Not—it went without saying—the sort of woman he usually found hanging around, waiting for him to show up. Not enough cleavage, for one thing. And definitely not enough teased hair. He liked his women cheap and obvious and all but flashing neon signs above their heads to shout out their availability.
This woman looked like trouble. Expensive trouble and a whole lot of work. He was in the market for neither.
Jasper slowed to a stroll as he drew near, eyeing her not-nearly-tight-enough pants and definitely-not-slinky-enough top, that thick blonde hair twisted back from her face in a way that shouted sensible, with something uncomfortably close to regret. He wondered what it would be like to have a woman like this—her figure concealed by her outfit instead of starkly presented to him like a Vegas buffet—throw herself at him the way the bimbos did so easily. But that was the paradox, of course. The good girls had steered well clear of him even before he’d had money, like he had darkness grafted on to his very bones and they could scent it in the wind.
He’d learned to live with cheap and calculating. He’d even have said he liked it, the predictability and the ease of that kind of woman, the uncomplicated nature of such mercenary transactions, until now.
“Sorry,” he said when he was close, letting his Texas roots have their way with his drawl, and surprised to discover he meant it. “You’re not really my type.”
She blinked, her lips parting slightly, which drew his attention to what might have been the most carnal mouth in the whole of the West. It hit him like a hammer, pounding an impossible lust through his body to pool in his sex.
What the hell? “I–what?” It was like she could read his mind, and it made her stammer.
“I like easy and sleazy.” He grinned slightly, imagining that mouth of hers engaged in practices that would fall under both headings. “I’m afraid I’m true to my redneck roots.” He flipped the bottom of his ratty green Stars t-shirt up to wipe at his face, and when he lowered it, was more delighted than he should have been to find her staring at his abdomen with a look on her face that suggested he’d smacked her over the head with a hammer of his own. His grin widened. “I don’t really go for the disapproving schoolmarm thing. But I sure do appreciate the thought.”
She blinked again. Then understanding flooded over her surprisingly readable face and Jasper watched in fascination as she went pale, then a deep red. A blush? When was the last time he’d seen a woman blush? His ex-wife had been incapable of it—and, for that matter, just about everything else it turned out a marriage required.
Jasper banished thoughts of that blessedly short-lived disaster, and concentrated on the woman in front of him instead. He couldn’t seem to keep himself from imagining what that blush might look like in far more interesting places. And were those freckles across her delicate cheeks, complicating the creamy sweep of her skin?
He didn’t understand why he found that so intriguing. Or why it made him want in a way he hadn’t felt in so long, it took him a moment or two to recognize what that particular feeling, sharp and intense and roaring in him so loudly, even was.
“It’s seven thirty in the morning.” She sounded scandalized. Her eyes were a blue to rival the Montana sky, and they widened in what had to be horror, which he felt like a heat wave throughout his body, reminding him how dark and perverse he was compared to an undoubtedly pure, small town sweetheart like this one. “On a Monday.”
“It wouldn’t matter if it was the sweet spot of a Saturday night,” he told her, enjoying himself immensely despite his own twisted soul. It wasn’t like he could do anything about it, could he? “It still wouldn’t work out, unless you’re hiding a honky tonk or two beneath that Head of the PTA outfit of yours.”
“I most certainly am not.” But her hands moved to the ruffled part of her blouse, then her quiet little belt buckle, as if she’d forgotten what she was wearing and had to remind herself by touch. Or make sure it was still there.
Or maybe she was as baffled by these garments, neither of which he’d ever seen on a woman under sixty-five years of age, as he was.
“I’m afraid we’re just not meant to be, darlin’,” he drawled, more Texas in his voice than usual and a fire he couldn’t quite control beneath it.
That rattled her for a moment, he could see it in that intense blue of her eyes, but then she squared her shoulders and tilted that chin of hers back up anyway. Scrappy, he thought again, and with a purely male jolt of approval that boded ill for the both of them, he just knew it.
“What on earth would make you think someone would show up and proposition you at this hour?” she demanded. “What kind of degenerate are you?”
Jasper realized then that she had no idea who he was. He found that notion wildly liberating. And, strangely, arousing. He couldn’t remember the last time someone hadn’t known who he was and acted accordingly. He’d forgotten what it was like—the honest responses that had nothing to do with his net worth, the total lack of artifice or calculation, that look on her face that suggested he was nothing but a man, and a rather unappetizing one at that.
He thought he loved this place already, and he’d been here all of two days.
“The kind of degenerate you appear to be hanging around on the street waiting for,” he replied easily, not at all surprised that he was enjoying himself now. His brows arched up. “At seven-thirty. On a Monday.”
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An excerpt from
Marry Me, Cowboy
Lilian Darcy
Copyright © 2013
Jamie MacCreadie didn’t know how to talk to women.
