One unforgettable night with a stranger should’ve stayed in the past… until I accused his identical twin of ignoring me in front of the entire bar.

I’ve spent the last two years drowning in responsibility: double shifts at the care home, raising my late sister’s children, and holding my grieving mother together. Romance? Not even on the radar.

But two months ago, a rugged cowboy passing through Rockwell Ridge gave me permission to fall apart. He pinned me down, wrecked me so thoroughly I still feel him, then disappeared before sunrise.

Now he’s back.

At least… I thought it was him. Until the real Bo Caldwell walks in wearing the same devastating face and a slow, knowing smirk that makes my knees weak.

Turns out I just yelled at his twin, Jensen.

Bo is the man who ruined me for anyone else. Jensen is the equally possessive brother who looks at me like he’s been starving for his turn. And when Bo corners me in the parking lot and offers me a night with both of them?

I should say no.

Instead, I end up tangled between two rough cowboys who refuse to let me stay in control. Bo holds me down and praises every desperate sound he drags from my lips. Jensen kneels for me and soothes the parts of me that have been carrying everyone else for far too long. Together, they make me feel soft, spoiled, and shameless in ways I never knew I needed.

But small towns have long memories, and my mother has already buried one daughter because of “bad choices.” She wants me respectably married to a nice man from church.

The more my family needs me, the more impossible this becomes.

Because when Bo and Jensen hold me between them and treat me like I’m precious instead of unbreakable…

I don’t want one more wild night.

I want forever with both of them.

Hold tight for a forbidden, fast-burn cowboy ménage featuring kinky twins who are into sharing, restraints, praise and sensory deprivation, who are determined to take care of the woman who’s spent her whole life caring for everyone else.

Chapter 1

Brandy

I wipe down the medication cart with slow strokes, my shoulders burning beneath my scrub top and my feet throbbing inside sneakers that gave up on cushioning me months ago. Overhead, the fluorescent lights buzz with a mean little persistence, adding to my exhaustion.

The care home has finally gone quiet.

Mostly.

Down the hall, Mr. Jenkins snores loud enough to rattle his water cup, and somewhere near the nurses’ station, the ice machine gives a tired cough and drops another handful of cubes. The air smells like lemon disinfectant, latex gloves, and the faint powdery sweetness of the lotion Mrs. Bell insists on using after every bath.

I’m dreaming about getting home, peeling off my compression socks, and falling face-first onto my bed for exactly six minutes before somebody needs me.

Then Annie comes flying into the supply room like a glitter bomb with a pulse.

“Don’t say a word,” she warns, one glossy pink nail pointed straight at my face. Her hoop earrings swing as she plants herself in front of me. “You are done. Badge off. Scrubs off. And whatever excuse you’re about to give me about Naomi’s science project, Elijah’s nightmares, or your mama’s prayer circle? I do not want to hear it.”

I huff a laugh and toss the rag into the bin, though the tightness in my shoulders doesn’t loosen. “Annie, I’ve got a double tomorrow. Elijah’s been waking up crying again, and if I’m not there in the morning—”

“Brandy.” Annie’s voice softens before I can finish. She steps closer, all that sparkle settling into tenderness. “You’ve had a double every week for six months. Those babies love you. Your mama loves you. Everybody loves you. But love does not mean working yourself into the ground until there’s nothing left but bones and good intentions.”

I look away because she isn’t wrong, and I hate that. The truth aches in my chest, familiar as an unpaid bill. Between shifts at the care home, raising my late sister’s children, and trying to keep my mama from crumbling under grief, I feel like I’m holding up the sky with one hand and smiling so nobody notices the tremor.

Annie snatches my tote bag off the counter before I can argue.

“Hey.”

“Nope.” She loops the strap over her shoulder and starts steering me toward the staff exit. “We are going to The Dusty Boot. One drink. A little music. Maybe, if the Lord is feeling generous, a man who knows how to use his hands for something besides fixing a fence.”

I groan, but I let her move me, pulling off my scrub top as we make our way down the hallway. “The last time I went on a date, I spent half of it texting the sitter and the other half explaining why I couldn’t stay out past nine. He called me ma’am when he dropped me off.”

Annie throws her head back and cackles as we step into the cool evening air. The parking lot shimmers under a pale wash of moonlight, and the breeze touches my skin like a welcome balm.

“That is exactly why we’re fixing this tonight,” she says. “You’re thirty-one, gorgeous, and those thighs deserve appreciation from somebody who is not related to you.”

