by Leslie North
“I’ll wait out here,” said Wes.
Nat’s boots felt as leaden as his heart. He held the lantern at shoulder-level and entered the cabin. The warm yellow glow flickered against surfaces familiar and new: the quilt they had shared, slightly less tattered, brighter and folded neatly over a trunk he recognized from his attic; an iron bed he had never seen before, saddle no longer necessary; January’s open journal, sitting atop a desk clearly meant for writing.
Not only was she asking to stay, but she believed in his dream enough to claim a space.
Their space.
His feet carried him to the journal before he had the good sense to stop himself. He set the lantern on the desk. The next page after those he had torn out contained a handwritten note. One line.
Fill this with a life lived with me.
January had crossed out the last two words.
Nat crumpled to the floor.
Maybe the rainwater swelling in the gulch had washed him away. Maybe he couldn’t find the surface, on the night her naked body swam circles around him. Maybe he didn’t have it in him to surface. Nat felt suspended under water. Oxygen deprived. Unable to speak or move beyond numb, fruitless strokes.
An arm around his shoulders pulled him into an embrace. “It’s okay, man.”
Nat wanted…oh, God, he wanted the world to back away, the moon to flee, the sun to break so he never had to see another sunrise without her. He wanted the stars to blow free of the heavens, and he wanted his knees to forever press against the floor as they were now as penance for losing her twice in one lifetime.
“What was it you said about the Meier legacy?” Wes said.
“She’s going halfway around the world, Wes.”
“She ain’t there yet.” Wes hooked a strong grip under his brother’s arm and hauled him to his feet. “Come on, brother. We got a plane to catch.”
Twenty years from now, Nat mused, whiskey-soaked stories around the ranch’s backyard fire pit will mention how two brothers—one more handsome than the other, depending on the storyteller—tore through that same house like a tornado, tossing clothes and money into a duffel bag while looking for a passport one brother had stamped on a bull-breeding transaction in Costa Rica years earlier.
Forty years from now, he figured, the story will have ballooned into a full-on account of how the same two brothers tore up the most direct highway between Close Call and Houston, slowing down enough with each passing car to inspect the passengers for a beauty with wavy, shoulder-length hair and a smile as big as the state.
In a hundred years, well, the story might be the stuff of a Texas tall tale. Like the Ferris wheel story that had Clem climbing up the metal structure with his bare hands in a windstorm, not at all like it happened when he tied the Sooner’s shoe strings to the seat when the ride stopped to load the next car.
All for the love of a woman.
Those stories wouldn’t scrimp on the details of the pink food truck with the gigantic plastic shrimp careening down that same highway and the lengths to which these same two brothers went to get the Bae Shrimp truck to pull over. Because who could have foreseen that the same vehicle with the two-cartoon-shrimps-making-a-heart logo that brought two young lovers together once did the same again, one week later?
Wes had barely stopped the truck on the highway’s shoulder before Nat popped open the passenger door and ran to the truck, the plastic shrimp on top shuddering in its housing after the sudden stop Wes had forced.
January slid open the passenger-side pocket door and ran to meet Nat.
“What are you doing here?”
Her voice was shrieky and pregnant with disbelief. Even in the darkness between interstate exits, he saw enough in the food truck’s lights to know a devastating smile accompanied her wide, beautiful eyes.
“Grabbing life.” He took her hands in his. “If I’ve learned anything these past few days, it’s that I need to do more of that. I’m not the same person I was at eighteen, J. I’m sorry I wasn’t more careful with who you were under that brave, free-spirited exterior, then or now. I do know you, deep down. You’re the woman who names my livestock because the very thing inside that makes her such a great world traveler also keeps her from enjoying lasting friendships. You’re the woman who could have asked around town for any favor she wanted because people love her so much, but she asked on behalf of me and my dreams. And you’re the woman who’s afraid she’ll make the same mistakes as her father, but that can’t happen so long as you tell me when you get restless so we can get restless together. Wherever you want to go. Once, twice a year.”
“What about the ranch?”
“Wes wants a bigger role, at least for now. We’ll get Chance to come around. And Willie’s son is getting old enough now. He’s like a brother, too. We’ll make this work for all of us, if you’ll have us. If you’ll have me.”
Nat lowered one knee to the weeds. And maybe rattlesnakes, but he tried not to think about that.
“I love you, J. Marry me.”
An eighteen-wheeler barreled past, horn on full-blast. Seemed an appropriate emotional soundtrack to how Nat felt in his skin—all-out, urgent, cautiously euphoric.
“Yes-yes-yes,” she said, her voice all-out, urgent, far beyond euphoric. “This place is home, Nat. It’s you. And you’re my true north. I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it. And whenever you need to come back, say the word, and we’ll both come home.”
Nat scooped her into his arms and kissed her like he’d broken nearly every traffic law for fifty miles to reach her. Which he had. Or rather, Wes had.
The Bae Shrimp driver hollered out the door, “Hey, you going to the airport or not?”
