Excerpt of Once Upon a Cowboy by Maggie McGinnis

“Okay, look to your left.” Kyla pointed toward the stable
as she adjusted her camera later that afternoon. “And
stop growling at me. Grumpy cowboys do not sell
calendars, Cole.”

“Don’t they have models who do this kind of thing?”?

“Yes, but they’re not authentic. You guys are the real
deal.”?

Cole raised his eyebrows. “The real deal is sweat and
dirt and stink.”?

“We’re going for pseudo real deal, then. Dirt and stink
don’t sell calendars, either.” She motioned at him again.
“Lift the brim of your hat up a little, okay? Your eyes
are in shadow.”

“Kyla.”

“No growling.”

He raised his hat the obligatory half-inch, and of course
as he did, Decker strolled out of the barn.
“Lookin’ good, Cole. Gonna get a little scratchy with
those buttons undone, though, don’t you think?”?

“Shut up, Decker. Don’t get any horse shit on those fancy
shoes.” He looked toward Kyla. “Are we done here yet?”?

“I was actually hoping to get a few more in the—”?

“Sorry. Union rules. I can only be photographed for an
hour a day.”?

“Just a few more?”?

Cole started doing up his buttons. “I have work to do,
Kyla. Go play shutterbug with
somebody else for a while, wouldja?”?

Christ. Stupid calendar. Real cowboys didn’t run around
with their shirts open, aiming for the best light so
their eyes wouldn’t be in—shadow. He shivered. At least
she hadn’t suggested waxing.

“You could do worse, you know.” Decker grinned as he
watched Kyla walk back up to the main lodge. “Maybe she
can post those pics online or something. Might help you
get a date for Daniel and Hayley’s wedding.”

Cole executed a middle-finger salute, then leaned down to
pick up a rope Kyla’d insisted on using for a prop.
“Don’t need a date. We have any early guests coming in
today so I can be very, very busy next time she comes
around with that damn camera?”

“Just Jess.”?

Cole stopped coiling the rope. “Oh. Right.”?

“Trying to make like you forgot? I’ll pretend I haven’t
seen you check your watch about eighty times today.”
Decker laughed. “Gonna get up the nerve to actually take
her out while she’s here this time?”

“I’ve got plenty of nerve.”

“Right. She’s been out here three times now, and every
single time, you’re like a parched man looking at a
desert mirage, but—”

“Shut up. I’m hardly—parched.”

Decker eyed him in that way he had, the look that
stripped the lies right off your face and made you tell
the truth whether you wanted to or not. “I don’t know.
Word in the bunkhouse is that your rep in town is getting
a little rusty.”

“I’m not—rusty. And we don’t have a damn bunkhouse.”

“Want to know what I think?”

“No.”

“I think ever since you met Jess, you can’t help but
compare everybody to her. And nobody quite measures up.”

Exactly. “Not true.”

“Well, true or not, she’ll be here by dinnertime. Kyla’s
leaving for the airport in a while to get her.”

Cole rolled his eyes. It wasn’t like he’d been counting
the days or anything. Not like he’d gotten a haircut
yesterday or had thoroughly checked out Jess’s cabin this
morning to be sure it was shipshape and ready for her.

He shook his head, trying to get visions of Jess’s long
dark hair and deep brown eyes out of his brain. “I’m
still trying to wrap my head around Daniel and Hayley
getting married in a week. I feel like we live and
breathe weddings around here these days.”

“We’re gonna have a lot more if Kyla’s Bridal Bliss
package thing works out.”

“I suppose that means we’d better finish the spa so she
can start selling the packages.” Cole shook his head. How
in the world had their working ranch become a wedding-
slash-spa-slash- getaway place? “Your woman makes a hell
of a lot of work for us, you know.”

Decker laughed. “She makes a hell of a lot of money for
us, too. I think the only reason she’s not haranguing us
to get the spa done is she’s hoping Jess will help with
the design. I have a feeling she’s going to dangle it out
as a carrot to get Jess to stay out here.”

“Out here out here? Like, for good?”

“Yep.” Decker nodded. “She’s been planting seeds for
months. Getting Hayley to move to Montana got her all
puffed up about her abilities. Now she’s turned her
sights on Jess.”

“Poor Jess.” Cole shook his head.

“Pretty sure she can handle herself.” Decker tossed a
beaten-up leather briefcase into the cab of his truck. “I
gotta go charm the home buyers. Hold down the fort.”

As Decker headed out the driveway, Cole turned up the
hill toward the new lodge, half of which was Whisper
Creek’s new childcare facility and petting zoo. The other
half was still rough-framed inside, but by fall was
supposed to be ready for duty as a full-service spa.

He strolled toward the building, letting himself in the
spa door. He inhaled, loving the scent of fresh lumber
and drywall putty. Decker was the acknowledged brainiac
of the family, working with his design software for half
the night, but Cole preferred to be the guy with his
hands right in the mud—literally.?

Morning sun came through the east-facing windows and
skylights, and he tried to picture what the spa would
look like once it was finished. They had fifteen hundred
square feet to work with, which might be an architect’s
dream—if the architect was ever at the ranch long enough
to figure out what to do with all this emptiness. Cole
sure didn’t have a clue.

But then he pictured Jess in the warmly lit space,
gliding around with one of her yoga outfits on, flashing
her warm smile his way, tying up that long, long dark
hair into a ponytail he’d just itch to take back down.

He shook his head, trying to erase the vision.
Fantasizing about Jess before she even got here was only
going to torture him more.

And her kind of torture was the kind that only left a man
wanting what he could not have.