Chapter One: Cole’s POV
She rolled into town in her Mercedes like she owned the place.
The speed limit is 35 mph, but she came flying down the dirt road like a bat out of hell. As if that wasn’t annoying enough, I heard a song I remembered from driving my niece around. “Our Song” by Taylor Swift, just blasting from her speakers through the open window.
She’s both a romance author and a romance author cliché. Having her in town for 30 days while she researches for her first cowboy romance should be an absolutely thrilling experience. At least her publishing house is paying me top dollar to rent her my dusty old bunkhouse.
“The city girl is really getting down to her country roots,” I mumble as I watch her pull up my driveway with a scowl.
She pops her head out the driver side window. “Howdy, cowboy, are you Cole?” she says in a bright and bubbly tone.
If I wasn’t so annoyed, I might have noticed how mesmerizing her smile was, or how her eyes crinkled with pure joy as she took in the scene. I’m not the kind of guy to notice those things, though.
“Sure am, ma’am, and you must be Candance.”
I walk up to the door of her white Mercedes SUV and pull it open for her.
Long, tan legs under a blue sundress kick out, and for a second I am a guy who notices these things, apparently. I shake it off and tip my hat at her while she says, “You can call me Candy.”
Ain’t no way I’m calling her Candy.
“Uh, right. Well, Candace, that right there is your bunk house.” I point to a small house just a little ways off from the main house.
She beams at it and squeals, “How charming!”
No one has ever looked at a cowboy’s bunk house and thought, “How charming.” It’s a place to sleep and eat between hard-working shifts.
“Sure. Right. Thank you. Can I help you bring your suitcase up?”
She grins and clicks the car key to pop open her trunk and I swear I didn’t know anyone owned so many belongings. The trunk is packed to the brim with three suitcases, boxes, and bags.
“Thanks, cowboy!” she says, grabbing one of her suitcases and rolling it up to the bunk house, humming some ridiculous pop country song under her breath.
She’s just about two feet away from the bunk house when Gary comes around the corner riding Tank, his favorite cow horse. A solid chestnut quarter horse that I trained from the time he was a colt.
The suitcase is abandoned, and she’s walking up to Tank, giving that horse the kind of smile most men would be jealous of.
I expect her to run right up to the horse and start kissing his face like the other city girls who come to town for bachelorette weekends, but she doesn’t. She walks up calmly and raises the back of her hand, letting Tank decide whether he wants to say hello.
Huh.
I wasn’t expecting her to know how to greet a horse.
Gary is already chatting away, introducing her to Tank and asking her all about her ride into town. Good, let him give her the friendly Southern welcome. I’ll just get her bags up into the bunk house and get back to work.
She has too many bags; this is absolutely ridiculous, I think, as I haul the final load up to the bunk.
I take a beat to wipe the sweat from my brow and glance over at Gary, now standing next to Candace. He’s showing her something on Tank’s saddle, and I can’t tell if she’s actually following what he’s saying or not because her only expression seems to be genuine excitement about everything.
Something is wrong with her, but that’s not my problem.
She is not my problem.
I already have too many problems.
Old man Tom’s faucet is leaking, and Jane, two doors down, has a creaky door, and Susie and Pete need some help running new fence line at their farm, plus there are a million things here at Cowboy Code Ranch that need my attention, and none of them have to do with whatever the hell is wrong with her.
I’ll let Gary take the lead on that nightmare.
And just a little proof that this came from my brain and not AI.
