Page 32 of The Cowboy Complication

I messed around with my hair a little while you were keeping Moss Creek safe.

The dots telling her he was working on a response popped up. She started to chew her lower lip in anticipation, but didn’t want to screw the gloss up, so she stopped, forcing herself to leave it alone.

But then the dots disappeared.

“Huh.” He must have gotten another call.

Isla put her phone down and went to work putting away her makeup and blow dryer. The counter was wiped down and her towels were hanging to dry when Cooper’s message finally came.

One of us spent our time way better than the other.

She beamed at the screen, because, once again, Cooper said exactly what she needed to hear. She was still smiling at their text thread when an image popped up of Cooper’s face. He looked a little tired, and the dark interior of his cruiser made everything just a bit blurry, but it was impossible to deny how freaking hot the man was.

She opened the keyboard and sent back:

I’m making that your contact photo in my phone.

Flipping off the bathroom light, she padded through her apartment to the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and unscrewing the cap right as Cooper’s next text came through.

There are worse pictures of me.

Another photo popped up, and as promised, it was way worse. It was of Cooper and an older woman. His eyes were half open, his mouth was weirdly gaping and his head was tucked strangely, giving him three additional chins. He still looked adorable, but the picture was so bad it had her cackling as she fell onto her bed, dropping to the blankets and pillows as she typed:

That’s awful.

Then, to make him feel better, she lifted her cell, contorted her face and mouth, and took another photo, sending it off as she slid under the covers.

Was that supposed to make me feel better? Because it didn’t. You still look gorgeous.

She reread the message three times. The first to make sure she’d seen it right. The other two were because Cooper calling her gorgeous watered that tiny seed of self-love she’d planted tonight. It wasn’t quite ready to bloom yet—it might not even grow—but the conditions were finally starting to change to a more favorable climate. Finally starting to be conducive to something other than the loathing and degradation that had been swirling around since Eric stomped all over her ego.

Thank you. You’re not so bad yourself.

Except for that second picture. It should never see the light of day.

Turning off the light on her nightstand, Isla cuddled under the covers, watching videos on IG as she waited for Cooper to respond. When he was working, there could be gaps that spanned hours, which was totally understandable. His job was important and came first.

She swiped through the reels and paused when a cute red-headed guy wearing a robe and carrying a chicken popped up. He had a southern twang as he spoke and everything he said was animated and hilarious. Plus, he lived on a freaking farm with piles of cute critters, so she started scrolling through his feed.

And stopped short on a very different sort of tutorial.

Apparently the guy was also a photographer. Aboudoirphotographer.

Her eyes dried out from staring so hard as she went through his videos explaining how to take sexy selfies. Ways to pose and dress and look at the camera. The humor he brought along made the process seem less daunting.

It made her think even someone like her could manage to take a few hot pictures.

Could she though?

Stomach fluttering in a wild way, she opened her shopping app and typed ‘lingerie’ into the search bar and started to look around. The options were varied and endless. After spending way too much time debating, she finally dropped a simple black bodysuit into the cart and clicked purchase, feeling a little like she was doing something she shouldn’t be.

But why not? Because somemediocre mansaid she wasn’t sexy?

According to her new red-headed farmer friend, all women should feel sexy. And he seemed way more believable—and knowledgeable—than Eric when it came to women.

Way cooler too, walking around his farm in mucks and a robe, carrying a chicken.

Her lids were getting heavy when Cooper’s last message of the night finally came through, this time as a voice recording.

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