Page 6 of Any Cowboy of Mine
Sophie waged a war with herself, going back and forth about whether she should risk ruining what was a perfect crush in her mind. What if he showed up at the wedding and was a complete tool now? The reality of him could never match the Brad of her dreams.
A little voice spoke up from deep inside her, the place where her nerves danced wildly, and argued that she’d never know unless she tried.
“I’m in,” she announced. Jackie squealed like a preteen at a Justin Bieber concert.
“Good, now quit stalling. It’s time to go shopping for the last dress you’ll wear as a single woman.”
“Ugh. Don’t put it like that. I’ll meet you downstairs.” When Jackie left, only under the strict promise of not being made to wait more than five minutes, Sophie threw on a pair of jeans and tossed her hair into a ponytail. She took a cursory glance in the mirror and sighed.
She didn’t know why, but she wasn’t as giddy about tonight as she should be. Maybe it was just nerves, but she couldn’t shake what Jackie had just asked her about Drew. She’d always assumed she would say yes to him, simply because that was the path they were on.
He told her when she got serious about her career, he could see them being a serious couple. So, she’d studied, taken the bar, started as an intern at Drew and his father’s firm, and risen through the ranks. Now she was one of the top trial attorneys with the highest in-court success rates, not just in the firm, but in Montana. She couldn’t be more serious about her career, and so she assumed this meant that he was serious about her.
Never in that whole process, though, did she stop and think about whether she still wanted to be on that path. Sure, she loved Drew, but then why did her stomach flip when she thought about Brad? She’d never felt that way about Drew, not even in the beginning. Lust and passion were two words that had been all but nonexistent with him.
I’d be nice to have at least some answers heading into such an important night, but no matter what, dinner would make everything clear.
Jackie met her at the bottom of the stairs, somehow looking radiant and flawless in slacks and a button-down blouse, a designer purse hanging delicately from her strong shoulders. Sophie didn’t know how she did it. She pulled off small-town chic effortlessly. If Sophie tried that outside the office or the courtroom, she’d stick out like a sore thumb.
“You ready?” Jackie asked her.
Even though she wasn’t sure, Sophie smiled and pulled her black fanny pack tight over her shoulder.
“Let’s do this. Lead the way,” she said.
“To your future,” Jackie added, and Sophie gulped, nodding.
“To my future.”
CHAPTER THREE
The Big Night
The library wasquiet, empty, and chilled like a tomb. Similar to Brad’s parents’ farmhouse, the structure was one of the original in the town—a homestead back then—dating back to the late 1800s. Only the requisite updates had been made since the late 1990s thanks to the rise in popularity of movies that had overtaken that of books. The town simply couldn’t justify the improvements necessary to make the old, brick building one of comfort and amenities. Maybe that would be his contribution to the library—the funds needed to bring both the building and the idea behind books back to the twenty-first century.
Brad squatted down in front of the fiction A-R section. How could one whole row of bookshelves be completely devoted toGame of Thrones? Sure, they were popular, but somehow George R.R. Martin had done the unthinkable and transcended all the literary rules by getting everyone to read the series. At least there was a demand for the books, which meant people must still be reading, not just waiting for the next season of the shows.
He snuck a copy of the first book and started reading the jacket blurb. Warring families, jealous monarchs, a hint of the supernatural—he got the appeal.
Reading theGOTblurb got him thinking about the first novel he’d sold. The special display of his series was still up front, an embarrassingly life-size cardboard cutout of him beside the three novels in stacks, as many of them as there were ofGOT, though he knew that was only because he was a local celebrity. He dreamed of the day his books gained the worldwide readership of Martin’s, but he was more than happy with the response to them so far.
In the early drafting phases, his first book had been a fairly benign, some might argue boring, story. Brad stalled in finding a wrench to throw at his characters, anything he could toss in to keep them from getting what they wanted.
Then,bam!His sister’d caught Chris and Julia in a lip-lock, and his story—once a simple, crime-slash-romance—became a dark, twisted tale of revenge and heartbreak. It was all of a sudden too easy to keep his characters from getting what they wanted, and he’d silently thanked Julia for her unknown contribution to his career, even though her likeness in the book hadn’t fared all too well. He’d written the heroine as a manipulative, cheating woman named Jewel.Jewel Thiefwas sold as a whole series to his publisher, along with the movie rights to at least the first three books, with the option to add the last three if Brad wanted. Who knew heartache was the ultimate muse?
Peeking inside the cover ofGOT, he wondered if Martin had the same problem straddling real life with the worlds he built on the page.
Just as he was opening up the first book to chapter one, he heard a deep, booming voice behind him.
“You’re not seriously reading on the job, are you?” Steve asked.
Brad turned around, smiling, even though he’d been caught. “Please. Why else would I work here, if not for those perks?” Brad joked.
“Yeah, sorry, buddy. I think that’s more something a bartender would say when he pours himself a shot at the end of the night.” Steve pointed to the book he’d just returned to the shelf. “You are full-on nerding out.”
“Don’t I know it. The thirties are nothing if not thrills, huh?”
“I know you’re joking, but I’ve still got some tricks up my sleeve. I’m going out with a twenty-one-year-old sorority chick tonight, I tell you that?”
