Hope on the Range (Turn Around Ranch #2) - Cindi Madsen Page 0,4
at odds with her personality—made her appear as though she should be slinging drinks in a pub in Ireland instead of cowboying it up out on the ranch. She moved her ear to her shoulder in a stretch that exposed the long column of her neck and tightened her shirt over, uh, other assets he was definitely glancing away from ASAP.
Not like he’d never noticed she had breasts before or that, objectively, she was pretty. Those were merely facts that didn’t mean anything besides he had eyes. Problem was, she’d put effort into dressing up for some guy she hadn’t even met. Despite what his family thought, jealousy over her dating anyone else had never been a factor.
Well, not in the romantic way they meant it. The two of them just had a lot going on, and now that his oldest brother was engaged, Brady felt the weight of the ranch transferring to his shoulders. Given all that, his selfish side didn’t want to share her with anyone else.
Although Brady supposed if she were going to date, some out-of-towner who was only here temporarily would be the best-case scenario.
Immediately, guilt settled in his gut. Of course he wanted Tanya to be happy. But the past year had been full of more downs than ups, and he couldn’t handle one more change.
A crack punctuated the air as Tanya laced her fingers together and pushed them out, popping her knuckles. “Best of three.”
“Deal,” he said, and she gestured for him to go on ahead. Back in the day when he’d insisted ladies always went first, she’d punched him in the arm and told him she wasn’t a lady and never would be. Under the guise of equality, she’d insisted he go first, but in reality, she just wanted to see what score she had to earn to best him.
Brady grabbed an arrow and placed it on the rest. He set his grip, drew, and aligned the tip of his arrow with the black, blue, red, and yellow target.
His focus grew hazy when he caught a whiff of Tanya’s perfume—one he hadn’t smelled in years. He hadn’t realized she still wore it, and he was sure he would’ve noticed. Sultry and a hint fruity, it unlocked a memory he’d repressed, one he immediately bricked back up, but damn if it didn’t distract the hell out of him.
The muscles in Brady’s arm trembled from holding the string taut, which meant he needed to take his shot.
One shallow exhale, and he released the arrow.
It soared through the air and lodged in the outer circle. Not the bull’s-eye he’d been hoping for, however nine points wasn’t anything to turn his nose up at. Brady stepped aside, and Tanya placed her much smaller foot into his boot print.
“So I’ve been wanting to get our current group of teens more engaged,” Brady started, “and with the rodeo coming up, I came up with a brilliant idea.”
“Calling your own ideas brilliant is the first sign of narcissism. Please call for help if you or someone you love are in danger of being a narcissist.” Tanya put a hand to the side of her mouth and stage-whispered, “As soon as we’re done here, I’m gonna set up an intervention.”
Brady chuckled. “Hear me out, and then you can judge.”
She glanced over her shoulder and huffed. “I think you’re just trying to distract me.”
He inched closer, crowding her the same way she’d done to him, and ran his fingers along his jaw. It drove her bonkers when he fidgeted close enough that she caught the movement in her peripheral vision.
“Too bad for you, it won’t work.” The strings on Tanya’s bow twanged as she released her arrow. It soared through the air, a little high…
But at the last second, it dipped and hit dead center. Brady made a half growl, half grunt that got swallowed up by her self-satisfied laugh.
“I’ve got nerves of steel, don’t ya know?”
He did. Back when they traveled the rodeo circuit, he was the one who couldn’t eat the day of an event while she wolfed down heaps of junk food, no problem. “That’s right. The unshakable Tanya Clayton. She’s got fancy saddles and big, shiny belt buckles to match.”
She bumped her shoulder into his—well, more like into his biceps, since she was a foot shorter. “Hey, remember how my belt buckle is bigger than yours?”
“Oh, you want to compare sizes?” The question burst out of him before he realized what it’d sound like.