Dearest Cowboys Box Set

by Mia Brown

  Speaking to him, though, he seemed different. I didn’t know him, so I wasn’t sure in what way, but he didn’t seem like the womanizer I pegged him to be. Or maybe I was just being a bitch, so he wasn’t even trying.

  Yeah, that was likely.

  After a couple of minutes, he came back. I was about to take my fourth shot when he put his hand on my shoulder, and I nearly spilled it.

  “Woah,” I said and downed it awkwardly.

  “Sorry,” he said. He sat down again, watching me with an amused grin.

  I glanced sideways at him. “What?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Nothing. I have a proposition for you.”

  “Oh?” I asked and turned to him. The room was slowly starting to spin around me, and the alcohol buzzing through my veins took the edge off. I wasn’t in such a bad mood, and I had to admit that Ace was drop-dead gorgeous. Dark hair, dark, liquid eyes. Smoldering.

  “I live on a ranch in Odessa. Come work for us at the ranch after Christmas.”

  “What?” I asked. “On a ranch?”

  Ace nodded. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It’s hard work. But it’s a job. My brother already agreed.” He nodded toward the guy I’d thought was his friend.

  I nodded my head. This sounded a lot like the answer to my problems. It seemed too good to be true.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Ace smiled at me. “Why what?” he asked.

  “Why are you offering me a job?”

  He shrugged. It was less annoying and more attractive now that my mood was getting better.

  “Because we need the help. Breeding season is coming up, and there will be a lot to do.”

  He hesitated, looking like he wanted to add on to his sentence, but he stopped himself and nodded.

  “So? What do you think?” he asked.

  What did I think? I thought that I had always been a city girl and working on a ranch had been the last thing on my mind to do as work, even just for a holiday job. But it was a job, as Ace had said. There was no other way for me to avoid staying in Ohio with my parents.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Ace grinned broadly. “Okay,” he said. He waved at the bartender and ordered two drinks and another round of shots.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Buying us drinks so we can seal the deal and celebrate.”

  My head was already spinning, my legs felt a little like jelly—that happened when I drank—but I was getting free alcohol and a job. Why not?

  When the alcohol arrived—whiskey for him and a cocktail for me, and tequila for both of us—Ace handed me a shot glass and lifted one of his own.

  “To solutions,” he said.

  “To solutions,” I echoed and clinked my glass against his. We threw back the tequila without doing the salt-and-lemon routine. I made a face. I didn’t usually drink tequila that way. After a few sips of my cocktail, the worst was gone. But tequila always left a bitter taste at the back of my throat that was hard to shake.

  Almost like my parents, except they didn’t even make me feel good for a while the way tequila did.

  We sat together for a while, drinking and talking.

  “Shouldn’t you ask your brother to join us?” I asked, looking over at the table where he’d been sitting, but it was empty. I frowned.

  Ace shook his head. “He had to leave soon after I spoke to him. Little emergency.”

  I nodded. Maybe I should ask? Ace had been comfortable getting information out of me, but I was too drunk to be polite about it, and the truth was right now, I didn’t care all that much. I had too many problems of my own to worry about someone else’s. Usually, I was attentive and caring. But tonight, I was angry, and I didn’t want to be anything that anyone expected. Not even me.

  So, instead of asking, I said, “I hope it’s nothing serious.”

  Ace nodded. “Thank you.” And we left it at that.

  We spoke about other things, about students and classes. We laughed about things that had happened on campus, and before I knew it, it was past midnight, and I was drunker than I’d meant to be. Much drunker.

  “I have to go,” I said, sliding off the barstool and planting myself on wobbly legs. Ace reached out and grabbed my arm to steady me—something I hadn’t realized I needed.

  “Let me help you find a cab.”

  I nodded, because I was sure I did need the help. We walked outside. I leaned against Ace because the floor felt a lot more uneven than it should have been. The smell of his cologne was in my nostrils, and it was good, so good. His body was strong as he held me up, and I liked how close he was.

  I was drunk, I told myself.

  When we were outside, Ace flagged a cab for me. When the car stopped in front of us, he dug in his pocket.

  “Here,” he said, handing me the slip for the alcohol we’d had.

  “What’s this?” I asked, staring at the numbers.

  Ace shook his head. “No, on the back.”

  When I turned it over his name, number and address were scribbled on the slip. He must have done it inside.

  “Call me after Christmas, and we’ll arrange everything. And don’t lose that.”

  I stuffed it into my handbag. “I won’t,” I said. “And I will.” It came out the wrong way around, but Ace laughed and opened the car door for me.

  “Be safe, Vanessa,” he said.

  “You know my name.” I copied what he’d said earlier.

  He smiled. “You bet, little lady.” He closed the car door when I was in and waved through the window at the driver who pulled off. I tipped my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see the movement of the city sliding by as we drove.

  Three

  Ace

  Christmas sped by. My mom was in good enough health for a while, and we could all relax and enjoy ourselves. It was good to be back home with my family and childhood friends, even though I’d vowed I wouldn’t make a career as a rancher.

