Sawyer (Lucky River Ranch #3)

1. Ava

CHAPTER 1

Ava

HONKY-TONK HOTTIE

“There’s gonna be cowboys there, right?”

I may roll my eyes at my sister Bee’s ridiculous question, but I still smile. None of us have lived on our family’s small ranch outside Killeen for years now, but clearly our teenage obsession with the guys who worked our cattle hasn’t gone anywhere.

Despite the growing crowd that packs the sidewalks lining 6 th Street, Bee is busy applying lip gloss, peering into the tiny mirror tucked into her palm. She’s only a year and a half younger than me, but you’d think there was at least a decade between us for how much, ahem, energy she has when it comes to seeking out the opposite sex.

“You would ask that.” I loop my arm through hers and give it a tug, the two of us narrowly avoiding a run-in with a slow-moving couple absorbed in sucking each other’s faces. “I haven’t been in Austin in years, so I can’t say. But it is a honky-tonk, so …”

“Who wouldn’t ask that?” Bee pops her lips before snapping the mirror shut with a succinct clap . “Cowboys are a thing for a reason. And that reason is?—”

“They ride like the motherfucking professionals they are.” My older sister Dottie smirks. “They also look really good in hats.”

“ Really good,” Bee adds, dropping her gloss and mirror into the tiny bag slung over her shoulder. “There’s just something about a man who works with his hands.”

Dottie nods. “A man who knows what he’s doing with those hands.”

“They’re all yours, ladies.” I slow my steps to look up at the neon sign glowing above a nearby door. “I’m just here for the music and the whiskey. Bonus points if we get to dance too.”

“But if you have enough of that whiskey and just so happen to see a cute guy …” Bee nudges me with her elbow. “I mean, c’mon. Now that you’re getting back in the literal saddle, don’t you wanna get back in the proverbial one too?”

“No thank you.”

Meh is the word I use most often to describe my post-divorce sex life. While I have absolutely no interest in ever getting married again—being a wife once has cured me of the desire to ever do it again—I was open to having fun with someone new after my divorce was finalized a year ago.

Commitment is out. The freedom to do whatever the hell I want without worrying about a man’s needs or expectations is in.

Only the two tipsy hookups I had didn’t turn out to be very fun or liberating at all. They left me with hangovers from hell and the depressing sense that sex in my late twenties is just … not that great.

I have no regrets ending my marriage to Dan. Just like I have no regrets about becoming a mom. I’ve wanted to have kids for as long as I can remember.

But I hoped my sex life would get a boost. By the time we separated, Dan and I hadn’t slept together in over a year.

I was aching for sex. And even then, it was a disappointment. I just couldn’t be myself during those brief encounters. Couldn’t find my groove, I guess.

“Whatever. Third time’s a charm, right?” Dottie shrugs. “You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince.”

“I don’t want a prince. I want sleep.”

“Not even a prince in a Stetson? With a big?—”

“Bank account?” Bee finishes the thought.

I laugh. “Not even then, no. I will take a shot of Jim Beam with a beer back, though.”

Dottie nods. “Let’s manifest that shit. Both the Jim Beam and the cowboy prince, I mean.”

Bee holds up a finger. “I’m on it.”

I roll my eyes for what feels like the fiftieth time today. “Y’all, please, please don’t.”

“We’re just fucking with you.” Wagging her brows, Dottie stops in front of a wooden door with a big brass handle shaped like a horse head. “Or maybe we’re not. You of all people could use some good old-fashioned stress relief. C’mon, y’all, let’s go have some fun.”

Dottie opens the door, and I step inside the infamous Blue Stallion. I’m immediately hit by the scent of stale beer and cigarettes, the smoke likely drifting in from the smoking patio that’s out back. The thump of a bass line echoes inside my breastbone. It’s a Chicks cover, one the band across the room is absolutely slaying.

Closing my eyes, I take a deep inhale and smile. Hello, lover.

As a single mom, I don’t get out much. To be honest, I’m too tired to miss getting dressed up and going out. The lackluster sex I’ve had with mediocre men certainly doesn’t help matters. But I will always, always love dive bars and live music. Especially when I get to experience them with my best friends in the world—my two sisters.

