Chapter 4
Tessa
“That cowboy’s been eye fucking you all night.” Callie elbows me and tilts her head subtly toward where the guy is chatting with the bartender. His Stetson sits next to him, and based on his rugged, casual look, he very well could have ridden here on a horse.
“He is not,” I insist.
But I kind of hope she’s right. He’s unmistakably the hottest guy in here, and I’ve found my eyes wandering his way more than once.
As he stands up and hinges forward, leaning on the bar, I can’t help noticing his long legs and tight ass wrapped in dark denim. His worn chambray shirt stretches taut across his broad back and shoulders. His sleeves are rolled to the elbow, exposing tan, muscled forearms.
“D’you see that woman over there in the tiara? All I want is to push her up against the side of my truck, take her face in my hands, and give her the best kiss of her life. And that’s only the beginning…”
There I go making shit up again.
I have no idea what they’re saying between the din in the place and the extra noise from a cocktail shaker, but I notice the slight tilt of the bartender’s head in my direction.
Ten years of taking depositions has given me a sixth sense about the tiniest bodily shifts.
It helps to figure out what a person is hiding and find important nuggets of information for a case.
I wrench my gaze away just before I’m caught staring.
“Probably because I’m sitting here wearing a crown like a dope.” I reach for it, but before I can take it off, Callie’s hand shoots up and anchors it in place.
“Keep it,” she hisses. “It’s cute. How else can we get you to be festive when you refused to dress up for your own birthday dinner?”
“We’re at a rustic little hole-in-the-wall. I didn’t think it called for Chanel.”
She snorts. “Like you own Chanel.” I shrug, and her eyes bulge. “Dude, do you really wear Chanel?”
My sisters don’t know that I’m not even close to making partner at my firm, which means I’m not even close to needing a suit for a court appearance, let alone one made by Chanel.
“I have one suit I save for really important meetings, but I bought it at a vintage place for a steal. Relax.”
Callie grins. “How are you so cool? Someday, I want to be you.”
I push down the guilt over pretending I have important meetings. It’s better that they don’t know the real reason I’ll probably never make partner. I’m not passionate about the work I’m doing, and that makes it hard to reach for a prize I’m not sure I want. Even if it is supposedly the goal.
I put an arm around her shoulder. “I love you, Cal. Please never change.”
“What’s happening over there? Sisterly bonding without us?
” Dylan asks, tapping a finger against her empty martini glass and looking up to snag the bartender’s eye.
He nods in our direction, and I’m impressed by his command of the room, which is busy for a small town.
Then again, it’s the only place within miles that serves steak—we looked.
Everyone has been on birthday behavior. In other words, my sisters are all laughing, getting along, and having fun.
No one has mentioned the ranch property again, in favor of birthday toasts and jokes about how I’m sliding into middle age at thirty-five.
Hannah is the only one who sits out when the old lady talk happens.
“Sorry,” Hannah whispers to me when Dylan, barely thirty-two, pipes in again and insists that I’m old. “You’ve got plenty of time. Age is just a number, and people do everything later now.”
As though I’m not aware of the ticking clock on my ovaries.
I always imagined myself getting married and having kids, but somehow, years slipped by and none of my dating sprees turned into the relationships I dreamed of.
Pushing forward on my career goals and dreams seems like a much better use of my energy. The odds of success seem better.
Hannah married her college sweetheart and has an adorable little boy. With her solid career in publishing, she is the poster child for “having it all,” but that’s just how she rolls. She makes a decision, and her life goes according to plan.
“I’m fine with my age,” I say, signaling to the bartender for another lemon drop even though I haven’t finished the first one. The cowboy at the bar lifts his drink in a toast. I offer him a stiff smile and jerk my attention back to my sisters. The last thing I need in my life is a cowboy.
What do I need in my life?
Thirty-five years, and the one certainty is that I need my sisters, and they depend on me to look out for them. But what else do I need?
I sneak another look at the cowboy.
It is my birthday, after all. It wouldn’t be the worst thing to have a white-hot hookup with a guy who looks like dessert on a barstool.
He has sexy dark hair, all tousled like he just got off a galloping horse.
I’m such a city girl. Tiny Willow Springs seems like the Wild West to me, but he’s probably just a dude who works at a grocery store or someone who paints houses.
