The Bachelor Cowboy Read online

  Her mat squeaked as her foot moved across it, sounding like a fart, and Layla snort-giggled again.

  Less lone wolf and more rabid, mangy mutt, she decided.

  They moved from pigeon pose into a few resting poses, and then the class was done. Layla immediately leapt up. “So, are we going for drinks? It’s my turn to buy.”

  Amy lay flat on her back on her pink mat, her cheeks flushed and her thick bangs sweaty. “We doing alcoholic drinks or coffee drinks? Because I definitely want something cold.”

  “Becca?” Layla asked. “What do you prefer?”

  Becca had a crafty look on her face. “Let’s go down to the café and get some iced cappuccinos. Amy and I have to talk to you anyhow.”

  Uh-oh. That sounded ominous. “Great?”

  Turned out, it wasn’t so great. No sooner had she sat down at the table with Amy than Becca hurried off to order their drinks and Amy gave her a knowing look. “So . . . what are your plans this weekend?” Amy’s voice was far too chirpy.

  “Um, taxes?”

  “Really?” Amy furrowed her brows. “In February?”

  “Well, I start shaking down the really disorganized clients mid-February for their receipts,” Layla admitted. “The more I nag them, the better chance I have of getting everything on my desk before midnight on April fourteenth. But these particular taxes are my mom’s.” Not that her mom would turn them in, but Layla would at least try. She gave her friend a weary look. “And trust me, she needs the head start. Mom’s a train wreck.”

  Amy tucked a damp lock of hair behind one ear and managed to look delicate and ladylike while doing it. It wasn’t fair that she could be sweaty and still pretty and delicate, Layla mused. Here Layla had barely managed a single pose in class and she still came out of it looking like a sweat hog. “Your mom’s the one always starting businesses, isn’t she?”

  Layla nodded. “That’s how I got into accounting. I had to help her with her books, and she was so terrible at it that I eventually took over.” She didn’t point out that her mom also liked to fudge numbers a little too much and Layla had always been more than a little terrified of her mom going to prison for tax fraud. “But that’s a whole story that needs more than just a few drinks, trust me.”

  Becca sat down with three icy, frothy confections and Layla shot her a grateful look. “It’s on me,” Becca proclaimed.

  Amy immediately spoke up again. “What about Saturday lunch?”

  Layla frowned. Free drinks? Amy wanting to hang on the weekend instead of being with her smoking-hot boyfriend? Something was definitely up. “Are you guys ditching me for someone cooler? Because this is a small town and I know where you live.”

  Becca snorted. “You’re going with us to the bachelor auction on Saturday. That’s what she’s trying to work up to saying.”

  “Wait, I am?” Layla stopped short of taking a sip from her straw. “Why am I doing something as awful as that?” She knew they’d mentioned it several times in the past few weeks, but each time she’d claimed to be busy. Bachelor auctions really weren’t her thing, and considering that the average age of said bachelors was in the sixties, she thought it was sweet but kinda pointless. All the so-called bachelors were mostly small business owners in the area who were going to be bid on by their girlfriends or ladies they knew at bingo. Layla had planned to avoid the entire affair like the plague, given that it’d just remind her that people her grandparents’ age were still finding love and here she was, perennially single.

  “We just need you there as emotional support,” Amy promised, reaching over to squeeze Layla’s hand. “That’s all.”

  “And if you happen to slip up and bid on Hank’s youngest brother, then it happens,” Becca added in.

  “What?” Layla screeched.

  Everyone in the café turned to look at them, which made Layla all the more aware of her Pokémon workout shirt and leggings, and the frizzy mess of her post-workout ponytail.

  She ducked her head and then frowned at her friends, pitching her voice lower. “What? Are you guys setting me up?”

  “No, of course not,” Amy said quickly. “It’s just that . . .” She bit her lip and looked over at Becca.

  “He doesn’t want to do it,” Becca added.

  “So he’s smart,” Layla butted in.