He was twenty-six years old. He had a mother, three sisters and an aunt he was close to, as well as a father and a brother, but apparently he still didn’t have a clue. When he was riding the adrenalin rush of a rodeo win, he thought he managed it pretty well. Or when he’d had a drink or two. Rest of the time, no, and to be honest it wasn’t a fault, as far as he was concerned. He just didn’t see the point of a whole lot of talking.
Fortunately, a lot of women seemed not to mind. They carried the dialogue forward on their own, and accepted a lazy smile or a sideways glance as his part of the conversational bargain.
Not Tegan Ash, though.
She left him in no doubt about his shortcomings in this area. In fact, she was the one who’d first pointed it out, several months ago, in her cute, blunt Australian accent. “You know what your problem is, Jamie?”
“Well... Do I have one?” He’d stayed calm and mild, knowing it would annoy her. He liked getting a rise out of her, truth to tell. She was the same age he was, and they were like grade school kids with each other, sometimes—immature in a way he didn’t think he was with other people. He was only like this with her.
“You don’t know how to talk to women,” she’d said.
She couldn’t stand him, and she was marrying his best friend.
They were both watching Chet right now, Tegan’s long, lean, barrel-racer body as lazy as Jamie’s, leaning on the rodeo arena rail. Somehow she still managed to smell like a shower stall, even though she’d been around horses all day. There was a sweet, nutty scent in the air, sourced in her thick tumble of blond hair. It disturbed his peace of mind in a way he didn’t like to think about, and he shifted six inches along the rail so he wouldn’t be close enough to notice it any more.
Chet was collecting his winner’s buckle for best all-around cowboy at the Nevada Spring Creek Stampede with the announcer’s voice booming, “Che-e-et Wyndham!” from the amplifiers, while the smell of dust and dung and horse feed and hot dogs wafted all around them.
Jamie hadn’t been so lucky today, in the saddle bronc. No buckles for him. He made an effort with Tegan. “So, wedding tomorrow.”
“You’d better show up.” Tegan flicked him a quick look. More like a glare, with those deep dragon-green eyes.
She’d placed seventeenth in the ba
rrel-racing, and she wasn’t happy. Her strong chin was stuck out stubbornly, above a smooth neck that disappeared down into a bling-covered western shirt. She had a mile-wide competitive streak that matched Jamie’s own, and it amused him sometimes because you wouldn’t have guessed it to look at her. He got a kick out of the contrast.
But she’d kicked him in a different way, this time, implying he might be unreliable on Chet’s wedding day, of all days. She carried her poor opinion of him too far, and there was no call for it.
“Like I wouldn’t show,” he said on a growl. “I’m the best man.”
“Well, you don’t seem that thrilled about it.” The green eyes challenged him, and he looked quickly away.
Yeah, he wasn’t thrilled. But not for the reason she probably thought—their dislike of each other.
In fact, he didn’t know what was bothering him about Chet and Tegan getting married. This was a super-practical green card wedding so that Tegan could stay in the country and keep on with her barrel-racing career. It wasn’t some big, hot romance between the two of them that was going to disappear in a cloud of rodeo dust after the excitement wore off.
That thing flashed into Jamie’s mind. The thing Chet had hit him with a couple of months ago when he was drunk – well, when they were both drunk, in fact. The thing Jamie didn’t like to think about, and that Chet didn’t even seem to remember, the next morning. Jamie always made his thoughts veer away from it, as he was doing now, not naming it in his head, not assigning it a value.
It probably had nothing to do with his doubts about the wedding, anyhow.
“You got a dress and everything?” he asked Tegan, to distract himself.
“We’re going with rodeo-themed outfits. You have a western shirt you can wear, right? Black, if you can. I hate dresses.”
Chet finished collecting his buckle and began ambling toward them, wearing the grin that came from relief because he wasn’t in plaster or a neck collar or a brace, as well as from knowing he’d banked a four-figure sum today. Jamie had earned a small part of that, because they team-roped together and had just squeaked into the money.
“Still, you could wear a dress to your own wedding,” he said mildly.
“Oh, because you like to see women in skirts they can’t walk in, and stress-fracture shoes?”
“No, because it’s a wedding.”
She glared at him again, but this time he met the look steady and full-on, and she was the one to chicken out first. Gotcha, Tegan, he thought, and watched as her fingers brushed in an uncertain way against her neck and some late afternoon sun etched the side of her jaw. Her cheeks had gone pink, and he couldn’t see her eyes anymore, just her lashes, which were so long and dark.
Then Chet arrived and the whole atmosphere changed. He was still buzzy from the win, and Tegan met him more than halfway. “I can’t believe you got a buckle for today. When I saw you the first three seconds out of the chute on that bronc, I thought you’d never stick him for the full eight. As for the team-roping, that was pure dumb luck, baby! Neither of you earned it.”