Bellying up to the bar, I do notice there are lots of guys in cowboy hats here.

Lots of cute guys in cowboy hats.

Some of them have to be real cowboys, right? Not like it matters. I don’t want to waste a precious night of freedom on another subpar guy. I’m here to let loose with my sisters, pure and simple. If getting a divorce has taught me anything, it’s that my relationships with women are a lifeline. I have so much more fun with them than I ever did with guys.

So, no cowboys for me.

I pull some cash out of my wallet and order a round of shots with beer backs, which the bartender slides across the sticky wooden counter.

Bee holds up her glass of Jim Beam. “A toast, to my big sister Ava and the start of her new life as the best damn trainer in barrel racing history.”

“Giddy-the-fuck-up.” Dottie holds up her shot glass too. “Proud of you, A.”

Smiling, I carefully tap my glass against theirs. “Thanks. I’m proud of me too.”

I mean that. My marriage and my career fell apart not long after I had June, and I’ve been working my ass off to rebuild my life from scratch ever since.

It’s been a journey. A long, often-terrible, sometimes-chaotic journey, but I’m finally in a place where I feel excited for the future.

I finally feel like I’m giving Junie the kind of life she deserves now that I landed my dream job as a trainer at the prestigious Wallace Ranch. June and I are moving into a cute carriage house apartment on the Wallaces’ property next week. I start my job shortly after that.

Not only is rent covered as part of my compensation package, but June and I also get our first taste of freedom after being under my ex’s thumb. He agreed to the move because the Wallace Ranch is somewhat close to where we all lived near Killeen.

Technically, he and I split custody fifty-fifty. But Dan agreed to only take Junie every other weekend now that I’m moving to Hartsville. I have no idea if that will change when June gets into the cute little preschool in Hartsville, the closest town to the ranch. Despite it being a teeny-tiny place, there’s currently a wait list for the three-year-old class because we’re applying a couple of months after the school year started back in late August.

My chest tightens. My daughter is in good hands—Mom and Dad offered to look after her this weekend so I wouldn’t have to mess up my schedule with Dan—and I was long overdue for a break. But I still miss my little Bug.

I’m also really happy to be away this weekend. I have no responsibilities other than drinking the occasional water between whiskeys. Motherhood has shown me that many things can be true at once—you can love being with your kid, and you can love getting a break from them too.

“You should be proud. You’re gonna kill it, Ava.” Bee brings her shot glass to her lips. “Cheers, y’all.”

We knock back our whiskey. I close my eyes to savor the familiar, slightly sweet burn of the liquor as I swallow. The band is playing the Garth Brooks classic “Friends in Low Places,” and I start to tap my heels to the beat.

Opening my eyes, I grab my ice-cold beer, take a long sip, and keep smiling.

I’m here.

I’m alive.

I made it through hell, and now I get to celebrate in my own version of heaven.

“I don’t know about y’all,” Bee says, sipping her Shiner Bock, “but I think the lead singer of that band is cute.”

Dottie glances over her shoulder. “Should we take a closer look?”

“I’m happy to play wingwoman,” I reply.

She meets my eyes, judgment written all over her face. “Where the hell is your main character energy?”

“June’s the main character,” I say, shrugging.

Bee gives me the same exact look, right down to the arched brow and pursed lips. “Have you ever read a romance? There can be more than one main character in a story.”

“I’m good with that. As long as one of those characters?—”

“Isn’t a man. Got it.” Dottie glances out across the dance floor. “What was it that Cher said? Something like, yeah, you don’t need men, but life is more fun if they’re in it?”

“I’m here to have fun with y’all.”

I mean that. Fun was in very short supply toward the end of my marriage. Dan would never approve of me being out on a Saturday night to go dancing with my girls. Much less me being gone for a whole weekend.

What an idiot I was to think that would be my happily ever after, waiting hand and foot on a man who never took it upon himself to return the favor in any meaningful way.

If I learned anything from being a wife, it’s that commitment inevitably leads to disappointment. Men don’t carry their fair share of the load, and loving them ends up trapping you in a never-ending cycle of housework, childcare, and loneliness.

Men just don’t care .

