Tough Luck Cowboy

by A. J. Pine

  She shrugged. “You’re careless. Reckless. Selfish.”

  The words pierced his chest. Because standing right here, with his best friend’s former girl? It was as selfish as he’d ever been.

  He let go of her wrist, ready to walk the hell away. But her fist opened, her palm now splayed against his chest, and some invisible tether held him there despite all the reasons he should leave and never look back.

  “Your heart,” she whispered. “It’s beating so fast. Because I piss you off.”

  It wasn’t a question, but he had an answer.

  He licked his lips. “I was just thinking about the night me and Tucker met you at that bar. You danced like you were the most carefree girl in the world.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, the memory replaying in his mind. There she was, in a short denim skirt and a sleeveless top the same color as her emerald eyes. The small dance floor was packed, but he’d seen only her—and that smile across her face that was so full of possibility.

  She sucked in a breath. “You—watched me dance? You mean, before you came out on the floor to flirt with Dina?”

  He opened his eyes, surrendering to the memory, to how close she was right now, and dipped his head so it rested against hers.

  What the hell was he doing, letting these tiny truths spill out? This was the exact opposite of walking away.

  “I watch a lot of things, sweetheart. And you know I didn’t step foot on the dance floor to meet your roommate.” He sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if the girl I saw is still in there.”

  Lily shook her head. “I’m not the girl you think you met that night. I was new in town. I wanted to be someone who—someone—”

  “Someone who what, Lily?”

  She fisted her hands in his shirt and tilted her head up toward his. “Who could let go and stop weighing her decisions and plans…Who wanted something or someone and just—went for it.” Then her lips crushed against his, and he was powerless to do anything other than claim her mouth with his own, as if for this small pocket in time she actually belonged to him.

  He wasn’t lying on a couch like he was last week, and despite any pain he’d felt minutes ago, now his body pinned hers to the side of the car. Her back arched, her pelvis pressing against his, and he could tell by the way she ground along his length that she knew he was hard.

  Her lips parted as her arms snaked around his neck, and he lost himself in the taste of her, in her soft moan when he hiked one of her legs up over his hip, urging her to take whatever pleasure she could from him.

  “Forget the eggs,” she said, and he had to pause for the words to register.

  He tilted his head back so their eyes met, and he raised a brow.

  “I haven’t had sex in almost a year,” she admitted, and it didn’t take him long to do the math. She and Tucker had been separated for only six months, which meant whatever was going on between them started long before Lily filed for divorce. “Drive me home and—” She bit her lip. “We both know that’s all this will be. Just sex. I mean, this is a rebound. And we can’t stand each other, right? So let’s just do what we both seem to want to do and then call it a day.”

  He knew if he paused too much longer he’d let logic get the best of him, so he held out his hand. “Give me your keys.”

  In seconds the car was packed up, and he was in the driver’s seat, Lily pulling her seat belt over her shoulder next to him.

  She palmed his erection as he sank the key into the ignition and he growled.

  “I promise I didn’t forget how to do it,” she said, her thumb rubbing a firm line up the length of his cock.

  Yeah, that wasn’t what he was worried about. He was sure she’d get back on the bike without a problem. What he wasn’t sure of was the whole calling it a day. With any other woman, fine. But this was Lily. If he couldn’t walk away before anything even happened, what the hell would he do once it did?

  “And we can go right back to not being able to stand each other as soon as it’s done,” she added, giving him a soft squeeze over his jeans.

  He gripped her wrist and placed her hand back into her lap. He needed to drive. He needed to think, which was something else he wasn’t used to doing in these—situations. Protection, then pleasure. That was the most his brain had to deal with when he took a woman to bed. He was out of his element with this woman.

  “Right,” he said, but his voice sounded distant, even to himself.

  “Because this?” She motioned back and forth between the two of them as he tried not to floor the vehicle. “This is oil and water. It doesn’t mix.” She giggled, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her make a sound like that. “Well, except for one way, it seems.”

  He hated that he knew where she lived, that he’d been there so many times before to pick up Tucker and take him out with the rest of the boys.

  He hated that every time he did it, he’d thought about the woman his buddy was leaving behind and how she deserved better.

  He hated that he was benched from riding because thoughts of her had creeped into his goddamn head when he should have been focused on the bull.

  But mostly he hated that they did mix, because he knew this chemistry between them was far more than physical, but the better that she deserved? He wasn’t it.

  “Right,” he said again, echoing himself as he pulled onto her street. “Oil and water.”

  Because Lily demanded perfection. And Luke Everett was anything but.

  Chapter Six

  What the hell?” she said as her car rolled to a stop behind the silver SUV already taking up space in her driveway.

  Luke swore under his breath.

  “Were you expecting company?” he asked drily.

  She groaned. Seeing as how Tucker was not waiting in his vehicle, she assumed he was inside. “I need to change the locks,” she grumbled.

  She opened the door and climbed out of the car, but Luke didn’t move.

  “You’re not going to just sit there. Are you?” she asked.

  The car was off, but his hands still gripped the wheel as he stared straight ahead.

