Total pages in book: 248
Estimated words: 236036 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1180(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 787(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236036 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1180(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 787(@300wpm)
I’d be offended, but I’ve been asking myself the same thing. So I answer as honestly as I can. “This is the last show of the season. So I figure, if we find anything that might be worth staying for, we stay.”
His eyebrows lift to his hairline, but he just nods, silent for a moment.
Then he asks, “What’s the sign you’re looking for?”
He knows me too well.
“If we meet her tonight, and if we win the competition.”
“Both things? And, not or?”
“Both things.”
“Well, then we’ll probably be back in Wyoming this time next week.”
I just shake my head, start the truck and pull back out onto the highway. We’re almost to town and I’m dying for a big juicy burger. And hoping for a hot little waitress to call ours.
Chapter Two
Marci
“Marci! Come sit with us for a minute!” Sadie Rose and Calliope King wave me over to their booth at the diner where I work. I’ve just finished the weekly prep and my waitressing night shift doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes, so I join them, but I don’t sit.
“What’s up, ladies? What are you all doing out tonight?”
Sadie grins, then points at the door where a tall man in butt-hugging wranglers and a dressy western shirt has just walked in, expensive leather boots on his feet and a Stetson on his head. “We came to ogle the new goods in town. Hot rodeo Daddies!”
“What she said,” Calliope agrees. “But we’re married women, so we can look, we just can’t touch.” Her mouth turns up in a sassy smile when she looks at me. “You, on the other hand… can do whatever you want. So, come have a seat and enjoy the view.”
“And then, later, when you’re off work, enjoy more than just the view and tell us all about it so we can live vicariously.”
I roll my eyes but join them just in time to see another group of hunky cowboys swagger through the diner and head to the bar. They are awfully sexy… and it has been a very long time, but…
“Oh please,” I gripe. “I’m here to do my job, nothing else. And afterward I’ll go home to my cats and a glass of wine just like I do every night. I’m just an old lady past her prime, not a sweet young thing like you two, who any of these cowboys would be happy to take home, husbands be damned.”
As if to prove my point, a new man walks in and winks at Calliope as he passes.
“And that’s my cue to get to work,” I say, standing.
My friends don’t let me off that easy. Sadie grabs one of my hands, and Calliope grabs the other. “Listen, we’re not saying you have to jump into bed with the next set of cowboys who walk through the door,” Calliope says.
“Yeah, we just don’t want you to sell yourself short,” Sadie agrees. “You’re a smart, beautiful and kind woman who any man or men would be lucky to know. You just have to believe that yourself, and they’ll see it too.”
Ouch. That hit a little too close to home, but I laugh it off and raise my eyebrows. “Oh now it’s men? Multiple?”
“Well… This is Blue River…” Sadie answers, referring to the fact that most of the newcomers are in throuples instead of conventional relationships.
“You both just have one man,” I point out.
“One, two, three, four.” Calliope shrugs. “It doesn’t matter, Marci. Just be open to whatever comes your way this week.”
“So a big ball of nothing?” I scoff, my self-deprecating humor back despite their best efforts to be encouraging.
“Oh, stop that!” Sadie smacks my arm. “I have a good feeling about it. This is going to be your week, Marci Townsend. I can feel it. And I have a sense about these things.”
“Oh, okay.” I roll my eyes again. I can’t help myself, but I give them a crumb because if I don’t they’ll never let me go and I do need to get to work. “Fine, I promise to be open to whatever this week and to try to see what I supposedly have to offer,” I manage. “Can I go to work now?”
“Yes, go.” Calliope waves me off and Sadie actually smacks my ass as I walk by. I turn to glare at her in time to notice two very gorgeous young cowboys watching the interaction with smirks on their faces and raised eyebrows.
They meet my gaze and the taller one winks. I flush from head to toe and turn on my heel, rushing for the bar as fast as my feet will carry me.
Once there, I clock in, don a half-apron and take a deep breath to steady my nerves.
Remind me not to sit with Calliope and Sadie right before my shift ever again. They’ve got me all twisted up and I can’t concentrate.