  Her friends gave her an exasperated look. Amy continued. “He’s subbing in because Tom Hammond had that heart procedure and had to drop out. We’d have been down to eleven candidates and we’re worried that the fund-raiser won’t hit the goal with just eleven. Becca asked Jack to step in and he offered to do so.”

  “But we need to make sure someone bids on Jack, and he doesn’t have a girlfriend we can rope in.”

  “Because he’s so hideous?” Layla joked. She’d seen Jack around town. The man looked like something from those old-timey cigarette ads for the Marlboro man—all rugged masculinity. And then she’d seen his face and he had the softest eyes and the prettiest smile she’d ever seen. He was like a damn model, and he’d smiled at Layla.

  Who’d promptly looked over his shoulder, pretended to be disinterested, and never made eye contact again. Guys like him didn’t look at nerd girls like her. It wasn’t that Layla was hideous. She just wasn’t his type. He needed someone classically beautiful—like he was—to hang off his arm and so they could wow everyone with their Ken and Barbie looks and raise a bunch of creepy, too-pretty porcelain doll–like children.

  Layla was . . . messy. She dressed up if she had to, sure, but she didn’t wear much makeup and her hair tended to land in a pencil-stuck bun after five minutes. She had big-framed glasses that were utterly necessary and made her look like an owl. She wore jeans and nerdy T-shirts and crocheted. She carried fifteen extra pounds and had a food baby that showed in tight clothing. So, no, she wasn’t his type.

  He was the star-quarterback type. She was the nerdy-younger-sister type, the one that was supposed to blossom into some sort of beauty but never had.

  For heck’s sake, she was an accountant. They were punch lines for a reason.

  “It’s for charity, and we’ll front you the money,” Becca said, reaching out and squeezing Layla’s other hand. Layla wasn’t sure if it was meant to be encouragement or to keep her from running away. “And you don’t have to win. It’s just we need insurance in case no one else bids on him.”

  She pried her hands out of their grips. “Are you both crazy? Have you seen Jack? Someone will bid on him if they have eyes.”

  “It’s just an insurance policy,” Becca said, her expression bright. “Since Amy and I are organizing, we’re not allowed to bid. That leaves you.”

  Layla groaned as if pained. The last thing she wanted to do was spend her Saturday watching elderly bachelors strut across a Valentine’s Day stage to impress their equally elderly girlfriends. “Must I?”

  “We could really, really use the help,” Amy said gently. “We’ve been pushing so hard for this addition to the city hall and to have all these people back out at the last minute is incredibly discouraging.”

  The sad note in Amy’s voice clinched it, but Layla wanted to drag her feet a little more. “Let me go through my desk and see what I can put off until Monday. And don’t front me the money. That’s ridiculous. Let’s stick to one embarrassment at a time.”

  Because if they fronted her the money, she’d really have to come through. If she didn’t take it, she could still get out of this.

  Theoretically.

  * * *

  * * *

  When she got back to her office, her inbox had a few notes from clients who were late filing their federal unemployment returns, but nothing that needed to be handled immediately. She emailed her usual suspects, reminding them to send over any receipts for the prior calendar year, and then played a match-3 game on Facebook to pass the time.

  The nice thing about bei
ng her own boss was that if she was lazy, no one could call her out on it. If she didn’t get enough done during office hours, she’d just take her work home and pick through it while watching Netflix, her computer in her lap and her cat, Sterling, tucked against her side.

  Somewhere on round sixteen of her current game, Layla’s mom called.

  “I have a date for you, my baby,” Janet Schmidt sang into the phone. “I met a doctor and his son’s a pharmacist. He works at a hospital and they have fantastic benefits, baby. Let me give you his number and you can call him. His name is Arthur Junior.”

  Ugh. “Mom, I don’t want you to set me up on a blind date.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. Her mother always did this. It was like it was personally killing her that her daughter wasn’t the fashionista that Janet was, or the dating maven, and so she was trying to constantly “fix” Layla. Even though Layla was twenty-nine, her mother still bought her clothing and constantly tried to fix her up on dates.

