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  Ryder didn’t say anything, not yet. He just gave Bree some time for things to sink in. It didn’t sink in especially well. His twin got up, went back into the living room for the cheese cans and sprayed some from both into her mouth.

  “Start explaining,” Bree snapped. At least that was what Ryder thought she said. It was hard to tell through all the cheese. She swallowed before she continued. “We’re best friends. The Bra Posse. What the hell were you thinking when you climbed into bed with Allie?”

  “I was thinking I wanted to have sex with her,” Ryder readily admitted.

  Allie made a sound of agreement, causing Bree to take another double squirt of Easy Cheesy. “I’ve wanted Ryder for a long time now,” Allie said. “I’ve had a lot of fantasies about him, and last night a few of those fantasies came true.”

  That made him want to smile. He didn’t. Ryder figured a smile of any kind wouldn’t go well with all that cheese Bree was guzzling.

  “We’ll still be the Bra Posse,” Allie went on. “Crab Posse,” she amended. “But I want to keep on living out some of those fantasies with Ryder. If that’s what he wants, that is.”

  Oh, it was exactly what he wanted, and if they’d been alone, he would have asked for some details about those fantasies. Maybe even some show-and-tell. But first he had to soothe things over with Bree.

  “This changes things,” Bree said. “Again.” He thought that was the right interpretation anyway. The words were a little garbled through the cheese hits.

  “Yes,” Ryder had to admit. “I hope it does anyway. Let me explain,” he added when Bree went stiff. “I love you. You’re not just my sister, you’re my friend, and even I’m smart enough to realize that’s a good thing.”

  Now here was the hard part. