COWBOY ROMANCE: Avery (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 3) Read online

  © Copyright 2016 by Anita Laroque - All rights reserved.

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  Avery

  The Steele Brothers

  Book 3

  (Can be read as a standalone book)

  By: Amanda Boone

  Introduction

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  ***

  To go directly to the Table of Contents, Click here.

  ***

  This book’s Riddle:

  Q: Give me food and I will live. Give me water and I will die. What am I?

  >>See answer

  The Steele Brothers: Avery

  1.

  Oh, God. What am I doing?! I leaned against the front desk counter at the library in my best provocative pose. It was insane and I was going to make a fool of myself. I just couldn’t seem to help myself.

  Amanda Trent was sitting at the back table with her boyfriend, Devon Steele. Lately, wherever Devon went, Avery Steele went. Avery had come into the library every day to drag Devon back to work.

  I was going to be ready that day, I’d sworn. He hadn’t noticed me once. Sure, he’d been polite and nodded as he walked by, but he hadn’t actually noticed me. I didn’t know if he even recognized me.

  I adjusted my stance and my foot got caught in the long skirt I was wearing. My arm slid right off the counter and I tumbled to the ground in a pile of sad librarian mess. To add insult to injury, after I hit the ground a book fell and hit me in the head. I groaned and debated just crawling around to hide behind the counter.

  “Are you okay, Maggie?” Amanda offered me a hand and winced. “That looked like it hurt.”

  I let her help me up and tried to hide the fact that my hip did hurt. I felt stupid enough without having to nurse an injury. “It’s just not my day.”

  She nodded. “It’s a Monday. I just had a client demand I order brown balloons. Brown balloons. Have you ever seen brown balloons look good?”

  I pulled a grossed-out face and shook my head. “What’s the party for?”

  She tried to stop a laugh but failed. “Her mother-in-law’s birthday party.”

  The library door opened and a warm breeze blew through the old building. I held my breath and waited. For nothing. It was just the mailman. I blew out a big sigh and forced a smile to my face.

  “Hi, Paul.”

  He handed me a stack of mail and grinned. “When are you going to let me take you to dinner, Maggie?”

  I laughed. “When your wife gets back in town. She promised that she’d make that bread she’s famous for. The kind with the raisins?”

  “I’ll tell her you’re excited for it. Say hi to your dad for me.”

  Amanda stared at me after he left. “Who’re you waiting for?”

  I jumped about a mile in the air and blushed. “What?”

  “It looked like you were hoping that was someone else coming through those doors. Someone special. Anyone I know?”

  I wasn’t ready to admit to anyone else that I was a crushing idiot and that I hadn’t changed as much as I’d like to think I had since high school. “No one. I’m going to run to the back to grab something. Just yell if you need me.”

  She didn’t look less suspicious, but she backed away. “Should I yell if no one comes in?”

  My already red face blossomed into color even more. “No, thank you!”

  I raced to the back and leaned against a bookcase. I took a deep breath and held it. I concentrated on feeling the heat in my face gather in my hands. I’d heard that would help control a blush. Instead, I just ended up feeling like some kind of Hogwarts reject.

  “Get it together, Maggie. You’re looking like the kid they all think you are.” I shook myself for a few seconds and took a few more deep breaths.

  “Maggie!” Amanda’s loud whisper shocked me. “Get up here!”

  I panicked and rushed toward the front desk. “What is it?”

  I turned the corner from the back and spotted Avery walking in. For some reason, my response was to drop to my hands and knees and crawl toward the desk. If I hurried, I’d make it in time and he wouldn’t see me. I was a moron. I wanted him to pay attention to me, but there I was crawling across the floor like an idiot so he wouldn’t notice me.

  The floor unfortunately didn’t open up and swallow me whole. It just stayed in place while a pair of dusty boots appeared practically right under my nose.

  “Ma’am? You good down there?” Avery’s voice had deepened since I’d last talked to him.

  I pretended to pluck something off the ground and sat up so that I was kneeling in front of him. I slipped my imaginary find into my vest pocket and flashed him a smile. “My contact got away from me.”

  Seeing Avery didn’t do anything to calm my nerves. He was handsome from afar, but up close he was drop-dead sexy. His black hair had grown out and was shaggy down to his shoulders. A thick beard covered the lower half of his face, the only reprieve a slice of pink from his mouth.

  That pink mouth tilted to the side and he chuckled. “You’re wearing glasses.”

  I reached up and felt them. Oh, no! I was wearing my dorkiest glasses. The large, clear frames dwarfed my face and slid down my nose constantly. “Right…. It got really far away from me.”

  His deep brown eyes narrowed and his dark eyebrows rose. The look he ended up giving me made me feel crazy. “Okay. Well, have a good day, ma’am.”

  He kept calling me ma’am. Did he really not remember me? I had to ask, no matter what my brain was telling me not to do. “Avery?”

  He’d been moving away, so he had to turn back to me. He stared at me in confusion. “Yeah?”

  “It’s me, Maggie.” I needed to stop talking. He clearly didn’t remember me. I was just going to embarrass myself.

  “I’m sorry. Should I…?”

  I bit my lip and then laughed. “Never mind. You were a few years ahead of me in school. I just…never mind. Have a good day.”

  He tilted his head to the side and then pointed at me. “Maggie Day!”

  A smile lit my face, and I nodded so hard my glasses slid down my nose. “Yes!”

  He finally smiled for the first time since we’d started talking. “You’re Jay’s little sister! How are you?”

  Any hope I’d felt crashed to my knees, which were still on the floor. I stood up and wiped the dust from my skirt. It swished around my hips but Avery’s eyes didn’t trail down my body. They stayed firmly planted on my face. “Good. Good to see you again.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Tell Jay I say hi. I’d like to see him if he’s around.”

  “Sure. I’ll let him know.”

  He walked away to go talk to
Devon, and I slinked away to the back room to pout. Jay’s little sister. That was all I’d ever been to Avery. Why should it change just because I’d grown up and become a woman?

  2.

  I sat on the front pew at the First Baptist Church and listened to Pastor Kelly’s Wednesday night lesson. Well, I heard his voice, anyway. My dad sat beside me with his arm strewn across the back of the pew, behind me. My mom sat next to him and Jay was on her other side. Next to Jay was his new girlfriend, Grace Ann.

  Jay had been through more girlfriends than I could ever hope to remember. He swore up and down that Grace Ann was the one, though. I could see why he thought that. She had the biggest ones I’d ever seen on a woman in real life.

  The Wednesday night crowd at the church was always slim. Dad was a deacon, though, and he demanded we all show up for it. No matter how old we got, he acted like we’d killed someone if we didn’t show up. We didn’t even think about missing a Sunday sermon.

  The four years I’d been away at college had been some of the best years of my life because of the fact that I got to sleep in on the weekends and spend Wednesdays at a local tavern, eating half-priced wings and drinking cheap beer. It wasn’t that I didn’t like church or the message. I just had a hard time wanting to always be at church.

  My parents went to church three times a week on the weeks when there wasn’t a special event. Then it was four or five times, depending on the event.

  I was more of a once-a-month kind of girl. Maybe even a special holiday kind of girl if it was football season.

  My mind wandered back to Avery and I silently scolded myself. My Avery thoughts really weren’t appropriate for a church. I shook my head and tried to refocus on the pastor.

  My dad rested his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. It meant that I should be paying attention. I was tempted to roll my eyes. Pastor Kelly preached about giving back to the church every single Wednesday night. He went through different ways to give, but the lesson was always the same.

  I crossed my legs and adjusted the long skirt I was wearing to cover my flats. I’d worn an old pair without thinking about it, and they looked a little rough. A flash of embarrassment washed over me.

  I hadn’t gotten new clothes since I’d been back home. I was wearing clothes from high school, and I looked exactly like everyone pictured the sweet librarian to look. The deacon’s daughter turned librarian always wore clothes that covered her from toe to neck.

  I had a suitcase full of clothes from college that were shiny and new. To keep my Dad’s world from tilting right off its axis, they stayed in that suitcase, though.

  It was no wonder Avery hadn’t noticed me at all until I was crawling on the ground. He probably thought I was still fifteen. I looked down at the high-collared shirt I was wearing and sighed.

  Dad squeezed my shoulder again and I did roll my eyes that time. I leaned closer and whispered to him. “I’ll be right back.”

  I slipped away from the sanctuary and into the bathroom at the back of the building. After locking the door, I stood in front of the mirror and scrutinized my reflection. Pale blond hair hung down to my waist in a curling mess. I’d tried to calm it into a respectable mass, but my hair did what it wanted. I was fairly pale with a smattering of freckles across my nose that had the tendency to make me look twelve. Dark green eyes hid behind my large glasses, and I’d done absolutely nothing that morning to make them stand out.

  I was tall with curves that had drawn in plenty of attention when dressed correctly. The girl in the mirror was hiding everything. I looked like I had no figure. I grabbed the back of my outfit and pulled it tight to highlight my body.

  If I didn’t dress like someone’s sixty-year-old Sunday school teacher, then maybe I’d be more to men than Jay’s little sister. I turned to the side and hiked the skirt up around my hips. If I could just get Avery’s attention, then maybe he’d see me as a possibility.

  It felt stupid to still play into the whole girl with a crush thing with Avery, but I couldn’t help it. I’d been with men and experienced life outside of Martinsville that was adventurous and wild, but he was the one that got away. Well, the one who never was, really. He’d never paid any attention to me. Something about seeing him made me feel like a little kid again, just trying my hardest to be cool enough for Avery Steele.

