Her Four Cowboys

She shrugged. “I don’t know why you minded. The animals are the highest priority, aren’t they?”

“They are,” I said, leaning back and running my finger over my chin. “But it’s still a little bit of a kick in the teeth to have a kid refuting everything you think you know about treating animals.”

She snorted, rolling her eyes. “‘Kid.’ Dude, you’re three years older than me. It’s not like there’s a decade of both education and experience between us.”

I fought against the sting at that statement with all my might, knowing that she hadn’t meant to rub my face in what she’d learned over the last ten years.

I still couldn’t help the faint sense of insecurity that started to creep in when what she said, and its impact started to set in. While there might not have been that decade of education and experience standing between us back then, it was standing between us now, and my own independent studies felt like a particularly intelligent grade schooler chasing after the role model they idolized.

From the faint tightening of her mouth, I could tell that she’d realized her slip, and I knew that it was going to bother her. The last thing that I wanted was for her to call attention to it again, so I cut across her before she had the chance to bring it up. “So did you specialize in anything in particular at school?”

The conversation continued to move easily after that, with all of us asking her in turn about her life in Utah and for stories about what school had been like for her. It surprised none of us to hear that she made the dean’s list almost every semester despite holding a job for the entire time that she was in school, or that she’d had the top pick of internship programs when she’d graduated. Andy asked her question after question about college and her life there, and I looked over at him a few times, thinking that there must be a part of him that was thinking about going back. Adam was most eager to hear about her life over the last decade, and she returned the questions with enough affection to remind me that the two of them had been best friends. Aaron sat back in his usual quiet, dropping the occasional question here and there, but mostly taking in the rest of us in his usual oldest brother silence. For my part, I was most curious about everything that she’d learned.

Eventually, she paused to take another gulp of beer. “Jesus,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting an interrogation tonight, guys. I would’ve had a bigger dinner if I’d known y’all were gonna be asking me so many questions.”

Aaron leaned forward, giving one of his mischievous smiles that meant he was about to cause his own brand of chaos. “If you’re over it, we can just wait for the next time you come over to the ranch for a house call to show up Austin at his own game.”

I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help grinning at that and then at her. When I’d originally heard that she would be coming back to take a job at the clinic in town, I’d only been able to picture the skinny little tomboy in her uniform of jeans and dirty boots who spouted veterinary facts the way some guys I knew spouted football stats.

On an intellectual level, I knew that she was the same person as the woman in front of me, who was, frankly, so hot that I was afraid the glass she was holding might melt away in her hand. The possibility of asking that girl out had never even entered my mind.

This girl, on the other hand….

Everything about her seemed to be invading my consciousness, from the scent that followed every time she swung that mass of blonde hair around to the perfect swath of freckles across her nose.

There was no question about it. She’d grown up extremely well, and I couldn’t deny that she was pretty damn easy on the eyes. I wouldn’t mind it if she stopped by the ranch every now and then, even if she did show me up. It had been a long-ass time since I’d been around any woman who I was this attracted to; this whip-smart, sassy, scalding-hot woman would make for a nice change of pace.

5

AARON

I loved my baby brother, He’d had my heart since the second he’d been born and opened his little blue eyes, the same color as mine. But given that I was a full five years older than him, even though I’d loved doting on him, I didn’t bother to take a ton of time for him as we got older, especially as I finished school and started taking over my responsibilities on the ranch so that my parents were able to scale back on their own duties a little bit.