My Cowboy's Fake Girlfriend (A Wilder Brothers Ranch Romance #4)

1. Logan

Logan

Something is very, very wrong.

It’s not just the headache—though that’s bad enough. Feels like someone’s splitting my skull open from the inside, slow and deliberate. My mouth tastes like cheap whiskey and worse choices, and there’s sunlight cutting through the room like a blade I can’t dodge.

No.

It’s the weight beside me.

Warm. Bare. Definitely not alone.

I don’t move right away.

Years of waking up in unfamiliar places have taught me one thing—take stock before you make it worse.

There’s a woman in my bed.

That part locks in fast.

Soft skin against my arm. Her leg tangled with mine like it belongs there. The faint scent of something expensive—floral, clean, not the kind of thing you forget easily. My brain scrambles, trying to catch up, to piece together the night that led here.

Nothing solid sticks.

Just flashes.

Music too loud. Vegas lights too bright. A laugh—mine. A woman across a room, watching me like she already knows how the night ends.

I exhale slowly and turn my head.

And then I forget how to breathe.

She’s… hell.

Dark hair spilled across the pillow. Smooth skin, sharp cheekbones softened by sleep. Long lashes resting against her cheeks like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

Beautiful doesn’t even cover it.

She looks like trouble.

The kind you don’t walk away from clean.

My gaze drifts—because I’m an idiot—to the line of her shoulder, bare above the sheets, to the way her hand rests between us like she fell asleep mid-thought. There’s something controlled about her even like this. Composed, almost. Like whatever she is when she’s awake doesn’t fully let go.

“Yeah,” I mutter under my breath. “That tracks.”

I carefully ease my arm out from under her, inch by inch. She shifts, a quiet breath leaving her lips, and for one second I think she’s going to wake.

She doesn’t.

Good.

Because I have no idea what I’d say.

I sit up slowly, pressing my fingers to my temples as the room tilts. My boots are halfway across the suite. My shirt’s hanging off a lamp. There’s a half-empty bottle on the table and the Vegas city skyline burning bright beyond the windows.

Right.

That part clicks into place.

Conference. Investors. Big money pretending it understands land. Grayson sending me because I can handle people without looking like I’d rather be anywhere else—which, to be fair, I usually would.

I scrub a hand down my face.

“Hell of a job, Wilder.”

Represent the ranch.

That’s what I came here to do.

Instead, I wake up in a luxury suite with a woman I don’t remember leaving with.

I glance back at her.

No ring. No obvious red flags. No sign this is about to turn into something worse than a bad morning and a story I’ll never tell my brothers.

Still…

There’s something about her.

Something that makes the back of my neck tighten.

I stand, grab my jeans, and pull them on, wincing as my head protests. My phone’s facedown under a chair. I snag it, thumb brushing the screen.

Black.

For one blessed second, I think maybe I got away clean.

Then it lights up.

And everything goes to hell.

Missed calls for each of my brothers.

Grayson.

Cole.

Luke.

My stomach drops.

That’s never good.

Texts start stacking underneath.

What the hell did you do?

Call me. Now.

Get ahead of this.

A cold, heavy feeling settles in my chest.

“This” is not a word my family uses lightly.

I tap into my notifications.

The first headline hits like a punch to the throat.

WILDER brOTHER CAUGHT IN VEGAS SCANDAL WITH MYSTERY WOMAN

My pulse stutters.

I open it.

There’s a photo.

Grainy, but clear enough to wreck me.

It’s me—no denying that. Arm braced against a wall, head bent close to a woman pinned between me and polished marble. My hand is at her waist like it belongs there.

Like she belongs there.

I drag in a breath.

“Son of a—”

I zoom in.

Dark hair.

Same woman.

The one currently asleep in my bed.

Another photo loads.

Outside the hotel. My hand at the small of her back, guiding her through a crowd. Her face turned up toward mine like she’s listening to something I said.

Like she cares.

That one hits harder than it should.

Then the caption updates.

Name revealed.

My stomach drops straight through the floor.

Quinn Mercer.

Everything inside me goes dead still.

No.

No way.

I look up from the phone, slow and disbelieving, and turn toward the bed again like maybe if I look twice, she’ll be someone else.

She isn’t.

Quinn Mercer.

As in Mercer.

As in Evan Mercer’s sister.

As in the same Mercer family that’s been circling my family ranch, Silver Spur, like they’re just waiting for us to slip.

“Jesus,” I breathe.

Memory slams into place in jagged pieces.

Her across the ballroom.

Sharp smile. Quinn eyes.

Calling me predictable.

Me calling her dangerous.

A drink.

Another.

The tension snapping tight between us until it turns into something hotter. Reckless.

A balcony.

Her mouth on mine.

My hand braced beside her head.

Cameras—

My chest tightens.

“Damn it.”

The bed shifts behind me.

I turn.

She’s awake.

No confusion. No panic.

Just those same sharp eyes, watching me like she’s already three steps ahead.

“Morning,” she says, voice smooth, steady.

Like this is just another day.

Like we didn’t just wake up in the middle of something that could blow my life sideways.

I stare at her.

“You want to tell me why my phone’s blowing up,” I say slowly, “and why your name is attached to a headline that just dragged my family into it?”

There’s a flicker—quick, controlled.

Then it’s gone.

Her gaze doesn’t waver.

“It’s out already?” she asks.

Not surprised.

Not even close.

Something in my gut twists hard.

“Yeah,” I say, holding up my phone. “And it’s not just out. It’s everywhere.”

She studies my face for a long second.

Calculating.

That’s when it really hits me.

This woman—

Quinn Mercer—

doesn’t look like someone who just got caught in a mistake.

She looks like someone who expected the fallout.

My grip tightens around my phone.

And just like that, the hangover, the confusion, the regret—

it all burns off into something squint.

Anger.

“Funny thing,” I say, voice low. “I don’t remember signing up to be part of whatever game your family’s playing.”

Her expression shifts, just barely.

“Logan—”

“No.” I cut her off. “You don’t get to say my name like we’re on the same side.”

Silence stretches between us.

Heavy.

Charged.

Outside, the city hums like nothing is wrong.

Inside, everything tilts.

Because the more I look at her—

the more I remember—

the more one thing becomes very, very clear.

This wasn’t just a bad night.

And I didn’t just wake up next to the wrong woman.

I woke up next to a problem—

one that’s about to follow me all the way back to Montana.