Page 57 of Bad Cowboy, Tennessee

I swallowed. “Yeah. Draven’s a good guy.”

Ugh.

Why did those words keep coming out of my mouth?

Draven could barely hide his surprise as he looked at me, clearly not expecting me to say nice things about him.

He really doesn’t think he’s a good person, does he?

Well, maybe he was right.

He was a fucking suspicious threat at best, and a psychopathic criminal at worst, but…

There was something more to him, too.

I wanted to grab his wrist, drag him behind one of the nearby buildings, and force him to tell me the truth, once and for all.

“Max came by my new house the other day,” Draven said, and my spine went cold.

Do not fucking say a word to Lily about what we did.

About our texts, or?—

“It was nothing,” I blurted out.

“He was curious,” Draven said, “about how I’ve been fixing up the place.”

A blush landed on my cheeks, burning hot. “He’s making it his own, for sure.”

“I think you’re going to transform old Marsden’s place,” Lily said. “It used to be such a cute house, with the little ranchland around it. Nothing compared to your Big Sky estate, obviously, but you can make it shine.”

“Nothing compares to Big Sky,” Draven agreed.

“You guys talk about it like it’s a castle or something,” I said.

Draven nodded. “No moat. No stone. But it’s almost like a modern, beautiful castle. I worked with the architect to make it exactly what I wanted, when I was only 21 years old. Even then, I knew I wanted enough stables to eventually take on rescue horses.”

For fuck’s sake.

When Draven was a yearyoungerthan me, he’d had enough millions to throw around that he designed his own home on a ranch.

I pictured Draven on top of a black mare, riding around his giant property like some sort of surveyor.

“He rode horses more than anyone else in the Lyons family, that’s for sure,” Lily said.

Draven pulled in a long breath. “Riding was the best way to get away from them, when I was growing up. Out on the land, just me and the horses, instead of…”

“Being around your father,” Lily said.

“Or my mother. Siblings. Cousins. Any of it.”

Lily reached out a hand and briefly squeezed Draven’s arm. It was clear she still cared about him, even if their relationship was very much over.

“Holy shit, Lil! Did you see the oil paintings they’re selling over here?” her friend Ranna said, waving from one of the nearby tents.

“Got to go,” Lily said. “Be nice to him, Max!”

She was gone in a moment.

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