Want Me, Cowboy: A Holiday Romance Novel

One

November 1, 2018

Location: Copper Ridge, Oregon

WIFE WANTED—

Rich rancher, not given to socializing. Wants a wife who will not try to change me. Must be tolerant of moods, reported lack of sensitivity and the tendency to take off for a few days’ time in the mountains. Will expect meals cooked. Also, probably a kid or two. Exact number to be negotiated. Beard is nonnegotiable.

November 5, 2018

Revised draft for approval by 11/6

WIFE WANTED—

Rich rancher, not given to socializing. Successful rancher searching for a wife who enjoys rural living. Wants a wife who will not try to change me. Must be tolerant of moods, reported lack of sensitivity, and the tendency to take off for a few days’ time in the mountains. Though happy with my life, it has begun to feel lonely, and I would like someone to enhance my satisfaction with what I have already. I enjoy extended camping trips and prefer the mountains to a night on the town. Will expect meals cooked. Also, probably a kid or two. Exact number to be negotiated. Beard is nonnegotiable. I I’m looking for a traditional family life, and a wife and children to share it with.

This is awful.

Poppy Sinclair looked up from her desk, her eyes colliding with her boss’s angry gray stare. He was holding a printout of the personal ad she’d revised for him and shaking it at her like she was a dog and it was a newspaper.

"The original was awful," she responded curtly, turning her focus back to her computer.

But it was all true.

Lead with being less of an asshole.

"I am an asshole," Isaiah said, clearly unconcerned with that fact.

He was at peace with himself. Which she admired on some level. Isaiah was Isaiah, and he made no apologies for that fact. But his attitude would be a problem if the man wanted to find a wife. Because very few other people were at peace with him just as he was.

I would never say I want to— he frowned ‘—enhance my enjoyment.’ What the hell, Poppy?

Poppy had known Isaiah since she was eighteen years old. She was used to his moods. His complete lack of subtlety. His gruffness.

But somehow, she’d never managed to get used to him. As a man.

This grumpy, rough, bearded man who was like a brick wall. Or like one of those mountains he’d disappear into for days at a time.

Every time she saw him, it felt as if he’d stolen the air right from her lungs. It was more than just being handsome—though he was. A lot of men were handsome. His brother Joshua was handsome, and a whole lot easier to get along with.

Isaiah was... Well, he was her very particular brand of catnip. He made everything in her sit up, purr...and want to be stroked.

Even when he was in full hermit mode.

People—and interacting with them—were decidedly not his thing. It was one reason Poppy had always been an asset to him in his work life. It was her job to sit and take notes during meetings...and report her read on the room to him after. He was a brilliant businessman, and fantastic with numbers. But people...not so much.

As evidenced by the ad. Of course, the very fact that he was placing an ad to find a wife was both contradicting to that point—suddenly, he wanted a wife!—and also, somehow, firmly in affirmation of it. He was placing an ad to find her.

The whole situation was Joshua’s fault. Well, probably Devlin and Joshua combined, in fairness.

Isaiah’s brothers had been happy bachelors until a couple of years ago when Devlin had married their sister Faith’s best friend, Mia.

Then, Joshua had been the next to succumb to matrimony, a victim of their father’s harebrained scheme. The patriarch of the Grayson family had put an ad in a national newspaper looking for a wife for his son. In retaliation, Joshua had placed an ad of his own, looking for an unsuitable wife that would teach his father not to meddle.

It all backfired. Or...front fired. Either way, Joshua had ended up married to Danielle, and was now happily settled with her and her infant half brother who both of them were raising as their son.

It was after their wedding that Isaiah had formed his plan.

The wedding had—he had explained to Poppy at work one morning—clarified a few things for him. He believed in marriage as a valuable institution, one that he wanted to be part of. He wanted stability. He wanted children. But he didn’t have any inclination toward love.

He didn’t have to tell her why.

She knew why.

Rosalind.

But she wouldn’t speak her foster sister’s name out loud, and neither would he. But she remembered. The awful, awful fallout of Rosalind’s betrayal.

