Chapter 2
Boone Callahan didn’t do skinny jeans, kale smoothies, and he sure as hell didn’t do one-night stands. Not anymore.
As a three-time All Around Rodeo Champion, he could last more than eight seconds on a bucking bronco, but he couldn't seem to make it past the eighth month with a woman.
When it came to forming deep connections, his capacity was, well, questionable.
He'd rather rein it in than wear it on his sleeve.
Since his ex took his ability to trust with her, Boone hadn't had even the slightest interest in entertaining a woman.
He'd built that indifference carefully, the way you board up a window before a storm.
It had served him just fine. Didn't mean he hadn't had a few wild dreams here and there.
But this one was so vivid. He caught the faint scent of citrus, felt the warm curves beneath his hands, and heard the soft breath of deep sleep.
The star of this dream? The fiery hot mess from last night. She'd crawled under his skin the second she opened her mouth in that coffee shop, which pissed him off to high hell. She'd been on his mind from the word orgasm. Probably explained the dream. He wasn't ready to dig any deeper than that.
He snuggled closer to the heat, and the warm body snuggled right back—her heart-shaped ass pressing into him. Jesus, it felt good. Too good. The kind of good that made a man's carefully constructed walls feel like kindling.
He wasn't sure if it was a whiskey-induced mirage from tying on one too many with his brothers until well into the night, or an incredibly bad decision. Then he heard a small, distinctly feminine sound—and he was pretty damn sure it didn't come from him.
This wasn't a dream. It was as real as he was hard behind the zipper of his jeans. Which meant the night hadn't ended with a rodeo finish. He wasn't sure how he felt about that—which was itself a clear sign of the state of his mind since his ex had left.
A soft sigh came from beside him and his eyes flew open, but he couldn’t see through the web of blonde hair covering his face.
He pushed it out of his way and—another moan, another nuzzle and this time his dick manned all the way up and, shit, he realized his right hand was cupping her tit like he owned it.
Part of him loved that he already felt the need to stake a claim—not in a selfish way, not yet—but in a way that screamed he didn’t want anyone else near her.
The other part reminded him that while he might not be much of a gentleman, he sure abided by the rules of consent and there was no way this woman—and he was pretty sure he knew who this woman was—would consent to anything other than a swift knee to the nuts.
Slowly, and regretfully, he removed his hand and then slid out of bed, careful not to wake her, nearly cracking his head open on the nightstand as he went. He dropped to his knees and peeked over the mattress.
Someone shrieked—a female someone.
A pillow came flying at his head. Then her phone.
Boone ducked. "What the hell are you doing?"
"What the hell are you doing? This is my room!" the woman demanded, as if he were the one who'd pulled a breaking and entering.
"Think again, Boots. This is my room."
"Is that what you say to all the women?" she snapped, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
He should have looked away. But, damn, she was pretty. Fresh-faced, mussed hair, pillow creases on her cheek. A delicate pink nightshirt with a V at the front—not low enough to see anything, but low enough to give him an idea of what lay beneath.
He sent her the smirk which he knew irked her. "I don't need to sneak into rooms. I do just fine on my own."
"Says the man who smells like whiskey and bad decisions." She froze. "Did we—?"
She peeked under the blankets and gave an audible exhale of relief.
"Does that mean you normally sleep in the buff?" he asked and her cheeks went an interesting shade of pink. "Please tell me you sleep in the buff."
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Normally I'd say yes, but I've got the headache from hell and no patience left for surprises. Especially the kind that wear perfume and sneak into men's beds."
"Again. This is my bed, my room, my house."
"You want to show me the deed with your family's name on it? Because I can show you mine."
Uncertainty flashed across her face. "No, but I'll show you my reservation number."
She felt around for her phone, which Boone collected from the floor and handed it over. She snatched it back and began to furiously swipe across the screen. When she found what she was looking for, she shoved the screen in his face.
It took a moment for the words to come into focus. Boone read it once, then again. Sure as hell, there was a doctored photo of his house, his address, and—fuck me—his ex's contact information. Seemed she was still complicating his life from the other side of the country.
"I don't understand," he said.
"Let me explain it for you. Your house is posted on a rental site. I paid for a month of country bliss, which your ranch is far from. You took half my money up front and emailed me the door code. Simple enough for you to follow, Cowboy?"
"Just because I spend my days with cows doesn't mean I'm an idiot."
"Could have fooled me."
"And I didn't know anything about this." He rubbed the growing ache behind his right eye. "My ex set this up."
"Well, why don't you call your ex and figure your shit out, because I need coffee before I deal with you."
Before he could stop her, Little Miss New York had a robe on—one of those fancy silky ones—and was headed down his hallway.
