Cash (Lucky River Ranch, #1)

by Jessica Peterson

She catches me watching her. Instead of calling me out, she smiles harder, bigger, the kind of smile that touches her eyes. There’s a sudden, sharp drop in my chest. Goddamn, the joy I see in her face—it’s infectious. Before I know what’s happening, I’m lifting my arm and twirling her around. She laughs, the sound loud and real, so I twirl her again, and again.

First the lemonade. Then the shower break and sandwich. Now the dance-floor rescue. Mollie’s looking out for me, isn’t she?

The spoiled, self-centered trust-fund brat is paying attention to me in a way no one else has in…a while. Maybe she’s not such a brat.

“Don’t know what I love more. My morning coffee or my afternoon beer.” “Depends on who you’re having it with, I think.” His hair is still wet from the shower. The smell of his soap is intoxicating. I am this close to jumping the man’s bones. Especially when he says, “Then I think I like my coffee more.”

“Ask me.” “Ask what?” “Ask me to give you what you want.” I stare at him. “I can’t⁠—” “But you can.” He steps closer, melting his hips into mine. “Because you gotta know by now, I can’t deny you anything, Mollie. Not a fuckin’ thing.”

“You’re a cowgirl now, honey. And cowgirls can’t be tamed. Wouldn’t dare to try.”

We’re in the bathtub a week later when I fall in love with Mollie. It happens all of a sudden. Or maybe it’s been happening all along, and it only takes some bubbles and a good, hard laugh for the realization to finally crystallize.