Falling For The Younger Cowboy (Sage Valley Ranch Book 2) Read online

  Falling For the Younger Cowboy

  Sage Valley Ranch Book 2

  Liwen Y. Ho

  Contents

  1. Lexi

  2. James

  3. Lexi

  4. James

  5. Lexi

  6. James

  7. Lexi

  8. James

  9. Lexi

  10. James

  11. Lexi

  12. James

  13. Lexi

  14. James

  15. Lexi

  16. James

  17. Lexi

  18. James

  19. Lexi

  20. James

  Epilogue

  Sage Valley Ranch Series

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Liwen Y. Ho

  Are you ready to escape to the countryside? With sunlit fields, down-home cooking, horseback riding and more, the beautiful Texas Hill Country is the perfect destination for a sweet cowboy romance.

  Curl up with a memorable cast of characters—and even a few spunky animals—in a heartwarming group series that’ll keep you laughing and swooning from one clean romance to the next. The books can be read in any order, so jump in wherever you like and get ready to fall in love with Sage Valley Ranch…where country life is sweet, and romance is even sweeter.

  Join us on Facebook!

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/SageValleyRanch/

  * * *

  Falling for the Younger Cowboy

  Sage Valley Ranch Book Two

  Copyright © 2019 by Liwen Y. Ho. All rights reserved.

  ISBN 9781799167228

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design: Sage Valley Ranch Authors

  Interior Design: 2 Square 2 Be Hip (www.2square2behip.com)

  Publisher: 2 Square 2 Be Hip (www.2square2behip.com)

  First Edition

  Created with Vellum

  For my readers who loved Chase and Izzy’s stories and wanted more older woman/younger man books … this one’s for you!

  1

  Lexi

  Lexi Turner had never seen a more delicious pot of chili … or maybe it was the gorgeous cowboy stirring the pot who had her mouth watering.

  “Can I move now, Lex?”

  She blinked quickly behind the lens of her camera and lowered the Nikon DSLR from her eye. The camera strap tugged on the back of her neck as she let the equipment fall from her hands. Clearing her throat, she squeaked out, “Yeah, totally. I got the shots I needed. Thanks, James.”

  The tall man wearing dark jeans and a fitted gray T-shirt under a large white apron straightened from the pose he’d been in for the past few minutes. His expression relaxed, adding a sparkle to his blue eyes. He immediately pulled the apron over his head of auburn waves and tossed it onto the metal counter behind him. “Finally. I don’t know how much longer I could’ve held that smile. And I’m pretty sure the chili would’ve turned to mush if I stirred it any more. You know I can’t be caught serving baby food to our ranchers.”

  Lexi chuckled to see the right corner of James’s lips curve up in his trademark grin. Her friend always seemed to smile with just one side of his mouth, never fully revealing his straight, white teeth. He was the strong, silent type, like a stereotypical cowboy from the Clint Eastwood movies her dad liked to watch. “You know those guys will eat anything you put on their plates. You’re the best cook in Texas.”

  A slight blush crept up James’s neck, adding color to his defined jawline. “You’re much too kind, Lexi. And a sweet talker if I’ve ever met one. I doubt if a year on the ranch has made you an expert on southern cooking, but I’ll take the compliment.” He nodded toward the stainless steel pot sitting on the stove. “Do you want a bowl before you get back to work?”

  “Sure. But only if you sit with me and have one, too.”

  James checked the clock hanging on the wall. “I can manage that. I’ve got an hour before I need to start on the rest of dinner.” He scooped out two bowls of steaming hot chili, grabbed two metal spoons, and led the way out of the kitchen.

  Lexi followed him into the mess hall reserved for the employees. An earthy aroma of dirt mixed with the freshness of spring rain coming in through an open window filled her senses. Half a dozen picnic tables topped with metal napkin dispensers took up the majority of the large room. Several tracks of muddy footprints revealed a path where the ranchers’ boots had walked hours earlier during lunch.

  Lexi’s own pair of boots clicked along the concrete floor, feeling foreign and comfortable on her feet at the same time. Sometimes she still couldn’t believe she’d traded in her flip-flops and a life by the beach for country living. But that’s what a semi midlife crisis had prompted her to do when Thomas left her for another woman. Taking a seat on one of the wooden benches, she set her camera on the table. She also cleared her head free from any more thoughts of her ex-husband. She inhaled the savory scent of spices rising from the bowl James set before her and sighed. “This is just what I need. Spice therapy.”

  From across the table, James held out his spoon to her and waited for her to clink it with her own before digging into his bowl. In between bites, he met her gaze curiously. “Something tells me you’re not just talking about the Monday blues. Did your mom call again?”

  Lexi blinked in surprise. “How’d you know?”

  He shrugged. “You’ve been distracted ever since you walked into my kitchen.”

