The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(110)

“She?” Boone asked. “I thought we were talking about both Sohappy sisters. Weird how it ended up being about the one.”

And Chance wasn’t at home to any of that. His brother liked to tease him that there was more than just rage between himself and Juniper. But no. Sure, she was beautiful. Both of the Sohappy sisters were beautiful. But ironically named, as far as he was concerned, because he had never seen them do much of anything other than scowl. At least, his direction.

Women loved Chance. He was a charmer. He loved women, so long as it stayed casual, and physical only.

But Shelby and Juniper Sohappy did not love him. And Juniper in particular.

Hell, yeah, Juniper was beautiful.

Long black hair, eyes the color of bitter chocolate, golden-brown skin, high cheekbones…

Shame about her personality.

She’d been a spiteful little scorpion since they were in school. And he didn’t call her that to be hollowly mean; she’d once put a scorpion in his backpack when she was ten and he was twelve.

She’d hated him from the time his family had moved to the ranch when he was ten, taking over for his grandfather after his passing.

She’d hated him just because he was a Carson.

And hell, if he’d sometimes responded in kind to her provocations, who could blame him? And if he’d once bid on her at a charity auction and used her to do menial ranch tasks and carry his books at school—which she’d walked out on in the middle of, thanks—again, who could blame him?

Well, she could. And did. But that was beside the point.

And the fact that he’d do it again, even with all the sparks and spite it earned him, well, that was a whole other issue.

He liked sparring with her as much as he wanted to tell her to leave him the hell alone and never come back.

It was like a disease.

Like wanting to pull a girl’s pigtails in second grade.

Except his other feelings about her were not remotely childish. Not at all.

“It’s pretty bitter,” Boone said. “Don’t you think we should just get some surveillance done and see if that solves the issue?”

“Our grandfathers didn’t. Our fathers didn’t.”

“Yeah,” Boone said. “Grandpa also took cold showers because he thought that instant hot water bullshit made a man soft. I’m not sure ‘because it’s always been this way’ is a good reason to do any-thing.”

“You know,” Chance said, “I would like at least one of them to ask nicely.”

“And I would love to be standing there when you told her that,” Flint said.

“Whatever. Juniper Sohappy and her bad attitude isn’t my problem. She knows exactly what she can do if she wants to escalate it. But she isn’t interested in that. She’s just interested in being in a family feud that seems to always center squarely on me.”

Because she could yell at any of his brothers. And never seemed to.

Almost as if she liked yelling at him.

Maybe yelling was an overstatement. When they’d run into each other at the market, in the cold beer fridge, each of them picking up some brews, she’d hissed. Like a feral weasel.

Gotta burr in your britches, Juniper?

Just a burr under my saddle. For life. That’s you, Carson.

Yeah, I got that.

Flint shrugged. “All right, you may not want Juniper to be your problem, but I have a feeling she’ll make it her goal to be.”

Chance chuckled. “I’d like to see her try.”

“Sure you would.”

“You drinking later?” Boone asked.

“Nah. Gonna get an early night in so I can get on the road first thing.”

They finished up their work, and his brothers trickled back home. And for some reason, Chance found himself riding toward the fence line, to the part of the property that bordered the Sohappy family’s ranch.

It was just a shame, really.

A shame that he didn’t see the rattlesnake. A shame that his horse chose to freak the hell out. A shame that his horse was a dirty deserter and ran off somewhere.

And it was a shame that when he fell, he hit his head directly on a rock.

It was raining. Of course it was raining.

Visibility was shit. Juniper had a feeling that she might end up taking calls tonight, whether she was supposed to or not. When the weather got like this, accidents happened. On these windy rural roads it was unavoidable. She wasn’t supposed to be on shift tonight. She was supposed to be getting a good night’s sleep. She’d gone for twelve hours in a row already.

Then there wasn’t enough energy drinks in the world to keep her going at this point.

Maybe she was just being grim.

But it was that damn Chance Carson. The Carsons in general were a pain in the butt, but Chance specifically had gotten under her skin for years. She was two years behind him in school, but it had been enough for them to be in each other’s paths quite a bit, and every time they’d ever crossed…

It had been bad.

Then there was the general Carson-ness of it all.

Her parents told her that she was overreacting to the whole border situation, but it mattered to her.

It mattered to her grandpa, who had hated the Carsons for as long as she’d been alive, and had told her stories of how they’d set out to undermine the Sohappy family from the beginning. And most of all how Chance’s great-great-grandfather had gotten her great-great-grandfather drunk, and conned him into betting a portion of the ranch in a card game.