Did he think she was here to get herself a husband?

Jesus, what kind of Dark Ages bullshit was this? Sure, six months ago, the town may have been awash with single women looking for love, but Suzanne wasn’t any part of that, and she most certainly wasn’t here for a man.

A spike of indignation quickly flared into a slow, steady burn of anger. This dude’s ego was as big as the whole damn ranch. And, flash of pain or no flash of pain, he could go and do something exceedingly sexual and anatomically impossible to himself. Suzanne narrowed her eyes, better to aim her death rays at him.

“Look, mister. This whole brooding cowboy act might work on some women, but I think I can contain myself around all your manly man bullshit, and here’s a newsflash for you. I’m here to paint not hook up or trap some…cowpoke into putting a ring on it. All this y’all have”—she went deliberately southern as she gestured wildly around her—“is real charmin’, but I’m a New Yorker. So yeah, you stay over there, and I’ll try and resist the urge to leave love letters on your porch every morning.”

She was breathing hard by the time she stopped, and her pulse was thumping like a jackhammer through her ears, but man was she ticked. He, on the other hand, appeared to be unaffected by her vitriol. Giving her a barely there nod, he pulled down on the brim of his hat.

“Ma’am,” he said, then calmly walked away.

Suzanne watched him go, so damn pissed at him and his assumptions and how good his wide shoulders looked as he strode toward his cabin, she could barely see straight. Her muse, however, was popping champagne corks.

Which did not bode well.

Not for her or Joshua Grady.

Chapter Two

Grady headed straight for his fridge and popped the tab on a Coors Light. He swallowed half the can before he drew breath, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, irritation simmering through his blood. He walked out to the front porch and sat his ass down on the top step, staring out over the front field again.

A cowpoke? The woman had called him a cowpoke?! Okay, her word choice had been deliberate, but he wasn’t some hillbilly cowboy.

And why on God’s green earth did her opinion even matter?

So she had the kind of body that ticked all his hell yeah boxes. She had curves and thighs and hips his fingers itched to explore. She had eyes he could drown in. But he’d only just met her. And she drove the Scooby Mobile for fuck’s sake!

How could anyone who drove a cartoon car be taken remotely seriously?

Yet his skin felt tight and itchy as he grappled to understand the clash of emotions battling like gladiators inside his chest. Half an hour in Su-sahn Saan Meeshell’s company and he was about as thrown as he’d been that time Valentine, his horse, had been spooked by a rattlesnake and tossed him on his ass.