Page 32 of Tempted By the Broken Cowboy
“Morning doesn’t happen till the sun’s up,” I grumble into the pillow. “This is a crime. You’re committing a crime right now.”
“Come on,” she shakes me awake, pulling the blankets off me.
I turn over to lie on my back to find her frozen in place, blinking at me. I look down to see what she’s looking at, smirking when I realize that she’s ogling my bare chest.
“Like what you see, sweetheart?” I tease, flexing my pecs as I pull my arms behind my head.
Heat rushes to her cheeks, but she’s quick to cover it up and glare at me. “Get up, Beck, or I’m dragging you out by your ankles.”
“It’s too early. Come back in three hours,” I protest.
My body feels like lead, my eyes are glued shut, and every bone in me screams to go back to sleep.
She ignores me—of course she does—and keeps pulling until I’m half out of bed. “Come on, you promised.”
“I promised nothing. Only crazy people are awake at this hour. Crazy people and farmers. Which one are you?”
“Both,” she snaps, yanking harder.
I let out a long, dramatic sigh, flopping around, resisting her. “No sane man is conscious at this hour unless something’s on fire.”
“Beck.” Her tone is a bit sharper.
I sigh like a man on his deathbed and throw the blanket off me. “Fine. But when I keel over in the street, you’re explaining it to my family.”
I drag my sleepy self to the bathroom to freshen up while she raids my closet looking for something “run-worthy”—her words, not mine. When I agreed to work with Quinn, I should have known it would come to bite me in the ass.
On the itinerary she gave me, we’re supposed to go on a run with a jogging club, comprising of some old ladies who meet up a couple of times a week to go for a run up Wrangler Creek hills, which border Iron Stallion. They run right past the gate, which is where we’re supposed to be meeting up with them.
I have no idea how this idea is supposed to help with my reputation and why we have to wake up at the ass crack of dawn to do so. But Quinn is right—I did give her my word, so I have to honor it, no matter how much I want to crawl back in bed and forget this whole thing.
The air bites harshly the second we step outside. It’s cold enough to make my lungs protest and my skin pebble. Quinn, of course, seems like she’s been training for the Olympics her whole life, looking all bright-eyed, ponytail swinging, the picture of smug satisfaction.
I drag my feet on purpose, every step louder than it needs to be. “This is abuse,” I mutter. “Straight-up torture. My lawyer will be in touch.”
She doesn’t even look at me. “Keep up, slowpoke,” she demands as we jog up the driveway toward the main gate.
“Keep up?” I scoff, shoving my hands deeper into my hoodie pocket. “With who, exactly? You? Or the geriatric brigade you conned me into meeting?”
Her smirk flashes over her shoulder, quick and cutting. “They’ll outrun you if you keep whining.”
I snort, though it comes out rough with the cold. “If I freeze to death out here, you better put ‘killed by cardio’ on my tombstone.”
By the time the gate comes into view, my thighs are barking and my calves feel as though they’ve been swapped with someone else’s. “Nope. That’s it—I’m turning back.”
Quinn wheels around so fast her ponytail smacks her cheek. Her glare could fry an egg. “You take one more step back, Beck, and I swear—“
I grin, just to watch her get heated. “Swear what? You’ll drag me by the ear? Carry me?”
Her nostrils flare, and for a moment I think she just might. But then, the guards open the gates to let us out, and there they are. A whole flock of them.
Cheerful, bright-colored windbreakers, reflective armbands, and sneakers that have probably logged more miles than my truck. They’re already stretching, chattering like a damn henhouse.
Quinn lights up, all smiles and waves. “Morning, ladies!”
They chorus back her name with warm familiarity. Me? I get silence. No—worse than silence. I get side-eyes. The kind of slow, measuring glances that make a man feel as though he showed up to church without his pants on.
One of them, a spry little thing with short silver hair, squints up at me. “When you told us a Morgan would be joining us today, we didn’t think you meant this Morgan.”
