Page 2 of The Cowboy's Off Limits Option

The River's a small place, you know? We all kinda grow up together, and I've known Rowan since we were kids.

By the time high school was over, Row was already managing the big feed supply after he took over from his pop. It's the only place in the valley that can supply a ranch the size of the Delta O, so we saw a lot of each other from doing business together.

Soon enough we were hanging out on our free time and, hell, he's been my best bud aside from my brothers for the last several years now.

I was used to seeing Callie around about most all the time. She was a just a scrawny thing making mud pies with her friends when I first met her.

By the time Row and I started hanging out, she was an awkward teenager, strutting around playing dress up. Trying to figure herself out the way girls do at that age I guess.

I've got three brothers, so what do I know about the phases girls go through?

Cal got her curves early and it seemed like there was always some boy coming around wanting to see her but she never had any interest in any of them.

Rowan got good at running the boys off for her and I was right there with him, playing the part of the protective big brother alongside her real brother.

She went off to the city to do a course in horticulture after she finished high school. She always was playing in the dirt; doing her gardening and growing flowers. She got some certificate in flower arranging while she was still in high school; won some ribbons at the fair for her designs, I remember.

I used to tease her because it seemed she was always caked in mud every time I saw her. I remember telling her boys didn't like girls who played in mud. Like I said-- didn't stop a damn one of 'em.

Guys don't give a fuck about the dirt when a girl's got curves like Callie's.

Back then, I looked at those curves the same way Rowan did-- from the perspective of a brother who wanted to protect her from getting pawed at by idiot teenage boys that didn't have the sense to see her as more than tits and ass.

"You giving up on me already, old man?" Rowan hollers up at me from the ground, probably thinking it's the afternoon heat that's got me stalling too long before getting the rest of his hay unloaded.

"Fuck off," I give him the finger, not bothering to take my eyes off their target, which isn't the patch of late blooming sunflowers or the bench in the shade of the big cottonwood behind the house that I'll tell him it is if he asks. "I don't see your skinny ass up here throwing bales."

"Can't say I see yours throwing bales either. Get to it, would ya? There's a cold beer in the fridge waiting on me."

"Yeah, yeah."

Grabbing up the tongs again, I rip my gaze off the thing I'm really staring at; the woman kneeling between rows of yellow and orange marigolds with dirt smeared across her face in a pair of worn overalls that are hanging off one shoulder and a white tank top pushed to the limits to constrain womanly curves that I don't think of like a brother should at all anymore.

Curves I still want to protect, only for different reasons.

Ever since Callie got back from finishing her course in the city, I haven't been able to see anything but a woman when I look at her. A full-grown woman, running her own business now, with her head full of interesting ideas that I enjoy hearing about whenever we get a chance to talk. A woman who's more than just a beautiful face framed by waves of light brown hair with wide, hazel eyes and soft lips that always look like they need to be kissed.

Calla Lillian Maye might be more than a great set of tits and a plump ass, but I can't stop thinking about what it would feel like to fill my hands with those curves and hear her moaning my name while I've got them wrapped around my hard cock at night.

Cal leans forward, working between the plants with a small trowel, up on her hands and knees in a way that has me groaning out loud at the sight of her.

"Come on, Dean, let's get this done."

Rowan's voice pulls me back to reality and I get busy dropping the rest of the bales down to him.

Cal's off limits. I might be willing to risk my friendship with her brother if it meant calling her mine, but Rowan's important to the ranch and I can't risk him blacklisting the Delta O-- even if it means going to my grave without ever claiming my girl.

Chapter Two

Callie

"Tell me about this guy," I demand, stabbing at the lime wedge in my cocktail and mentally calculating whether or not I can handle another one and still get the shop open on time in the morning.

The new bartender at O'Hare's has a heavy hand with the booze and they don't call these thing "mules" for nothing-- they've got a kick.

Ginger sighs and launches into a moony-eyed description of the guy she met up on the mountain where she's opening her brewery.

I think my best friend is in love. I've never seen Ginger act this way about a guy before. This might be it for her; she'll move up to Moonshine Ridge to live happily ever after with her mountain man and I'll be left down here in the valley with my flower shop and a growing herd of cats.

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