  A knock sounded on the door and I gasped. Holy inappropriate timing. I let my skirt fall back down around my ankles and turned the faucet on. “Just one minute.”

  I opened the door and came face to face with my mom. She had a sneaky grin on her face and one of her perfectly filled-in eyebrows was raised. My face instantly reddened.

  “You know there’s a crack in the doorframe wide enough to see inside, right?”

  I groaned. “Of course I didn’t know that! How did you know that?”

  Her grin just widened. “Keep it down. Your father is going to hear you and be pissed.”

  I did more eye rolling. “What’s new?”

  My mom’s blond hair matched my own perfectly in color, but she’d found a way to get it cut and straightened into something neat and perfect. She looked identical to me and people always assumed she was just a few years older than me. Great to know that I was going to look like a child for the rest of my life.

  She was wearing a beautiful dress that wrapped around her body like a warm hug. It was still conservative enough to keep my dad happy, though. She pushed me back into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

  “Mom!”

  She shhed me and then went about her business of pulling her dress up around her hips to sit on the toilet and pee. “You’ve seemed sad lately, Maggie. What’s going on?”

  I turned away from her and groaned. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to let a little bit of Dad’s tight-assed-ness rub off on you. I don’t want to hear you pee.”

  She finished up and flushed. “Get over it. Now, tell me what’s going on.”

  I sighed. “I’m boring. Look at this outfit. I look older than you, except I somehow still manage to look twelve at the same time. I’m in a rut, I guess.”

  Her eyes twinkled, and I knew I was about to get advice my father would hate. Marley Day was a born-again hippie who had never really left behind her wild-child ways. “I’ve seen your little hoe trunk.”

  My eyes went wide and I sucked in a big breath. “What?!”

  She slapped my hand and laughed. “You have beautiful clothes in there, Maggie. Why are you still wearing this crap from when you were a teenager?”

  I shrugged. “You know Dad. He’d freak out. I’d rather not rock the boat, I guess.”

  More eye twinkling, and I had to groan preemptively. “Honey, your father is always going to get pissed about something. He can’t help it. It’s the way he works. Something I’ve never told you, though, is that when your daddy gets pissed, he’s a wild man in the bedroom. Rock the boat, Maggie. Make me a happy woman.”

  I didn’t have to fake my gag.

  3.

  That Friday, I sat at the front desk with a pen and notepad and made a list of pros and cons about an idea I’d been mulling over. It was crazy and I knew that it couldn’t go well, but I couldn’t seem to think of any other cons than those two things. My pros were that I could snag Avery’s attention and possibly have a really incredible orgasm. I’d also probably stop getting hit on by high school boys from the band.

  With three outweighing the two in the con column, I decided to just do it. I was going to embarrass myself and maybe my whole family, but I was going to make it known across town that I was a woman.

  I glanced down at my long skirt and shapeless shirt. I was going to make it known that I was a woman who actually had tits and an ass. I was pretty sure most of the town assumed I was a woman. I just wanted that extra behind it.

  I looked up and saw Amanda at her table at the back of the room. She glanced up at the same time and sent me a little wave. I smiled back at her and stuffed my notepad under the desk when she came my w
ay.

  “Hey.”

  She grinned at me and her eyebrows wagged in a knowing way. “I’ve got some inside information for you.”

  I pretended that I didn’t know what she was talking about. It was one thing for me to have a crush on Avery. It was another thing for everyone to know it. “About?”

  Her grin just widened. “I happen to know that Devon and Avery are going to be at Steak-Outs tonight.”

  My pulse quickened. Steak-Outs was a raunchy bar on the outskirts of town. I knew about it and had always daydreamed about going in, but my dad was a deacon, after all. Actually going in wasn’t going to work out well for me.

  “Apparently there’s some local band playing. They asked me to go and I’m really considering it. Only, I don’t want to be the only girl there. They get distracted and suddenly I’m all alone at a dirty bar with no one to talk to. That’s where you come in.”

  I closed my eyes for a second and came to terms with the fact that Amanda knew I had a thing for Avery and wasn’t going to forget it. “You’re not going to take no for an answer, are you?”

  She laughed. “Nope. Why would I? Meet us there at nine, okay?”

  I stared at her and then looked back down at my clothes. They weren’t going to work.

  She picked up on my look and grabbed my hand. “If you need something more fit for a bar, I could help.”

  I shook my head. “Believe it or not, I actually have something I can wear.”

  Amanda did a little fist pump and then went back to her table, leaving me with a racing heart and the knowledge that, after nine, people in Martinsville were going to know that I was a woman with a body. She’d given me the perfect opportunity to put my plan into action.

  *****

  I sat outside the bar, in my car, for nearly half an hour. I was more nervous than I thought I would be. I was way more nervous than I’d ever been to go into a bar while away at college.