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~CHAPTER ONE: SUMMER~
I was lost, and as I crawled farther down the winding road, dread began to fill me as the sun faded and nightfall crept in. There was no other way to spin the truth, no light at the end of the tunnel, and no end to the dirt road. I hadn’t a clue where I was and not just directionally, which was more important at the time. Always the optimist, I was smiling at the wildlife and wishing I didn’t have a care as they seemed not to. I was trying to enjoy the beauty of the trees and fields on what I aptly called an adventure since I refused to believe I made a wrong turn.
Of course I had no cell service, and the winding path I was on was barely as wide as my Mustang, so I couldn’t even turn around and head back the way I came. I was hoping I’d get spit out at the end of the road onto a busier highway, but I was beginning to dread that wasn’t going to be the case. There were no signs of human life anywhere, and as fear started to tingle along the skin on the back of my neck, I heard a noise that only amplified it.
Thunder, maybe. A truck? It was loud, whatever it was, and seeing how I had my window already rolled down and my radio off listening for something to tell me how to get out of there, I knew it was getting closer very quickly. And as it became clearer that it was definitely not thunder and more like some other type of living thing, my panic escalated. Because it sounded like a stampede, and honest to God, all I could think about was that a pack of hyenas found me alone and scared, and they were coming to maul me to death… Mufasa style.
I frantically pressed the button to roll my window up, my bare foot hit the gas pedal, the engine purred, and my tires spun. And in a flash, I saw it out of the corner of my eye. It wasn’t a clan of rabid cats fresh on the trail of human scent like I was afraid of. It was a single cow.
And it was running sideways yet toward me at the same time… mooing. I screamed as I yanked the wheel to avoid hitting the poor thing, and in my haste, I forgot how narrow the roads were, so I ended up crashing into the ditch. My airbag went off, the horn blasted, and I felt an ache in my shoulder from the way my seat belt dug into me on impact.
It happened so quickly that I almost thought I was seeing things, and the cow was just a figment of my imagination because of how hungry I was since a steak sounded really good at the time. Even though I was alone in the safety of my car, I remembered watching a video online about how fast an engine could explode after a crash, so I climbed out of the back seat and scurried to the road, just in time to see the cow trot along right past me.
“Dammit, cow!” I cursed the thing, frustrated and anxious about my situation and the fact that I was starting over with nothing and essentially no one. My bank account was almost empty, and everything I owned was in my car—that was not only stuck in the ditch but had a flat tire as well… and it didn’t look like either of those things was going to miraculously inflate anytime soon.
I kicked the dirt and crossed my arms, holding myself tight to keep any remaining sliver of hope I had inside. The cow blinked at me and flicked its tail as if to say damn you back, lady. I gaped at the attitude and was just about to flip the cow the bird when I heard him.
“Celine, you stupid, worthless heifer! Get back here.”
To my right, what I saw made my arms fall and my jaw unhinge. I again thought it was a figment of my imagination, but when he called the cow’s name again, he came into view. A cowboy. A real-life, in the flesh, hot as hell cowboy. A five o’clock shadow dusted his sharp jawline, his biceps flexed even beneath the rolled-up button-down shirt, and his tanned forearms had a glint of sweat on them. He was riding a beautiful brown horse at full speed, bouncing in what was obviously a controlled manner with every step… and he had a rope.
No… a lasso.
He was chasing the cow, calling her by name, pushed up on the stirrups, making the whole endeavor seem effortless. Then he wound that rope, swung it high in the air, and I watched as it fell and caught Celine on the first try. “Damn, girl.” He tugged once and then sat back down, effectively halting Celine in her tracks. “Pain in my ass.”
He made a clicking sound, and the horse turned, and then all three of them started coming my way. “Are you okay, ma’am?” The concern in his voice was charming, and as he approached, I found myself unable to answer him. “Ma’am… are you hurt?”
Was I hurt?
No. I wasn’t hurt. But I was in shock.
“Can you hear me, ma’am?”
The third ma’am is what snapped me out of it. “Yes. Um… yeah, I can hear you, and I’m fine.” He’d gotten as close as he could astride a horse and was peering down at me, the brim of his cowboy hat shielding what was left of the setting sun. “Just kind of lost. And totally freaked out that I almost hit a cow. And kind of dazed that I just saw a scene from an old-fashioned Western play out right in front of me. I mean…” I motioned to him and the cow that now had a rope around her neck. “You just caught a runaway cow.” I tilted my head back and caught his eyes, bright blue that I was sure would have been accentuated to match the sky in the light of a warm, sunny day. “Now I know why they call them cowboys.”
His full lips slowly turned up into a breathtaking smile that I knew hid an unmatchable cockiness, and when they did, I nearly fainted from the dimples on either side of his sexy grin. “You sure you’re okay? Not dizzy or anything? Hit your head on the steering wheel?”
Great, he thought I was a moron. “Yeah. I’m fine. I’m just… like this normally. My car, on the other hand…” I regrouped and turned to walk toward my vehicle to see if it was salvageable—like I’d know or like I’d even be able to do anything about it in the first place—when he suddenly jumped down and landed right in front of me.