“Annie.”

“I said what I said.” She unlocks her truck with a chirp. Then, more quietly, “Jasmine would haunt you in church shoes if she saw you living like this.”

My smile fades.

Even after two years, my sister’s name can still slide between my ribs and find the softest place. I rub the center of my chest out of habit, right over the ache that never fully leaves.

“Mama already thinks I’m headed down the wrong road if I miss too many Sundays,” I say. “Every time I sit in that pew, she’s scanning the congregation for my future husband. A respectable one, of course.”

Annie opens the passenger door and gives me a look. “Your mama is scared because she lost one daughter. That does not mean she gets to bury the other one alive.”

I flinch as her words hit hard enough to hurt.

She softens again. “Get in, Brandy.”

So, I do.

The drive to The Dusty Boot is short, loud, and entirely Annie. She blasts old-school country, slaps the steering wheel on every chorus, and gives a running critique of every single eligible man in Rockwell Ridge. According to her, half are emotionally unavailable, a quarter are allergic to soap, and the rest have been ruined by their mothers.

By the time we pull into the gravel lot, I’m laughing despite myself.

The Dusty Boot glows at the edge of town, its red neon sign buzzing above the door, throwing a pinkish halo over pickup trucks, motorcycles, and the occasional SUV. Music pulses through the walls, low with the kind of bass you feel first in your chest. When Annie opens her door, the night fills with the scent of beer, fried onions, dust, and something reckless enough to make my pulse shift.

Inside, the bar is warm, crowded, and comfortably rowdy. Boots scuff across the worn plank floor. A couple spins near the jukebox, laughing when they nearly knock into a table. Strings of amber lights loop over the bar, softening the place’s rough edges. Framed rodeo posters and old license plates cover the walls, and a longhorn skull hangs above the whiskey shelves like it’s judging everyone for living.

Annie pushes through the crowd like she owns the building and finds us two stools at the bar.

“Two margaritas,” she tells the bartender. “Extra salt. Heavy on the mercy.”

We laugh about work, about Mr. Jenkins flirting with every woman over sixty-five, about Elijah’s latest dinosaur phase, and about Naomi deciding she wants to be a pastor because they only have to work on Sundays.”

That one makes me laugh until my eyes sting. For twenty blessed minutes, I let myself breathe.

Then Annie’s phone rings.

She looks at the screen and curses under her breath. “It’s my aunt.”

I already know from her face. “Trey?”

“Drunk and doing something stupid, apparently. That boy is allergic to sense.” She slides off her stool, frustration pinching her mouth. Then she catches my hand. “Stay.”

“Annie—”

“Please.” Her eyes soften. “Have one drink without me. Listen to a song. Let somebody look at you like you’re a woman and not a full-time emergency contact.”

I glance toward the door.

Responsibility tugs at me. The kids will be asleep soon. Mama has probably already texted twice and left a voicemail that starts with “I’m not trying to bother you, baby” and ends with a full list of concerns.

Annie squeezes my hand. “One terrible, wonderful decision,” she says, kissing my cheek. “You deserve to feel good, Brandy. Even if it’s only for tonight.”

Then she’s gone, swallowed by the crowd and the swing of the door.

I sit alone, nursing my margarita and telling myself I’ll finish it, leave a tip, and go home. That’s the sensible thing to do. The Brandy thing. The woman everybody counts on thing.

Salt clings to my lips. Music curls through the room. Around me, people laugh too loudly, lean too close, and touch with confidence.

I look down at my hands and realize I can’t remember the last time someone touched me just because they wanted to. The last time I had sex was three years ago, and it wasn’t good enough to register as a memory in my frazzled brain.

While I’m commiserating, a presence settles onto the empty stool beside me.

I glance over, curious, and heat rises beneath my skin before I can stop it.

The man is big, tall, and broad-shouldered, with a body built by hard work. His dark blond hair is mussed like he’s dragged a hand through it too many times, and stubble shadows a jaw that looks stubborn enough to break somebody’s heart. His black thermal shirt stretches across his chest and forearms, and the backs of his hands are rough, marked with pale scars that look like rope burns.

He isn’t local. I would remember a man like him.

He orders a whiskey on ice. His voice is low, roughened at the edges, the kind of voice that doesn’t need to be raised to be heard.

Then he turns his head and looks at me, and I’m swallowed whole by his pretty blue-gray eyes.

“Well,” he says, his mouth curving just a little, “you’re a sight after a hard day.”