Boone’s eyes followed her to make sure she didn't break anything. That was the only reason. It had absolutely nothing to do with the way the silk swished around her thighs when she walked.
He followed her into the kitchen and watched in mild horror as she dropped a pod into his coffee machine. The thing whooshed and whirled, and then in seconds his house smelled like Thanksgiving and Halloween had a sugar baby.
Boone stood there in his own kitchen, watching a woman he'd known for less than twelve hours make herself completely at home—and felt the first crack forming in something he'd spent a year keeping sealed shut.
He didn't like it.
Not even a little.
Boone stormed through the barn, the smell of hay and sawdust doing little to soothe the rage curling in his chest. The horses shifted and neighed like they could feel it coming off him in waves.
He glanced toward the old peg by the door where his father’s hat still hung. He hadn’t moved it or touched it. Some days it felt like if he did, the last piece of solid ground beneath him would vanish.
This was his sanctuary, his ranch—it was his life.
Which meant that the one thing he thought he could control was now splashed online like a vacation special for rent without so much as a whisper.
It was like someone had thrown a neon sign over his whole life screaming “Shit on me some more.” And of course, all roads led back to Kayla.
If leaving him high and dry after his parents died had been a storm, this was a full-blown tornado and she was standing right in the middle of it.
What he didn't want to examine—what he absolutely refused to examine—was the fact that his anger at Kayla felt distant and manageable, while his irritation at the woman currently commandeering his kitchen felt alarmingly personal.
"Want to tell me why I've got some city slicker sleeping in my bed like Goldilocks?" he demanded into the phone.
“Want to tell me why you’re calling me in Maui at two in the morning?” Kayla asked, sleep thick in her voice.
“There was a beyond-frustrating woman playing Goldilocks in my bed last night.”
A long, curious pause. “Beyond-frustrating? That’s strong language for Mr. Coldhearted and Collected.”
“She tried to knee me in the nuts.”
Kayla was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, there was unmistakable interest in her tone. “So there was arguing and foreplay? Sounds like you’ve had more action with this woman than you’ve had since we broke up. I like her already.”
“Why is she in my house, Kayla?”
“Where was all this emotion when we were falling apart?”
Her words hit him straight in the chest—brutal in their honesty.
When his parents died, he’d all but gone into hiding—boarded up the windows on his heart and nailed them shut.
Kayla had tried everything to reach him, but he was in too deep and didn’t want to be helped.
Like a selfish prick he wallowed in the grief, cutting off everyone who loved him, including his brothers, who were going through it just as bad.
He’d acted like he was the only one who’d lost something.
“I’m sorry about that. I really am.”
Kayla went quiet. “I know you are, baby. You just grieved on your own timeline, and I couldn’t wait around forever. Right person wrong time.”
“In that moment, I didn’t understand but now I get it.” Or at least he understood enough to know he’d never let himself unravel like that again.
They hadn’t officially said “I do,” but he’d put a ring on her finger. Clearly it had meant something different to her. So, while he’d forgiven her, he would never make that mistake again. Better to be alone than to trust his heart to someone—because the reality was, love wasn’t forever for him.
“Back to Goldilocks,” he said.
“Last year, I wanted us to get away, so I put the ranch up as an Airbnb. I figured we could use the money and go somewhere fun. We needed fun back then. Anyway, I forgot to take it off the registry.”
“I want her gone.”
“I can check, but I think the contract is ironclad. Plus, how bad can it be? A couple of days?”
“Goldilocks says a month.”
“Yikes. Let me pull up the app.” He could hear her on her phone. “You want the bad news or the good news?”
Boone dragged a hand down his stubbled face. “Jesus, Kayla.”
“Before you jump down my throat, two days ago she rented your ranch for ten grand.”
He went completely still. “Ten grand? For this piece of shit?”
“I may have taken a few pictures from a flattering angle and photoshopped them a tad.”
“You mean catfished an unsuspecting traveler.”
“Anyway. The reason it’s so high is that she rented it for a full month during high season.
” She said the last words like his ranch was a tourist destination.
“She paid half up front and pays the other half when the thirty days are up. And before you start moaning and hollering, think about what you could do to the ranch with ten grand.”
Boone didn’t have to think. He already knew. Ten grand could be the difference between getting things up to standard and losing the ranch entirely.
“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
He could hear the smile in her voice. "You're welcome, baby."
The line went dead.
Boone felt a real smile cross his face, so old and rusty it almost caught on the way out. Then he thought about the pocket rocket of a disaster currently occupying his kitchen and that smile dropped straight into a frown.
What was he supposed to do with a city slicker for thirty whole days, especially when he was barely holding his own life together? Thirty days of her citrus perfume in his house, her laugh in his kitchen, her eyes daring him to be interested.
He was in trouble. Serious trouble.