She punched Chet’s arm and he gave her a jittery hug and said, “What about you, tonight? What happened?”
“I should have shaved more off that last turn. I’m so mad at myself.”
As soon as horse-talk turned technical, Chet was in his element, and he always looked happier. He said, “Yeah, you should, but you had your foot stuck out so far, if you had shaved it, you would have kicked the barrel down.”
“Okay, you’re probably right.” Tegan gave one of her grins – the goofy one that said she knew she’d stuffed up. She had several quite different ways of smiling, Jamie had noticed, depending on her state of mind. “I need to work on my stupid feet, don’t I?”
“Let’s go spend some of this.” Chet flapped his wad of cash in the air.
“Bachelor party,” Jamie said, then wished he hadn’t.
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An excerpt from
Take Me, Cowboy
Jane Porter
Copyright © 2013
“I can’t do it, Jenny. I can’t go through with this.”
The warm dry autumn wind whipped Jenny Wright’s wedding veil up above her shoulders, fine lace grazing her cheek. Having lived the past ten years in Chicago, Jenny had forgotten the wind that whistled from Yellowstone, down through Paradise Valley, turning the ranching valley into a wind tunnel.
The wind snapped and crackled now, the gusts as much a part of Marietta as the iconic peak of Copper Mountain jutting behind the small, sleepy Montana town. Marietta had surged to life in the late 1800s before nearly dying, when the copper boom proved to be nothing more than a hiccup and all the investors and prospectors packed up and moved away.
It’d been a hundred and twenty some years since then but it was still hard to make a living in Marietta.
It’s why she’d left town as soon as she’d graduated from high school. It’s why she’d been determined to never move back.
She’d only come home for her wedding. Only come home to make her family proud.
Jenny gently plucked the delicate veil from her small diamond and pearl earring before it tore. “I didn’t catch that, honey,” she said, smashing the sudden rush of adrenaline flooding her veins.
No need to panic, she told herself. It was so windy today, and others might not like the gusts, but the wind had blown all the clouds north, leaving the sky above Marietta a perfect brilliant blue, and the wind had made it hard to hear.
Because for a moment there, it sounded as if Charles said he wouldn’t marry her. But that didn’t make sense. He and his family were here. The guests were here. The minister was here, all in the church waiting.
Waiting.
Her stomach rose and fell. She swallowed hard, fighting a sudden rush of nausea. She hadn’t slept well last night, nervous. Excited.
Excited, she silently insisted. Not terrified. Or sad. She would never be sad. This was the right decision. This was the best decision. It was.
It had to be.
“Can you say that again?” she asked him, fighting her veil and tamping down the horrible rush of adrenaline flooding her veins. “I didn’t hear you, honey.”
He hesitated.
She stared at his mouth, focusing on his lips, not wanting to miss a thing this time.
And looking at his mouth, she tried to feel reassured. Because she knew him. She’d worked for his company for years, first as an administrative assistant in Human Resources, then as a manager, before he’d hand -picked her to be his assistant, and then his girlfriend. His woman. It hadn’t happened over night. At least the love part.
The love part had been tricky, but she loved him now. He’d been in her life a long time, and he’d been good to her. Better than any man had been to her.
And just like that her chest squeezed and her eyes burned and her throat threatened to close.
Maybe it wasn’t the wild fierce passionate love you read about in books, but it was steady and kind, and based on respect. Mutual respect.
They were good for each other.
“Charles?” she whispered, fighting the awful aching lump in her throat.
He just stared at her, gray eyes shadowed. “Things got out of hand, Jenny. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t understand.”
He said nothing.
She bit down so hard into her bottom lip she tasted lipstick and blood.
Keep it together, she told herself. Keep it together. You can fix this. You can. You’ve fixed everything else in his life... you can fix this, too.
She masked her panic with one of her professional smiles. Thank God for a stressful career. The workload and deadlines had taught her to cope with pressure. She’d learned how to be strong. “I hear almost every bride and groom experience some cold feet. It’s natural.” She managed a lopsided smile. “We wouldn’t be normal if we didn’t have a f
ew pre-wedding jitters.”
“Jenny, I’m not going to marry you.”
Take Me, Cowboy is coming in October 2013.
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Tempt Me, Cowboy – Megan Crane
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Marry Me, Cowboy – Lilian Darcy
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Take Me, Cowboy – Jane Porter
A Cowboy For Christmas – Katherine Garbera
Home For Christmas – Melissa McClone
Christmas at Copper Mountain – Jane Porter
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Table of Contents
Title page
Copyright
Dedication
Dear Reader
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
About the Author
More from CJ Carmichael
Excerpt: Tempt Me, Cowboy
Excerpt: Marry Me, Cowboy
Excerpt: Take Me, Cowboy
Available Now
Coming Soon
Promise Me, Cowboy (Copper Mountain Rodeo) Page 11