Chapter One
Adam
I step into The Dirty Cowboy, a tiny dive bar in Nashville. The kind of place that attracts college kids with small budgets and lonely cowboys looking to get laid.
I did get laid when I came here. Problem is, I just haven’t been able to find her since.
“We’re closed,” Danger, the owner and bartender, announces without looking from where she’s stocking cheap liquor that she’ll water down when she thinks the patrons aren’t paying attention.
I ignore her words and approach the counter, throwing a couple of hundreds on it. I’ve been here enough to know she won’t accept the cash. But it doesn’t stop me from offering it because I’m desperate to find my cowgirl.
Danger finally turns around and scowls. I’ve visited this place about fifteen times in the last three months.
My brown-eyed cowgirl and I didn’t exchange names that night. It seemed thrilling at the time to simply be strangers. I figured I’d get her name in the morning. But she ducked out, leaving me to wake up in the cold motel room by myself.
She probably thought she was doing me a favor. But we had a connection. Something that went beyond the fact that I knew exactly how to touch her pussy to make her scream my name.
“For the last time,” Danger sighs. “I don’t know where your girl is. She was a first timer here.”
“She hasn’t been back?” I question. Her eyes still haunt me, filled with secrets she wanted to tell. When I go to sleep at night, she’s my last thought. I worry about her, about what secrets she was holding onto.
Danger sends me a look that could be pity or annoyance. She’s a hard woman to read. “Nope. Not since the other fourteen times you’ve asked me.”
The bar door behind me opens. My best friend and football legend, Beau Everett walks through the door. He hates getting noticed since he faded from the public eye about three years ago.
I jerk my thumb toward him, figuring this is a long shot. Money doesn’t work for some people, but fame usually does. “How about now? Have you seen her?”
Her tight little body is a feature in all of my dreams, and I wake up each morning horny for her. For her touch and her warmth.
I don’t just want to find her. I need to find her. I need to sink into her body again. I need to make her mine in every way, to claim her so no other man ever discovers my cowgirl. Or what she can do with that incredible mouth of hers.
“Look.” Danger crosses her tattooed arms over her ample chest. “Championship ring here and I could have a three-way with Peyton Manning, and I still wouldn’t know a damn thing about your girl.”
Even though I told myself I wasn’t going to hope for a different response, I still feel disappointment settle over me like a thick, wet blanket.
She crumples the cash and passes it back to me. But the entire time she’s busy eyeing Beau. “Why don’t you and your friend come back tonight? I’ll give you drinks on the house, and you can pick out a new girl.”
But I don’t want a new girl. My feisty cowgirl is the only woman I want. Instead, I collect the cash and pass Danger my card for the Taylor ranch where I’m the business manager. “Day or night. You spot her, get a name, and call me.”
She takes the card and adds it with the other fourteen cards I’ve given her, making a point of how large the stack is.
“You gotta know when to give up, cowboy,” she calls as I leave the bar.
“Are you going to stop searching?” Beau asks when we’re in his car and on the way to Courage County, North Carolina. It’s where I call home, running the Taylor ranch with my five brothers.
I just happened to be in Nashville the night I met her. I ignore my friend’s question. “Thanks for showing up in there.”
“Have you thought about searching colleges in the area? You said she was about that age,” Beau says, stroking his beard.
I’ve spent months, searching my brain for some clue she might have given me as to her real identity. While she was definitely college age, I didn’t get the idea that she was in school. “She didn’t seem like the type.”
“Did she seem like a tourist? Maybe you can’t find her because she was passing through, same as you.”
“We didn’t talk much,” I grunt. We spent our time in the bar, making out in a dimly lit back corner. I fingered her underneath her dress and made her come in a public place. Her cheeks flamed but her eyes were hungry for more.
So, I invited her to a nearby hotel. I paid cash for it and the drinks we got that night. I always pay cash when I’m out of town. It never struck me as a bad idea until I realized it means that my cowgirl has no way to find me either. Not unless we both happen to walk into that damn bar at the same time on the same night again.
Beau chuckles and it’s a knowing chuckle. As a former quarterback, he’s probably had his share of women. But I didn’t know him back then and he’s never talked about his life before he walked away from the spotlight. The only reason we even became friends was because he needed some advice on the ranch he bought.
“Riley invited me over for dinner tonight. Do you want to join us?” I ask, changing the subject. She married my oldest brother, Nick and the two of them are head over heels in love with each other.
Beau shakes his head as he fiddles with the radio in his sports car. “You’re on your own, pal.”
***
“Don’t be mad at me, Adam Taylor,” Riley starts as she chops the vegetables for the stew she’s putting together. She had me show up early to get me alone and dread fills me.
Riley has been parading a new woman in front of me every damn week. I should probably tell her I have someone but that would just invite feedback from all of my sisters-in-law. Seems I’ve gained three of them over the past few months.
“Why should I not be mad?” I rock Annie in her sleeper on the kitchen table when she stirs. The one-month-old kid is the most loved little girl in the whole world. All of the Taylor men and their wives dote on her.
She pauses to smile at her sleeping baby before turning her attention back to me. “Well, you keep telling me that you don’t have time to date because you’re too busy running the ranch, so I did it. I went and found you an assistant.”
I call her name in a groan. My sister-in-law was pregnant and homeless when Nick found her living in the barn. Since they got together, she’s been eager to prove herself useful here. She’s always coming up with new suggestions and bringing them to me.
Honestly, she has some kick-ass ideas, and we’ve put several of them into motion already. She may not realize it, but she has a head for business. Still, I didn’t ask her to go hiring an assistant.
She frowns. “Don’t be like that. You do the work of three people around here, and everyone can tell you’re exhausted even if you never complain about it.”
She doesn’t understand that I don’t have a right to complain. I’m the counterfeit Taylor brother, the adopted one. I have to earn my place.
“Who did you get?” I ask, trying to think of the people in town who might be interested in a position here.
The doorbell rings, and Riley beams at me. “That’s her now. I know you don’t like change. But try to be nice. She’s new to town.”
Riley turns the stew to a simmer and disappears into the living room to answer the door while I keep an eye on Annie.
“Your mama is trying to get me hitched,” I mutter to the sleeping little girl.
“Adam,” Riley calls my name as she comes back into the kitchen with a woman following behind her. “This is Tara Hart, your new assistant.”
I glance up from the baby and all of the oxygen is sucked from the room. Standing in front of me is my cowgirl, the one I’ve spent the last three months searching for.