Page 1 of A Forever Kind of Rancher

Chapter One

She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. A vision dressed in pink, and somehow it made him think of strawberries, which got him to wondering if her skin tasted like strawberries.

She wasn’t dancing, and she should be. Hell, Boone was wearing a suit, and he didn’t much care for that shit. He didn’t much care for dancing either, but this was the kind of thing you wore suits to, and danced at, so it felt like a crime she wasn’t dancing.

It was his brother’s wedding after all.

And he was damned happy for Chance. Really. He’d fallen in love and all that. Boone was in love too.

Had been for years. In a way that had left him cut open, hollowed out and embittered.

He respected the hell out of love for that very reason. He knew how intense it could be. How long-lasting.

He decided to remedy the fact that she wasn’t dancing, because hell, he was in a suit after all.

He knew better than this. He stayed clear of her, except when he couldn’t. He knew better than to approach her. She was forbidden. Because of what he wanted to do with her. To her. If all he wanted was a chance to say hi, a chance to shoot the breeze, they could be friends.

But it wasn’t what he wanted.

It never had been.

Tonight this place looked beautiful, and so did she, and she was standing there alone, and that was wrong.

He ignored the warning sounds going off in the back of his head and crossed the old barn that had been decorated with fairy lights and flowers for his brother’s big day.

“Care to dance?”

She looked up at him, and he saw it. That little spark of awareness that always went off when they were near each other. They saw each other way too often for his taste, and hers, too, probably. He loved it, and he hated it. He had a feeling she only hated it.

It only ever ended one of two ways. With her turning red and running in the other direction or getting pissed off and getting right in his face. As if one or the other would hide the fact that she wanted him. She did. He knew that.

Not that either of them would ever do anything about it.

They were too good.

Boone hadn’t often been accused of being too good. But when it came to her...

He was a damned saint.

She lifted her hand, and the diamond there sparkled beneath the light.

“If he’s not going to dance with you,” Boone said, “you might as well dance with me.”

And he could see it. That it was a challenge he laid out before her, and she wouldn’t back down.

Wendy never backed down from a challenge. It was one of the things he liked about her.

That diamond ring was the thing he didn’t much like.

And the fact that it meant she’d made vows to his best friend. Wedding vows.

Boone wanted his best friend’s wife. And it felt so good he couldn’t even muster up the willpower to hate it.

He didn’t wait for her to answer, instead, he reached out and took her hand and pulled her up from her chair, led her to the dance floor, and tugged her against his body like they were friends, and it was fine. She looked over her shoulder, her expression worried. And that spoke volumes. Because they were friends, as far as anybody here was concerned. Because there was nothing between them, not outwardly.

But they both felt it. And that was what made dancing with her dangerous. He had known Daniel for a long time. He loved him like a brother. At least, he had. Before he’d married Wendy.

Daniel, as a husband, sucked. Witnessing that had started to damage their friendship. Boone had never been satisfied that Daniel valued that marriage.

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