  “It’s not a blind date if you guys exchange photos first! Take a picture of yourself and put it on Facebook. I’ll send him your profile.”

  “Mom, no. Don’t make me pick out a shallow grave for you in my backyard.”

  “Don’t be vulgar, Layla. Men don’t like a woman with gallows humor.”

  Well, her mom had that right. Layla shrugged to herself. “If he’s not going to like me, why don’t we skip this whole charade?”

  “Get a pen,” her mother said in a take-no-shit voice. “Write down this number.”

  “Writing,” Layla lied. “Got a pen right now.”

  “You’re not. You’re lying.”

  Layla sighed and picked up a pen for real. Her mother was far too good at that. “Fine. Read it off.”

  Janet rattled the number off twice, and Layla wrote it down, fully intending to never call the man. She was pretty sure Arthur Junior the pharmacist wanted nothing to do with glamorous Janet’s far-less-glamorous accountant daughter.

  “You’ll call him?” Janet prompted.

  “Yup.”

  Her mother sighed. “You’re lying again.”

  “I might call him,” Layla hedged. “We’ll see.”

  “Still lying. You know I do so much for you, Layla-belle. Your mother works so hard, and what are the thanks I get? Nothing.”

  She rolled her eyes. She’d long ago gotten used to the fact that Janet was a narcissist who thought of herself first and others as a very distant second. She loved her mother, but she was also familiar with her mother’s bullshit. “Thank you, Mom. I appreciate you looking out for me.”

  “I just think our lives would be easier if you married a nice rich man.”

  And there it was. It wasn’t that she wanted grandchildren or longed for Layla to be happy. No, she wanted her daughter to marry a “nice rich man” so she’d have someone to borrow from when she got into financial hot water . . . as she always did. “I’m doing just fine on my own, Mom, but thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. Did you send over your receipts like I asked?”

  “I’ll get to that, I promise.” Her mother paused and then giggled girlishly. “Did I tell you I’m going to go into business with a friend?”

  Layla’s lip curled in silent horror. Oh god, not again. “What now?”

  “Don’t ‘what now’ me,” her mother continued. “I met a guy and he’s going to help me flip my properties. You know, all those properties I bought that you said were terrible investments? Well, I showed them to him and he thinks I’m sitting on a gold mine.”

  Of course he did. Anyone that flattered her mother could get just about anything they wanted out of her. Layla face-palmed silently and took a deep breath. How many times had she gone through this with her mother? How many get-rich-quick schemes would Janet Schmidt fall for? How many times had she shown up, asking Layla to cook the books “just a little” so she could apply for another loan she didn’t need? Her mother was terrible with money and lived in a state of perpetual debt. It was amazing that she found anyone willing to partner with her—and more amazing still that these people usually found a way to squeeze even more money out of her mother.

  “Mom, no—”

  “This one is different,” Janet said firmly. “I promise. And remember that Sinclair land on the edge of town that I got for a song?”

  “The floodplain?” Layla tapped a pencil impatiently. Her mother had spent a small fortune buying up several hundred acres from a rancher on the edge of town and hadn’t bothered to ask why the land was so cheap. She’d found out later on that it was dirt cheap because it turned into a mud pit almost every spring and was practically unusable as pasture.

  “See, that’s the thing. Marco thinks if I can get a surveyor to reassess it and get it marked as hundred-year floodplain instead of normal floodplain, we can sell it for three times as much. He knows a guy that can work with me.”

  “Why are you telling me this? It sounds illegal—”

  “Because I’m going to need you to notarize some documents for me, darling. Can I bring them by Saturday morning? I’m at the spa for the next few days and can’t head your way.”

  “You were supposed to send your taxes over this weekend,” Layla reminded her.

  “Busy,” her mother said. “So you’ll have plenty of time to do this other paperwork for me.”

