Claiming The Cowboy (Meier Ranch Brothers 3)

Chase matched her smile. Even Gretchen’s wickedness was pure Disney.

“You think the current Texas attorney general does yoga?” he asked.

Chase knew, of course, that he didn’t. Guy was a die-hard PBR fan with a hunger for rich-man adrenaline sports. But Gretchen took the bait. Chase witnessed the epic spark of challenge in her eyes. So that was the way of it. Tap into her hidden tendency to accept dares, mix in a little gender-against-gender shade to speak to her feminist side, and she was putty in his hands. Nearly.

“There’s something carnal about it. Unlike anything else. Except sex.”

Yep. There it was. Chase red in all its glory. They had definitely crossed into unchartered territory. He delighted that he possessed the power to completely disarm her proprieties; he was getting damned good at it, too.

And his dad thought he only had a talent for mindless disregard.

Chase Meier was in full regard mode now.

“Come on. I’ll lean my back against the passenger door. Won’t see a thing. You should let loose more often. Look what it did for you in the city council meeting.”

In typical counselor mode, Gretchen gave none of her thoughts away. Complete poker face but for the flush.

Chase went for his closing argument. “Besides, there’s no one here to snap a photo. When was the last time you had that kind of freedom?” He stretched his arms wide to drive home his point.

She crawled, hands and knees on the blanket, toward the tailgate. Her feet hung a crazy distance from the ground. He had never been so happy he got the lift kit on his tow package.

“If I hurt myself…” Her voice wavered, the first chink in her brave armor.

Chase put his hands at her waist to help her down. She landed close, between his boots, her bare feet tangled in the tall prairie grass, and brought with her that heady mix of cultivated flowers and the right amount of feminine complexity. The moment her stare ascended his chest and connected with his, she bolted like a frightened mare. At the passenger door, she laid down the law.

“No peeking.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“No side mirror.”

Chase maneuvered the side mirror flush with the truck.

“I mean it, Chase.” Her threat was more nerves than bluster.

As tempted as he was—and fuck it all, he was not a man given to much restraint of any kind—he knew trust, to Gretchen, didn’t come easy. His distillery depended on making nice with Mayor de Havilland and Gretchen.

“I’ll put my hat brim over my eyes.” Chase kicked back against the front right fender and did as he promised. Couldn’t see a goddamned thing. His nose prickled at the proximity to his sweat ring. He heard the bing-bing-bing of the door chime until she pulled the door closed. Against his back, the truck gyrated. She was either changing fire-drill fast or was making grand use of his back seat in a vastly different way. The thought of her in the throes of self-pleasure challenged the zipper of his Wranglers from the inside.

Jesus, she would think he looked.

Chase shifted himself, tried to think of something non-Gretchen, even went so far as to picture council elder Bettye Lindsey naked, but the spicy sauce he had eaten returned to scald the back of his throat.

Gretchen popped open the truck door.

Chase snatched his hat south to shield his erection and took a good, long look at the redhead in his overalls. She looked a bit like she’d been swallowed by a denim whale with metal clips for eyes. Wisely, she had fastened a hair clip she produced from God-only-knew-where to the excess fabric bowing wide at her hip. Otherwise, Chase would have had a choice view straight down to her religion. She was business up top, with her fancy hair and silk blouse and ivory pearl buttons, and his kind of party on the bottom: denim and bare toes and dirt. The only thing missing was a hat.

He reached inside the cab and pulled out his dress hat. The one-of-a-kind, custom El Toro with a diamond inlay on the ribbon had been a gift from his sponsor the day he signed his contract. No one else had been allowed to try it on—not even his brothers. Somehow, now seemed the perfect time to share it.

She reached up and pulled a long pin from her hair. Like some kind of witchcraft, shiny hair that had once been twisted and cinched all to hell unwound into mesmerizing, thick waves like those he had seen at her temples the previous day. One pin.

He placed the expensive hat on her head.

Against her forehead, the dark gray felt brought out her smoky lashes, shades of gunmetal in her mostly-green irises, a dusting of freckles cresting her cheekbones that he hadn’t noticed before. Cinched beneath the pristine leather hat band, hair the color of blueberry honey poured over her shoulders.

El Toro had never looked better. No words came.

She shrugged her shoulders as if to say what now?