Always on My Mind (The Dawson Brothers, #1) Read online

  "All right, everybody, who's up for some music?"

  "Oh, thank God," I muttered into the cheers that suddenly rose up from around the bar.

  "Great. Let's put our hands together for Davey and the boys."

  I wasn't sure if that was a band name or just a general grouping, but when I turned my attention to the small stage set up on the far side of the room. The sexy guy who had been sitting at the bar when I first walked in was now approaching the microphone.

  My attention was jerked toward him, and I couldn’t help but appreciate the curve of his ass in his fitted jeans, his rugged cowboy boots and perfectly made for him cowboy hat. He looked like someone had plucked him out of an advertisement for cologne that should have the tagline read, "Smells like no cowboy ever”. It was going to be a long, uncomfortable night, no doubt.

  "It's David," he said into the microphone, and I immediately caught the hint of honey in his voice.

  "What?" the announcer’s voice said over the microphone.

  "It's David. My guitar says David, my license says David, even my flyers say David."

  "Boy, I have known you since you were born and you have always been Davey."

  "I'm a grown man now, Sam."

  "Grown man, my ass. Don't you make me call your mama. How is your mama, by the way? I heard she had a fall a few weeks back. Is she doing ok?"

  The man's voice was still coming over the microphone, but it had taken on a decidedly more concerned tone.

  "She's doing fine, Sam. Thank you." A smile lifted the cowboy’s mouth.

  "That's good. Now you tell her I was asking after her and that if she needs any groceries or anything to just have your daddy call me. I will be closing up the market every day this week so I can bring them on by your place right after."

  "I'll be sure to tell her, Sam. I'm going to sing now, ok?" He lifted his eyebrow and my heart softened a little.

  "Of course it's ok. That's why you're here, ain't it? You just go right on ahead." The microphone squealed as Sam dropped it unceremoniously to whatever table he was standing near.

  David turned his attention back to the rest of us in the bar. "How's everybody doing tonight?"

  The bar erupted in cheers again as if whatever just happened had made good sense.

  "Do you want to get out of here?" the man beside me asked, breaking through the blissful state I had found where I had forgotten that he existed at all.

  "No, I'd like to listen to the music, but thank you."

  He slumped down with a disappointed pout as the first few notes of a song came from David's guitar. His mouth opened and the sound that came out made my breath catch in my throat.

  "Don't tell me you're..." the man started, but I ignored him, focusing only on the young cowboy in front of us.

  Still looking at David and listening to the incredible voice coming out of him, I lifted my hand and flattened it on the man's face to quiet him as he continued to blabber away.

  He pulled away, and I downed more of the beer in front of me. I didn't recognize the song David was singing, but realized that it must be an original. I expected generic, possibly whiny, country music.

  What I got was sexy, smoky rockabilly and a glimmer of hope that maybe my career and all prospects for future success hadn't disappeared after all.

  Chapter 3

  David

  The next day I was back on the ranch, working with the herd as was the usual daily occurrence. I had to try like hell to keep my musical aspirations and the reality of my probable future away from each other so that they didn't attempt to fight to the death.

  I had just tossed a bale of hay over a fence and was arching my back to stretch and loosen the muscles when a tiny woman in a business suit moved toward me in a disconcerting half-wiggle, half-run movement. As she got closer, I realized that her movements were due to the high heels she wore that were now sinking into the grass.

  She stopped a few feet away from me, and I narrowed my eyes at her. There was something familiar about her, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. She didn't say anything, so I went back to working, tossing another bale over the fence.

  "Good morning," she said a few seconds later through a slightly labored breath.

  "Good morning," I replied, turning back to her. "Can I help you?"

  "This is a ranch."

  I glanced around. "I'm aware."

  She held her arms out to her side as if gesturing to encompass the entirety of the fields around us. "I mean, like a ranch. Like a real, honest-to-God, there has to be a bottle of salad dressing around here somewhere ranch."

  I nodded, pulling off my soft brown leather gloves in anticipation of this rambling conversation potentially going somewhere in the next few minutes. "Right."

  I kept staring at her, trying to figure out why she looked so familiar. She definitely wasn't from the area. I knew just about everybody that lived within a 30-mile radius, and she most certainly didn't look like any of the girls I had grown up with.

  She was so small it looked like I could scoop her up and tuck her in my pocket if I wanted to, but her curves made sure everyone knew she was not a little girl. Tendrils of dark brown hair had started to escape the bun she forced them into, and her enormous green eyes were seductive despite the look of utter bewilderment.

  "And you're a cowboy," she said, sounding both like she was completely exasperated by the entire situation and that she was informing me of it so that I could be exasperated, too.

  "Ma'am, as much as I would like to continue standing here with you and going over things that I already know about myself, I have a lot of work to do. As we've established during this conversation, I am a cowboy and this is a ranch, and I have things I need to get done."

  I climbed up onto my horse and started to make my way across the field when I heard her calling after me. "Wait, I need to talk to you."

  I pulled back on the reins and looked down at her. "Is this about something that I don't know or do?"

  She glared at me and I withheld a laugh. "I'm an agent. I heard you sing last night."

