Free The Trouble With Cowboys by Melissa Cutler

years later and folks still whispered their theories about Tommy Sorentino’s mystery daddy and why he hadn’t stepped up to his responsibility.
    Amy had dropped off the radar for years—and, frankly, Kellan had forgotten she existed—until the Ultimate Chef Showdown fiasco lit up the gossip circuit like a lightning storm. About the same time, their mother, Bethany, succumbed to a series of very public breakdowns, including one Kellan witnessed at Walmart, followed by a mysterious health crisis many folks believed to be the result of a botched suicide attempt. But not one of them, not Bethany or even Jenna during her wild days, had anything on the stories told of their drunk, gambling, good-timing father.
    Rachel stopped moving and hunched over the porch rail, fiddling with her beer bottle.
    “Might as well spit it out, Rachel. What’s on your mind?”
    She sniffed. “My sisters are so smug. They think I’m oblivious, sheltered. Like I couldn’t possibly relate to their worldly sensibilities or the drama of their social lives.”
    Okay.
    Angling her face over her shoulder, she shot him a kids-these-days grin. “Contrary to their opinion of me, for the most part, I know them far better than they know themselves.”
    “That doesn’t surprise me.”
    She took a hit of beer and shoved off the railing, dropping to a chair. “You’re not good for Amy. I want you to stay away from her. From now on, with regards to Slipping Rock’s supply contract, you can deal with me.”
    Apparently Rachel was aware of Kellan and Amy’s date . . . and possibly Saturday’s tryst. Seems she’d come to his ranch to assert her role as big sister. The problem was, why would Rachel think Kellan was no good for Amy? He was of a mind it was the other way around.
    “Hold on. Is there something being said about me that I’m not aware of—an unflattering rumor or something? Because I don’t understand your opinion. I’m a model citizen, a responsible business owner, and a good man with friends who’d vouch for me. What do you find so bad about that?”
    “Oh, please. I don’t deal in rumors. And I don’t have anything against you as a person. Hell, I don’t even know you.”
    Crisis averted. “Then what gives?”
    “The thing about Amy is that she feels too much, too fast. She’s spinning in all directions at once and looking for a man who’s steady, someone to be the calm center of her tornado life. I’m not sure how the notion got stuck in her head, because our dad was a farmer and she never got on with him, but for some reason, she thinks she can find what she needs in men like you. And maybe she will someday, but now’s not the time.”
    “Men like me?” Ah. Now he was on to her line of thinking. “Cowboys, you mean?”
    “Exactly. God bless her, she’s still optimistic about finding that ideal cowboy of her imagination, despite how many times she’s been hurt.”
    “I’m not going to hurt her because we’re not having a relationship.” That probably sounded harsh, but truthfully, was there any way to tell a woman he was only interested in sleeping with her sister without sounding like an ass?
    Someday he’d settle down—he wanted kids too badly not to work toward that end—but his ideal wife would be drama-free. A homemaker and peacemaker. A woman in good standing with the community. He’d built his perfect life from the ground up, brick by brick, carefully choosing his friends and his lovers, and molding his career as a rancher. He had every confidence that, when the time was right, he’d select the perfect woman to be his life-partner. And she wouldn’t be a tornado. Even if that tornado was a curvy brunette who set his blood on fire.
    “Not having a relationship? You slept with her yesterday.”
    Kellan rotated his jaw to ease the tension gathering there. “For the record, Rachel, casual sex between consenting adults is perfectly legal. Hence, the words consensual and adults .”
    “You’re such a