Page 12 of The Cowboy’s Intriguing Love

By ten o’clock, Shayna was ready to leave the barn and dash home for a shower before her shift at the grocery store.

“Are you ready, Booker?” she called.

Booker was standing by the fence talking to Mac and Beau, the two horses Alexis had rescued from a kill pen. It was strange how things worked out. In saving the horses and bringing them here to board at Lily’s barn, Alexis had set in motion a whole chain ofevents that had changed her life – hers, Davin’s, Booker’s, and Shayna’s. These days, the four of them saw themselves as a little family unit, and Shayna loved it. She loved it just as much, if not more for Booker. He’d been out on his own and homeless when Alexis and Davin found him. These days, Shayna thought of him as her little brother.

“Come on!” she called when she reached her SUV. “I need to go!”

She smiled at the thought that like any little brother, he could be annoying at times.

“Sorry, Shay,” he said as he climbed into the passenger seat.

“No problem. You know I’m always on a tight schedule.”

“Yeah. Are you at the grocery store today?”

“Yep.”

“And The Boathouse again tonight?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t know how you do it all.”

She waved at Lily, who owned the barn, as she pulled away. “Sheer determination, coffee, and energy drinks,” she said.

“But you’ll be at the house tomorrow afternoon, right?”

“You know it. That’s the one sacred time in my schedule when I won’t take any shifts anywhere.”

Booker grinned at her. “I love that.”

“Me too.”

“What else is going on with you?”

She felt bad; although they worked at the barn together most mornings, she hadn’t made the time to chat with him much lately – she was more focused on getting her work done as fast as possible.

“Remember I told you I signed up for that dating site?”

He frowned. “Yeah. And I told you – if you’re going to meet someone, I can tail you to make sure you’re going to be okay.”

“Aww thanks, squirt. That means the world to me, that you’d do that for me. I might be talking to someone, but you don’t have to worry about me meeting up with him. He lives in Montana – he’s a cowboy.”

“Then why bother?”

She pursed her lips. “I probably wouldn’t have but April did a search on the guys where she used to live up there, and he showed up. She knows him and she says he’s a good guy, so …”

“Yeah, but like you said, you’re not likely to meet up with him.”

“No, but even if I met someone who lived here in town, I wouldn’t have the time to go out with him either. It doesn’t really matter where he lives.”

“I guess. And April knows him?”

“She does. Oh, and Chance does, too. He and Hope came to talk to me at the bar last night and they said he’s a good guy.”

Booker nodded slowly. She knew that invoking Chance’s name would help convince Booker. Chance was an old friend of Lily’sand he usually came out to the barn to see her and to ride when he and Hope were in town.

She shot a glance at Booker. “What about you – have you met anyone you’d be interested in dating?”

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