Page 23 of Bad Cowboy, Tennessee

I watched Max work for a while. He rearranged a row of limes. Wiped the same spot on the bartop three times. Asked a woman on the other end of the bar if she needed anything else twice.

Still trying to act busy behind the bar even though he didn’t have shit to do.

“The Cocktail Bro,” I told him. “Pretty entertaining videos.”

He set his jaw, still not making eye contact with me.

“They’re not for you.”

I made a mental note to finally make myself come to one of his videos later.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a spare lawn mower, would you?” I asked him.

He glanced up at me. His eyes were bluer than I’d noticed last night, and they were pretty in the light of the bar. Baby blue and honest, like he couldn’t hide a feeling if he tried.

“You trying to mow my parents’ lawn for them?” he asked.

“No. I’m trying to make conversation with the pretty frat boy behind the bar.”

He glared at me. His blush came back a little.

So you like me calling you pretty, huh?

“I graduated a year ago.”

“Can take the guy out of the frat, but can’t take the frat out of the guy.”

He was trying his best to frown. “I’m working. Why are you here?”

He gave me an unwavering stare, but he had such a sweet face that his version of hostility just looked like an adorable puppy trying to seem menacing.

There was one thing I noticed about him, though. One thing I kept noticing, every time he was near me:

The moment he finallylookedat me, he couldn’t take his eyes off of me.

He looked at my eyes.

My chest.

My mouth, too.

He said he didn’t trust me, and he tried to show that on the outside, too. But there was something else.

Desire crept its way through me, slow but persistent, like a thickening fog.

“What kind of cowboy are you?”

I took a slow sip of my whiskey. “The Montana kind.”

“Did you really even ride?” he asked, looking me over like he was judging me, hard.

“I ride. Yes.”

“Cattle ranching? Horse or sheep ranch? Do you take your horses out twice a year, and for the rest of the year let yourworkerstake care of them?”

“I rode Veil every day that weather allowed it,” I told him. “Wasn’t easy to get a Friesian mare, but I made it happen. And if you’re asking what types of ranches my family owns, the answer is that we have a few ofallof them.”

“Multiple ranches.”

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