I touch a hand to my curls, suddenly aware of the wildness of them around my face, the tired shadows under my eyes, and the scrub pants I haven’t had time or opportunity to change out of.

“Thanks,” I say. “I think.”

His almost-smile deepens, and I feel it lower than I have any business feeling it.

For a moment, neither of us speaks. The bar noise rolls around us, but his attention makes a pocket of stillness where all I can hear is the clink of ice in his glass and the unsteady beat of my own heart.

“Bo,” he says, offering his hand.

His palm is broad, warm, and callused as I expected. I slide mine into it, and the contact sends a small, traitorous shiver straight through me.

“Brandy.”

Bo doesn’t hold on too long or squeeze too hard, just holds firmly enough to make me wonder what those hands would feel like if he stopped being polite.

Lord, I need to go home.

Instead, I pick up my margarita.

Bo takes a sip of whiskey and glances toward the dance floor. “You here by yourself, Brandy?”

“My friend abandoned me for a family crisis.”

“Sounds serious.”

“Her cousin Trey is drunk and stupid. So, it has the possibility to go that way if he’s left to his own devices. He’d better sober up before Angela gets near or he’s gonna regret the day he was born.”

That earns me a real smile that’s quick and devastating. “Every town’s got a Trey. Hell, most families got one too.”

“Unfortunately, Annie’s refuses to change, despite her unleashing hell’s wrath on the regular.”

He chuckles, and the sound moves through me slowly, warm as bourbon.

“What are you drinking?”

“Something heavy on the liquor,” I say, swirling my drink and the ice around the glass. “It’s making my gums numb.”

“Sounds like my kind of drink.”

“Annie’s choice. She ordered it ‘heavy on the mercy.’”

His mouth curves like he understands women who come to a bar carrying more than a purse. “Sounds like your friend knows you well.”

“She knows too much. There’s a difference.”

“That why she left you unsupervised?”

I laugh before I can stop myself. “Annie believes supervision is the ruination of a good time.”

Bo’s smile emerges, and it changes his whole face. It makes him look less like the bad kind of trouble and more like the kind of trouble a woman might willingly walk toward.

“She sounds wise.”

“She’s bossy.”

“Usually the same thing.”

I shake my head, still smiling, and trace a finger through the salt on the rim of my glass. “What about you? Anybody bossing you around tonight?”

“Not tonight.” He turns his whiskey once on the bar top. “Most days, it’s cattle, weather, and a ranch owner who thinks the need for sleep is a character flaw.”

“That sounds familiar. At the care home, sleep is reserved for the residents. The employees are expected to run on gas fumes and good will.”

His eyes warm. “You take care of people.”

“I try to.” The answer comes out softer than I intend. “Some days I think I do all right. Other days, I mostly keep everybody alive and hope that counts.”

“It counts,” he says.

The noise of the bar fills the small pause between us, but it doesn’t feel awkward. It feels like two tired people recognizing the same kind of weariness in each other and choosing, for a moment, not to step away.

When I finally set my empty glass down, he looks over. “You in a hurry to leave, or you want another mercy cocktail?”

A tired laugh slips out of me. “I’m always in a hurry to leave.”

His gaze stays on my face. “That so?”

“I’ve got two kids at home. They’re my sister’s, but…” I pause, then shrug because explaining my life is never simple. “They’re mine now, too, in all the ways that matter. Naomi has a science project due, my five-year-old nephew thinks bedtime is a lie started by adults, and my mama is probably wondering why I’m not home being respectable.”

Bo’s expression doesn’t shift into pity. I like that more than I should.

“Sounds like you keep a lot of plates spinning,” he says.

“Plates, knives, flaming torches. Depends on the day.” I turn my straw through the melted ice. “What about you?”

He glances at his glass, then back at me. “Came in for a drink. Saw you sitting here and figured I’d rather talk to you than drink alone.”

I lift an eyebrow anyway because flirting feels safer when wrapped in humor. “Smooth, cowboy. You use that one often?”

“First time.”

He says it so seriously, I believe him.

Then his voice lowers. “You really have to run off right now?”

I should say yes.

Yes, I have to go home. Yes, I have responsibilities. Yes, I’m tired. Yes, I’m the kind of woman who makes good choices because too many people depend on her not to fall apart.

Instead, I hear myself say, “I probably should.”

Bo waits. I look at him. At what feels like a well of patient hunger in his eyes. At the rough hands around his glass. At the quiet space he seems to make just by being near me.

