Grumpy Cowboy: A Hot Single Dad, Enemies-to-Lovers Romance Read online

  And thankfully, since I’m the one who gets to make her feel this way, it’ll be etched in my memory until the end of time, a sight to see even if I turn up blind.

  July 30th, Friday

  Rhett

  “C’mon, darlin’,” I encourage with a hand toward Leah.

  She looks up at me, her eyes glancing between me and my horse Sonny. “What do you mean, come on? I can’t just jump up. I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m not exactly known for athleticism.”

  “What? You mean to tell me you’ve decided you’re a hamster person after all?”

  “I didn’t say that, but this is a new horse. It’s not Saunders. We have to start the whole get to know you process over again.” She glares, and I chuckle.

  “Well, this is my horse, and we’ve known each other for years. Since I’m going to be the one controlling him, it’s all good, darlin’. All you’ve got to do is give me your hand, and I’ll do the rest of the work.”

  Leah huffs, crosses her arms, and stares out toward the distance.

  “I won’t let you fall. Promise.”

  “You swear?”

  “Swear.” I make a little cross over my heart. She uncrosses her arms, huffs out another breath, but doesn’t make any move to follow my lead. “Just so you know, we’re losin’ daylight, and the surprise I have for ya involves the sun.”

  She scrunches up her nose. “There’s a surprise involved?”

  “Sure is.” I wink down at her. “And it’s a good one, too.”

  Her top teeth dig into her bottom lip. “And you promise you won’t let me fall on my ass?”

  “If you fall on your ass, I give you full permission to kick me directly in mine with a pair of those pointy-fucking heels you love so much.”

  On a deep inhale and exhale, Leah steps forward and puts her soft hand into mine. Without delay, I pull her up and behind me, carefully instructing her on when to grip ahold of Sonny and when to swing her leg over the saddle. Doubled up like this, she’s got to sit behind the saddle on just the pad, with the cantle in between us, but I know Sonny’ll take care of us both.

  She lets out a relieved giggle once she’s safely in her seat and wraps her arms around my waist. “You are so lucky you didn’t drop me, cowboy, because I already knew the shoes I was going to wear to kick your ass.”

  That spurs a chuckle to pop from my lungs, and when I tap my heel to Sonny’s side, he begins a controlled trot away from the barn and toward the dirt path that leads to the back entrance of Dixie National Forest.

  It’s hidden toward the back half of the ranch, but it’s actually one of the main reasons the Jameson family even bought this land. Besides the acreage and the location and the view, the proximity to one of the country’s hidden and often forgotten gems was the final selling point.

  The wind brushes across my face as Sonny picks up the pace, and I’m pleasantly surprised when Leah releases one of her arms from my waist just to hold it up in the wind.

  Her following laughter is giddy, and it’s so fucking sweet, it makes my chest feel like melted butter.

  “Exhilarating, ain’t it?” I glance over my shoulder to look at her, and she flashes a big, gorgeous smile at me.

  “It’s unbelievable!” she shouts over the wind. “Now, I’m starting to understand why you love riding so much.”

  Damn, this feels amazing.

  This beautiful woman wrapped around me while Sonny leads us toward the sunset? There isn’t anything better than this.

  The adrenaline pumping through my veins combined with the way it makes my heart kick up into a quick rhythm reminds me so much of the way I felt when I used to ride broncs—straight-up addictive. But it’s a dangerous kind of addictive that isn’t satisfied with just one hit.

  No fucking way. It makes you want to do it more and more and more until it’s all you can think about. All you want. Desire. Crave. Need.

  Hell, I could do this with Leah every damn evening and I don’t think I’d grow tired of the way it feels to have her this close to me. To hear her laugh and see her smile, all while I’m doing one of my favorite things in life—riding.

  A future with her is far too easy to picture, and it takes a Herculean effort not to let my brain wander down that way of thinking.

  Tonight isn’t the night to be having any fucking world-shattering revelations.

