âYou canât have it both ways, Jaron. You are either interested or you arenât.â
âYouâre my sister-in-lawâs kid sister,â he said stubbornly. âIâm just watching out for you.â
âOh, good grief! Get over it, Jaron.â Mariah rested her hands on her sexy hips. âIn case you havenât noticed lately, Iâm no longer a naive eighteen-year-old girl. Iâve grown up. Iâm twenty-five and perfectly capable of taking care of myself.â
Jaron took a deep breath. Oh, heâd noticed that Mariah wasnât the teenager he had met when his foster brother, Sam Rafferty, married Bria Stanton. Back then Mariah had a crush on him, and although he had found her attractive, he knew that a nine-year age difference made him too old for her. But over the years, he would have had to be as blind as a bat not to notice that she had grown into a beautiful, sexy woman.
And that was the problem.
Interested didnât even begin to cover how he felt for Mariah.
* * *
Tempted by the Texan is part of The Good, the Bad and the Texan seriesâRunning with these billionaires will be one wild ride
One
After working all day on the ranch heâd bought a few months back, Jaron Lambert sauntered into the Broken Spoke looking for three thingsâa steak dinner; a cold beer; and a warm, willing woman for a night of no-strings-attached fun. But as he sat down at one of the tables and surveyed the dimly lit roadhouse, he knew he would be settling on the steak and beer, then heading back to his placeâalone.
It wasnât that there werenât any women in the bar or that they hadnât paid attention to him when he entered. There were a couple playing pool and a few more sitting at two tables shoved together, looking as if they might be having a girlsâ night out. One of them had even smiled at him with a come-hither expression on her pretty face. But none of them piqued his interest enough for more than a passing glance. Maybe all the hard work to get his ranch in shape was catching up with him. More than likely it was because none of the women were a certain leggy brunette with the greenest eyes heâd ever seen.
Disgusted with himself for wanting a woman he knew damned good and well he could never have, he decided that heâd have been better off calling a couple of his five brothers to see if they wanted to join him for supper. If he had, at least he would have had someone to talk to while he ate. But they all had wives and kids now, and he could appreciate them wanting to spend the time with their families.
âWhat can I get for you, handsome?â a young, gum-snapping waitress asked, walking up to his table.
âIâll just have a bottle of Lone Star,â he answered, deciding to forego the steak and just have a beer. As soon as he finished draining the bottle, heâd head back home to heat up a pizza and spend the rest of the evening in front of the television.
âOne beer coming right up,â she said, giving him a bright smile. After a minute, she returned, plunked down a napkin on the worn Formica tabletop and set the bottle on top of it. âYouâre Jaron Lambert, arenât you?â Her smile widened into a flirty grin when he nodded. âYou won the World All-Around Championship at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas just before Christmas, didnât you?â
âYup.â When she continued to stand there expectantly, he gave in and asked what he figured she was waiting on. âSo you were there?â
âOh, no,â she said, shaking her head. âI couldnât afford a trip to Vegas on what I make here. I watched it on satellite TV.â She gave him an enticing smile. âYou sure looked sexy when they awarded you that buckle.â
He could tell by the look on her face that she was interested in more than just talking about his big win in Las Vegas. Unfortunately for her, he wasnât. He had dodged more than his fair share of buckle bunniesâyoung women who flirted and hoped to sleep with a cowboy in possession of a championship belt buckleâover the years, and he was glad that part of his life was behind him. Hopefully with his retirement from rodeo after the finals a couple of months ago, that type of woman would lose interest in him and move on to another cowboy who didnât care if he became nothing more than a notch on a groupieâs bedpost.