  Distracted was right. Lexi didn’t know what had gotten into her today. Seeing her good friend through a camera lens had somehow magnified her view of him. She’d thought he was handsome when they first met, but she had never studied the planes and angles of his face so closely before. Or it could be that she’d been too heartbroken to notice.

  After relocating from the Big Island of Hawaii to Sage Valley, she’d spent months grieving the end of her decade-long marriage. It wasn’t until recently that her heart had started to ache less. When the dude ranch owners, the Buchanans, tasked her with the job of taking pictures for their website, she’d rediscovered the joy of photography. And now apparently, she’d also discovered the opposite sex. Lexi winced. She really ought to be acting her age instead of feeling like a hormonal teenager. She was a week from turning forty, for goodness sakes! Midlife crisis or not, she couldn’t be crushing on her much younger friend.

  Feeling James’s eyes on her, she swallowed her mouthful of chili and answered quickly. “You guessed right. My mom did call this morning, bright and early at seven—two in the morning her time—just before she turned into bed. She had some big news that couldn’t wait.”

  James quirked a brow, his telltale sign urging her to continue speaking.

  “Apparently, Thomas got engaged over the weekend.”

  “Ouch.”

  Lexi ducked her head. The hem of her red flannel shirt skimming the top of her jeans blurred for a second before she blinked away her tears. She sniffled as she looked up. “I couldn’t care less what he does. It’s more the fact t
hat my own flesh and blood still keeps in touch with the guy who broke my heart that gets to me. My mom really loves poking her nose in other people’s business.”

  A pained look crossed James’s face as he rubbed his chin. “I’m sorry, Lex. That’s gotta sting. I thought my great-aunt won the award for meddling, but your mom takes the cake.”

  She smirked. Sharon Buchanan, or Nanna, as her family called her, had a reputation for playing matchmaker, but at least she had good intentions. Lexi’s typical Asian tiger mom—bless her heart—didn’t have a sensitive bone in her body. Lexi still didn’t know how her fun-loving, Irish father had won her over. “It’s all right. I just keep reminding her that I’ve moved on. I’m happy with my life now. I’ve rediscovered my love of photography, I’ve got the ranch’s store to manage, and”—she gave him a pointed look—“I have amazing friends.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Are you talking about Charlie?” he asked, referring to Lexi’s cousin who had gotten her the job at the ranch.

  She licked her spoon before setting it down. “Not just Charlie. I’m talking about you, too, Mr. James Scott. Like I said, your chili is life. Just one bite of it, and the world seems right again.” She glanced down at her empty bowl then pointed a finger at her mouth as she smiled. “See how happy you’ve made me? I hardly remember my conversation with my mom now.”

  James chuckled, the throaty sound causing his Adam’s apple to bob. “I’m happy to oblige. I’ve got a whole pot left of this spicy therapy if you want some more.”

  Lexi shook her head. “Thanks, but I should get back to the store to relieve Henry.” She had one employee, a part-timer who was in line to get a permanent job as a ranch hand. “I’ll upload these photos and ask Sharon which one she wants to use. If my guess is right, she’ll say all of them. I’m pretty sure you’re her favorite grandnephew,” she added with a wink.

  “Naw, I’m just the one she managed to rope into working here.”

  “Well, I’m awfully glad she did. If you hadn’t come back to the ranch, we’d never have met. You’ve made this past year so much brighter.”

  James gave her a half smile. “You mean tastier?”

  “Definitely both.” Feeling grateful, Lexi reached across the table and placed her hand on top of his. A light spark of electricity shot through her fingers the moment they touched. She immediately pulled back and rubbed her palm along her jeans. Had James felt it, too?

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, totally fine,” Lexi replied, lying through her teeth. Her body had never reacted to James this way before. She eyed the camera on the table, wondering if it had cast some sort of spell on her. Before she could dwell any more on the matter, her cell phone vibrated. She pulled it out of her back pocket and swiped it open to reveal a new message.

  Lex, are you sitting down?

  “It’s Charlie,” she murmured to James as she watched three dots flash across her screen. “She’s probably texting to vent about some crazy request she got from a guest.”

  Charlie’s next message popped up. I don’t know how to tell you this, but Thomas is here! With a young blonde thing wearing a huge rock!

  The blood drained from Lexi’s face. Her mouth fell open as she stared at the blue text bubble. What were her ex and his new fiancée doing in Sage Valley?

  “Lexi? What’s wrong?”

  She bit her bottom lip as she met James’s gaze. “I think I’m going to need another bowl of chili.”

  2

  James

  James Scott looked over at his good friend as she sat staring wordlessly into her third bowl of chili. He hadn’t seen Lexi this upset since she first moved to Sage Valley a year ago. He still remembered how she’d walked into his kitchen in flip-flops, her bright pink toenails caked in mud. Elvis, their cranky ranch rooster, had given Lexi the royal welcome, squawking and chasing her about until she slipped and fell into a muddy puddle. At Charlie’s prompting, he’d brought out a bowl of chili for Lexi and let her nurse her bruised ego with the bold flavors of cumin, coriander, and black pepper. It was the same recipe that day as today’s. And the same hopelessness in those big brown eyes of hers that could make him speechless with just one look.

