Page 11 of Big Rowdy Cowboy

He’s been doing this for years. As far as I know, he’s never told a soul how he really lost that leg of his. But he loves to make up stories. When I was a teenager, I believed every tall tale: the shark attack he barely survived, the alligator he fought off, and the bear he wrestled all night long. I’ve come to accept that he’s never going to give anyone an honest answer about the loss of his leg.

“Something like that.” He laughs and tosses me a water bottle before guzzling one of his own. He pulls his phone from his pocket and taps the screen.

“Still no service?”

“Yeah, I’m crushed no one can get in touch with me,” he says. He’s always preferred his own company to anyone else’s. It didn’t stop me from befriending him in high school. We used to spend our days fishing on the river and hunting through these very woods. It’s been a while since I’ve had time to do that.

But with Dotty in my life now, I’ll be in Courage County a lot more often. The family we’ll build together will need roots. Little cowboys and cowgirls that get to experience the joys of growing up out in the country.

“Why are you smiling like a fool?” Jasper demands.

“I found my girl,” I tell him before I launch into a quick rundown of how we met.

“So, you have three dates to get this woman to fall in love with you,” he summarizes when I’m done.

I nod. I have to find a way to convince her to be mine forever. I can’t see a future without her in it. We’re meant to be, and I need her to be on board with that. I need her to marry me and carry my babies and grow old with me on my front porch.

He jerks his head toward the road where we’ve managed to use the trucks to get the tree out of the path. “That ain’t much time. Stop hauling firewood with my cranky ass and go woo your girl instead.”

Chapter 7

Dotty

Nothing has been normal since I agreed to fake date Zac Maple. For one, my phone has been blowing up with notifications from social media. It only took me reading about two dozen of the comments to see how incredibly catty some of his fans were being. They must have posted without thinking that I might actually see their words. Is this what Zac deals with every day?

The second weird thing is how relaxed Sylvia suddenly was. She wasn’t worried about the fact that I haven’t finished the story on Betsy. She insisted she had plenty of content given the storm. We both already knew that but, in the past, she never would have acknowledged it.

One of the senior reporters on staff who always asks me to pick him up a coffee from Haley’s bakery stopped by my desk a few minutes ago to give me a coffee. I suspect he was fishing for details about Zac, but I accepted the cup and smiled sweetly, pretending to be coy. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing, since Zac and I never came up with an official cover story.

My phone dings with another notification, and I’m about to silence it at my desk when I see Sadie’s name.

“What are you doing?” She hisses as soon as I answer the call.

“Answering my phone,” I say, deciding to play dumb until I know what this is about. I have a pretty good idea that she’s calling for details.

“You’ve been dating Zac without telling me?” There’s hurt laced in her tone, and I hate that. I hate that she’s going to think I was holding out on telling her about this. When she first started crushing on Barrett, she shared everything with me. Heck, I was the one who drove her out to his place for her failed booty call.

“Why are you whispering?” I ask instead of answering her question. It’s a technique I learned when dealing with my parents. Sometimes, it’s easier to get them talking than it is to answer their questions.

“Because Barrett hasn’t seen his phone yet,” she says. “Now, you and Zac. Explain, please.”

I’m silent for a moment, collecting my thoughts. Sadie will never blab about this to anyone. None of my friends will. They always have my back even though I’m still considered a newcomer to Courage. Finally, I settle on telling her what I can. “It was a whirlwind thing.”

“So, it’s recent?” She presses.

“You could say that,” I answer.

Across the room, I spot Zac walking into the office. He’s holding a bouquet of sunflowers as he scans the crowd of office workers. Many of them stop and stare at him openly, something I doubt they would have done before this latest breaking news story.

“I’ll call you back. I have to go,” I tell Sadie.

“Fine, but we are discussing this later. I want all the details,” she tells me as I end the call.

I stand up from my desk, trying to ignore the butterflies in my stomach. The moment my gaze connects with Zac’s brown one, I can barely breathe. The man is sinfully handsome. His mouth quirks up in that one-sided smile I’ve come to love somuch. How is it I only met him yesterday and I already love his smile?

He crosses the room in three quick strides and holds the sunflowers out to me.

I didn’t realize when I agreed to this just how much it would affect me to have Zac doing nice things for me.

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