Wes approached, duffel bag in hand. Still the biggest smile around.
Grabbing life. No better time than the present.
“We sure are.” Nat pulled January close and kissed her forehead. “We have a plane to catch. See, she’s always wanted to go to Nepal, and I should probably see these prayer flags for myself.”
“Hop in,” said the driver. “I gotta get to the coast before sunrise.”
Nat took his bag from Wes, pulled him into a bro-hug. “Thanks.”
“This moment says it all, brother. Have fun.”
Nat and January climbed aboard the pink food truck. She settled in his lap in the passenger seat, and Nat pulled the pocket door shut. The interior was ripe, but Nat didn’t care.
“Nat, this is Stan. Stan, Nat.”
Nat accepted Stan’s beefy grip. Stan would make an outstanding ranch hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Play the song, Stan.”
“I told you, Rose, that’s only to bring the customers in. They like that cheesy shit.”
“Pleeeeease?”
Really, who could resist January Rose? Almost no one.
Stan reached for the stereo and pulled out onto the highway, blasting Elvis Presley. Turned out, Elvis sang a song about shrimp. And it was cheesy as hell. January knew every word.
Nat decided their story was already the stuff of a Texas tall tale: riding in a big plastic shrimp, going to Nepal without so much as a coat, heading into tomorrow without a thought past today.
All for the love of a woman.
Epilogue
January stirred awake beneath the downy comforter. Apart from the sounds of nature—mourning doves, leaves rearranging themselves on the breeze—the cabin was quiet but for the faint scratching of pen on paper.
For as long as she lived, she would never tire of that sound.
A fresh fire lit the stove. The curtain lifted then brushed the sill again. Morning rays stretched across the shelf above Nat’s desk, filled with front-facing hardcopies of his first three books. And within, the new and captivating sensation of movement, much like wings beating a hello, stirred her womb.
She slid from the bed and padded to a shirtless Nat on soft feet, so as not to disrupt him but to so totally disrupt him. His pen tip devoured entire lines; his brow furrowed. At he
r gentle kneading of his shoulders, he moaned and relaxed and said, “One more page…” with the strength of a man intoxicated by deep, creative thoughts.
January kissed his neck.
Pen paused, ever so slightly, and he cocked his head. His eyelids drooped heavily.
A warm sensation danced from her bare feet to her crown. Breasts, heavy with the changes in her body, grazed the inside of Nat’s T-shirt she had worn to bed, the soft cotton inciting a riot behind her nipples.
“Paragraph?” Nat suggested rather weakly. He gave that new goal a valiant effort, even getting so far as a sentence on before stopping completely when his crumpled shirt landed in his lap.
She pressed her bare chest to his back, and her hands roamed down his sides, across his abdominal ridges, straight to his recent erection, which she then coaxed until there was absolutely no doubt he wouldn’t get another sentence written for at least the next hour. The price to pay was hefty—a few hours of Nat’s self-indulgent moodiness when a deadline loomed so close—but the glazed look in his eyes when she straddled him told her all would be forgiven.
He gave her breasts his full attention, no hesitation, no editing. When his hands roamed lower, near her belly, they took on a reverent attitude.
“I was thinking Don if it’s a boy or Donna if it’s a girl.”
“After the cow you won’t let me sell?”
“After the cow that brought us together.”
“She’s still causing trouble, you know. Always wandering off. Getting the others in the herd to do the same. Not unlike someone else I know.”
“Trouble is where all the fun is.” January hiked up her right foot and rested it against the denim riding low on his hip. She drew a lazy pattern of curls and eddies around the recent tattoos there that circumnavigated her ankle: Route 66, beginning to end; Patagonia; The Great Barrier Reef; Antarctica—not surprisingly the inspiration for Nat’s latest other-worldly novel—and, of course, a shrimp. “You wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The unapologetic spread of her legs invited him. She wiggled against his hardness and marveled at his handsomeness. He entered her in all the ways imaginable, propping her on his desk and making a long story of pleasing her—a beginning, middle, and rather earth-shattering end. And this time, after she had seen his work break to its fitting and most worthwhile conclusion, when Nat drifted off to sleep curled against her backside, January stayed put.
She had nowhere else to be but right here.
Dear Agnes, You’re sexy. Signed, Meier for life (or until you sell MooDonna, whichever comes first).
End of Tempting the Rancher
Meier Ranch Brothers Book One
Tempting the Rancher, April 26th.
Redeeming the Rancher, May 3rd.
Claiming the Cowboy, May 10th.
PS: Do you love wild cowboys? Then keep reading for exclusive extracts from Redeeming the Rancher and Breaking the Cowboy’s Rules.
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About Leslie
Leslie North is the USA Today Bestselling pen name for a critically-acclaimed author of women's contemporary romance and fiction. The anonymity gives her the perfect opportunity to paint with her full artistic palette, especially in the romance and erotic fantasy genres.
