Page 8 of Cabins Cows Critics
I look up at the menu board, white chalk in fancy lettering displaying my options. Funnily enough, they do have a few flavors, no pumpkin spice, but cinnamon and vanilla will suffice.
“Belladonna leaves no trace if you do it right,” she says, and the young girl behind the counter frowns and glances my way.
“She’s joking,” I tell her, but I don’t think she fully believes me.
“What can I get you?” she asks Wendy, and she replies with her standard, “Large black coffee with an extra shot, please.”
“And you, Hun?” she asks, turning her attention to me.
“Can I get a vanilla and cinnamon almond milk latte, please?”
“Sorry, no almond milk.”
“Oh, ummm, what do you have?”
“Fat cow, or skinny cow.” She chuckles.
“Skinny cow, please, and it’s for Hayden,” I reply, and she scribbles my order but not my name onto a paper pad and rips the sheet off, adding it to the row of orders beside the coffee machine.
“It’ll be ready in a few,” she says, and I step aside with Wendy to wait at one of the tables. The cafe is busy, most of the tables full, with a few guys standing by the window, holding their cowboy hats in their hands as they wait for their orders.
“Cowboys are so hot.” Wendy leans in to whisper, but her voice carries to the guys by the window, and they look her way with smiles on their lips.
My cheeks burn under their stare, heart racing faster as they make a start toward us.
“Enjoy your day, darlin’,” the taller of the two says on their way past, and they grab their drink order from the girl at the counter and leave.
“So, you think the ranch will have hotties like them?”
I shrug. “I’m going to the ranch to write, not hook up with any of the cowboys.”
“Yeah, but I still can, can’t I?”
“Sure, Wen. If you find some cutie cowboy you wanna ride, I’m not going to stand in your way.”
“You need to get ridden. How long has it been?”
I glance around the room, face burning even more than before, and then lean in closer to reply.
“Too long, but I’m not talking about that with you, right here, in an open cafe with strangers listening in.”
“Oh, please, no one here cares how long it’s been since you got laid.”
Someone coughs behind me, and I turn my head to find a muscled blond mountain man with his cowboy hat in his hands, shaking his head with a grin.
“Sorry, my friend has zero boundaries,” I say, and his reply is a single raised eyebrow that gives me an instant semi.
“Connor, your order’s up,” the woman behind the counter says, and the blond Adonis pulls on his hat, tips it to us like some cowboy out of an old Western movie, before he weaves through the tables to grab his order.
“The next two weeks are going to be awesome,” Wendy says, leaning back in her chair and tilting her head to get a good look at him as he strolls past the window.
“Hayden, your coffees are ready, Hun,” the girl behind the counter says, and I spin in the seat, my smile immediate at the sound of her calling my name.
“Thanks,” I say, grabbing them and adding a five into the tip jar. “Have a great day.”
“You, too, enjoy your stay.”
Wendy leans over and grabs her coffee.
