Eden has never understood the big attraction to cowboys. Give her a guy in a tailored suit any day of the week. But now all she can think about is Mr. Rugged Handsome, six-feet of sinfully sexy country charm with a pair of green eyes that keep her tossing and turning.
Archer might be the wrong guy for a woman like her, but she’s not right in thinking he’ll walk away without fighting for her heart. And maybe, just maybe, two wrongs can make a right.
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An Excerpt from
RIGHT WRONG GUY
ARCHER KANE PLUCKED a dangly gold nipple tassel off his cheek and sat up in the king-sized bed, scrubbing his face. Overturned furniture, empty shot glasses, and champagne flutes littered the hotel room while a red thong dangled from the flat screen. He inched his fingers to grab the Stetson resting atop the tangled comforter. The trick lay in not disturbing the two women snoring on either side of him. Vegas trips were about fillies and fun—mission accomplished.
Right?
“What the?” A dove dive-bombed him, swooped to his left, and perched on the room-service cart to peck at a peanut from what appeared to be the remnants of a large hot fudge sundae. Who knew how a bird got in here, but at least the ice cream explained why his chest hair was sticky and, farther below, chocolate-covered fingerprints framed his six-pack. Looked like he had one helluva night. Too bad he couldn’t remember a damn thing. He should be high-fiving himself, but instead, he just felt dog-tired.
He emerged from beneath the covers and crawled to the bottom of the bed, head pounding like a bass drum. As he stood, the prior evening returned in splintered fragments. Blondie, on the right cuddling his empty pillow, was Crystal Balls aka the Stripping Magician. The marquee from her show advertised, “She has nothing up her sleeve.” Dark-hair on the left had been the assistant . . . Destiny? Dallas? Daisy?
Something with a D.
How in Houdini they all ended up in bed together is where the facts got fuzzy.
A feather-trimmed sequined gown was crumpled by the mini bar and an old-man ventriloquist’s dummy appeared to track his furtive movements from the corner. Archer stepped over a Jim Beam bottle and crept toward the bathroom. Next mission? A thorough shower followed by the strongest coffee on the strip.
Coffee. Yes. Soon. Plus a short stack of buttermilk pancakes, a Denver omelet, and enough bacon to require the sacrifice of a dozen hogs. Starving didn’t come close to describing the hollow feeling in his gut, like he’d run a sub-four-hour marathon, scaled Everest, and then wrestled a two-ton longhorn. His reflection stared back from the bathroom mirror, circles under his green eyes and thick morning scruff. For the last year a discontented funk had risen within him. How many times had he insisted he was too young to be tied down to a serious committed relationship, job . . . or anything? Well, at twenty-seven he might not be geriatric, but he was getting too old for this bed-hopping shit.
“What the hell are you doing?” he muttered to himself.
The facts were Mr. Brightwater wasn’t looking his best. His second cousin, Kit, gave him that nickname after he graced the cover of a “Boys of Brightwater” town calendar last year to support the local Lions Club. He’d been February and posed holding a red cardboard heart over his johnson to avoid an X rating, although as his big brother Sawyer dryly noted, “Not like most women around here haven’t already seen it.”
In fairness, Brightwater, California, didn’t host a large population. For a healthy man who liked the ladies, it didn’t take long to make the rounds at The Dirty Shame, the local watering hole. Vegas getaways meant variety, a chance to spice things up, although a threesome with Crystal and Donna—Deborah? Deena? Dazzle?—was akin to swallowing a whole habanero.
He reached into the shower and flicked on the tap as a warm furry body hopped across his foot. “Shit!” He vaulted back, nearly going ass over teakettle, before bracing himself on the counter. A bewildered white rabbit peered up, nose twitching.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He squinted into the steam with increased suspicion. Hopefully, Crystal’s act didn’t also involve a baby crocodile or, worse, a boa constrictor. He hated snakes.
The coast was clear so he stepped inside, the hot water sending him halfway to human. There was a tiny bottle of hotel shampoo perched in the soap dish and he gave it a dubious sniff. It smelled like flowers but would do the job of rinsing away stale perfume and sex. He worked a dollop through his thick hair, shoulder muscles relaxing.
He’d always prided himself on being the kind of good-time guy who held no regrets, but lately it seemed like there was a difference between dwelling on past mistakes and reflecting in order to avoid future ones. Did he really want to live out these shallow morning-after scenarios forever like some warped version of Groundhog Day?
The hair on the back of his neck tingled with the unmistakable sensation of being watched. He swiped suds from his eyes and turned, nearly nose-to-nose with the blank stare of the old-man ventriloquist’s dummy.
“Fuck,” he barked, any better word lost in shock.
“Great Uncle Sam don’t like it when menfolk cuss,” the dummy responded in a deep, Southern drawl. Other than the puppet on her hand, Dixie-Dorothy-Darby wore nothing but a suggestive smile.
“Uh . . . morning, beautiful.” Thank God for matching dimples, they’d charmed him out of enough bad situations.
“No one’s ever made me come so hard.” The puppet’s mustache bobbed as he spoke and more of last night’s drunken jigsaw puzzle snapped into place. Desdemona-Diana-Doris had gone on (and on) about her dream of becoming a professional ventriloquist. She’d brought out the puppet and made Great Uncle Sam talk dirty, which had been hilarious after Tequila Slammers, Snake Bites, Buttery Nipples, and 5 Deadly Venoms, plus a few bottles of champagne.
It was a whole lot less funny now.
“Hey, D, would you mind giving me a sec here? I’m going to finish rinsing off.” When in doubt, he always referred to a woman by her first initial, it made him sound affectionate instead of like an asshole.
“D?” rumbled Great Uncle Sam.
Damn. Apparently an initial wasn’t going to cut it.
Okay think . . . Dinah? No. Two rocks glinted from her lobes—a possible namesake. “Diamond?”
Great Uncle Sam slowly shook his head. Maybe it was Archer’s imagination, but the painted eyes narrowed fractionally. “Stormy.”
And so was her expression.
Not even close.
“Stormy?” he repeated blankly. “Yeah, Stormy, of course. Gorgeous name. Makes me think of rain and . . . and . . . rainbows . . . and . . .”
“You called it out enough last night, the least you could do is be a gentleman and remember it the next morning!” Great Uncle Sam head-butted him.
Add splitting headache to his current list of troubles.
Archer scrambled from the shower before he got his bare ass taken down by a puppet. You don’t fight back against a woman, even if she is trying to bash your brain in with Pinocchio’s demented elderly uncle.
“Get the hell out.” Stormy’s real voice sounded a lot more Jersey Shore than genteel Georgian peach farmer. She wasn’t half bad at the whole ventriloquist gig, but now wasn’t the time to offer compliments.
He threw on his Levi’s commando-style while Stormy eyed his package as if prepping to go Category Five hurricane on his junk. Scooping his red Western shirt off the floor, he made a break for the bedroom. His boots were by the door but his hat was still on the bed, specifically on Crystal’s head. Her sleepy expression gave way to confusion as Stormy sprang from the bathroom, Great Uncle Sam leading the charge.
“What’s going on?” Crystal asked as Stormy bellowed, “Prepare to have your manwhore ass kicked back into whatever cowpoke hole you crawled from.”