Herd That (The Valentine Boys 1)

From the back he was breathtaking.

He was wearing a white t-shirt tucked into a pair of dark-washed tight—and by tight, I mean so tight I bet he had to jump and shimmy to get into them—jeans that were on the closest side to ‘snug’ as you could get.

He had on a pair of brown boots that were nothing special, but with one glance I could tell that they were his nice ones.

These were clean… and the man didn’t strike me as the type of man that didn’t get his boots dirty.

His hands were rough, those I could see because he had them interlocked behind his back, making his shoulders appear even broader than what they would normally appear as.

His brown cowboy hat nodded every few seconds, his head slanted downward to watch the pen that was underneath him.

And what I saw in that pen made my heart start to hammer, and a gasp to escape from my mouth.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, my eyes on the bull as I moved forward to get a better look.

At first, I didn’t notice that I was close to the man at the very end of the wooden plank walkway.

My eyes were all for the massive bull that was really pissed off.

In fact, I was nearly on top of Mr. Valentine before I knew it.

Glancing up quickly at the closeness of the man, I stopped at his side without ever taking my eyes off the massive bull.

I felt more than saw his head turn to survey me, but I couldn’t keep my gaze from the black beast below me.

“Jesus,” I breathed when that bull pawed the red dirt underneath his feet. “Jesus.”

The man at my side didn’t say anything as we both watched the animal stalk the cage like a large cat instead of a bull, and it was only when the announcer above us informed the arena that the bidding would start in twenty minutes, and that all entering animals should enter them in the next ten minutes, that I became unstuck.

“Oh!” I cried. “I need your help!”

Finally, I turned to the man beside me, and my breath stalled in my chest when I got my first good look at Mr. Valentine.

He wasn’t an old man.

Far from it, in fact.

He was gorgeous.

Beyond gorgeous.

“Are y-you Mr. Valentine?” I asked for confirmation when the man didn’t reply to my outburst.

Please don’t be him. Please don’t be him.

The man’s beautiful head nodded, his brown cowboy hat bobbing with his ascent.

And those eyes of his.

They weren’t brown.

They were like glowing orbs of amber lit with something shimmery and darker golden. Like lions’ eyes.

I’d never seen anything like them before.

“I am. You Spears’ granddaughter?” he asked.

I nodded mutely, unable to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth.

“You got the cows dropped off yet?” he continued, not bothered in the least by my proximity like I was to his.

I shook my head.

“Let’s go get it done, then,” he said, leading the way.

His long legs ate up the distance, and I had to practically run to keep up with him.

I idly wondered if me falling from this height would kill me, and then nearly laughed when I decided that even if the fall didn’t kill me, the bull in the pen I fell into would.

I’d just made it about halfway when Mr. Valentine made it to the end.

Almost as an afterthought, he turned to see where I was and scowled when he realized I wasn’t right behind him.

See, I was five foot nothing. In fact, if you asked my doctor, I was four feet eleven inches. I rounded up to five because I could.

My legs were about half the size of Mr. Valentine’s, and I would never be able to keep up with that man even when he was walking slow.

He waited almost impatiently at the end of the walkway, then held his hand out to me the moment I arrived at him.

“Keys,” he snapped.

I quickly foraged for my keys in my back pocket and handed them to him.

He frowned at the huge set of keychains I had on my keyring, then rolled his eyes and walked away.

I watched him go, wondering whether I should try to go with him or not.

When he stopped about halfway to the truck and turned to see where I was, I decided that most likely I was supposed to follow.

Running now, I caught up to him, and immediately stopped once I reached him.

“They’re gonna need your signature,” he muttered when he walked me to the passenger side of the truck.

I nodded and got in, using the step on the side of the truck and the OS handle (oh shit handle) to climb in and plant my booty in the seat.

He slammed my door shut, quickly walked around the hood, and hopped in. I breathed deeply at the smell of him that permeated my senses due to his proximity and turned to survey him settling into the seat.