Page 14 of Midnight Surrounds Us

He fixed his hat back on his head and took the last two steps in my direction, which put him one foot away from me.

Looking up into his eyes, I had to focus extremely hard not to be charmed by the way his sun-bronzed curls peeked out beneath his hat. They twisted and flicked around his ears, and all of a sudden I had an urge to reach up and coil one around my finger.

Visions of a country love story swirled in my head. Me in some dusty blue-and-white gingham dress and Rye in his jeans and hat, lifting me into his arms and swirling me around, with the high, arid desert surrounding us, mountains behind us, and horses running free in the distance.

Who cared if I was older? In Rye Graves’s eyes, it was plain to see that the rumors were true: he really did want me.

What would be so wrong with giving in?

Would anybody really care? Who would even know?

Didn’t I deserve some satisfaction? After giving my entire adult life to a marriage that should’ve ended in divorce instead of death and to raising two barely behaved boys, I sure as hell did. Why was I denying myself?

“Fine. I’ll hear you out.”

I could see no harm in listening to the sound of his voice a few minutes longer. Then, after I denied him again because the words coming out of his mouth were cuckoo, maybe later I couldimagine him ravaging my body while I tried my luck at “sexy me time” again.

“Look,” he said, “my old man is stubborn as fuck. I’ve been tryin’ to prove to him I’ve got what it takes to run G&S, but he ain’t buyin’ it. He’s got my mama in his ear, tellin’ him I can’t hack it because I’m failin’ at life. All ’cause I don’t have a woman. It’s bullshit.”

That really was bullshit. It was the same as if someone told me I couldn’t run my own store because I didn’t have a husband to support me. I hadn’t been out to G&S Ranch in years, but I knew it was thriving. I’d heard Abey talk about Rye and how hard he worked for his dad.

I felt sad for him that he had such unsupportive parents, but I wanted the upper hand in whatever negotiation was happening here, so I tapped the nonexistent watch on my wrist, cocked my head, and narrowed my eyes.

Rye smiled, his lips curving wickedly. “So, date me. Fake date me for a month. I’ll parade you around my folks. They’ll shut the hell up about my love life, and you’ll get your back taxes paid off. I’ll pay ’em today.”

I rolled my eyes.Oh yeah, like it’s that easy.

“Itisthat easy,” he said, reading my mind and the doubt on my face.

He pulled his phone from his back pocket, where the rectangular shape had left a permanent fade in every pair of jeans he owned. I knew because I’d stared at his ass long enough to commit everything about it to memory.

“Here,” he said, and he clicked a few times. When he turned his screen so I could see it, he shoved proof of his overflowing bank account in my face.

I saw enough zeros on his phone to make me dizzy. “Holy shit, Rye! How do you have that kind of money?”

He shrugged. “My dad may be a dick, but he pays well. I get a percentage of every sale we make plus a salaried wage, and what do I need to buy? I bought my truck, this Stetson”—he ran two fingers along the edge of his hat’s brim—“and a few pairs of Wranglers, but then I saved the rest.” He had to be feeling smug if the grin on his face was anything to go by.

He’d shocked me, and he knew it.

“That’s just my checkin’ account. You’d probably faint if you saw my savings.”

It’s too good to be true, Aubrey. Stop thinking about it!

And it was wrong. I couldn’t take his money. Money he’d earned through grit and determination.

In my forty-seven years, the one true thing I’d learned was the value of hard work. I had to give Rye at least that. I’d busted my ass trying to make Your Local Bookie successful, but Rye had worked just as hard, if not harder. Probably harder. He did work on a cattle ranch.

Suddenly, as I gazed up at the sexy cowboy begging me to fake date him, an idea struck me like lightning:

Bag a Cowboy.

I could order tote bags with a cute cowboy logo, and then do a monthly promotion. For every fifty bucks a customer spent on books, they could be entered into a drawing for a date with a local cowboy or cowgirl. It might get customers who’d switched to ordering their books online coming in. At the very least, it’d get people talking about Your Local Bookie again. But who in the world would agree to be put up for auction?

Rye’s blue eyes flashed while he watched me thinking, and they brought me right out of my head. The temptation to take him up on his offer was there. It was so strong that my mouth opened of its own accord to accept.

Instead, what I said was, “How do I know you’ll keep your word?”

“You don’t trust me?” He rolled his eyes. “You got a link?”

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