Luke gives me a high five before taking his turn.
We’re all drinking beers, all except for Luke.
I realize too late I never should have made a drunken bet with a sober cowboy, especially when I’m a fisherman who knows next to little about roping.
With a lazy confidence I can’t help but admire, Luke saunters into the ring. He coils his rope, builds the loop, and swings it. He glances over at me before saying, “Watch and learn, young grasshopper,” before throwing the rope over the dummy’s head.
Took him a tenth of the time it did me.
“Bloody hell.”
I glare at him as Luke laughs his fucking head off.
“I’ll arrange your pay off right now,” he says as he reaches into his pocket for his cell phone. “You’ll love this woman. She’s great.”
I hate blind dates.
But I lost a bet.
And I always pay up.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Have fun tonight, cousin.” Luke—winner of the bet—smirks at me as he steps onto the back porch of Wild Ranch later the following evening.
“This is what I get for wagering with you about ranch shit—especially after I’ve had a few drinks and you’re stone-cold sober.” I tell him. “Had I been sober, I never would have thought I could rope anything, even a dummy steer, faster than you. I’m a fisherman—not a damn cowboy.”
“Wild, you’re in Montana now, not coastal Maine.” Luke claps me on the back. “So for now, you’re a cowboy. You’re on Wild Ranch. Embrace it.”
Luke Wild has been running Wild Ranch since his parents retired. He and his younger brothers, twins Cooper and Chase, work their asses off to keep their family business going strong, and they do a hell of a job at diversifying between cattle, tourism, and equine rescues led by my cousin Declan’s wife, Mia.
The ranch is hundreds of acres of prairie and forest all set against the majestic backdrop of the Montana mountains. The summer sun is still high in the sky, and Luke and his twinbrothers, Cooper and Chase, are doing their usual—grilling on the back porch for dinner.
Cooper laughs. “Hey, maybe you’ll come back from your date married like Declan did.”
“Nice try,” Declan says. “Mia and I didn’t go on a blind date.”
Mia laughs. She’s sitting close to Declan on the couch opposite us as Declan rocks their baby girl, Lexi, to sleep. Mia’s good-natured and down-to-earth, two things my cousin desperately needed more of in his life. He adores her, and she, him, and their baby made their family complete.
I push away the pang of yearning that hits me when I see Declan as a dad. If I met the right woman, I would want to get married and have a family too.
But just because we want something doesn’t always mean we can have it.
And the dream of having a family is something I gave up on long ago.
“Michael’s married to his boat,” Chase says, his blue eyes bright with humor. “Ship Wild is the only mistress he’ll entertain for the long haul, right?”
He’s not far off. Iamattached to my work as a fisherman. Some—like my Ma and brother—would say too attached. But I have my reasons.
“While you’re staying with us in Montana, you can’t date your boat. Long-distance with a boat doesn’t work too well from what I’ve heard.” Luke chuckles, and I want to wipe that arrogant grin right off his handsome mug.
My Montana cousins are great and all, but I’m only here because my boat had another scare.
I’ve had scares before. All fishermen have. But this one shook me to my core, and for the first time in my adult life, I took a vacation.
My brother, Ayden, who’s in Montana for the summer, saunters out onto the porch from inside the house.
I turn to him. “If this date goes south, I’m texting you to get me out of there. So keep your phone with you.”
