Handsome Wrangler (Handsome Devils #6) - Lori Wilde

1

“You need a man like Brent Stewart,” Leigh Barrett Kendrick said to Caitlin Rogers as she tossed her the football. “He’d be perfect.”

Caitlin threw the football to the closest player, her brother, Rafe, and turned back to look at Leigh. “We can talk about this later. The game isn’t over.”

“No one is near you,” Leigh said. “You have time. Let’s talk about it now.”

Caitlin started to say no, but then she looked at her friend, Brent. Funny how she’d never considered him until this very moment, but he just might be the right choice.

“Maybe,” she said, still not completely convinced.

“No maybes about it,” Leigh insisted. She was sitting in a lawn chair on the sidelines of the friendly flag football game they all played once a month at the newly renovated Honey City Park.

Unable to play herself because she was very pregnant, Leigh was instead offering advice to anyone who came within hearing distance.

At the moment, Caitlin happened to be stranding in the “advice zone.”

“As the saying goes, you need to ‘woman up’ and ask him,” Leigh advised. “You should simply tell him he needs to do this. People like it when you’re direct.”

Caitlin had been friends with Leigh since elementary school, and normally, she’d take her advice without hesitation. Some people might look at it as meddling, but Caitlin knew Leigh’s intentions were good. She just wanted to help. Okay, maybe in a bossy kind of way, but still, she meant well.

Caitlin once more studied Brent. Tall, with deep-brown hair and equally deep-brown eyes, he was a handsome devil. He’d always been popular in town, and not only because of his looks. He was a nice guy, and people just naturally liked him.

Maybe he really would be a good choice. Like Leigh, Caitlin had known Brent since elementary school. Sure, he’d gone away for a few years and just recently returned home to Honey, Texas, but she knew him well enough to know that Brent would do a great job because he was a great guy.

No way would he let her down. Not her buddy. Not reliable Brent.

Take right now. Even though it was going to cost his team the game, Brent was protecting her from the dual mountains she called brothers. She’d heard him tackle her older brother, Rafe, a second ago, right before she would have gotten tackled herself.

Since it was flag football, tackling someone got you eliminated. Not many guys would do something like that—lose a game to protect a lady. But that was the kind of man Brent Stewart was—chivalrous, kind, thoughtful.

Now that she thought about it—he really was perfect.

Of course, she still had to convince him he was perfect for the job. But if she explained her situation carefully, maybe threw in a couple of pretty-pleases, there was a good chance he’d agree.

After all, he’d just moved back to Honey, Texas, so surely he’d want to get involved with the community? What better way to get involved than by taking over her grassroots volunteer organization, The Honey Hive?

She hoped Brent would see it that way. A whisper of doubt entered Caitlin’s mind. Okay, sure, there was a possibility—a remote possibility—that he might say no. She had to be realistic.

Stepping up to run a volunteer organization was a major time commitment. He had just taken the job as the lead wrangler on Jared Kendrick’s horse farm. She knew he was busy, so there was a slight chance Brent really might say no.

Which would be an unbelievable shame. Brent would be terrific as the head of The Honey Hive. He was kind. Smart. Organized.

Plus, really good-looking. Not that it had anything to do with the job, but Caitlin would be lying if she didn’t admit she’d like to spend the next few weeks looking at him.

She was only human, after all.

No two ways about it, since he’d returned to home to work for his buddy Jared, female hearts had been aflutter. Too bad he wanted to settle down in the very town she couldn’t wait to leave.

But that wasn’t going to happen, which was for the best. Caitlin snagged the ball after her younger brother, Logan, tossed it to her.

Since her other brother, Rafe, had been eliminated along with Brent, she made it across the makeshift goal line and whooped her victory.

Logan ran over to the goal line, stopping mere inches from her. As always in the spontaneous football game, Logan was one of her teammates. “Can you believe it?” he asked, slapping Caitlin’s hand. “We won!”

“We