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BLURB
He’s surrounded by darkness. She’s the one who can lead him into the light…
After his recent military tour, Wes Meier wants to hang up his helmet and focus on his family’s Texas ranch. But when he meets Olive, his focus shifts. The fascinating, gorgeous, and not-at-all-his-type artist wants to use him as inspiration for a local sculpture, but Wes just wants to retreat. He came back home for peace and quiet, not to be immortalized as a hero. Even worse, she’s the sister of one of his fallen comrades, and having her around makes him remember experiences he’s desperate to forget. Livie is challenging his grasp on civilian life, but she’s fast becoming an attraction Wes is powerless to resist.
Artist Livie Blake may not wear her emotions on her sleeve, but art is in her soul. She’s in Close Call, Texas for an important commission, and to explore the town her dead brother told her so much about. When she meets Wes, she doesn’t exactly hit it off with the rugged cowboy. He’s handsome, cocky, and completely closed off, but Livie’s sure she’s found her inspiration for the military memorial. Wes can try to keep his distance, but Livie is determined to learn the serviceman’s secrets. And the more she discovers, the further she falls for the wounded warrior.
Livie never trusts her emotions, and Wes wears his wounds where no one else can see. Can the tortured artist and the damaged hero ever open their hearts to love?
Grab your copy of Redeeming the Rancher
Available Book May 3rd 2018
www.LeslieNorthBooks.com
* * *
EXCERPT
In isolation, Livie Blake’s eyeful was abstract: tawny hide against rich blue, curves defining the negative spaces in subtle but organic ways, a sculpture so foreign that it captivated her to distraction and made her wonder at the composition of it all.
Taken as a whole, the sun-bronzed art was a one-of-a-kind original squeezed into string-tied chaps that cinched a second-skin denim-clad package—front and back—into a surprising and tingle-inducing relief map of the male form. A cowboy, not of the shiny pleather, homoerotic variety that paraded outside her Long Island apartment every Pride Day, but of the dusty, nothing-fancy, mounted-on-a-genuine-horse-all-day-swagger variety. Until that moment, Livie believed chaps were the fringed shell of a mythic beast, an urban legend told to gullible city dwellers to conjure up the romanticism of the Old West…
“Only thing we stare at longer that that around here is Clyde Hammond’s extra toe when he’s had too much to drink and goes barefoot.”
The cowboy’s voice jaywalked the town’s two-lane Main Street, as subtle as a caller at a starving-artist auction.
Livie’s face incinerated. Busted. She glanced up and down Main to see if her embarrassment had an audience. The street was empty. At five in the evening on a weekday, a time Livie had been conditioned to traffic jams and subway crowds, the only movement in Close Call, Texas, was the blinking red traffic signal one block away.
And one cowboy’s disarming grin.
She unrolled the artist’s contract in her hand and stared at it. Two thousand words of fine-print legalese stared back. Not one word registered in her frontal lobe. The town’s mayor had given her until day’s end to make a decision on the commissioned piece. With five minutes left to study the chosen spot—the late-day natural light, the imagined spatial interaction between the bronze statue and those who came to view it, environmental concerns that might affect the patina in one way or another—Livie stood on an abandoned street corner, ogling a cowboy’s package.
Professional, Livie. Or as the locals would say, “Real professional-like.”
She had been in Close Call long enough for to fill up with gas, to eat, to check into her room at the Starlite Motor Lodge—long enough to saturate her brain with that ever-present Texas drawl. The town was Chuck Norris and Twin Peaks, with a sprinkle of Real Housewives of Podunk tossed in for charm.
Could she exist in this town the way her half brother had all those years back? Livie looked down the barrel of six m
onths, maybe more, to the bronze’s completion, longer than some of Daniel’s deployments to Afghanistan, longer than most gallery shows in Soho, longer than the marriages of several friends.
“You lost?”
Same deep voice. Same loose, unhurried drawl. The cowboy crossed the road toward her. He didn’t glance up one side of the street and down the other for cars. No doubt the same complacency that had flattened a few armadillos Livie had seen on the drive up from Houston. The cowboy’s ambush wasn’t entirely unwelcome. He brought to mind the Dying Gaul, a Hellenistic sculpture that portrayed a brooding pathos, a superior physique, and prime-of-life sexuality. And heroic nudity.
Livie scuttled outside herself, her manners, and simply stared, speechless, her artist brain taking too many liberties with that last bit.
“You all right, ma’am?”
Ma’am made her feel as old as Elizabeth Taylor in the last minutes of Giant.
“Fine.” Curt. To the point. No danger of betraying her affectedness. She lifted her chin and mentally sketched a figure on a plinth.
The cowboy sidled closer, nearly a replica cast of her body position, and stared at the same strip of sky next to an impressive live oak.
“Cat in the tree?”
“No.”
“Biblical locusts?”
Her mouth pitched into a severe frown. Eww. “That’s a thing here?”
“Only every other year.” He gave her a side-glance to match his side-grin. “So, what are we staring at?”
“The future.” Cryptic. Deep. Conversation-ending, hopefully.