Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 110113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
As a recently divorced single mom, I have zero interest in flirting with guys while on a rare girls’ weekend away with my sisters. I just want to have fun, celebrate my new job, and listen to live music at a honky tonk.
But when I literally stumble into the most gorgeous guy ever on the dance floor, those plans go up in smoke. Growing up on the barrel racing circuit, I’m not immune to the charms of a cowboy. But this particular one is hot as hell: Sawyer’s got a mustache, some sexy tattoos, and a very filthy mouth.
Needless to say, we end up naked in his swanky hotel room. It’s the best sex of my life. And the way Sawyer treats me like a queen? Let’s just say a girl could get addicted to that kind of adoration.
Good thing he’ll always be just a one night stand I can look back on with a smile. I’m rebuilding our life from scratch, and I need to focus on my three-year-old daughter and the dream job I just landed.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I move to Hartsville and run into a tattooed cowboy with an endearing daughter of his own. Now Sawyer wants more than the occasional playdates between our girls. But the closer we become, the more determined this sexy single dad is to keep me forever.
As much as I am falling for Sawyer, I’m terrified. I’ve been down this road before with my ex, and I wonder if I can trust this cowboy. Will he rope the moon for me? Or is my heart destined to be trampled all over again?
SAWYER is a standalone book in the interconnected Lucky River Ranch Series
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER 1
Ava
HONKY-TONK HOTTIE
“There’s gonna be cowboys there, right?”
I may roll my eyes at my sister Bee’s ridiculous question, but I still smile. None of us have lived on our family’s small ranch outside Killeen for years now, but clearly our teenage obsession with the guys who worked our cattle hasn’t gone anywhere.
Despite the growing crowd that packs the sidewalks lining 6th Street, Bee is busy applying lip gloss, peering into the tiny mirror tucked into her palm. She’s only a year and a half younger than me, but you’d think there was at least a decade between us for how much, ahem, energy she has when it comes to seeking out the opposite sex.
“You would ask that.” I loop my arm through hers and give it a tug, the two of us narrowly avoiding a run-in with a slow-moving couple absorbed in sucking each other’s faces. “I haven’t been in Austin in years, so I can’t say. But it is a honky-tonk, so …”
“Who wouldn’t ask that?” Bee pops her lips before snapping the mirror shut with a succinct clap. “Cowboys are a thing for a reason. And that reason is—”
“They ride like the motherfucking professionals they are.” My older sister Dottie smirks. “They also look really good in hats.”
“Really good,” Bee adds, dropping her gloss and mirror into the tiny bag slung over her shoulder. “There’s just something about a man who works with his hands.”
Dottie nods. “A man who knows what he’s doing with those hands.”
“They’re all yours, ladies.” I slow my steps to look up at the neon sign glowing above a nearby door. “I’m just here for the music and the whiskey. Bonus points if we get to dance too.”
“But if you have enough of that whiskey and just so happen to see a cute guy …” Bee nudges me with her elbow. “I mean, c’mon. Now that you’re getting back in the literal saddle, don’t you wanna get back in the proverbial one too?”
“No thank you.”
Meh is the word I use most often to describe my post-divorce sex life. While I have absolutely no interest in ever getting married again—being a wife once has cured me of the desire to ever do it again—I was open to having fun with someone new after my divorce was finalized a year ago.
Commitment is out. The freedom to do whatever the hell I want without worrying about a man’s needs or expectations is in.
Only the two tipsy hookups I had didn’t turn out to be very fun or liberating at all. They left me with hangovers from hell and the depressing sense that sex in my late twenties is just … not that great.
I have no regrets ending my marriage to Dan. Just like I have no regrets about becoming a mom. I’ve wanted to have kids for as long as I can remember.
But I hoped my sex life would get a boost. By the time we separated, Dan and I hadn’t slept together in over a year.
I was aching for sex. And even then, it was a disappointment. I just couldn’t be myself during those brief encounters. Couldn’t find my groove, I guess.
“Whatever. Third time’s a charm, right?” Dottie shrugs. “You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince.”
“I don’t want a prince. I want sleep.”
“Not even a prince in a Stetson? With a big—”
“Bank account?” Bee finishes the thought.
I laugh. “Not even then, no. I will take a shot of Jim Beam with a beer back, though.”
Dottie nods. “Let’s manifest that shit. Both the Jim Beam and the cowboy prince, I mean.”
Bee holds up a finger. “I’m on it.”
I roll my eyes for what feels like the fiftieth time today. “Y’all, please, please don’t.”
“We’re just fucking with you.” Wagging her brows, Dottie stops in front of a wooden door with a big brass handle shaped like a horse head. “Or maybe we’re not. You of all people could use some good old-fashioned stress relief. C’mon, y’all, let’s go have some fun.”
Dottie opens the door, and I step inside the infamous Blue Stallion. I’m immediately hit by the scent of stale beer and cigarettes, the smoke likely drifting in from the smoking patio that’s out back. The thump of a bass line echoes inside my breastbone. It’s a Chicks cover, one the band across the room is absolutely slaying.
Closing my eyes, I take a deep inhale and smile. Hello, lover.
As a single mom, I don’t get out much. To be honest, I’m too tired to miss getting dressed up and going out. The lackluster sex I’ve had with mediocre men certainly doesn’t help matters. But I will always, always love dive bars and live music. Especially when I get to experience them with my best friends in the world—my two sisters.
Bellying up to the bar, I do notice there are lots of guys in cowboy hats here.