Page 22 of Belong With Me

I smiled at the girls, near mirror images of each other. “Have you seen Ryder, though? I need to get the information for the bug from the console so I can call the rental company,” I covered, quickly. I’m not going to lie here and say that I didn’t want to see him again. But I did need to call the rental company to tell them about the incident and have them email the appropriate paperwork to me.

I also needed to call Daddy. That was going to be as fun as lying on a bed of broken glass. Though he might be placated knowing that I was now sleeping under the roof of one of the prospective ranchers. If I ended up telling him, of course.

“I think he’s in the barn or the stables. Do you know where you’re headed?” Savannah asked as she hip checked Kenzie softly on her way back into the kitchen to load the dishwasher.

“Big building.” I finished my tea. “Roof, walls.” Savannah held her hand out for the mug. “Close by. Yeah, I think I’ve got it.” I fished the teabag out of my mug, making to throw it into the trash.

“Since you’re going to pass by on your way to the barn, you want to throw this in the chicken coop?” Mackenzie handed me a bucket with some scraps inside.

“Dolly!” Savannah admonished. “Quit trying to palm off your chores!”

“I’ve got Aria today!” she protested. “I’m just trying to be efficient.” Savannah rolled her eyes and put a fist on her hip, while brandishing a wooden spoon at her.

“That’s not an excuse and you know it.” Quietly, I left them to their disagreement. I quickly went upstairs to make myself a little bit more presentable and grab a pair of shoes.

Surely, it wasn’t that hard to find a barn or some stables, right? You’d think it would be one of the largest buildings on the property.

Wrong.

After discovering a vegetable patch, the much-discussed chicken coop, a farm machinery shed and what seemed to be a converted carriage house, I finally found the stables.

I could hear someone moving about inside, and I followed the noise, hoping to possibly catch him by surprise. I hadn’t seen him since he said goodnight last night and I wanted to thank him again for helping me out. He hadn’t needed to do anything at all. Honestly, after everything settled down inside me, I realized that it truly was a gentlemanly thing for him to do.

Walking inside the open stable doors, I looked around. Stepping in a little bit more, I caught sight of a man in jeans bent over across the way. The way his ass filled out that denim should be illegal. Those jeans were tucked into scuffed brown cowboy boots, and discarded on a bale of hay only a few feet away was a worn flannel shirt.

Would this guy ever start wearing a shirt? Not that I was objecting, because honestly that back was as toned as his abs. It had me acutely aware of how empty my life really was of good-looking guys. Oh, how my hands would love running over those muscles in a moment of passion.

Leaning against a rack filled with saddles, I watched as he bent even further before standing to his full height. I was about to say hello when he spun. I stumbled back, landing on my butt. “Holy shit.” The sight of yet another gorgeous cowboy on this ranch had me jumping almost out of my skin.

“Trust me, sweetness, there ain’t nothing holy about it.” His voice was like warm honey.

Pushing to my feet, I wiped the backs of my legs to remove the pieces of hay stuck to my designer pants. “What?”

Stepping a little closer, he looked at me, his light green eyes scanning my entire body. What he saw pleased him, as his lips cocked up in a devilish grin. There was even a hint of dimples. “The horse shit, it’s just the same here as it is everywhere else.”

“Right,” I muttered back.

Taking his hat off, he wiped his forearm across his forehead, and I saw the mess of sandy-blond hair. It was a little shorter than Ryder’s, but also a hell of a lot lighter. As though it had been bleached from years of being out in the sun. Much like the two girls’ hair. “You must be the city girl my brother rescued yesterday.”

“Rescued,” I huffed. “I wouldn’t exactly call what he did rescued.”

“That’s how he describes it.”

I rolled my eyes. “Hold up. Did you say brother?” Of course this was his brother. Now that I was looking with that knowledge, the similarities were definitely there. Even if this particular cowboy wore a grin like a panty-dropping accessory.

“Sure am, city girl. The youngest, least serious, most attractive and most fun brother.”

He swaggered even closer to me. Really, there was no other way to describe the way he was walking. I watched as he lifted his hat back to his head, the curl of his bicep making the muscle pop out. He was well-built. “If you’re after a good time while you stay in Belle Springs, I’m the one to show you.”

I had no doubt what this one had in mind when he mentioned having fun. Not that I was against a good roll in the sheets, or hay if I looked at my surroundings, but that wasn’t why I was here. I had a job to do. At least there seemed to be plenty of eye candy in this little town to keep me occupied while I got it done.

“Now that you mention it, I can see you’re brothers.”

“Oh yeah, how’s that, darlin’?”

I spun on the heel of my boots and saw Ryder striding toward me. His jeans were all rugged like the ones he had on yesterday. But that’s not where my eyes lingered. No, they landed on his torso, where once again he had no shirt on. Pointing towards his chest, I locked eyes with him. “You both seem to have an aversion to wearing shirts.”

Stopping right before me, he took the hat off his head and placed it on mine. Leaning in close, he whispered in my ear, “Just trying to give the beautiful lady something to look at.”

I flushed, suppressing a shiver as the breath from his words breezed over my ear.

Suddenly, this whole “being in a tiny country town” gig didn’t seem as bad as it could have been.

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