Taken by the Wylde Mountain Cowboy (Wylde Mountain Ranch #3)

1. Chapter 1

Cassie

The thing about writing children’s books about horses is that eventually you have to go look at actual horses.

I know this sounds obvious. But I’ve been illustrating Barnaby the Brave Horse for three books now based on a combination of Google Images, childhood memories, and a Pinterest board I’ve titled “Horse Reference (DO NOT DELETE).” My editor keeps saying the illustrations are “charming and whimsical.” What she means is “these horses have the wrong number of leg joints.”

So when Elise Wylde invited me to spend a day at the ranch taking reference photos, I said yes before she finished the sentence.

Partly because I genuinely need better source material.

Partly because if I spend one more Saturday in my apartment organizing my bookshelf by color and then by genre and then by color again, I’m going to lose my mind.

I’m driving the twenty minutes from town to the ranch with my windows down and my camera on the passenger seat, feeling that I’m doing something adventurous.

Which tells you everything you need to know about my life.

A drive to a ranch is adventurous. A Saturday that doesn’t involve my apartment is an event.

I am twenty-four years old and my most reckless decision this year was buying a different brand of oat milk.

I never thought I’d come back here. When I left for college, I had plans.

Big, important plans that involved a city and a career and the kind of life where you don’t know every person at the grocery store by name.

I was going to be a graphic designer. Or an art director.

Or something that sounded impressive at parties.

Instead I’m back in Wylde Mountain, writing children’s books about a horse named Barnaby who learns life lessons on sharing and courage and the importance of brushing your mane.

And the wild part? I love it. The books sell well.

The reviews are kind. I get emails from parents whose kids sleep with Barnaby tucked under their arms.

I just didn’t picture this being my life at twenty-four. Not bad. Just quiet. Very, very quiet.

Harper, my boss at River Bend Books, has opinions about this.

“You need to get out more,” she told me yesterday, shelving a new shipment of romances with the enthusiasm of a woman who married a mountain man she met during a snowstorm.

Harper believes in love the way some people believe in gravity.

With the expectation that it will eventually pull you in whether you want it to or not.

“When’s the last time you went on a date? ”

“I had dinner with my parents last weekend.”

“That’s not a date, Cassie.”

“My mom made pot roast. My dad told a joke about a chicken. It was lovely.”

Harper had given me the look. The look that says “I love you but you’re twenty-four and you spend your Saturday nights color-coding your bookshelf.” She’s not wrong. She’s just not someone I want to admit that to while she’s glowing with married-to-a-gorgeous-mountain man energy.

Caroline says the same thing. My sister is twenty-six, works in town, and has managed to date three different men in the last year while I’ve dated zero. She texts me about it constantly.

My phone buzzes in the cupholder. I glance down.

Caroline: Where are you?

Me: Driving to the Wylde ranch. Taking horse photos.

Caroline: On a SATURDAY?

Me: It’s for the book.

Caroline: Cassie. You need to meet a human man. A real one. Not a horse named Barnaby.

Me: Barnaby is very emotionally available.

Caroline: I’m staging an intervention.

Me: Love you too.

I put the phone down and turn onto the ranch road.

The Wylde Mountain Ranch is the kind of property that makes you understand why people write songs about Montana.

Sixteen thousand acres stretching up into the mountains, green and wild and so beautiful it hurts a little.

The barn is massive. The fencing is perfect.

Everything looks exactly like you’d expect a ranch of this caliber to.

I park near the main barn and grab my camera and my tote bag. The tote bag has three books in it because I don’t go anywhere without books. It also has my sketch notebook, two pens, a granola bar, hand sanitizer, and a backup hair tie. I am prepared for every scenario.

There’s a truck in the yard that doesn’t belong to the ranch. A Dodge. Dust-covered, well-used, with a horse trailer attached that’s seen better decades. A bumper sticker on the trailer reads “COWBOYS DO IT IN 8 SECONDS.”

I step out of my car and take in the scene. There are people in the yard. Raiford, who I’ve met once before. Elise, who invited me. Brynn, who I recognize from the coffee shop, standing near a tall cowboy I think I’ve seen in town. And a man I’ve never laid eyes on before.

He’s tall and lean with dark hair to his shoulders and a black cowboy hat and a grin that could sell you a used car and make you thank him for the privilege.