  That was it! She was the woman from the night before at Kinsey's. I had noticed her while I was singing and then when I finished she stood up like she wanted to talk to me, but unfortunately knocked the tray off the waitress's hands, then stumbled due to a few too many pints – or that was my best guess.

  The last thing I saw before ducking out of the bar was Norm, the owner of the hotel next door, trying to help her back to her feet and her swatting at him while also trying to wipe beer off of her clothes and Ashley's breasts. Of course, she hadn't been the first one to spill beer in the bar. Ashley was always tipped extremely well and it had absolutely nothing to do with her mediocre waitressing skills.

  "Oh, yeah," I said, "I saw you. You seemed to have a pretty nasty spill, there. Are you all right?"

  She shook her head as her pretty cheeks colored pink. "I'm fine."

  "It looked like you had had just a bit too much to drink. Did Norm help you back to the hotel?"

  "I did not have too much to drink. I only had two beers. I think. Maybe three. Look, I’m small, and was very hungry, and sometimes those two things don't play nicely with each other. And, yes, Norm helped me back to the hotel. He’d been hitting on me all night, and this morning when I found him in the lobby I thought he had come back to bug me some more, so I might have caused somewhat of a scene. I'm not entirely positive I am welcome back there this evening. He did, however, give me this address and tell me that I could find you here. He didn't tell me that it was a damn ranch."

  The words all seemed to pour out of her like she had been holding them all inside and they ran out of room. When she finished, she looked flustered, feisty and enticingly beautiful.

  "We've been over that."

  "You're David."

  I rolled my eyes at her and started my horse walking again. "And we are back to recapping my life."

  "I'm sorry," she called after me, "I'm Sarah."

  I
pulled my horse to a stop and turned to stare at her. She was doing her teetering, wiggly walk up to me, holding her hands up at shoulder level and looking down at her feet as if she was worried she would sink completely into the ground and disappear at any second. This was definitely not a girl who had grown up near fields and ranch hands.

  "I didn’t realize they made girls as small as you."

  She wrinkled her nose at me and seemed to pull herself up trying to make herself taller.

  "Not funny. I’m petite. So what? I pack a punch, so watch yourself, cowboy.”

  "Why is that a complete turn on?” I asked, trying not to laugh at her idle threats.

  She gave a sigh that would have made my mother proud and shook her head. "Be serious, please. I just want to talk to you for a few minutes."

  The more exasperated she got, the more adorable she was, but that wasn't enough to convince me about the whole agent thing. Agents, especially beautiful female ones, didn't just show up in my town. I would have ventured to say that there weren’t even any agents, beautiful women or otherwise, who would even know how to get here or that it was even a place. I wasn't sure what she was up to, but whatever it was, I wasn't going to make it easy on her.

  "Like I said, I have a lot of work I've got to get done. I'm happy to talk with you, but you're going to have to come along with me."

  I prodded my horse into a walk and Sarah started her wiggle, speeding up to try to keep pace with me.

  She seemed to be getting a bit more accustomed to the ground and didn't look quite as out of control as she moved, but that meant that I didn't get to enjoy as much of her hips swaying beneath her skirt and her breasts bouncing in that prim little suit jacket. I stopped at the next feeding point and hopped down. Grabbing on to one of the bales of hay, I lifted it up to my chest. Her eyes widened slightly and a smile came to my lips.

  Tossing the bale over the fence, I turned around to grab another one and found her latched to the twine bindings of one, pulling with everything she had in her to try to lift it out of place.

  "Sarah," I said, but she didn't stop. "Sarah." I raised my voice a little louder and she yanked harder, "Sarah!"

  My last shout corresponded with her losing her grip and falling backwards onto her sweet little ass with several pieces of hay clutched firmly in each hand.

  "Those things are so much heavier than they look," she said, accepting the hand I held out to her and letting me help her to her feet.

  "Please don't try to do that again."

  She looked down at her hands, realizing that she was still holding the hay, and dropped it, wiping her hands off on her skirt. "Are you done now?"

  I scoffed. "Not even close. I have to head back to the barn. You aren't going to be able to walk there." I climbed back onto my horse and reached down for her. "Come on up."

  "On your horse?" she said, sounding appalled at the concept.

  "Yeah. What's the problem?"

  "Won't it hurt him to carry two people?"

  "I hardly think you qualify as a whole person."

  "Wow, that's offensive."

  "These horses routinely carry the ranch hands around and trust me, there are a few of those men that would probably outweigh us even if we added another one of you. Come on."

  I reached for her again, but she still looked hesitant.

  "I'm wearing a skirt," she said.

  I leaned all the way down and wrapped my arm around her waist, flinging her up onto the horse behind me as I sat back up. She squealed and when she landed, her hands moved to my hips to stabilize her.

  "You should have thought about that before you came to a ranch," I told her.

  "I didn't know I was going to a ranch," she snapped.

  I prodded my horse forward and Sarah gasped at the sudden movement, increasing her grip with her hands and tightening her thighs on either side of me. The position had pushed her pleated skirt up nearly to her hips and I could feel the warmth of her skin through her pantyhose as she held her body close to mine.

