Page 4 of One Night Bride
I frowned. I knew I’d paid that guy. “Let me pull up my invoice when I get back to the hotel. Tell Dad not to call him back. I’ll deal with it.”
Ruger cleared his throat. “I keep telling him that, but retirement doesn’t seem to sit well with that guy.”
I rubbed a hand over my eyes and tried for patience. “I’ve got it covered. You do what you have to do to keep Dad busy and away from his phone.”
“Roger that. Find a place yet?” His voice held an excitement, not only because he knew what this venture meant to me, but because if I got my way, that left him with what he wanted too.
“I think I might be sitting in it right now, but then you called about an invoice,” I grumbled.
Ruger laughed, the big booming kind he always did. Sounded a lot louder on the phone versus hearing it in the middle of thousands of acres of our land back in Wyoming.
“Ranch work is never done, you know that. Go get your house. I’ll hold down the fort here. Later.”
He hung up and I put the phone back in my pocket to glance out at the stunning view. Yeah, I could get used to looking at that. Ms. Williams walked into the living room, a knowing smile on her face. She probably only took me to the first two properties so I’d be properly prepared for this one to knock my socks off. The woman was smart.
“How about I show you the master bath with a thirty-six-jet shower? Or the office with mahogany built-ins?”
I quirked a smile. “Thirty-six jets, huh?”
Trading out my work boots for dress boots, I looked at myself in the mirror in my hotel room. The fancy button-down shirt felt odd when I was used to T-shirts or Henleys I didn’t mind getting dirty. The only thing I wouldn’t compromise on was the Levi’s. This pair was black rather than the faded blue I preferred, so I considered that compromise enough. The restaurant downstairs would either feed the Wyoming boy or I’d take my business down the street. Given how hungry I was, I hoped for the former.
I’d spent the last few hours ass deep in paperwork that had to be filled out to start the new foundation I’d been dreaming about for years. Unfortunately, I couldn’t put all my effort into it until I’d also solved the little problem about the family business, Roth River Ranch. Mom and Dad were leaving it to Ruger and me, and they expected us to make it our career. The only way we could forfeit running the damn thing was to get married. Mom was a sucker for true love and secretly hoped it would find her two headstrong sons. She said if either Ruger or I found our true love and wanted to walk away from the ranch, we could.
So I intended to find a wife all right. Maybe even tonight.
But true love could kiss my ass.
I’d lost track of time, but still had a half hour before my dinner reservation. The bar downstairs was loud and packed with people, the dim lighting just adding to my irritation. Thing was, it wasn’t in my best interests to head back upstairs for room service. I’d already decided that any of the ladies around my hometown of Glenrock would be completely unsuitable for my purposes. For many reasons, with the biggest being their mamas had conditioned them to break the glass ceiling by simply landing a rich ranch owner for a husband. I couldn’t stand the simpering women who gathered around like flies on horseshit. Plus, they wanted romance with flowers and dates and poems of professed love. I’d serenaded a calving Hereford a time or two, but couldn’t see myself doing that for a woman who was using me for money.
I just needed a willing woman to sign on the dotted line and I’d hand the ranch over to Ruger, who actually wanted to run the thing. Then we could go our separate ways.
A single chair at the bar opened up as I stepped past the hostess station. I sat my ass down faster than I fell off that bull I tried to ride as a dare in high school. That bad decision was the source of the one and only broken bone I’d ever had.
“What can I get you?” the bartender asked, already wiping down the bar and setting a drink menu card in front of me.
“How about a glass of Macallan, if you have it?”
What the hell, I was here to celebrate moving forward with my foundation. Might as well live a little, even if one glass cost more than all the beer I drank last month. The bartender didn’t even blink an eye. The amber-filled glass slid my direction, and he moved down the bar to take another order.
A gaggle of women in dresses that left absolutely nothing to the imagination moved behind me in a cloud of perfume that might choke a guy if he wasn’t careful. They peeled off into a glass-contained room in between the bar and the dark recess of the restaurant. The blonde, the one with a white sash across her chest, clapped her hands like the queen of England. If I squinted, I could see the sash read Bride To Be, despite looking ready to hook up with the first guy who looked at her twice.
Swiveling back to look at the mirror behind the bar, I took a first sip of the whiskey, savoring it. I would not be fishing from that pool. I didn’t need a wife that badly. Problem was, my list of women who wouldn’t work as my temporary wife was getting longer by the day.
By the time I’d drained the first glass and flicked a wrist at the bartender for the second, a warm body pressed against my right shoulder.
“Sorry, but all the chairs are taken,” a voice whispered in my ear, exasperated and more than a little bit fuzzy around the edges like this wasn’t her first trip to the bar.
I swiveled my head to gaze straight into light brown eyes framed by thick black eyebrows. My gaze trailed south to take in full lips tinted in a subtle pink that made my jeans feel tighter than normal. I wanted to look even further south, but called upon years of being a gentleman to keep my eyes above her neck. Her tongue darted out and wet her lower lip.
“You can squeeze in anytime,” I said under my breath, meaning every word.
She smiled at me and I couldn’t help but stare. The smile was genuine, not practiced or contrived like the ones I usually got from women. She broke our gaze and turned to the bartender, who was all too happy to rush over to take her order. With her back now to me, I took in the long, straight black hair, the bright pink dress, and the legs that went on for miles, ending in those shoes women wore that made a man envision something dirty.
Her thigh pressed against mine, the edge of her dress landing just below the swell of her ass. My fingers itched to reach out and touch that tan, smooth skin until my hand disappeared beneath her skirt.
Damn. I shifted uncomfortably, wishing for the well-worn Levi’s I’d taken off earlier. This woman was hot. Probably not at all the right girl for my fake-yet-real-wife plan, but something about her made me want to enjoy her, if only for tonight. She swiveled back to me as the bartender made her drink.
“Are you busy?” she asked suddenly.