  It’s about showing Leah the most beautiful place on the ranch to witness a sunset. It’s about watching wonder fill her eyes and happiness spread across her face. It’s about seeing her smile and hearing her laugh and enjoying the carefree woman I’ve grown to adore with an intensity that makes me feel something I’ve never felt for a woman.

  Something I’m not ready to admit to myself.

  After another mile or so, I guide Sonny past the gates that separate the ranch from the national forest, and it’s not long before I can tell Leah is glancing around at the change in scenery behind me.

  “Where are you taking us?”

  I grin over my shoulder. “Somewhere with a bit of elevation and that’s going to blow your mind.”

  She snorts but doesn’t say anything else, and I switch my focus to safely getting us to our final stop. The path that leads us there is completely uphill and a bit rocky and bumpy in areas, but Sonny keeps his composure and manages it without any issues.

  Once we reach the perfect spot, nestled right in between the pink cliffs, I hop off Sonny and loosely wrap his lead line around a nearby tree. With one gentle pat to his head, I let him know he did me proud, and then proceed to hold up a hand to Leah to help her off my horse.

  She hesitates for a moment but, eventually, lets me help her. Once she reaches the halfway point of her descent, I wrap my arms around her waist and finish the rest for her.

  The moment her feet hit the ground, she smiles up at me. “You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

  “What are you talkin’ about?”

  “I was taking too long to get off Sonny, so you took matters into your own hands.”

  I lean forward and press my lips to her mouth before moving them to the shell of her ear. “Maybe I just wanted an excuse to touch you,” I whisper.

  Her responding smile is downright sassy. “Or maybe you were just impatient?”

  “Guess we’ll never know.” I shrug, and she sticks out her tongue at me. “Now, just out of curiosity, do you want to see the surprise? Or do you just wanna stand around and bicker with me because you’re feelin’ fuckin’ pent-up and horny?”

  “Who says I’m horny?”

  I nod toward her chest where her tits look thick and heavy, and her nipples press hard against her tank top.

  “I’m cold,” she retorts, and I reach out to touch my hand to her cheek.

  “You feel warm to me, darlin’.”

  With a playful hand to my chest, she shoves me away.

  “All right, cowboy. It’s time to put your money where your mouth is. Show me the surprise.”

  I nod and grab the blanket I packed from where I strapped it on Sonny’s saddle horn.

  “Follow me.”

  A few minutes later, I locate the special spot, lay the blanket across the ground, and pull Leah down to sit in between my spread legs.

  We’re all alone out here, sitting at higher elevation than the land below us, and the space between us is filled with a peaceful kind of silence that only being out in nature can provide.

  “It’s time,” I whisper into her ear, and she starts to turn to look at me, but I squeeze her shoulders and add, “Right there. Watch the sun as she announces to the world that it’s time to sleep.”

  Her gaze jerks back toward the horizon, and it only takes a few moments before a hand comes up to her mouth. “Wow,” she whispers. “Just…wow.”

  “I know,” I agree and wrap my arms around her waist so that her body can rest comfortably against me. “That’s exactly why I wanted you to see it.”

  The sky is cotton-candy pink with hints of blues and
purples and oranges, and the sun bounces off the cliffs in the distance, making them look almost metallic.

  I lean back so I can see the expression on Leah’s face as the sun makes her final descent. Her lashes flutter as she blinks several times, and her lips form a perfect little O shape.

  “I can’t believe this is real life.”

  I grin. “Oh, but it is real life, darlin’.”

  And damn if I’m not starting to wish that this, nights like this with Leah, were the real life of my future.

  Leah

  With the warm night breeze blowing through Rhett’s truck, I hold my hand out the open passenger window and let it skate through the air.

  After Rhett took me to a Jameson family secret spot in Dixie National Forest to watch the sunset, we rode Sonny back to the stables and got him settled for the night.

  It was dark by the time we hopped into his truck to head back to his place.

  Patsy Cline serenades us from the radio, singing about walking after midnight and the moonlight and searching for her love, and I just feel…good. Happy, even.

