1 Chapter 1
No. More. Cowboys.
This was my new modus operandi. I’d had it with sexy, tight-assed hotties who winked in my direction, rode me like they were trying to round up stray cattle, then left me holding the lasso. I was over it.
It wasn’t as though I hadn’t enjoyed myself with each and every last wrangler, brawler, cow puncher, and ranch hand out there. But I was a romantic, and had just turned forty. The luster of finding that perfect, monogamous cowboy—who still had his own teeth—was decidedly tarnished. He didn’t exist. And believe me, I’d tried to find him.
First, there’d been Billy Joe Raintree from Montana when I’d turned twenty-one. He’d taken me out behind the bar where we’d met. The blow job he’d given had made me see other universes. After making my knees weak, he’d taken me to his RV—I was a pit stop on his way to a rodeo—and popped my cherry. It was love at first fuck.
It didn’t last, and I was mildly heartbroken when he’d headed out of town before the sun rose the next morning. That was okay, though. I was grateful for the night we’d had together, and the world he’d introduced to me.
A week later, Jeremiah Pinkett came roaring into my life. His body made me weak in the knees. Jeremiah was from Idaho and worked with sheep. He had arms and legs like boulders, and I was more than happy to be pinned by him, anywhere, anytime. The log between his legs had made my ass sing. That hookup had lasted a few days that time. See? I was improving.
On it went. The longest “relationship” I’d had over the years was for six months. That had been Grover Vasquez, when I was in my thirties. But it had been more of a fuck buddy thing. Whenever I’d bring up the idea of being exclusive, Grover would fuck monogamy out of my head until I forgot my own name.
All in all, in the nineteen years that I’d been sexually active and in search of my one-man cowboy, I’d washed out—every damn time. Was it because I’d wanted it too badly? At this point in my life, I just didn’t know anymore.
Perhaps I was simply too starry-eyed to see the truth, but Daddy had always said that anything worth having required effort. Unfortunately, I’d expended a heck of a lot of that, to no avail.
After passing out drunk in a bar—alone—on my fortieth birthday, I decided to face the truth: I was too old to go trolling, and sex without love was for the young. Time to hang up those particular spurs.
* * * *
“Lanice!” Whenever Ernie Trevine used that particular tone of voice, it meant trouble.
“Yeah?” I called out from where I worked on the ranch books in the back office. My ranch foreman of five years clomped across the faded rugs toward my desk, his heavy stride no doubt tracking in mud behind him. He didn’t look happy.
“Jonah’s gone missing again,” Ernie said as he took off his hat and slapped it against his leg. The dust was plentiful, and his brow was sweaty. As weird as it may sound, it was a good look on him.
“Did you check all the usual places?”
Jonah Willett was sixty-nine years old and had been the foreman here for almost forty years before he retired. Ernie had made it a habit to check on Jonah’s whereabouts daily because the man loved his alcohol. When he tied one on, he wandered. He was also half-blind, as well as deaf in one ear, which made things complicated. His disappearances had been happening more often lately.
When I could get Jonah to agree to go with me to a doctor—which was rare—I was told he would likely need to be put into an assisted living facility at some point. It was hard for me to think about doing such a thing. I’d known the man almost all my life, and he’d taught me so many things, he was like another parent.
“Yessir, boss,” Ernie replied. “Me and a couple of the hands went searching the barns, but he wasn’t there.” He scratched his cheek, which was peppered with stubble. The sharp, sexy cut of his jaw was distracting. I needed to keep my mind on Jonah.
“Only thing I can figure is that he went off into the fields somewhere, something he’s never done before today. You know we have a group to take on a dude tour this afternoon. You’re gonna have to get the law involved.”
Which meant I’d have to deal with Nicholas “Bulldog” McMurtry, the sheriff in these parts.
Younger than me by eight years, Nicholas had moved back to Wyoming to take over the sheriff’s spot after our last lawman had made a spectacular ass of himself over a woman. Attempted murder of her husband, to be precise.