He’s holding a little girl on his hip. She’s tiny. Two, maybe. Dark curly hair and enormous brown eyes. Her sundress has something on it that might be yogurt or might be modern art. She’s clutching a stuffed horse that looks like it’s been through a war.

She’s wearing his hat. It covers her entire face. She doesn’t seem to care.

Elise is standing in front of the little girl. The toddler pushes the hat up with both hands, studies Elise with the serious evaluation of someone who does not hand out approval easily, and says: “Horsey.”

I sling my tote bag over my shoulder and start across the yard.

“Elise invited me to see the ranch,” I call out, waving. “Said I could get some reference photos for my next book.”

I’m halfway across the yard when the little girl spots me.

She squirms in the man’s arms until he sets her down. Then she takes off.

Full toddler speed. Arms out. The hat bouncing on her head. One boot missing.

“Lola! Lola, stop…” He is three steps behind her.

She runs directly into my legs.

I stumble. My camera swings wide. My tote bag drops. Three books and my sketch notebook scatter across the gravel.

Lola sits down in the middle of the wreckage and looks up at me. The hat is covering half her face. She pushes it up with both hands.

“Horsey,” she says.

I stare at this child. This tiny, yogurt-covered, boot-missing, hat-stealing child who just took out my entire inventory with the force of a twenty-five-pound wrecking ball.

I crouch down. I pick up the stuffed horse she dropped in the collision.

“Is this your horsey?” I ask.

She nods. Reaches for it. I hand it over.

“I think maybe he needs a bath,” I say, looking at the matted, stained stuffed animal.

“He doesn’t like baths,” Lola says. With absolute authority.

I like her immediately.

Her dad arrives. One boot in his hand. Hat gone. He looks at me crouching in the gravel with his daughter.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “She’s fast. She’s really, really fast. I didn’t know kids could be this fast. I’ve ridden bulls that were easier to keep track of.”

He’s picking up my books while he talks. Stacking them. Trying to get my tote bag upright. He picks up my sketch notebook and a loose page falls out and he catches it. A sketch of a horse. One of my better ones, actually.

He stares at it.

“This is really good,” he says. Holding up the sketch.

I stand. I take the notebook. My cheeks are warm. “Thank you. It’s a rough draft.”

“If that’s rough, I’d love to see finished.” He flashes a grin. Full wattage.

I do not react to the grin. I am a woman who color-codes her calendar and has never made a reckless decision in her adult life. I am immune to charming cowboys with shoulder-length hair and a limp and a two-year-old and a smile that could power the entire town of Wylde Mountain.

“I’m Cash,” he says. “Cash Wylde. This is my daughter Lola. She’s two. She’s a handful.”

“Horsey.”

“She likes you,” Cash says. He sounds surprised. “She doesn’t usually like people this fast.”

I look down at Lola. Lola looks up at me. Her brown eyes are serious and certain. She has decided that I am acceptable, and a two-year-old’s approval is apparently the most powerful force in the known universe.

“Would you like to go see the real horses?” I ask her.

“YES.”

She grabs my hand. Her fingers are tiny and sticky and she grips mine like we’ve already agreed where we’re going.

We start walking toward the barn. I can feel Cash watching us. I don’t turn around.

Lola is pulling me toward Birdie’s stall with the determination of a woman on a mission.

This is fine. This is completely fine. I came here to take photos of horses for a children’s book. That’s what I’m doing. The fact that there is now a charming cowboy involved does not change the plan.

I am Cassie Benton. I am organized. I am careful. I do not make reckless decisions based on a nice smile and a toddler with sticky fingers.

Lola reaches through the stall bars toward Birdie. Birdie lowers her enormous head and blows warm air across Lola’s outstretched hand. Lola giggles. The sound is so pure it makes my chest ache.

I crouch beside her, one hand on her small back, steady and sure. Keeping her safe. The way you do with small things.

Behind us, footsteps. I don’t need to turn around to know who they belong to.

But I turn around anyway.

Cash is leaning in the barn doorway. He’s not looking at the horse.

He’s looking at me.

“Cassie Benton,” I tell him. “I write children’s books. About horses.”

“No kidding.” He looks at his daughter, then at me. “Lola’s obsessed with horses. Every book in her bag is about horses. She’d probably marry a horse if the paperwork wasn’t so complicated.”

I laugh, just as Lola tugs on my sundress again. Harder this time. “More Horsies.”