  The past few weeks have been some of the best of my life, and it’s all because of the handsome cowboy in the driver’s seat.

  I look over at Rhett and note the way the moonlight falls over his face, highlighting the lines of his strong jaw and curve of his full lips.

  His mouth is relaxed, and when he feels my gaze on him, he glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “What are ya doin’, darlin’?”

  I shrug. “Just looking at you and thinking about what a great night this has been.”

  His mouth curves upward, and he reaches out to rest his hand on my thigh. “You enjoyed watching the sunset?”

  “I enjoyed watching the sunset with you.”

  He squeezes my thigh and flashes a wink in my direction.

  When Patsy Cline’s song comes to a close, the radio switches over to a new one. A soft drumbeat starts it off, and it appears Rhett recognizes it before I do.

  “Well, hell,” he mutters on a grin and turns the steering wheel so sharply to the right that my hand jolts up to the handle above my door.

  “Ah! Rhett! What are you doing?” I screech when he directs us completely off-road, in the middle of one of the meadows on the ranch.

  The bastard just laughs. “Making sure this night ends with some old-fashioned romance.”

  “Romance?” I nearly shout when he skids the truck to a stop. “Taking us off-road isn’t exactly my idea of romance, you crazy man.”

  He just chuckles and reaches out to turn the radio up as loud as it will go.

  And that’s when my ears turn their attention to the words of a song I still don’t recognize.

  The man is literally singing my name over and over again.

  “What is this?”

  “Darlin’, this is Roy Orbison,” he comments. “He was a fuckin’ legend and one of my all-time favorites, who just so happens to have a song called ‘Leah.’ Which is quite the wonderful coincidence, if you ask me.”

  Rhett hops out of the truck and rounds the hood with quick steps. He wastes no time helping me out of my seat with a gentlemanly hand, and I squeal when he steps back to spin me beneath his arm.

  “Dance with me, darlin’,” he says, and my jaw falls open.

  “What do you mean, dance with you?”

  He wraps his arm around my back and pulls me tight to his chest, all the while he guides us into a two-step rhythm. “I mean exactly what I said. Dance with me.”

  “Holy hell, you can, like, really dance.”

  “What? You think cowboys can’t dance?” he challenges and spins me around again before pulling me flush against his body. One hand skirts down my back and grips my ass through my jean shorts. “Let me be the one to correct that false assumption right fuckin’ now,” he whispers into my ear. “Cowboys can dance. Oh, we can definitely fuckin’ dance. We just gotta find a woman who inspires us to want to dance.”

  My heart beats rapidly in my chest, and I stare up at him, watching the way his face morphs into a soft smile and his eyes peer into mine with the kind of tenderness that makes my breath get all tangled up in my lungs.

  The radio switches over to another oldies-style country song, and Rhett just keeps on dancing us around the meadow. And the only lights guiding our path are the moonlight above our heads and the headlights from his truck.

  “Dancing with a handsome man in the middle of a dreamy meadow,” I say through a soft laugh. “This is some Edward Cullen kind of shit.”

  “Edward Cullen?” Rhett furrows his brow but keeps moving us around the meadow in a slow, rhythmic pattern that matches the beat of the song. “Who’s that?”

  “You know, from Twilight…”

  “Is that, like, a fuckin’ band or something?”

  I burst into a fit of laughter. “Oh my God, Taylor would die if she heard you say that.”

  More confusion consumes his face in the manner of a tilt of his head and a narrowing of his eyes. Which only makes me more amused.

  “Edward Cullen is a vampire from a famous series,” I eventually explain. “The first book is called Twilight.”

  “What in the hell do fuckin’ vampires have to do with us dancin’, darlin’?”

  I shake my head on a smile. “Just forget I said anything and keep romancing me, cowboy.”

  There’s no way in hell I’m going to try to explain Twilight and sparkly vampires and shape-shifting werewolves that imprint their love to this rugged man. Pretty sure if I tried, his head would flipping explode.

