This city boy's about to get a taste of country life...
Blake Tarbell has a town to save. Rich, carefree, and used to the Vegas party lifestyle, Blake is thrown for a curve when his former cocktail-waitress mother pleads he go back to her roots to save the town she grew up in. Blake's used to using money to solve his problems, but when he arrives in Sweetheart, North Dakota, this city boy has to trade in his high-priced shoes for a pair of cowboy boots—and he's about to get a little help from the loveliest lady in town...
Natalie Lane's got no time for newbies. The prettiest gal to ever put on a pair of work gloves, there's nothing she can't do to keep a farm up and running. But when a handsome city slicker rolls into town with nothing but bad farmer's instincts and good intentions, Natalie's heartstrings are pulled. She's about to teach him a thing or two about how to survive in Sweetheart. And he's about to teach her a thing or two about love.
Release date:
May 10, 2016
Publisher:
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Print pages:
336
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Blake Tarbell rolled onto his side and eyed the long, lovely naked back beside him. He could tell by her breathing that she was awake, and ran a finger from the top of her spine to the last bit of it just above her fossae lumbales laterals, the Dimples of Venus.
“God,” she groaned into her pillow. “You know that gives me the shivers.”
“More effective, perhaps, than an alarm.”
“Forget it.” She flopped over and jackknifed into a sitting position so abruptly, he put out a hand, thinking she was going to tumble off the edge of the bed. “I’ve gotta get back, so just holster the morning wood already.”
He chuckled and let his hand drop. “Holster it where?”
“Dunno. It’s a guy thing; you figure it out.” She bounded from the bed like a gymnast on crack and he fought down a shudder. Morning people, dear God in Heaven. He liked Ava’s company, and last night she was as she always is: energetic and hungry in bed. It had been fast and urgent and delicious; they didn’t get together for long tender interludes.
They’d met in the lobby for drinks, never dinner.
(“Don’t ask me out. Don’t buy flowers. That’s not what this is.”
“What is it, then?” he’d asked, amused. They’d met at McCarran four months ago; she was a pilot for Southwestern; his flight had been delayed. Drinks at the club had turned into a delicious sweaty tumble back at the hotel.
“This is me enjoying my divorce. This is you being the sexual equivalent of a Fun Run. Less talking, Blake, and a lot more stripping.”)
The evening had ended as it always did, with both of them agreeably sweaty and out of breath. Ava called him whenever she was in Vegas longer than three hours. If he was free, they met for drinks. If he wasn’t, Blake imagined she called someone else. He was bothered by how that didn’t bother him.
“—the run to Boston,” she was saying. She’d done her usual efficient cleanup in the bathroom and was now wriggling back into her clothes. “God, sometimes I think it’d be easier to keep a spare set of clothes and some toiletries here. Ah-ha!”
“What?”
She pointed at him with one hand while zipping her slacks with the other. “You should see the look on your face. I’ve only seen people go pale that fast when the oxygen masks drop.”
He opened his mouth to
(lie)
protest, but she ran right over his words. “’S fine. Really. I was teasing. I know you’re cemented in your bachelor ways.”
He opened his mouth again.
“Nope. Don’t even try that. And don’t go on about how you’re just waiting for the right girl, and maybe that girl could be me—”
“I wouldn’t have used the word ‘girl.’”
“It’s fine. This—” She gestured, indicating the suite. “What we do? It’s great, really.”
Two reallys in twenty seconds: it’s not fine (really) and it’s not great (really). He knew the signs.
“It’s just…”
You need something more.
“… I need something more. And…”
There’s this guy.
“… there’s this woman—oh. You didn’t know? I’m pretty flexible between the sheets.”
“Figuratively and literally,” he managed. Discovering his soon-to-be-former lover was bisexual was not helping his nocturnal penile tumescence. “Why would you wait until now to bring that up?”
She laughed, bent, gave him a quick kiss. “For a chance to see that look on your face. Hey. You’re great, Blake. This was, too, y’know? But I never go back for seconds.”
“Fourteenths,” he couldn’t help pointing out.
“Right. But I want to keep liking you, if not fucking you. So: You don’t pretend you’re going to miss me, and I won’t pretend you can’t fill my spot in your sex suite with one text.” He couldn’t help smiling, at both her astute observations and cheerful bluntness.
“Fair enough.” She was fully dressed now and looked clean and pressed and like she’d had a full eight hours, when he knew she hadn’t. “Might not see each other again. But if we do, it’d be great to keep it friendly, okay?”
“You’re wrong,” Blake replied. At her surprised expression, he added, “I will miss you when you’re gone.”
“Awww.” She bent and gave him another kiss, the last kiss. “But not for long, I bet.”
On that point, he conceded as she bounded out his door, she was correct. Though it was flattering that she assumed he could pull a companion de la nuit with a single text. He would never text for something like that; he wasn’t a (total) barbarian. A phone call, now—
His phone rattled on the bedside table and he leaned over to grab it. Glanced at it, then looked again. Keyed in the password, saw the entire text, and thought: shit.
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