  The new year rolled around, winter retreated, and before we knew it, spring was in the air. The first two months of the year always sped by with everything that needed to be taken care of. It felt like I blinked and it was spring again. The ranch was green again with rolling fields of grass, bright green leaves on the trees, and the grim feel of winter was a thing of the past.

  I loved seeing the ranch transform. As the weather changed, the place came back to life again. The herds were out in the fields, and the promise of summer hung in the air even though spring had only just started.

  I had forgotten how much I’d missed this place. When I’d enrolled to study in Austin, I’d been more than happy to get away from the ranch and the responsibility that had been left behind by my father. I had felt like I’d been forced into something I hadn’t chosen.

  Now that I was back again, it was different. This time, I chose to be here and do all the work. I had chosen to come home.

  And I realized how much I loved the ranch. It held so much sentiment, but it also had a lot of potential to become something spectacular. And now that I had studied and earned a degree and I knew what I was doing, I could help the ranch prosper. Once upon a time, it had felt like home had been a dead end for me, but everything was different now.

  I had fallen back into my old ways, too—no shirt, faded and ripped jeans, my skin leathery from sunburn and peeling. There was no image to uphold here, no women that I had to impress, and no one to be but myself.

  And it was refreshing.

  Andrew and I were in the stables brushing down our horses. We’d ridden out to the bottom fields to check the fences; they needed repairing before we let out the weaners. They didn’t need to be with their mothers anymore since they’d been weaned, but they tended to wander off a lot easier, too.

  “So, how does it feel to be home and back at it?” Andrew asked.

  “Better than I thought it would.”

  “And you’re not dying of withdrawal? Not missing being buried under a
pile of women?”

  I chuckled. “Nah, I’m good.”

  Everything had changed over Christmas. When I had been at the university, it had been about sleeping around as much as I could, enjoying myself, taking what they had to offer. But with Mom being as sick as she was, she didn’t have a lot of time left. No one had said it, but I wasn’t stupid. And I had started thinking about what would happen after she was gone: what would be left.

  Andrew and I would always be brothers, but we wouldn’t be a family anymore, not like we had been growing up. It made me want that for myself. It made me want to settle down with someone, build a future together. Of course, I didn’t have anyone I could do that with right now. There were women everywhere that would be willing to settle down with me—but if I dated again, did anything with anyone, I wanted it to be serious. The next woman would be someone I would settle down with.

  Alana would be all too happy to fill that role. She’d had a crush on me since we were kids, and I had kissed her a few times. But we would never be more. I saw her as a sister rather than a girlfriend.

  “What’s happening with that woman you spoke to me about?” Andrew asked. “Wasn’t she supposed to come work here?”

  I nodded. “She’s arriving today.”

  “Oh, nice of you to give me a heads-up. I thought since it’s been so long she wasn’t coming anymore.”

  “She said something about having family things she needed to take care of when she called. I’m not sure what it was about.” And I didn’t really care. I’d offered to help her out because she had looked stressed that night. Since then, I’d had my own stresses to deal with.

  “Still would have been nice for you to let me know,” Andrew said.

  I shrugged. My mom and Alana knew she was coming, and they were the ones that were going to work with her. Andrew had known about her when I’d offered her the job, but I didn’t want to make a fuss. She wasn’t that important to me.

  “We’ll have to ride out again in the morning to fix that fence,” I said, changing the topic.

  “Yeah, it’s going to take a full morning to do it, too,” Andrew said.

  I nodded and walked out of the barn. The sun beat down on my bare back, and the weather was dry. I walked to the trough and opened the tap. Freezing water ran over my hands, and I bent down to have a drink.

  The sound of a car coming down the road made me look up. It drove to the house and parked. It had tinted windows, so aside from a shape inside, I couldn’t tell who it was. When the door opened, Vanessa appeared.

  Her blonde hair was loose over her shoulders, and she wore designer sunglasses. I let my eyes slide down her body. She wore jeans that were so tight they looked painted on, and she’d bought herself a pair of cowboy boots. Fashion boots, not anything she could use on the ranch. How quaint.

  I watched her turn around and look at the ranch, her hands on her hips. She hadn’t seen me yet. With the glasses on I couldn’t tell what she thought about the ranch, but I was sure I caught her sighing.

  She was a typical city girl: that much was clear. I’d seen her type before: the kind that wore fashion boots instead of practical shoes and jeans so thin they would rip through them long before nearing a horse. She would probably freak out about breaking a nail, and I couldn’t imagine her being happy with getting dirty.

  A part of me wondered why the hell I had offered her this job in the first place. Maybe it had been her little “save me” drama and the way she’d looked that night. Possibly it had been the alcohol. Or it might have been the desperation after seeing how much sicker my mom had become since I’d last seen her.

  There was nothing to be done about it now. Vanessa would learn, and fast. It was satisfying to think that someone of the likes of her would be knocked down to size. Maybe I would give her a couple of hard jobs around here at first to drive that point home. Working on a ranch was nothing less than a humbling experience, and that was on a good day.

  Yeah, I would make sure she got the full effect of what it meant to work on a ranch. It was one thing I had to admit Alana wasn’t afraid of—getting her hands dirty. She had never feared working alongside the men, even if she couldn’t do everything the way I could. I didn’t see her as anyone I wanted to be with, but I could appreciate a woman that looked hard work in the eye without flinching.

