âIf you take me to the auction as your date, youâll win your bet.â
âIt violates the spirit of it.â
âIt doesnât have to,â Chase insisted. âAnyway, by the time Iâm through with you, youâll be able to get any date you want.â
She blinked. âAre you ⦠are you Henry Higgins-ing me?â
He only had a vague knowledge of the old movie My Fair Lady, but he was pretty sure that was the reference. A man who took a grubby flower girl and turned her into the talk of the town.
âYes,â he said finally. âYes, I am. Take me up on this, Anna Brown, and I will turn you into a woman.â
* * *
Take Me, Cowboy is part of the Copper Ridge series from USA TODAY bestselling author Maisey Yates
One
When Anna Brown walked into Aceâs bar, she was contemplating whether or not she could get away with murdering her older brothers.
Thatâs really nice that the invitation includes a plus one. You know you canât bring your socket wrench.
She wanted to punch Daniel in his smug face for that one. She had been flattered when sheâd received her invitation to the community charity event that the West family hosted every year. A lot less so when Daniel and Mark had gotten ahold of it and decided it was the funniest thing in the world to imagine her trying to get a date to the coveted fund-raiser.
Because apparently the idea of her having a date at all was the pinnacle of comedic genius.
I can get a date, jackasses.
You want to make a bet?
Sure. Itâs your money.
That exchange had seemed both enraging and empowering about an hour ago. Now she was feeling both humiliated and a little bit uncertain. The fact that she had bet on her dating prowess was...well, embarrassing didnât even begin to describe it. But on top of that, she was a little concerned that she had no prowess to speak of.
It had been longer than she wanted to admit since sheâd actually had a date. In fact, it was entirely possible that she had never technically been on one. That quick roll in the literal hay with Corbin Martin hadnât exactly been a date per se.
And it hadnât led to anything, either. Since she had done a wonderful job of smashing his ego with a hammer the next day at school when sheâd told her best friend, Chase, about Corbinâs...limitations.
Yeah, her sexual debut had also been the final curtain.
But if men werenât such whiny babies, maybe that wouldnât have been the case. Also, maybe if Corbin had been able to prove to her that sex was worth the trouble, she would view it differently.
But he hadnât. So she didnât.
And now she needed a date.
She stalked across the room, heading toward the table that she and Chase, and often his brother, Sam, occupied on Friday nights. The lighting was dim, so she knew someone was sitting there but couldnât make out which McCormack brother it was.
She hoped it was Chase. Because as long as sheâd known Sam, she still had a hard time making conversation with him.
Talking wasnât really his thing.
She moved closer, and the man at the table tilted his head up. Sam. Dammit. Drinking a beer and looking grumpy, which was pretty much par for the course with him. But Chase was nowhere to be seen.
âHi,â she said, plopping down in the chair beside him. âBad day?â
âA day.â
âRight.â At least when it came to Sam, she knew the difficult-conversation thing had nothing to do with her. That was all him.
She tapped the top of her knee, looking around the bar, trying to decide if she was going to get up and order a drink or wait for someone to come to the table. She allowed her gaze to drift across the bar, and her attention was caught by the figure of a man in the corner, black cowboy hat on his head, his face shrouded by the dim light. A woman was standing in front of him looking up at his face like he was her every birthday wish come true.
For a moment the sight of the man standing there struck her completely dumb. Broad shoulders, broad chest, strong-looking hands. The kind of hands that made her wonder if she needed to investigate the potential fuss of sex again.
He leaned up against the wall, his forearm above his head. He said something and the little blonde he was talking to practically shimmered with excitement. Anna wondered what that was like. To be the focus of a manâs attention like that. To have him look at you like a sex object instead of a drinking buddy.