“Wait.” He put a hand out to block me, and instinct had me stumbling backward. I was falling, and I knew I was going to hit the ground, but somehow, he caught me, and when he did, he pulled me into his tall, lean, muscular body. And every worry I’d had, every fear about what I was going to do with the rest of my life, every single thing drifted away for a moment. “Sorry. Just… wait.”
“For what?”
“Let me go check it out first. I want to make sure it’s safe.” His head tilted toward my bare feet. “You’re not wearing shoes. Why in the hell aren’t you wearing shoes?”
I glanced down at his hands, dirty and rough from manual labor, wrapped around my biceps, loving how his skin felt against mine. Just before he realized he was still holding me, his fingers dug into me, then hovered as he made sure I was steady on my feet before he fully released me.
And I missed the warmth he provided. But more than that, I missed the safety I felt in those few moments… something I had been acutely aware was absent from my life for some time.
“I, uh… I don’t like shoes normally, especially when I’m driving. But I think it’s fine. The car, I mean. Obviously, I can’t drive it, but it hasn’t exploded yet, so I can’t imagine it’ll suddenly burst into flames.”
“I’d rather you not get hurt tryin’ to find out, ma’am.”
“Summer.” I smiled. “My name is Summer.”
He took his hat off. “Hunter.”
“Nice to meet you, Hunter.”
“Pleasure’s all mine.” He winked as he put his hat back on, and if it wasn’t for the fact that I didn’t want to miss out on a second of admiring his handsomely beautiful face, I’d have glanced around to see if I was on a hidden camera show or something.
“Well, Hunter, like I was saying, I don’t think the car is dangerous. It’s got a flat, so I don’t think I’ll be able to get it out of there without a tow, and I don’t have reception out here to call a company. Do you have a phone I could borrow?”
He crossed his arms, the veins in his forearms popping. “Why are you out here in the first place? This is private property, after all. I probably should have led with that, but you’re just so darn pretty I got distracted.”
My face instantly heated at the compliment, and I giggled like a schoolgirl. “I’m lost.”
“Figured that. Where’re you headed?”
“I was headed south and obviously took a wrong turn somewhere along the way.”
“Let me take a look at the damage right quick. You stay put.” He sauntered the few feet to my car to assess the wreckage. I couldn’t hide the fact that I was checking his fine ass out, because when he turned around to come back to me, he was wearing a devilish smirk that said he caught me staring. I waited until he got closer to ask what he thought, but when he reached me, and the tips of his fingers brushed against mine, I completely froze. So did he. His throat cleared, and he dipped his chin, appearing as tongue-tied as I felt. “Why don’t you come back to the ranch with me? It’ll be a while before we can get the tow truck out.”
I think it was the speed at which Hunter lived out a Western right before my eyes that overshadowed the severity of my situation until just then. “Crap…” I pinched the bridge of my nose, praying that I’d be able to get out of this. “Crap, crap, crap.”
“You okay?”
“No.” I stomped my feet and winced when I stepped on a rock. “I’m lost, my car is stuck in a ditch, I don’t have a place to stay, I don’t have….” I caught myself before I told him I was broke as a skunk. The last thing I needed was for him to realize how desperate I was and then take advantage of me. I will not cry. I will not cry. I’d been through worse, so I could figure it out. I would figure it out, and in the process, I wouldn’t let him know how dire of a situation I was really in. “I don’t have any reception to call who I need to, and…”
“Summer, relax.” His voice and his words had the desired effect because I took a half-hearted breath while he spoke. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll help you figure it out, okay?”
It was the sympathy coupled with his sincerity that made my lip quiver, and it didn’t matter what I told myself or how much I tried to hold them in because those damn tears began to sting my nose. I shook my head to try to hide it. “I can’t ask for your help. I don’t even know you or anything about you except for the fact that you’re a real-life cowboy.”
“I am. So tell me, what kind of cowboy would I be if I didn’t gallop in on my horse and swoop up a damsel in distress?”
I wanted to argue that I wasn’t a damsel in distress, but when I tried to come up with an argument as to why that wasn’t true, I had nothing. And when I realized just how limited my options were, I felt myself about to crumple under the weight of it all. But I didn’t have a chance to because I was suddenly swept up in his arms, and as I kicked my legs out, I grabbed his chest… his defined chest, and frankly, I stopped caring about anything other than him. “What are you doing?” I was unsettled about the situation, but surprisingly, I wasn’t scared of him. I’d proven to be a horrible judge of character in the past, though, so that wasn’t saying much.
“I’m doin’ what any real-life cowboy would do; I’m ridin’ off into the sunset with a distraught female.” He walked the few steps to his horse, and I wiggled to get down, but he held me tight. Then he kind of tossed me up, so I had no choice but to straddle the beautiful beast. I wasn’t even able to protest before he swung up and seated himself behind me. One strong arm wrapped around my belly, and he used the other to pick up the rope and the reins, and the way I felt with him holding me was like nothing I’d ever experienced in my life. It was perfect.
Thinking back, I probably should have protested, maybe I should have fought him, but at that point, after what I’d been through in not only the past ten minutes, but in the last several years of my life, I’d given up. That’s why I was headed south because I needed someone to take care of me for just a little bit. I needed a shoulder to cry on, and I needed to get some sleep.
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