Whatever. In my fantasy, he’s a hot cowboy, and he knows what to do with a horse whip.
His forehead bears the faint lines of age. The creases around his deep brown eyes could be from working in the sun or smiling at his sweetie, who’s actually his horse.
This guy is built like a rancher, someone with broad enough shoulders to swing a lasso or take control of a surly bull.
He’s wearing boots, after all, but then again, people in LA wear boots to hop in and out of their Mercedes G wagons.
This man, though, he looks like the real thing.
His thighs, clad in dark jeans, look thick and strong like those of an athlete.
He was probably a high school quarterback.
He has the build for it. Football player turned rancher, riding horses by day and chopping wood to throw into an old stone hearth by night.
Why not let my imagination write the rest?
Behind his intense gaze lies a dark, sad past, something out of a country song. His wife left him, his job stole his soul, and he’s here drinking away his troubles because life got in the way of his dreams.
And when the two of us collide in a dark barn that smells like hay and whiskey and moonlight, it’s the one right thing I’ve ever done in my life. And everything from now until forever makes sense.
Sigh. Me and my fantasies.
He could be a county lawyer just like me. He could own a grocery store. He could be a mail carrier.
I’m jolted from my fantasy when my sisters start yammering about the challenges of renovation, the craziness of running a family resort, and the short-sightedness of selling the property tomorrow.
I try to tune them out and lose myself in the fantasy of a cowboy in bed. I imagine his commanding presence, my fingers digging into his muscular back, and I feel a twinge between my legs that I haven’t felt in a long, long time.
Maybe the one thing I need in my life is a cowboy.
“I think the smartest thing to do is fix it up and then sell. Turning it into a bed-and-breakfast or a ranch camp or whatever Dylan envisions seems cool, but we’d need to run the numbers.
Maybe run them for all the possibilities and see where we are.
Then we can talk about what to do.” I look at Hazel, whose eyes dance at the opportunity to calculate potential gains and losses in a variety of scenarios.
“Done,” Hazel says. “Give me a week, and I’ll pull something together based on market conditions, family ranches, inns, all the potential scenarios.”
“Great. And I know you kind of want it off our plates, let’s at least consider the idea of keeping it in the family if we can afford it. Can you run those numbers, too, Haze?”
“Sure. I’ll make a spreadsheet.” Hazel is downright delighted.
“I really hope you meet a man someday who understands that spreadsheets are your love language,” Dylan says. “Mine is wine.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Hannah says, stabbing at the last bite of steak on her plate and closing her eyes as she chews.
“I say we keep it. Vacation here. Wouldn’t it be nice to drive a couple of hours to a lovely ranch, go for a bike ride through the rolling hills, and hole up by the fireplace in winter weather?
Come on, for the sentimental value alone, we should at least consider it.
” Callie inhales a deep breath as though she can smell the burning wood.
My sisters chime in all at once, Hannah asking why she has such an attachment to a place she barely visited as a kid, Hazel yapping about financial literacy, and Dylan jumping in again with her family ranch idea.
Somewhere in the mix, a slice of cake with a single candle is brought out, and my sisters start singing.
My face flushes at the attention, and I slink lower in my chair as the eyes of half the room are on me.
I quickly blow out the candle and fan away the smoke, shoving the slice of cake to the middle of the table, where everyone digs in.
The bill comes a minute later, and they continue squabbling over that. “You had three drinks, and you’re the only one who ordered an appetizer.” Dylan points at Callie, who shrugs.
“I paid last time,” Hannah reminds everyone.
“Yes, but that was at a taco stand,” Hazel says.
“You guys, people are waiting for this table.” I gesture toward two couples standing by the door, and for once, I sit back, letting them come up with a solution on their own.
Eyeing the cowboy, I consider how one night with a guy that rugged would feel, awareness unfurling at my core.
I find him staring straight back, one eyebrow raised in a smirk.
After everyone throws down crumpled bills, I usher them outside to catch a ride back to the hotel. They can argue all they want in the car. They probably won’t even notice if I’m not there.
My sisters have put me in a mood, somewhere between daring and reckless. I go back inside without a plan, heading straight for the bathroom, planning to toss the tiara and fix my hair.
“You didn’t make a wish, honey.”