His pain. Poppy’s own conflicted feelings.

It was easy to remember her conflicted feelings, since she still had them.

He was staring at her now, those slate eyes hard and glinting with an energy she couldn’t quite pin down. And with coldness, a coldness that hadn’t been there before Rosalind. A coldness that told her and any other woman—loud and clear—that his heart was unavailable.

That didn’t mean her own heart didn’t twist every time he walked into the room. Every time he leaned closer to her—like he was doing now—and she got a hint of the scent of him. Rugged and pine-laden and basically lumberjack porn for her senses.

He was a contradiction, from his cowboy hat down to his boots. A numbers guy who loved the outdoors and was built like he belonged outside doing hard labor.

Dear God, he was problematic.

He made her dizzy. Those broad shoulders, shoulders she wanted to grab on to. Lean waist and hips—hips she wanted to wrap her legs around. And his forearms...all hard muscle. She wanted to lick them.

He turned her into a being made of sensual frustration, and no one else did that. Ever. Sadly, she seemed to have no effect on him at all.

I’m not trying to mislead anyone, he said.

"Right. But you are trying to entice someone." The very thought made her stomach twist into a knot. But jealousy was pointless. If Isaiah wanted her...well, he would have wanted her by now.

He straightened, moving away from her and walking across the office. She nearly sagged with relief. My money should do that. As if that solved every potential issue.

She bit back a weary sigh. Would you like someone who was maybe...interested in who you are as a person?

She knew that was a stupid question to ask of Isaiah Grayson. But she was his friend, as well as his employee. So it was kind of...her duty to work through this with him. Even if she didn’t want him to do this at all.

And she didn’t want him to find anyone.

Wow. Some friend she was.

But then, having...complex feelings for one’s friend made emotional altruism tricky.

As you pointed out, he said, his tone dry, I’m an asshole.

"You were actually the one who said that. I said you sounded like one."

He waved his hand. Either way, I’m not going to win Miss Congeniality in the pageant, and we both know that. Fine with me if somebody wants to get hitched and spend my money.

She sighed heavily, ignoring the fact that her heart felt an awful lot like paper that had been crumpled up into a tight, mutilated ball. "Why do you even want a wife, Isaiah?"

I explained that to you already. Joshua is settled. Devlin is settled.

Yes, they are. So why now?

I always imagined I would get married, he said simply. I never intended to spend my whole life single.

Is your biological clock ticking? she asked drily.

In a way, he said. Again, it all comes back to logic. I’m close to my family, to my brothers. They’ll have children sooner rather than later. Joshua and Danielle already have a son. Cousins should be close in age. It just makes sense.

She bit the inside of her cheek. So you...just think you can decide it’s time and then make it happen?

"Yes. And I think Joshua’s experience proves you can make anything work as long as you have a common goal. It can be like math."

She graduated from biting her cheek to her tongue. Isaiah was a numbers guy unto his soul. Uh-huh.

She refused to offer even a pat agreement because she just thought he was wrong. Not that she knew much of anything about relationships of...any kind really.

She’d been shuffled around so many foster homes as a child, and it wasn’t until she was in high school that she’d had a couple years of stability with one family. Which was where she’d met Rosalind, the one foster sibling Poppy was still in touch with. They’d shared a room and talked about a future where they were more than wards of the state.

In the years since, Poppy felt like she’d carved out a decent life for herself. But still, it wasn’t like she’d ever had any romantic relationships to speak of.

Pining after your boss didn’t count.

The only aspect of going out and hooking up I like is the hooking up, he said.

She wanted to punch him for that unnecessary addition to the conversation. She sucked her cheek in and bit the inside of it too. Great.

When you think about it, making a relationship a transaction is smart. Marriage is a legal agreement. But you don’t just get sex. You get the benefit of having your household kept, children...

Right. Children. She’d ignored his first mention of them, but... She pressed her hands to her stomach unconsciously. Then, she dropped them quickly.

She should not be thinking about Isaiah and children or the fact that he intended to have them with another woman.