  Layla cringed. If she notarized something, she was putting her official stamp on it, and she didn’t want to touch any of her mom’s crazy schemes. But Janet was impossible to say no to. She’d bully and whine until she got her way. It was better to just avoid her altogether. “I’m busy Saturday morning.”

  “Doing what?” Her mother sounded openly skeptical.

  She thought for a moment and then the perfect answer hit her. “I’m going to a Valentine’s bachelor auction with some friends. There’s a cute guy I’m going to bid on.”

  “Layla-belle! That’s wonderful! Tell me about him!”

  “He’s just a guy I met, Mom. Chill. It’s not like we’re engaged.” And she wasn’t really going to bid on him, but at least this would keep her mom occupied for a while. “Listen, I’ve gotta go—”

  “But my documents—”

  “My two o’clock is at the door,” Layla lied. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “You’re lying—”

  Damn, her mom was far too good at that. “Bye, Mom! Love you! Kisses!” She hung up and rubbed her face. How long had it been since the last scheme? Not long enough. And Layla didn’t trust anyone who told her mother she could “flip” the properties she’d been buying and make a fortune. That was a lie. Her mother had gotten a windfall—somehow—of an inheritance from a distant relative and had then proceeded to spend every penny buying up random properties she found on the cheap as “investments.” She’d listened to a few seminars and thought she knew of a “grand way” to make some cash.

  Turned out she learned the hard way that sometimes properties are cheap for a reason. Like the house that was a meth lab once, and she couldn’t sell it without disclosing it was a prior meth lab, so no one was interested. Or the “gorgeous pasture” that was a mud pit. Or the murder house she’d bought in Kansas that still had the chalk outlines on the carpet.

  Janet was not great at reading the fine print, and it always came back to bite her in the ass . . . and Layla, too, because she tried to help, she really did, but her mother was far more interested in what paperwork Layla could “smooth over” for her instead of doing her taxes properly.

  It was a constant bone of contention between the mother and daughter. Janet wanted Layla to massage numbers. Layla refused, and it inevitably led to fights.

  It was one reason Layla turned to chocolate. And cross-stitch, because crafting calmed her mind when her mother stressed her the hell out. She broke a chunk off of the Hershey’s bar on her desk and popped it into her mouth, then opened the bottom drawer of her
desk and pulled out her latest cross-stitch project. It was a glorious square border of bright flowers and ribbons, and in the center there was a saying that read snitches get stitches. It made Layla laugh to create detailed, beautiful works of art with terrible sayings on them, so she did it, even if everyone looked at her like she was crazy.

  Maybe she was, just a little.

  Because now that she’d told her mother she was going to a bachelor auction, she kind of had to go. She wouldn’t put it past Janet to show up on the doorstep of Layla’s office to check in on her.

  So . . . now she had plans on Valentine’s Day. Damn it all.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Well, ain’t you the prettiest sight,” Hank drawled as Jack showed up at the barn that morning. The oldest Watson brother pulled a dollar out of his pocket and held it up. “Can I bid on you, Prince Charming?”

  At his side with a pitchfork, Caleb snickered.

  “Shut the hell up, both of you,” Jack grumbled. He rubbed a hand over his jaw, feeling a little self-conscious. “I just came to tell you two that I’m heading out and I’ll be back later.”

  “Did you shave for us?” Caleb teased. “You shouldn’t have. I like my men hairy.”

  “I’ll be sure and tell Amy that,” Jack shot back. In fact, he had shaved. Was feeling a little foolish about it, too. It was just . . . he knew he had a pretty face, and in the last while, he’d let his beard get bushy. He figured if he was going to be in a bachelor auction, he’d let his vanity take over.

  Jack Watson was gonna be the best-damn-looking Valentine charity bachelor Painted Barrel had ever seen.

  So, yeah, he’d shaved his face clean of the big, hairy winter beard even though it was still cold out. He’d put on his favorite black cowboy hat. Put on a tighter-fitting black button-up and some tight jeans that hugged his ass. Boots. The works. Was it a little vain? Sure.