  When we got back to the barn I helped her down, briefly letting her brush against my chest as I lowered her to her feet. She watched me unhitch the trailer from my horse, pull it into place inside the barn, and then lead the animal into her stall. I started grooming her, and Sarah grabbed another brush from the wall and stroked the horse's side with it, not helping, but entertaining herself while I worked.

  "Have you always worked here?" she asked.

  "Yep. My whole life. My parents own it now, my grandparents owned it before them, and my great-grandparents owned it before them."

  "So you'll own it someday?" she asked, her voice taking on a slightly softer tone.

  "I have three brothers," I said, carefully brushing the horse's neck. "We'll have to figure it out one day, but not today. I need to go check on some of the cattle."

  She fell into step beside me and we walked in a strangely comfortable silence down the well-worn dirt trail that led to the nearest pen. Ted would be giving the calves their shots and tagging them, and it was always helpful to have an extra set of hands around to help. When we got to the pen she watched Ted tag one of the calves as tears filled her eyes.

  A pang of sympathy ran through me. Ranch work wasn’t for everybody.

  "It's just like getting your ears pierced," I reassured her. "They barely even notice it's happening and it's much better than branding."

  She nodded and watched me climb into the pen so that I could help give shots to the new calves. It was something I had been doing since I was old enough to mount a horse and hold one of the vaccine guns, but she was looking at me with fascination that made her eyes gleam.

  *

  Three hours later Sarah had watched me and haphazardly helped me go through most of my work for the day, and I realized that we hadn't talked about my singing at all.

  "You never got around to telling me what you wanted to talk to me about," I told her as I walked her back toward the front of the ranch.

  "Oh. Well, I was impressed by your singing last night. I would love the chance to hear more and talk about your future in the music industry. Are you singing at the bar tonight?"

  I shook my head. "Not tonight."

  "Then I guess I'll be back here tomorrow," she said.

  I gave her a quizzical look, but she just smiled and walked away. She was almost to her car when Ted stepped up beside me.

  "Who was that?"

  "Her name's Sarah. She's some kind of agent."

  Ted scoffed and walked toward the house that none of the four of us brothers had managed to escape just yet.

  "Getting lost in fairy tales again?" he asked mockingly. "Don't let her pretty face and sweet voice fool you. She doesn't want to do anything for you. Nobody ever wants to do anything for anybody. When are you going to realize that it's time for you to stop dreaming and start accepting that your future is here, just like the rest of us? You are going to get married and run the ranch, and some day, your sons are going to, and then their sons, on into perpetuity. It's just the way it is."

  He sounded so dismissive that fresh anger boiled in my gut, but even the fury didn't cover up the sharp edge of bitterness in his voice. None of us had a say in the future – we were completely without choice in the matter.

  Chapter 4

  Sarah

  I thought I was going to die by the time I made it back to my hotel room. Walking through the lobby had been like going through the gauntlet as I scurried from the door to the desk, then to hide behind a ficus as I hoped to avoid another encounter with Norm. One humiliating argument about Norm stalking me when he was trying to give me extra towels for my room was enough for me. I dove into the stairwell like an uncoordinated assassin and made my way up to my room.

  As soon as the door closed behind me, I fell face-first onto the bed. Who knew that working on a ranch was so damn hard? I had watched most of what David was doing, and I still felt like every muscle in my body was going to liquefy. I needed to get back into Pilates as
soon as I got back to Tennessee. Rolling over onto my back, I stared at the ceiling numbly. I couldn't believe that David was an actual cowboy. It shocked the hell out of me. In my years as an agent I had seen plenty of boys slap on a pair of jeans and some plaid and call themselves cowboys when they had never been more than a mile away from concrete and would probably pee their pants if they actually got near a horse.

  David, though, had the clothes, the swagger, and the roots to back them up, and when he sang it only got better. He had that illusive blend of country and rock and roll that made me want to fling my panties up on the stage and wish I had a better tattoo than the one embarrassing one I had. He was rugged with broad shoulders, sandy brown hair and big brown eyes. Thick muscles lined his arms and pressed through the thin shirt he wore near his back. I groaned loudly as my body woke up to the possibilities of belonging to a man like him.

  It wasn’t about attraction. It was about business. I had to sign him. Getting him would revamp my career and maybe restore my name from the unfortunate incident a few months before.

  He had seemed far more stubborn than I had anticipated, so getting him might mean heading back to the ranch and forcing him to listen to me. If I was going to do that, I was in serious need of a wardrobe change. The power suit may make me look a little more professional in a conference room, but it was definitely not appropriate garb for the fields. My skirt had offered no protection and I surely still had some hay in a few unmentionable places. I checked the time and figured that I had some time to get to the store to buy better clothes.

  That, of course, was another misled thought. A half hour later, freshly showered and in one of the few somewhat casual outfits I had with me, I walked down to the lobby and came face to face with Norm again. Cursing myself for not running straight for the ficus as soon as I stepped out of the stairwell, I walked toward him and his creepy smile. It only got wider as I approached.

  He gazed at me as if my outright verbal attack on him earlier had been a come-hither stare and a little bit of playing hard to get.