  Granted, he wasn’t a man of many words, but being around Lexi had him tongue-tied more than usual. He was thirty years old, but he felt like a teenager discovering women for the first time. Everything about Lexi—from her soft curves that filled out her jeans so well to the sweet lilt of her voice—made him feel like mush. Like chili that had been simmering for far too long.

  The photo session, as short as it’d been, had just about done him in. The real reason he was glad it was over wasn’t because he was camera shy. It was the fear that he wouldn’t be able to hide his true feelings for Lexi when she was staring at him nonstop behind her lens. The truth was he’d been in love with her since the first day they met. But he was too much like their fowl friend—a chicken—to do anything about it.

  Stretching out his long legs under the table, he gently nudged her boot with his. “Hey, you can hide out in the kitchen for as long as you like. That way you won’t have to cross paths with that two-timing idiot.”

  Lexi’s brows shot up before she broke out in a chuckle. “I’ve never heard such strong words come out of you, James. You always talk like a southern gentleman.”

  He rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. “I just think that any man who would give you up obviously isn’t the brightest.”

  “Yeah, well, Thomas is doing awfully well financially, so he can’t be that dumb. My mom said he started a company with the money he made from stocks and they just went public.” She raked a hand through her short jet-black hair, the ends of it curling around her slender neck. With her pink lips twisted to the side, she looked much younger than her age. “I just wish I had something to show for myself, you know? I always imagined the day when I’d see Thomas again that I’d be more successful, that I’d be able to prove that I’m better off without him. But here I am, living in a place that smells like manure, and I’m as single as a bee trapped in a jar of honey. Not that there’s anything wrong with working on a ranch or being single,” she rushed on, a line etched between her brows. “I was not thinking about you when I said those things.”

  “No offense taken. I know this is a far stretch from where you probably imagined yourself being. That’s why most of my relatives moved away from here as soon as they finished school. But you still have a lot of years ahead of you. You don’t have to be stuck in Sage Valley forever.” He watched her carefully as he spoke his last sentence, wondering how she’d answer. He didn’t want to think about the possibility of Lexi leaving. He knew she had only come to Texas as a stopping point while she figured out the next step of her life.

  “Honestly, I don’t feel stuck here. This place has grown on me, cow poo and all. Even Elvis and his crazy attitude is kind of endearing. I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”

  He exhaled the breath he’d been holding. “Nanna would be relieved to hear that. She’s been telling me to find a way to get you to stay here permanently. You’ve become like an unofficial grandniece to her.”

  “Grandniece? Niece is more like it. Need I remind you that I’m a decade older than you?”

  “Age doesn’t matter to Nanna. To her, you might as well be fourteen, not forty.”

  “Watch it, young man. I’m not forty yet. Seven more days.” She released a soft sigh. “I’d give anything to be thirty again. If only I knew then what I know now.”

  Cocking his head to one side, he eyed her curiously. “What advice would you give to your thirty-year-old self or any thirty-year-old?”

  “I’d say time’s going to pass you by quicker than you can imagine. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. Try new things. Travel the world. Don’t do anything out of fear. Take a chance on what you care about. And no matter how crappy life gets, you’ll be okay.”

  “Those are some great words of wisdom.”

  “Yeah,
well, if only I’d put them into practice a decade ago. At least I got to travel after college. But you’ve done that already. I still can’t believe you got to be Backroad Boys’ personal chef when they were on tour. That kind of makes you a pop star.”

  He laughed. “Not even close. I didn’t have girls screaming my name whenever I went out in public.”

  “That’s probably because you stayed holed up in the kitchen all day long hiding from those girls.”

  “Hey, it’s where I feel the most at home. You have to agree with me on that.” He gave her empty bowl a knowing glance. “They don’t call it comfort food for nothing.”

  Smirking, Lexi set down her spoon and took a deep breath. “Yup. But sooner or later, you have to leave your comfort zone. Which means, as much as I’d like to, I can’t hide out here until Thomas and his fiancée leave. It’s time to put on my big girl pants and get out there.”

  He nodded. “Remember what a wise woman once told me. No matter how crappy life gets, you’ll be okay.”

  “Touché.” Lexi let loose a soft chuckle. “Thank you for the chili, James, and thanks for listening.” She rose from her seat, gathered up their bowls, and set off toward the kitchen.

  James watched Lexi leave, replaying her words in his mind: Take a chance on what you care about. Was he ready to follow her advice? All he knew was that he didn’t want to be in Lexi’s shoes a decade from now wondering if he had missed out on something great. Someone great. But what could he say to her?