The Cowboy's Accidental Wife

1. Amelia

Amelia

There are two sides to me. The person I am around my family, and the other I show my friends. Or at least, that’s how I’ve been until recently. But the older I get, the more I realize I can be my true self around everyone in my life and they’ll still accept me for me.

My parents are successful. And I don’t mean they have good-paying jobs.

They are well-known by everyone in our hometown and even around the world.

My mother is a best-selling romance author, and my father was a professional football player for years.

They gained their fame and success by the time they were my age, while I flit around, not knowing what to do with my life.

“Where are you?” my mother asks as I cover the bottom of my phone with my hand, trying to drown out the extremely loud music. “I can barely hear you.”

“Out with Cassie. Some place near her house.” I’m lying. Cassie’s with me, but we’re not near her house or even in the same state. “There’s a band.”

“Come on,” Cassie whisper-shouts, pulling on my bare arm. “They’re waiting.” She glances over her shoulder at a group of guys who are looking at us like we’re their next meal.

“I’ve got to go, Mom. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“You better,” she says. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” I tell her before I hit end on my screen. “Are you sure about this?” Those words are for Cassie, but I don’t know why I ask. I never trust her judgment.

“Yes, girl. Look at them.” Cassie throws out her arm, making it perfectly clear we’re talking about them.

Am I sure about this? Absolutely not. Are they hot as fuck? Absofuckinglutely yes! They look nothing like the guys back home. The three guys are over six feet tall, wearing old-school Levi’s, snug T-shirts with rippling muscles on full display, and to top it all off, they’re wearing cowboy hats.

“Where’s Lyra?”

Cassie groans. “She’s heading down the elevator now. She had to change. The girl has issues.”

That statement is ripe coming from Cassie. The girl has more issues than any magazine ever printed.

“One night,” I tell my friend, hoping it’ll sate her need for attention from the opposite sex.

I agreed to come to Vegas for a girls’ weekend and not to hook up with random men we’d never see again.

“Let your hair down, mama. You’re wound tighter than a…” Cassie taps her lip. I can practically see her mind at work. The girl is not a wordsmith, never has been, but that’s not why I love her.

“A yo-yo,” I add, finishing her sentence.

She shakes her head, and her blond hair bounces in a way that makes me so damn jealous. “I was going to say banana.”

It’s my turn to groan. “That makes zero sense.”

The elevator doors open, and Lyra steps out, glancing around until her gaze lands on us. She waves like we somehow didn’t make eye contact. “I’m here. I’m here,” she pants. “I had to run in these heels.”

I look down as she points to her feet and wince. “Damn, Lyra. How the hell do you walk in those?”

Cassie and Lyra are glammed up, while I have on a pair of Chucks. Vegas is nothing but walking, and I’m not going to have my feet covered in blisters on the very first night and be miserable the rest of the trip.

Lyra lifts her foot, showing me the five-inch heels that are so skinny, I know I’d twist my ankle. “You know me, I was born in heels.”

She’s not even being dramatic. Her mother was a beauty queen, and from the moment Lyra could walk, her mother was training her for the pageant life. The girl looks more awkward walking in flats than she does in stilettos.

“Are you two going to talk about shoes all night, or can we go ride some cowboys?” Cassie asks, tapping her left espadrille against the marble floor.

“Cowboys,” Lyra nearly squeals. “I thought they were only in movies.”

“Sweet Jesus,” I mutter as Cassie and Lyra start to move toward the three guys waiting about twenty feet away. I follow them, chewing on my bottom lip, hating every moment of this.

Part of me wants to run away and hide in my room with a good book. Add in a little room service, along with a bath, and it would be the perfect way to spend the evening. My room overlooks the Strip, and while I’ve spent my life with big-city lights at night, Chicago’s do not compare to Las Vegas’s.

“Howdy,” the first cowboy says, taking off his hat and tipping his head.

So clichéd. They probably aren’t even cowboys. They probably wore the costume to snag women while on vacation—dumb ones like us. It’s not any different from us getting dressed up and wearing heels when we spend most of our days in flip-flops.

“Hiya,” Cassie says, her voice unusually higher and more annoying. “I’m Cassie, and this is Lyra.” She points at Lyra, who gives the guys a demure and completely fake smile. “And this is Amelia.”

I give them a half-assed wave with zero enthusiasm. What in the actual hell have I gotten myself into?

The blond guy, who totally matches Cassie’s vibe, gives her a big smile. “I’m Cliff.”

Cassie does this weird little clap thing where the bottoms of her palms stay touching but her fingers tap against each other. Is that supposed to be ladylike? It’s kinda ew, but who am I to yuck her yum.