  “You got a better idea?”

  She grabbed her totes from the backseat, then held one across the center console toward him.

  “Here’s our story—not that Tucker Green deserves one. I bumped into you and your aunt at the market, and Jenna was tired of babysitting you, so she sent you home with me to help me unload, and then I’m taking you back to the ranch so she doesn’t have to go out of her way.”

  He crossed his arms, cocked that brow she did not want to find sexy, and turned to face her.

  “You make me sound like I’m so easy to boss around.” His tone challenged her.

  Something in her belly clenched tight at the thought of doing just that—bossing around the unbossable.

  “Look,” she said. “It’s not like you can take off or anything. You’re in my car. And nothing happened to violate your bro code or whatever, so just come inside.”

  He stepped out of the car and looked at her over the top of the vehicle, his eyes narrowing against the sun.

  “I guess I am that easy,” he said, then reached inside where she’d left him one of the totes, grabbed it, and strode up to her front door like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to do. And because of course Tucker had left the door unlocked, Luke walked right inside.

  No, she thought. That was not a man accustomed to doing what he was told. Which meant that despite her perfect cover story, he could be inside right now saying who-knows-what to her ex-husband.

  Lily pushed through the front door slowly, exercising caution. She heard Tucker’s booming voice and a man’s laughter she didn’t recognize until she found the two men in the kitchen and realized the unfamiliar sound had come from Luke.

  “Lil!” Tucker said, his nickname for her rolling off his tongue like they still saw each other every day. “Figured you were at the market with one of your lists. It is a day that ends in y, right?”


  That tightening in her belly shifted to something more like anger—coiled and ready to strike. It was one thing for her to be working for Tucker and Sara. But he had no right showing up here unannounced. He had no right to anything from her other than a night of good food and to-die-for cake.

  Tucker made like he was going to hug her, but Lily took a step back before he could.

  He dropped his arms awkwardly to his sides. “It’s good to see you, Lil. And good to know you’re helping keep our daredevil here in line.”

  Lily crossed her arms and swore she saw Luke’s jaw clench before he painted on his easy, ever-present grin.

  “Come on, Tucker,” she said as she absently started emptying her totes onto the kitchen counter. “You know there’s no such thing. From what I can tell, all the Everetts are a force of nature. Kept isn’t in their vocabulary. Everyone in their orbit knows that.”

  Tucker barked out a laugh. “She sure as shit has you pegged,” he said, clapping Luke on the shoulder.

  “Sure, asshole,” Luke said. “She got me there.”

  Lily cleared her throat because even though she wasn’t quite sure what the elephant in the room was—Tucker’s presence, Luke’s presence, the fact that mere minutes ago her hand had rested on the impressive bulge in Luke’s jeans, or possibly all of the above—the situation needed to be addressed.

  “What are you doing here, Tucker?” she finally asked.

  Her ex-husband let out a long breath, the gesture all at once familiar and exasperating because of its familiarity.

  “I’m gonna go check on those weeds in the garden you were complaining about,” Luke said, not waiting for a response. In seconds he was out her back door, and she and Tucker were alone.

  Tucker shook his head. “Ever the wingman,” he said under his breath.

  Lily crossed her arms. “What are you talking about?”

  He laughed, then cleared his throat. The far-off look in his eyes seemed almost wistful, but there was something else hidden there. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. “Just thinking about that night we met. Everett must have had some sort of sixth sense that I wanted to approach you because he walked right up to you and your friend and pulled you off the dance floor before I had a chance to tell him I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’s not why you’re here, is it? To reminisce about the night we met? Because God, Tucker. That’s—that’s so—”

  “Wrong?” he said. “Not part of your perfect view of our divorce? No matter what happened between us, that was an amazing night. You can’t deny that.” He grinned.

  She dropped her hands to her sides, squeezed them into fists. Because of course she couldn’t deny it. He was this gorgeous guy—tall with dark brown hair and even darker brown eyes. He’d dazzled her with his talk of wanting to open a restaurant, and when he’d found out she’d just finished culinary school? Well, it was a match made in building-a-successful-future heaven.

  There was just one tiny little detail that she’d never admitted out loud. Despite Tucker and her seeming like the perfect fit, Luke was the guy she’d been attracted to from the start. It was only when he’d clearly shown his interest was in Dina that she let Tucker take her home.

  It wasn’t like you fell for a guy in one little encounter at a line dancing bar, so she’d made her peace with the whole Luke situation—especially when Dina didn’t make it home until well after noon the next day—and had let herself fall for Tucker.

  He was the whole package, and he’d managed to sweep her off her feet in the weeks after that night.

  “We stopped having amazing nights a long time ago, Tucker. I think it was when you started sleeping with Sara Sugar.”

  He winced, and so did she. Because if she was being honest, their amazing nights had stopped long before the one when he cheated on her. And none of it was Sara Sugar’s fault. She wasn’t the problem. They were.

  “I am sorry,” he said softly.

  “I know you are,” she said.

  He pulled out one of the barstools and sat, resting his elbows on the kitchen island.

