Read an excerpt from Smooth Talking Cowboy by Maisey Yates
/
From New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates, comes SMOOTH-TALKING COWBOY—the first standalone novel in her Gold Valley Series! SMOOTH-TALKING COWBOY releases on February 20, 2018. Preorder your copy today!
Welcome to Gold Valley, Oregon, where a rough-and-tumble rancher and the girl next door are about to learn that opposites attract
Olivia Logan has a plan: win back her ex by making him see what he’s missing. But first she needs to find a man who’s willing to play along. With his laid-back cowboy charm and knack for getting under her skin, Luke Hollister is an unlikely hero—but he wants her help convincing her father to sell him land, which means he needs her as much as she needs him.
Luke likes his life—and his women—uncomplicated. So why does good girl Olivia heat his blood like no one else? She’s always been off-limits, but the more time they spend as Gold Valley’s hottest new “couple,” the more real it’s starting to feel. Luke was supposed to help her win back another man…not keep her in his arms. But now that he has her there, he’s not sure he’ll ever let go.
Excerpt
Quickly, she raised her gaze back to his, and found it wasn’t any more comforting.
Then his eyes narrowed and he tilted his head slightly to the side, looking quickly over his shoulder and back at the table of Dodges behind them.
“Don’t play games with me, Olivia,” he said, his voice low, rough. “You’re not going to win any of them.”
She swiveled her head to look at him, keeping her face blank. Keeping her mind blank. “What do you mean?”
“You leaning in like that. Because he’s watching. You think you’re gonna make him jealous?”
She reeled back, moving herself away from Luke. As far away as possible. “No. I wasn’t doing anything.”
He chuckled. “Yes, you were.”
She hated him. She really did. He seemed to put the pieces of her motivation together faster than she did and it wasn’t fair.
“No one would believe it,” she said. “Nobody would believe that I…”
The words froze in her throat. Not just because she could hear how bitchy they sounded, but because suddenly she couldn’t remember what she had been about to say anyway. Because he was looking at her with that steady green gaze, that glass still poised just below his lips and the overhead lights of the bar were highlighting that scruff on his face. Suddenly, she was thinking about the texture of that, too. She wondered if it would be rough, like she imagined his hands would be. He was a very rough sort of creature.
She was not a rough sort of creature.
“Oh, they’d believe it,” he said, his lips tipping upward into a cocky smile. “Even good girls do something stupid every now and again.” He took a swallow of his whiskey. “Might as well be me.”
There was that itch, the one that bloomed beneath her skin whenever he was close. That felt like a cross between having a match struck against her flesh and stepping on a star thistle.
“I don’t do stupid things,” she said.
“Except for maybe break up with the boyfriend you claim you don’t want to be broken up with?”
“I don’t want to be broken up with him.” She tapped the side of her glass. “I want to get back together with him.”
“So you say. I don’t buy it.”
“I didn’t ask you to buy it. I’m not trying to sell it to you.”
“True enough. But, maybe we can try to sell something to him.” He reached out and that hand she had just been pondering made contact with her skin. He squeezed her chin between his thumb and the curve of the knuckle on his forefinger. And it was rough. Just like she had thought it might be. Then he winked. “I’ll see you around, kiddo.”
Then he knocked back the rest of his whiskey and reached into his wallet, putting a twenty on the counter and walking back to where the Dodges were sitting.
She just sat there, staring at him like she had been clubbed in the head.
He had touched her.
And he had winked at her.
And he had called her kiddo, which for some reason felt a million times more offensive and slightly more disconcerting than honey or sweet thing had.
Buy on Amazon | Barnes and Noble
About the Author
New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Maisey Yates lives in rural Oregon with her three children and her husband, whose chiseled jaw and arresting features continue to make her swoon. She feels the epic trek she takes several times a day from her office to her coffee maker is a true example of her pioneer spirit.
In 2009, at the age of twenty-three Maisey sold her first book. Since then it’s been a whirlwind of sexy alpha males and happily ever afters, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Maisey divides her writing time between dark, passionate category romances set just about everywhere on earth and light sexy contemporary romances set practically in her back yard. She believes that she clearly has the best job in the world.