Confused feelings was a cop-out. And it was hard to deny the truth when she was steeped in this kind of reaction to him, to his presence, to his plan, to his talk about children.

The fact of the matter was, she was tragically in love with him. And he’d never once seen her the way she saw him.

She’d met him through Rosalind. When Poppy had turned eighteen, she’d found herself released from her foster home with nowhere to go. Everything she owned was in an old canvas tote that a foster mom had given her years ago.

Rosalind had been the only person Poppy could think to call. The foster sister she’d bonded with in her last few years in care. She’d always kept in touch with Rosalind, even when Rosalind had moved to Seattle and got work.

Even when she’d started dating a wonderful man she couldn’t say enough good things about.

She was the only lifeline Poppy had, and she’d reached for her. And Rosalind had come through. She’d had Poppy come to Rosalind’s apartment, and then she’d arranged for a job interview with her boyfriend, who needed an assistant for a construction firm he was with.

In one afternoon, Poppy had found a place to live, gotten a job and lost her heart.

Of course, she had lost it, immediately and—in the fullness of time it had become clear—irrevocably, to the one man who was off-limits.

Her boss. Her foster sister’s boyfriend. Isaiah Grayson.

Though his status as her boss had lasted longer than his status as Rosalind’s boyfriend. He’d become her fiancé. And then after, her ex.

Poppy had lived with a divided heart for so long. Even after Isaiah and Rosalind’s split, Poppy was able to care for them both. Though she never, ever spoke to Rosalind in Isaiah’s presence, or even mentioned her.

Rosalind didn’t have the same embargo on mentions of Isaiah. But in fairness, Rosalind was the one who had cheated on him, cost him a major business deal and nearly ruined his start-up company and—by extension—nearly ruined his relationship with his business partner, who was also his brother.

So.

Poppy had loved him while he’d dated another woman. Loved him while he nursed a broken heart because of said other woman. Loved him when he disavowed love completely. And now she would have to love him while she interviewed potential candidates to be his wife.

She was wretched.

He had said the word sex in front of her like it wouldn’t do anything to her body. Had talked about children like it wouldn’t make her...yearn.

Men were idiots. But this one might well be their king.

Put the unrevised ad in the paper.

She shook her head. I’m not doing that.

I could fire you. He leaned in closer and her breath caught. For insubordination.

Her heart tumbled around erratically, and she wished she could blame it on anger. Annoyance. But she knew that wasn’t it.

She forced herself to rally. If you haven’t fired me yet, you’re never going to. And anyway, she said, narrowing her tone so that the words would hit him with a point, I’m the one who has to interview your prospective brides. Which makes this my endeavor in many ways. I’m the one who’s going to have to weed through your choices. So I would like the ad to go out that I think has the best chance of giving me less crap to sort through.

He looked up at her, and much to her surprise seemed to be considering what she said. That is true. You will be doing the interviews.

She felt like she’d been stabbed. She was going to be interviewing Isaiah’s potential wife. The man she had been in love with since she was a teenage idiot, and was still in love with now that she was an idiot in her late twenties.

There were a whole host of reasons she’d never, ever let on about her feelings for him, Rosalind and his feelings on love aside.

She loved her job. She loved Isaiah’s family, who she’d gotten to know well over the past decade, and who were the closest thing she had to a family of her own.

Plus, loving him was just...easy to dismiss. She wasn’t the type of girl who could have something like that. Not Poppy Sinclair whose mother had disappeared when she was two years old and left her with a father who forgot to feed her.

Her life was changing though, slowly.

She was living well beyond what she had ever imagined would be possible for her. Gray Bear Construction was thriving; the merger between Jonathan Bear and the Graysons’ company a couple of years ago was more successful than they’d imagined it could be.

And every employee on every level had reaped the benefits.

She was also living in the small town of Copper Ridge, Oregon, which was a bit strange for a girl from Seattle, but she did like it. It had a different pace. But that meant there was less opportunity for a social life. There were fewer people to interact