sighed again, his shoulders dropping a notch. The truth was, he’d never been a fast mover with women like his rodeo star brother, Jesse. Not that he was lacking in experience or anything, he’d just never been the kind of guy who’d pursued a woman just to get her into bed. For him, it had always been a package deal.

  But maybe he’d just never met a woman he really wanted to fuck before. Because that was pretty much all he could think about when he was around Eva King.

  Might as well own it, since it was true.

  Anyway. He hadn’t made his move, and she hadn’t, either, so there was no point dwelling on it. Standing, he went to brush his teeth and prepare for bed.

  Chapter Three

  What the hell were you thinking?

  The question kept circling Eva’s brain as she brushed her teeth at the small bathroom sink and crawled into bed. Here she was, on the eve of what could be the most important, momentous meeting of her life, and she’d almost leapt on a man she’d just met and torn his clothes off. It beggared belief, it really did. She should be focusing on her pitch, not getting all hot and bothered over a beautiful cowboy.

  It was ridiculous. Self-destructive, even.

  Lying in the dark, she went over the tense, breathless moments after she’d caught Casey Carmody checking out her breasts. There was no reason in the world why the knowledge he’d noticed she was a woman should have affected her so profoundly. She’d had men check her out before, plenty of times. Some of them had been pretty hot, too. None of them had emptied her brain of all thought except the need to get naked and sweaty, however.

  Not a single one.

  There was some serious, nuclear chemistry going on between her and Casey Carmody. It seemed pointless to deny it, since the evidence was still vibrating its way through her body ten minutes after he’d walked away. She wanted him, and he wanted her, in the most basic, carnal, instinctive way. Which was pretty much the best example of bad timing Eva had come across in her life. She did not have the headspace or energy to spare on a distraction right now. She needed to be laser-focused, at her absolute sharpest.

  Just as well common
sense had reasserted itself before she’d done or said anything she couldn’t take back. Otherwise she’d be rolling around on this very bed right now, a hard, hot cowboy pounding into her.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she said.

  Rolling onto her side, she squeezed her eyes shut, ignoring the needy throb between her thighs and willing herself to sleep. It took some serious concentration, but she finally felt the worries of the day slip away from her, and the next thing she knew it was morning and she could hear a car engine starting outside in the yard.

  Struggling out of the mess she’d made of the sheets and duvet, she blinked blearily. Then she remembered how much work she had to do today, and she kicked the covers off and scrambled to the edge of the bed to grab her laptop.

  She spent two hours adding yesterday’s photographs to her pitch document before hunger pangs drove her to stop. She stuffed her face with a couple of granola bars, then had a shower and went back to work, finessing copy, researching details online, tweaking the layout. By two o’clock she was satisfied she’d created an attractive, professional document. She’d brought her portable inkjet printer with her, and she printed a proof copy and checked it over. Only when she was satisfied she hadn’t tripped herself up with a dumb typo did she print off several copies for her meeting at four.

  By then it was three and she had to rush to get ready and leave enough time to drive into town. There was no full-length mirror in the trailer, so she had to hope that her slim black trousers, long white shirt and fitted black waistcoat looked presentable. She had a last-minute panic when she could only find one of her prized, handmade Italian brogues, but she finally thought to check in the van and found it wedged under the front seat. How it got there she had no idea, but searching for it had chewed up precious time and she was feeling distinctly panicky by the time she’d gathered her papers and computer and transferred it all to the car.

  Being busy all day had kept the worst of her nerves at bay, but there was nothing to do but drive as she headed into town and she could feel adrenaline spike in her belly as she contemplated the meeting ahead.

  She knew getting the commission was a long shot. She only had an interview because she’d called up and literally pleaded with them to give her an opportunity to pitch alongside Dane. She suspected they were only giving her a hearing because she’d been so insistent and persistent. They’d probably already made up their minds to go with the man whose name was on all the art Eva had helped create. And why not? Dane had a reputation—he’d bring international cachet to the project. He was a known quantity.