  Though, one day, I’d love to watch my best friend Taylor give it a try.

  A new song comes on the radio, and it’s one I actually recognize—“It’s Your Love” by Tim McGraw. And the lyrics resonate so hard, they make goose bumps appear on my arms and my heart migrate to my throat.

  I’m almost overwhelmed by how good I always feel with Rhett. How right it always feels. How, in such a short time, he’s become so important to me.

  He’s someone I care about, deeply.

  He’s a man who makes me feel stronger, more confident, and beautiful. And the way he looks at me sometimes, well, it makes me think about what a future with him would be like.

  God, I think I’m starting to want that kind of a future a little too much for comfort…

  Emotion threatens to pull me out of the moment, but when Rhett surprises me with another twirl beneath his arm, I’m yanked right back to the present, where a handsome cowboy is grinning down at me like I’m the best thing since sliced bread.

  He twirls me again and again and moves us fast and slow, and when the song comes to an end, he grips my back and dips me like I’ve only seen people do in movies.

  And he holds me there, his face peering down at mine. “What do ya think, darlin’?”

  “I think you can dance,” I whisper toward him. “And you’re crazy good at old-fashioned romance.”

  He smirks at that.

  And then he moves his lips to mine and takes my mouth in a deep kiss.

  Damn, this cowboy. It’s starting to feel like he just might have my heart.

  August 7th, Saturday

  Rhett

  Joey jumps down out of my truck, slams the door, and takes off like a shot for a whole tangle of people making their way to the gate of Kanab Arena, the official stop of the Professional Rodeo Circuit this weekend and just about the last place on earth I want to be.

  I roll down my window, put two fingers in my mouth to whistle loudly, and reach up and out to flick my hand in this direction when Joey stops on a dime and turns to look back at me anxiously.

  “Get back here,” I tell her, just as Leah is jumping out of the truck herself and running toward Joey with some kind of natural-born parental-style panic. If it weren’t for the fact that I’m here under complete duress, I might actually find it in me to smile about how sweet my woman is with my girl and how much she cares about her.

  “Come on, Daddy!” Joey whines uncha
racteristically, an outburst I know is born of nothing more than excitement.

  Two days ago, she heard them talking about the big show rodeo on the radio while we were driving in the truck—specifically, the new opportunity they were giving young riders to be showcased, live, on national television.

  A brand-new, open-call mutton-busting event, they said, open to all children between the ages of four and seven who could make the trip to Kanab today and be ready to ride.

  “I’m gonna miss the sign-offs!” she huffs, clearly meaning the entry signups that the radio host specified closed at noon.

  I roll my eyes since we’ve got at least an hour before then. “Relax, baby, we’ve got time. Get on back here and get your stuff outta the truck.”

  She sighs dejectedly, but Leah, the mama wolf who’s made it to her by now, squeezes her shoulder in consolation. “You can’t ride without your gear, can you?”

  “No,” Joey agrees before hedging smartly, “but I can sign up without it.”

  I laugh before grabbing my wallet from the console and hopping down out of the driver’s seat to meet my approaching girls. “Come on now,” I counsel Joey. “Work smarter, not harder. You know that. We’re gonna get all’a our stuff in one go, so we don’t have to come back out here for it, and we planned good and well for the drive to take much longer to make sure we made it here in time. I know you’re excited, baby, but you don’t have to worry. You’re gonna ride today, I promise.”

  “Oh-kay,” she finally agrees dramatically, stepping around me to open the back door to the cab of my truck and pull out her hot-pink gear bag. She slings it over her shoulder and raises her eyebrows at me sassily. “Are we all ready now?”

  I swear. I’m gonna be in trouble one day. I scoff and chuck my girl on the chin. “Watch the attitude, baby girl. And, yes, we’re ready.”

  As I’ll ever be.

  Quite frankly, there are people here and memories of a lifestyle that I really don’t have any interest in seeing anymore, and there’s only one thing, one person who could get me to give up the peace of mind that comes with avoiding it—Josephine Jameson.