Rugged Cowboy - Elana Johnson Page 0,97
to fix my mascara, and I can use the mirror in the front.” She went around the back of the car and got in the front seat.
Slate came out onto the deck. “Can we ride with you guys? Ted left a while ago.” He didn’t look happy about it either, and Jill didn’t blame him.
“Sure,” she said. “We have room.”
Luke came outside too, and Jill seriously doubted they’d fit in the back seat of Michelle’s SUV. They had shoulders Jill had never seen, and she knew all the River Bay men met in the equipment shed at six-thirty to lift weights, something they’d apparently done together in prison.
Slate arrived at her side, and Jill smiled at him. “I’ll ride on the hump in the middle. You scoot on over, cowboy.”
He grinned and reached up to touch his hat. “Do you really think I look like a cowboy?”
“You certainly do,” she said. “I’m not sure if you are one, but you look the part.”
“Good,” he said, and he slid all the way over behind Michelle. Jill gathered up her skirt and got in the car too, sliding over into the middle spot. Luke managed to cram himself in next to her and close the door, and that alone was a miracle.
“All right,” Michelle said. “Are we all in?”
“Yes,” Luke said, and Jill looked at him. He was a handsome man too, and he’d started to grow a beard the same way Slate had. She smiled at him, and he smiled back at her before looking out his window.
Her pulse didn’t react, and she knew he wasn’t the one she’d spend her time with at this wedding. She didn’t even dare look at Slate, because her hip was pressed into his, and her thigh too, and the entire left side of her body tingled with his touch.
He cleared his throat, and Jill glanced at him. “Do you have enough room?” he asked, moving his right leg over a little. “You can put your foot over here.”
“Thanks,” she said, and she did adjust her leg so it wasn’t so tightly crammed into the back of the console between Hannah and Michelle. She smoothed down her skirt so her legs were properly covered and listened as Hannah and Michelle started talking about the cooking show they’d watched last night.
With the radio playing, and conversations happening, Jill looked at Slate again. “Have you decided if you’re going to stay at Hope Eternal?”
He shook his head, his slate-gray eyes still sparkling under that cowboy hat. “What do you think? Should I?”
“Do you hate it?”
“No.”
“Do you like it?”
“You know what? I actually do.”
Jill looked up at the charcoal-colored cowboy hat. “I mean, the hat fits, right?” She smiled, and it was easier than the one she’d practiced in the bedroom. The smile she could give him felt as easy as the flirty ones she’d doled out at the previous weddings she’d attended.
“So you’re saying if the boot fits, wear it?”
“Sure,” she said. “You have a nice room here. The Annex is big and air conditioned. You like the job. You look the part.” She reached over and smoothed down his tie from where it had stuck on his lapel. Something hot and charged zinged through her, and her eyes immediately went back to Slate’s.
He’d felt that, Jill could tell. She could no longer hear Hannah and Michelle talking, and if there was music playing, it wasn’t reaching her ears.
“Okay,” Slate said. “I’ll stay.” He shifted his shoulders so he could lean his head closer to hers. She actually leaned into him too, ducking her head so he could whisper in her ear. His hand landed on her knee, and Jill pulled in a breath as sparks shot up her leg and down to her toes.
“For you, Jill,” he said. “I’ll stay for you.” He took her hand in his then, and his was so much bigger than hers. Warm, and large, and everything a cowboy’s hand should be. Jill loved holding hands with a cowboy, and she smiled to herself as he settled their joined hands on his leg and looked out his window, the conversation obviously done.
The conversation her heart was pounding out to her brain wasn’t done, but Jill didn’t even listen to the two of them. She closed her eyes and leaned against Slate’s shoulder, her fingers twined nice and tight with his.
Oooh, find out if staying at Hope Eternal Ranch for Jill is the right thing for Slate to do. Preorder CHRISTMAS COWBOY today, because it’s coming soon to a Kindle near you.
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Love the cowboys at Hope Eternal Ranch and want to stay right here? Of course you do! Preorder the next book in the series, CHRISTMAS COWBOY, and meet the next Mulbury Boy, Slate Sanders, as he encounters a beautiful, personable blonde in Jill Kyle.
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Elana Johnson is the USA Today bestselling author of dozens of novels, from YA contemporary romance to adult beach romances. Check out her brides, beaches, and bad boy sweet romances in the Hawthorne Harbor Romance series, the Secret Billionaires of Getaway Bay Romance series, the Beaches & Brides Romance series, the Forbidden Lake Romance Series, the Stranded in Paradise Romance Series, the Carter’s Cove Beach Romance Series, the Sentinels Motorcycle Club Romance series, and the Hope Eternal Ranch Romance series.
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She also writes under the pen name Liz Isaacson, who is the USA Today bestselling author and Kindle All-Star Author of the Three Rivers Ranch Romance series, the #1 bestselling Horseshoe Home Ranch Romance series, the Brush Creek Brides series, the Steeple Ridge Romance series (Buttars Brothers novels), and the Grape Seed Falls Romance series, the Christmas in Coral Canyon Romance series, the Quinn Valley Ranch Romance series, the Last Chance Ranch Romance series, and the Seven Sons Ranch in Three Rivers series.
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RUGGED COWBOY
Hope Eternal Ranch Romance, Book 3
by Elana Johnson
Copyright © 2020 by AEJ Creative Works Inc, Elana Johnson
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Cover by Carpe Librum Book Design: https://booking.carpelibrumbookdesign.com/
Interior design by AEJ Creative Works Inc.