  I doubted that would be the case with Vanessa. I didn’t know anything about her, as I’d only run into her a few times around campus. But judging by the look of her, she was from a shiny life with a coddled childhood and the idea that life was easy. Maybe I was wrong, but I was a good judge of character, usually, and I was sure I had her pinned down right.

  I walked toward her. She leaned back into the car through the open door, bending at the hips, and I had a beautiful view of her ass. Full, round, grabbable. And in those jeans, she looked delicious.

  She straightened up, backing out of the car again. For a moment, I allowed myself to imagined grabbing her hips and holding her in place with her ass pointed to me, but she turned around and finally saw me.

  “Ace?” she asked like she wasn’t sure it was me. I still couldn’t see her eyes, but it was obvious she was looking me up and down. I knew I appeared different than the way I’d looked on campus the past four years. That guy had faded again the moment I’d come home.

  “You made it,” I said.

  Vanessa nodded. Her face was expressionless with the sunglasses covering her eyes.

  “How was your trip?”

  She nodded and finally lifted the sunglasses, pushing them onto her head. It pulled her hair back. Her eyes were striking—a mixture of gray and the strangest blue so that the overall color was violet.

  Violet eyes. I had never seen something so rare and beautiful in my life.

  “It was good. I found the ranch easily enough.” She looked around again, and I studied her face for a reaction, but she was carefully blank. “Thank you for having me.”

  I nodded. She really was a stunner; I had to admit to that. She looked like she’d stepped from the pages of a magazine. Her skin was flawless, her lips full and tinted slightly pink, and the blouse she wore was buttoned down just low enough to leave a lot to the imagination. And boy, did I have a wild imagination.

  “Don’t mention it,” I said. “You’re doing me a favor as much as I’m doing for you.”

  She nodded slowly before turning and opening the trunk of her car. She only had one bag. I had expected her to travel with at least three—wasn’t that how most women rolled? It irritated the living shit out of me, so this was refreshing. It was unexpected. There was at least one redeeming feature about her. Well, two if you counted her delectable ass.

  “How has the new year been?” she asked. Her conversation was stiff and awkward.

  I nodded. “It’s been great, thank you.” What was I going to say? We had nothing to talk about.

  The year had been as good as it could have been with how sick my mother was getting. I was starting to worry about her—a lot. No matter how much I thought Vanessa wouldn’t fit into this world with the clothes she wore and her glossy, rich sheen, I was glad someone would be around to take care of my mom after Alana went home. With Alana staying in town, Vanessa would be the one to be on call at night with the calves and other emergencies, and that put me at ease.

  The calves might not be alone in needing Vanessa. Time would tell if she would be worth her salt.

  “Let me show you to your quarters,” I said.

  When I said it, the corners of her mouth twitched up into a smile, and it changed her features entirely. She was beautiful.

  Four

  Vanessa

  When Ace came to the car, I couldn’t help but ogle. I was glad I’d been wearing my sunglasses. Women probably stared at him all the time, and I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. But God, the guy was hot. Chiseled, tan, and totally unaware of what a stud he was.

  I could understand why the women at campus had fallen at his feet. When I�
��d run into him at Cain & Abel, I hadn’t really thought much of his looks. Sure, he was attractive, but I had been too caught up in my misery. That, and he hadn’t looked nearly like he looked now. If I had known that he’d had all that going on underneath his shirt, I might have approached him a little differently before.

  But he must have had so many women in his years at college; the last thing I wanted to be was another notch on his bedpost. I didn’t want to be compared to a hundred other women. I knew I was on the exciting side when it came to sex, but I wasn’t going to try competing.

  When Ace approached me, he’d looked me up and down like I assumed he’d done with so many women before, but instead of making me feel good about myself, it just made me feel self-conscious. He had judgment all over his face, and I couldn’t blame him.

  I felt like an idiot. I had dressed the way I’d thought a cowgirl should—jeans, boots, a blouse. Now, I felt stupid. The ranch wasn’t nearly what I’d expected it to be. I wasn’t sure what I had expected now that I thought back, but this place was raw and wild.

  The land stretched flat and beautiful in all directions, the fence that I’d driven past when I’d come down the road nowhere in sight. It led me to believe that it all belonged to Ace and his family. It was something to be proud of, but I could see why he needed more hands around the ranch. It had to take a lot of work to maintain a place like this. Work that apparently wouldn’t happen in boots and jeans like mine.

  Speaking of boots, they were hurting my feet like nobody’s business. I hadn’t really broken them in, and I couldn’t imagine what it had to be like walking in them all day. What had I thought I would have to do?

  The truth was, I hadn’t thought about it at all. I had been so happy that I would have a job, that I wouldn’t have to stay with my parents, that I hadn’t thought much further than that.

  Maybe I should have thought about it. Ace had every right to judge me, to look at me the way he was looking at me. I just wished that it was different. Now that I saw this side of him—the uncultured, delicious side of him that would never have had a space on campus—I wanted him to look differently at me. I wanted him to look at me like he wanted me.