Must Love Cowboys: This steamy and heart-warming cowboy rom-com is a must-read! (Once Upon A Time In by Carly Bloom (ereader for textbooks .txt) 📗

readers’ group, Carly’s Bloomers, for entertaining and encouraging me, particularly Gemma, Kristen, Anne, Brittni, and Addie. I love to write, but I especially enjoy doing it for them.

Last, but certainly not least, thank you to my readers. Big Verde is my escape and my refuge, and I love so very much that you join me there. Let’s have lunch together soon at the Corner Café.

Chapter

One

Alice Martin was wide awake, and the rest of the guests at the Village Chateau probably were, too. It was a fancy hotel—the nicest one in town—but it was also old, and the walls and ceilings were paper-thin.

Hopefully, the violently rocking ceiling fan was properly secured.

Oh GOD! Don’t stop, baby . . .

Baby didn’t stop.

Alice rolled over, put a pillow over her head, and tried to ignore the wedding hookup happening in the room above. She should have gone home after Casey and Jessica’s reception instead of spending the night in Carmen’s suite. But she’d had a bit of champagne, and besides, she liked hanging out with Carmen, despite them not knowing each other all that well.

On the surface, Alice and Carmen couldn’t be more different. Carmen was a blue-haired, pierced, and tattooed celebrity chef with her own television show, Funky Fusions. And Alice was a brown-haired, single-pierced (each earlobe), and completely untattooed small-town librarian.

But in the town of Big Verde, neither of them quite fit in.

During a brief visit to Big Verde a couple of years ago, Carmen had bought the Village Chateau’s struggling restaurant, renaming it Chateau Bleu. She lived in Houston and didn’t come to town much—Jessica managed the restaurant—but she kept a suite at the hotel for when she did. The folks of Big Verde considered her a rare and exotic creature.

As for Alice, the folks of Big Verde seemed to find her rather odd, too. They were nice enough. Truly, they were. But Alice had never felt like she belonged. Maybe that’s why she preferred to keep her nose stuck in a book.

Nevertheless, small-town etiquette dictated that nobody ever be left out, so Alice was invited to every graduation ceremony, birthday party, baby shower, and wedding. And because small-town etiquette also dictated that invitations be graciously accepted, Alice went to every graduation ceremony, birthday party, baby shower, and wedding.

She bit her lip and frowned. Brittany Fox’s wedding was only six weeks away. And even though Alice usually flew solo at weddings (she was intentionally and deliberately single), she’d need a date for that one.

Brittany was the library’s intern, and over the past two months she’d gone from a lovely ray of sunshine to the absolute worst bridezilla Big Verde had ever seen. And the “and Guest” she’d written on Alice’s invitation—calligraphy with gold-infused ink—seemed to be more of a command than a polite suggestion.

Alice would typically ignore such a command. But Brittany was fueled by a combination of stubbornness and wedding-planning stress hormones. She cried easily, which made Alice uncomfortable, and she insisted that an odd number of guests made seating charts impossible. She’d made it her mission to find Alice a date, parading nearly every single man in the county through the library, which was awkward and disruptive.

Must Love Cowboys would be the motto of Big Verde’s dating scene (if it had a dating scene), and although Alice had nothing against cowboys, she didn’t have much in common with them. Nor did she have anything in common with Brittany’s balding uncle, who, despite having recently found a cure for his hyperhidrosis—sweaty palms—was not anyone she wanted to spend time with. And he was who Brittany was currently threatening to fix her up with.

Alice needed a date for the wedding. But it would be a man of her own choosing. Preferably a non-sweaty one.

She groaned loudly into her pillow. All the men she knew were engaged or married. Such was life at thirty-two in a small town. Holy guacamole, who could she possibly take?

The lump of covers in bed next to her moved. “I can’t tell if that noise was you or the woman upstairs,” Carmen said. “If it was you, you’re having more fun than I am.”

“It was me. And I’m not having fun.”

The ceiling fan was still rocking, so at least somebody was.

Scuffling sounds came from the nightstand as Carmen patted it down in search of the lamp switch. The unmistakable sound of a beverage falling over was followed by a whispered dammit.

The light came on, and Alice and Carmen squinted at each other. Then Carmen gasped and picked up a pair of Spanx off the floor to frantically slap at the bright red liquid edging toward their cell phones.

“I doubt that’s very absorbent,” Alice said, reaching over Carmen and snatching her phone out of the way.

Carmen, who had won a tequila shot contest with a young cowboy earlier in the evening, dropped the undergarment and flopped back onto the mattress. Her short hair stuck up in all directions, and she looked like a slightly deranged Cookie Monster. “Sorry. I opened that can and forgot about it. I heard energy drinks will prevent a hangover.”

Alice climbed out of bed and hurried to the bathroom for a washcloth. Then she began wiping down the nightstand and floor. Her dress, draped over the back of a chair, was splattered with bright red spots. “Dang it. This is going to stain.”

“Sorry. I’ll have it cleaned,” Carmen mumbled.

“You don’t need to do that,” Alice said. “It was an accident.”

Carmen sat up to protest, but the woman upstairs started some interesting vocalizations. They stared at the ceiling.

“You don’t think he’s killing her, do you?” Alice asked.

“No. But I think she’s died and gone to heaven at least three times already.”

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God . . .

“And she seems very religious,” Alice said.

Carmen giggled. “It’ll be over soon. He can’t last much longer.”

Alice held up a finger. “Actually, the average male lasts anywhere from four to six minutes during intercourse. But alcohol can reduce sensation, thereby