Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 144435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
You claim to be a "real cowboy", but I've yet to see any qualifications. For all I know, you're actually a forty-year-old who lives in his mom's basement and spends all his time knitting socks for kittens and playing video games. You probably smoke a carton a week and never wear anything except boxers and a wife beater.
Huh. I think I just solved the mystery as to why you keep reading my books when you clearly hate them. I think I also just realized why you aren't a manwhore…
You need a hobby that isn't bugging me every day. Perhaps trolling people on Reddit would be more your speed?
Cassia
PS: Leave Lorna alone. I paid a pretty penny to get her to spill your dirty secrets. You've been up to no good, haven't you?
I read over it and giggle to myself. It's just the right amount of feisty and insulting. If he was hoping to get a rise out of me by being all bossy and sexy, this will drive him nuts. At least I hope it does. It's his turn to stew for a little while.
I quickly hit send before I can talk myself out of it. And then I sit and wait. And wait. And wait.
"Ahh!" I cry fifteen minutes later, nearly catapulting out of my chair when his response comes in. Even though I was waiting for it, it still scares the crap out of me. What is this man doing to me?! And why do I like it so much?
Ms. Murphy,
Proof.
I knit them sweaters, not socks. Get it right, princess.
Now, about that bubble bath…
Cord
I click on the link in his email, rabidly curious. A webpage for his ranch loads, stalling me in my tracks. Either he's a real cowboy, or he's catfishing me. For some reason, I doubt it's the latter. He seems too…comfortably familiar with cowboys. I have no idea why he's torturing me by reading my books, but I don't think he's lying about who he says he…
"Holy crap," I whisper, my mouth gaping open when a picture of him loads on the screen. This is the bossy, rude, crazy man who keeps emailing me? He's precisely the reason that saying, save a horse ride a cowboy was created. I am not mentally prepared to deal with this.
His penetrating gaze cuts through me, even through the dang computer, making my stomach tremble. His square jaw and dark scowl give him a rough, mean look, as if he's as wild as the bull he keeps telling me about, but there's something about him, something…soothing. His skin is tanned a dark golden brown from the sun, with darker spots on his forearms and bold tattoos peeking from beneath the sleeves of his shirt. He's a brick wall of muscle, easily more impressive than the massive horse at his side.
My stomach trembles again.
"He's a giant," I mutter. "A hot, sexy giant."
No wonder he's all…ugh! And argh! I bet growing all those muscles shrunk his brain. He probably thinks it's totally normal behavior to annoy me every day. I bet he's been thrown from horses and bucked around and who knows what else. Clearly, it addled his brain. It definitely has if he thinks I'm telling him about me in a bubble bath.
He's not wrong, though, not entirely.
I haven't ever seen a real cowboy in action. Everything I know about them, I learned from books. That's what I'm good at. Books. Reading. Researching. Men like Cord Decker…well, I wouldn't know the first thing about them. It's safer that way.
And yet…and yet a big part of me wants to learn about this man. Not because he's a hot, sexy giant. But because I think I like his emails a little bit too much. At least I did before I saw him. Now though?
"No way, Cassia Murphy," I whisper to myself. "No way, no way, no way."
Chapter One
CASSIA
Six Weeks Later
"We're going to die," I announce, hanging onto the oh-shit handle in Clover Thompson's rental like my life depends on it. I think it might. She's careening around curves as if there aren't patches of ice on the road and no barriers standing between us and certain death.
I have no idea why I suggested Lake Tahoe for our annual writers' retreat. Actually, I do know why. Because Cord Decker—hot, bossy cowboy extraordinaire—has turned me into a madwoman since he started emailing me six weeks ago to complain about my books.
It should not be legal to be that fine and that damn grouchy at the same time. He's a beast of a man gatekeeping cowboys like he owns the trademark. His emails drive me nuts.
And yet I still suggested Lake Tahoe for the retreat.
Why?
Because I'm a crazy person, that's why.
Ever since learning that he's a genuine cowboy, I've been borderline obsessed with seeing him in action. Nothing about him makes sense to me. He hates my books but continues to read them. He's bossy and a little rude, yet he keeps flirting with me too. He looks mean enough to go toe-to-toe with the devil yet doesn't even bat a lash when I tease him about things like knitting for kittens.