“And this is Dustin,” Cliff says, pointing to the guy in a blue flannel he probably grabbed out of his hiking gear he hasn’t touched in a year. “And that one is Reed.”

When I drag my eyes to Reed, where Cliff is pointing, my heart stops dead in my chest. Reed is staring right at me, his eyes dark and dreamy with a hunger in them that’s slightly unnerving and more than a little hot.

Calm down, libido. He probably needs a steak.

“Dinner or drinks?” Cassie asks Cliff as she wraps herself around his arm, taking nothing slow.

“We’ve had dinner, but we’d be more than happy to watch you ladies eat,” Cliff tells her.

“We’ve eaten too,” she lies.

The only thing I had today was a bag of chips and the shitty, dry-as-sand cookie they gave us on the plane. My stomach acid is about to start devouring me from the inside out if I don’t get something in my system and soon.

“I’m hungry,” I say, ignoring Cassie.

“I could eat,” Reed adds with a tip of his head toward me. “How about we grab a table, and whoever wants to eat can eat and whoever wants to drink can drink.”

“Fab idea,” Cassie says, sounding every bit like a city girl and looking like one too with her bouncy hair, big tits, and long legs that go on for miles.

There’s nothing country about her, and maybe that’s the allure for Cliff.

He wants a taste of something outside his hometown, and that girl would be Cassie.

“Where to?” Reed asks.

I peer up, finding his eyes locked on me. “Um, I don’t know. I’ve never been here.”

“Who wants a steak?” Dustin asks. “They have a great one here.”

I have no shock about his answer. These guys probably haven’t eaten a vegetable in their lives besides a potato.

“You eat meat?” Reed asks me.

I nod. “I’m not an avocado toast kind of girl.”

“Good,” he says, his voice flowing over my skin like a warm breeze. “Steak, it is.”

Reed holds out an arm for me to walk, and I take a step, expecting him to step behind me, but he doesn’t. He stays at my side, slowing his stride so he doesn’t pass me up. We follow Cassie, Dustin, Cliff, and Lyra and spend the first sixty seconds of the walk in silence.

Am I uncomfortable? A little, but growing up in a bar, I’ve become used to talking to strangers. And Reed, although handsome as hell, isn’t different from any other man I’ve spoken to before.

“Where are you from?” he asks.

“Chicago.”

“Right on. I love it there.”

I glance over at him, trying to picture him at Grant Park with his hat on, looking completely out of place. “You’ve been?”

He nods. “My uncle lives in a place on Lake Shore. Spent a few weeks there every year.”

There’s nothing cheap on Lake Shore. I can’t even afford a studio without a lake view in that area.

“Prettiest lake I’ve ever seen,” Reed adds.

“It is that,” I tell him, fiddling with the strap on my purse because this is so damn awkward. “And you?”

“I’m from South Dakota.”

Of course he is. Do I believe he’s a cowboy from South Dakota who vacations in Chicago? Not a fucking chance.

“What part?” I ask, pushing for more information.

“Near Spearfish.”

I don’t know if he thinks people outside of South Dakota know where Spearfish is, but I sure as hell don’t. “You a rancher?” I ask, wanting more information.

“Yes, ma’am.”

I ain’t going to lie. The lilt to his words and the way he says ma’am have my heart doing a little dance behind my ribs.

“Five generations.”

The Hook & Hustle is on its third generation. The bar is nowhere near as hard as ranching, but I know all about the ins and outs of a family business—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

“Amelia’s family runs a business too,” Lyra says as she turns around, totally eavesdropping on our conversation.

“Oh yeah?” Reed asks, somehow looking like he’s interested, but I’m sure if I flashed him my tits, all thoughts about Lyra’s statement would immediately disappear. “What kind?”

“A family bar.”

“No shit,” he says, staring down at me.

Standing next to the man makes me feel little. It’s not something I’m used to either. My father is a large man and so are most of the men in my family, but there’s something about Reed that makes me feel smaller than normal.

“I don’t work there. I work at my aunt’s bakery next door,” I say for no reason at all. I’m not embarrassed about the bar, but I want him to know that’s not my life.

“I love dessert,” he says.

I bet if I’d said I worked at the bar, he would’ve said he loved beer. Reed’s trying too hard, when he doesn’t have a shot at me, no matter what he says. I’m in my self-discovery era, and that doesn’t include random hookups with strangers in different states.

I thank the gods as we turn a corner to walk into the restaurant, but my thanks don’t last long. I nearly walk right into a giant cement bull that’s three feet taller than me, and I stumble backward and screech.