Page 4 of Claimed By the Cowboys

Would I ever risk ruining the friendship I have with them for something as stupid as my cursed love life? Nope. Not in a million freaking years.

So am I going to go over to their house and salivate over all three of them? You bet.

But I, Piper Cassidy, am in my healing era. I can’t be a good parent without it, and I need some kind of hard reset from dating in order to get to that step.

And no farm boy, no matter how cute or how muscular his thighs are, is going to pull me out of that.

CHAPTER 2

Brent

Iswear to God, living next to Piper Cassidy is a special kind of torture.

I’m a good person. I’ve spent my days trying to live up to the vision of the man I want to be. I’m a farmer. I make food for millions of people. I take good care of the earth I live on. I donate money to charities, when I can.

There’s absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, that I can think of that would earn me the type of pain I’m in whenever I see her.

Piper isn’t the problem, necessarily. It’s not like she’s mean. No, Piper is the sweetest woman on the face of the planet. More than just that, she’s the real deal. The whole thing. She’s got everything a man could ever want in a woman. Brilliant, with the brain of a business tycoon and the body of a model, she’s also literally the soul of kindness. I’ve seen her help an honest-to-god turtle cross a road, so that it didn’t get hit by oncoming traffic. A fuckingturtle.

Like, if they make saints, they come in packages that look like Piper Cassidy. Even if that package is built with sinners in mind.

If she gave even the slightest hint that she wanted to be more than friends, I’d be on that faster than a bee on honey.

But in all the years I’ve known her… she hasn’t. And I’ve been fighting to accept that fact since the day I figured it out.

Driving back from the farmers market, I stop by the country store to get some supplies that Tate needs for dinner. The whole time, I feel like my skin is buzzing from the brief interaction I had with Piper earlier.

Her little table at the farmers market sold out.Again.If I hadn’t helped her can about a hundred jars of pickled asparagus, I wouldn’t have a clue that she’d even brought them to sell today. She’s so goddamn good at what she does, it’s scary.

The pickled veggies are good. I mean, it’s hard to say that pickled asparagus, of all things, is good, but when I saw the picture Piper posted of using it as a garnish for a bloody Mary? Hell, I don’t even drink, and I wanted to try one.

The jars are cute. She’s got a neat little label machine, and each one is tied to perfection with a little scrap of burlap, making the whole thing feel like so much more than just a stupid jar of pickles. It feels like you’re buying something… homemade. Made with love.

The brand goes along with it. She told me that she was going to shoot some content, but I know there’s a lot more that goes into it than the casual statement. I’ve seen how long it takes her to set up just the lighting alone. It looks effortless when it pops up on social media. But it is definitely, definitely not effortless.

I’ve been a fan of Piper Cassidy ever since she took me to the nurse’s office when I had the flu in third grade. I was literally a mess, and I’d just done the most embarrassing thing that had ever been done: I threw up at school.

Piper, however, not only volunteered to take me to the nurse’s office, but she didn’t act weird about it. She patted my back and told me that everything was going to be okay. Which was nicer than my own parents were about the whole situation.

Ever since, I’ve lived in awe of Piper’s kindness and generosity. Her badass brain. Everything about her has been just a perpetual cycle of wonder. And when she said she wanted to move out here, to Montana, next to us, I couldn’t believe it.

Now, I get to treasure all the little moments with her again. Helping her clean up from the farmers market. Helping her can an ungodly amount of asparagus. Having her over for dinner.

It’s amazing. And it fucking sucks.

Playing friendly neighbors with Piper is about as close to the real thing as I’ll ever get with her. It’s as close as any of the three of us will—my two best friends and me. We’re all just friends who grew up together, and she’s never given us reason to think otherwise.

And I’d never push her past that. None of us would. No matter what we think would be great, Piper’s wishes come first. So for now, we’re friends. Just like we’ve always been. And if it means that we get to keep Piper in our lives and see her on a regular basis, I don’t think any of us are going to complain.

I wince as my truck clangs off of a particularly stubborn rock that bounces up from the dirt road that winds up to our property. The truck groans in protest, but I ignore it, hoping that it won’t die on me for just a little rock.

I longingly think of the vintage blue Ford that I just loaded all of Piper’s market stuff into. Piper’s truck might look old, but it’s been refurbished professionally by someone who was featured on a television show for their work with trucks. The interior has been completely rebuilt, the engine is basically brand new, and overall, it’s a total dream.

My truck, though, is not. It’s not old enough to be vintage, and it’s not new enough to be cool. It’s a workhorse, and I’m grateful for it, but I finally paid it off this year, and like hell am I going to get a new one anytime soon.

As a teenager, I signed a five-year loan for this thing that I had a snowball’s chance in hell of paying. It’s been repossessed not once but twice, and the fact that I got it back either time is a testament to my friends and their ability to bail me out. Which, of course, brings us to the whole reason that I asked Piper to come over for dinner.

I park the truck outside of the farmhouse, taking a minute to survey it before I open my door. The porch is sagging slightly, one of the many repairs that we need to make once we have the money. The fact that we don’t already have the money is my fault, and every time I see the drooping porch steps, I’m reminded of it.

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