The disappointment happens bit by bit. Death by a thousand paper cuts. Dan and I were head over heels in love when we got married, even if he disapproved of the free-spirited Pisces side of me. I would ask him every night how his day went. Not only that, I genuinely cared about his answer. He’d ask about me too early on in our relationship. But every so often, he’d come home without saying a word to me.

Eventually, he stopped asking me about my day, or my thoughts, or my feelings altogether. He’d tell me I was crazy for expecting that level of intimacy. Even crazier for asking him to pick up the house or make a meal. Didn’t I get that he had a big, important, stressful job as a pharmaceutical sales rep? The implication being, of course, that he made more money than me, so obviously he didn’t have to talk to me or do anything around the house. That was my job.

So was taking care of our baby. And that imbalance, along with the fact that Dan put a lot of pressure on me to tone down my fun-loving, spontaneous nature, was ultimately what led me to ask for a divorce. I could handle all the cleaning and the cooking and the scheduling when it was just me and Dan. But add a newborn to the mix, and bam. I drowned.

I was done.

I’ve been single ever since. Am I open to dating? Sure. Falling in love? I’d consider that too. But I never, ever want to live with another man again, and I never want to marry one.

Bee shrugs. “If you say you want fun, let’s go have fun. I call dibs on the lead guy.”

“I’ll take the drummer,” Dottie replies, slipping her arm through mine. “Let’s see who wins at eye-fucking, shall we?”

Laughing, I let my sister lead me to the dance floor. It’s late—well, late for me, anyway, considering my bedtime is shortly after my daughter goes down at seven thirty—and the place is already packed.

But Dottie, being Dottie, cuts through the crowd and finds us a spot right in front of the stage. The music is loud here, so loud that I can’t hear anything but the song and the pounding of boots on the beat-up hardwood floor.

The whiskey hits, and I throw up my arms when the band plays a rowdy version of an old Tim McGraw song. My sisters and I dance, moving with the crowd as we all sing along at the top of our lungs to Tim, and then to an Alan Jackson cover, and then a Shania Twain cover, followed by several George Strait songs.

When the band’s modified version of “It Just Comes Natural” ends, Bee cups her hands around her mouth and shouts at the band, “I don’t know who y’all are, but I love you!”

The lead singer laughs too. “Howdy, ma’am. My name’s Hank, and this here is our band The Mighty Longhorns.”

“Terrible name!” the guitarist shouts, drawing laughter from the crowd.

I turn to Bee. “We need some Johnny Cash, don’t we?”

“Hell yeah, we need some Johnny Cash.” Dottie digs a twenty out of her purse and hands it to me. “Ask the band to play your favorite song.”

Grinning, I hold up the cash and drop it into the red plastic bucket beside the lead singer’s microphone.

He leans down. “What would you like to hear?”

“‘Ring of Fire,’ please.”

He grins. “You got it, darlin’.”

The bar erupts in cheers and whistles when the band plays the song’s first thumping notes. Bee hollers. Dottie stomps her feet, the two of us shouting the lyrics together at the top of our lungs.

Closing my eyes, I let the music guide me to exactly where I want to be—here, now. Wholly present. I focus on the feel of the smile on my face, how my cheeks hurt and my heart throbs. I sing and I dance, aware of the people around me dancing too. There’s a lightness in my belly and legs from the whiskey. Bee—I know it’s her from the sound of her cackle—bumps her hip into mine.

All the while, I sing Johnny’s lyrics, a little breathless the longer I move my body.

Burns, burns, burns.

God, does the burn in my belly and my heart feel good.

I feel good. I’m … holy shit, I’m happy, aren’t I?

It’s been so long since I’ve experienced happiness that I forgot what it feels like.

Thanks to Junie, my life’s filled with plenty of joy. But I’ve learned joy and happiness aren’t the same thing. To have both within reach after years of feeling trapped and miserable—well, it’s the best gift ever.

Throwing my arms up again, I lean back to let out a loud yell. At the same time, Bee bumps me again, only this time she hip-checks me hard enough to send me careening into the person behind me.

My eyes fly open as I hit a solid wall of man. Beer spills everywhere, soaking my shirt as a hand—big, warm, grip firm—curls around my upper arm.