“But I’m still sitting here,” I add.

His gaze drops briefly to my mouth.

“Good.”

I feel that one tiny word is like a hand at the small of my back.

We talk. He tells me he works on a ranch outside town that I’m familiar with, that he likes early mornings better than late nights, and that horses are easier to understand than people. He has two nieces who like to climb all over him and ride him like a horse, and when he talks about them, his whole face lights up. I tell him about the care home, about Mrs. Bell hiding peppermints in her bra, about Elijah insisting a T. rex would make an excellent family pet, and Naomi asking questions so sharp they could cut glass.

Bo listens without interrupting, soaking up everything I share like a kid collecting shells at the beach. He doesn’t try to fix my life in three sentences, or look around the room for someone younger, freer, and easier. When I admit I’m bone-tired, he only nods like he understands the kind of exhaustion sleep doesn’t touch.

At some point, his knee brushes mine beneath the bar, and I don’t move away.

The music changes to something slower that’s all steel guitar and longing. The crowd shifts around us, laughter rising and falling. My second drink sits half finished in front of me, sweating onto a paper napkin.

Bo leans closer, just enough for me to catch the clean, masculine scent of him beneath the whiskey. Soap. Leather. Sun-warmed and honest.

His hand settles lightly at my waist, asking its own question.

My breath catches.

“You wanna come with me, Brandy, and let me loosen all the burden for a while?”

My heart skitters as I look anywhere else but at him. Over his shoulder, a drunk cowboy trips, losing his hat to the dance floor. The server shakes his head and continues wiping the bar.

All the reasons this is a terrible idea coalesce into a soup in my stomach. He’s a stranger. I need to go home. I don’t have time in my life for a man, let alone a cowboy. Momma would be disappointed. I haven’t shaved my legs. On and on.

“I don’t usually do this,” I whisper.

“I figured.” His thumb moves once, slowly over the thin fabric of my tank top. The small stroke sends heat unraveling through me.

I turn my face toward him. “You don’t know me.”

“No,” he says. “But I see you.”

I want to laugh off his words. I want to say something smart enough and sharp enough to put distance back between us. But the truth is, no one has looked at me like this in so long.

His focus on me feels so good. He makes me feel like I’m desirable, not the dependable daughter, the stand-in mother, or the reliable family member who picks up extra shifts, packs lunches, remembers appointments, pays bills late but pays them, and cries in the shower where nobody can hear. Not the employee changing the elder’s diapers and spoon feeding them vegetable mush.

Bo looks at me like I am still a woman beneath all that weight. A woman with skin that remembers heat. A woman whose body remembers the frisson of desire. A woman who deserves to be wanted, seen, and touched.

His breath brushes my ear when he speaks again. “You’re thinking about leaving.”

“I am.”

“And you’re thinking about staying.”

My thighs press together under the bar. Heat pools low, startling in its intensity. I haven’t been kissed in so long, I’m not sure I remember how.

Bo draws back enough to meet my eyes.

Those blue-gray-colored eyes have gone darker now. They’re still patient and controlled, but hungry enough to make me shiver.

“I think you should come with me,” he says. “Let me take care of you for a while.”

I stand at the edge of every promise I’ve made to everyone else. The responsible voice in my head tells me to smile, drive home, and be grateful for one harmless conversation with a handsome stranger. It reminds me of school projects, lunch boxes, Mama’s worried face, the church ladies who have opinions about everyone with a vagina.

But another part of me stirs. The lonely part. The tired part. The part that lies awake at night with one hand pressed to the aching panic in my chest, wondering when my life became a series of duties stitched together with guilt and grief.

That part looks at Bo’s handsome face and desperately wants to set the weight down, just for tonight.

He waits with his warm hand at my waist, his thumb moving in slow, soothing circles like he has all the patience in the world and is content to give me the time to wrestle my own convictions, even if it’ll lose him the chance to get between my thighs.

My fingers tremble as I reach for him.

Then I slip my hand into his.

This is probably stupid. Definitely stupid. I need sleep more than sex. I need food, a warm drink, and a cool pillow to rest my head. There’s a very real chance that I’m going to fall asleep while he’s doing delicious things to me. I haven’t tidied my lady garden in a long, long time, but I can’t find a single fuck to give about any of it.

All the fucks I had, minus the one Bo’s going to get tonight, were given a long time ago.

His grip closes around mine, gentle but sure, and I exhale.

I can take this one thing for me. No one ever has to know.

(c) Stephanie Brother 2026