  She sat next to him. “Why are you here, Tucker? Why are you letting yourself into my house when you have a pregnant fiancée at home?”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re catering the wedding.”

  She nodded. “I guess we haven’t exactly discussed that yet. Have we?”

  He shook his head.

  “Oh God,” she said. “Sara’s firing me. It’s too weird for her, right? I am a steamroller. I steamrolled her right into this, and she sent you to get her out of it. It makes sense. I mean, who wants their future husband’s ex-wife at her wedding? It’s a little crazy, right? I mean, who in their right mind—”

  “She’s not firing you,” Tucker interrupted. “I mean we’re not firing you. She liked you, and she’s got this super Zen sort of outlook on, well, everything. Nothing gets to her. And when I told her what an amazing chef you were, she made me promise not to scare you off.”

  Heat burned her cheeks, and she wasn’t sure if it was because she was flattered or exactly what Tucker seemed to suspect—scared.

  “Super Zen, huh?” she asked. “I bet she does yoga and lights a lot of incense.”

  Tucker laughed. “She actually teaches it,” he said, and Lily groaned.

  “She’s a Food Network star and a yoga instructor?” Because at the moment, other than the nest egg from Tucker buying her out of BBQ on the Bluff, she was jobless. Except for the contract to cater his wedding.

  He gave her a nervous smile. “She co-owns a studio with her sister in Santa Barbara. When she’s on hiatus from shooting the show in L.A., she spends time up there teaching classes.”

  Of course she did. And she was Zen about everything. Unlike Lily, who was wound so tight she almost refused the most delicious corn dog she’d ever eaten.

  “I’m here because I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said, thankfully keeping her thoughts from traveling down the corn dog path and to the man who’d kissed her up against her car. “And because Luke told me the doctor benched him for four weeks and that Jack has him on wedding detail with you. I guess—considering he was helping you shop today—that you two will be working pretty closely together and I—”

  Lily shook her head and let out a bitter laugh. It looked like all roads led to corn dogs.

  “God,” she said, sliding off the stool. “You really haven’t changed, have you? You just want to make sure I haven’t ruined your reputation with your friend out there. I told you, Tucker. What happened between us is between us.”

  “And the lawyers,” he mumbled.

  She groaned, stepping back from the island. “I haven’t said anything, okay? And I’m not going to. I’m not even sure why it’s such a big deal. Luke is just as much of a good-time-haver as you are—or were, I guess. Is that even a word? Good-time-haver? I’m assuming things are going to be different now that you’re going to be a father?”

  Tucker spun on his barstool to face her, but she took another step back. He held his hands up in surrender. “Don’t worry. I’m not gonna try to hug you again. Look—I messed up. I know that. But it’s not just my reputation, Lil. Maybe you see me as the guy who was grasping for ways to have that good time, but that’s because it wasn’t happening at home.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but he kept going.

  “I’m not blaming you for what I did. But I am blaming us.”

  She sighed. “We weren’t—” She didn’t want to say it, didn’t want either of them to hurt each other any more than they already had.

  “In love like we should have been. We’ve never really said that out loud, but I’m right, aren’t I?”

  She nodded. This was the most honest they’d been with each other in a year.

  “I tried to fix it,” he added. “I mean, I tried to fight for us, but you just left.”

  Lily shook her head. “Banging on Jack and Ava’s do
or in the middle of the night—drunk—isn’t fighting or fixing, Tucker. That was just your fear talking.”

  He winced, and her chest tightened. She might as well have been talking about herself. Lily did leave first, but she’d justified it using Tucker’s infidelity. He’d already left her, physically and emotionally, right? She simply walked out the door before he could.

  “I don’t think what happened defines who I am or who you are for that matter,” he said, as if he could read her thoughts. “Sara knows I wasn’t a good husband to you.”

  “But you love her like you’re supposed to,” Lily said.

  “I do. And the thing with Everett? He’s more family to me than my own blood. You already know I was a disappointment. I’m doing my best to get it right with Sara. But if Luke ever looked at me like you did the night you walked out? I don’t think I could take it, Lil.”

  Tucker was being Tucker, putting himself first. But she understood. It was why she still hadn’t told her mom about the divorce. Lily wasn’t supposed to repeat history. She wasn’t supposed to mess up. She was supposed to move to California, make a name for herself, and fall in love.

  Well, she still lived in California. Those other two items were getting harder and harder, though, to cross off her to-do list.

  “Are we good?” Tucker asked. “Not just what I’m asking of you but the wedding—all of it. I mean, this is weird as hell, but if it’s what you want and it’s what Sara wants, then it’s what I want, too. And if you and I could maybe be friends…”

  He trailed off, and she knew he was waiting for her to fill in the blank.

  “I’m catering your wedding,” she said ruefully. “Let’s see how that goes. Then we can talk about this friend thing you speak of.”

  He stood, and this time she didn’t retreat as he moved toward her, leaned forward, and kissed her on the cheek.

  She felt a weight lift.

  “Oh,” she said, not meaning to speak the word out loud.

  His brows drew together. “What?”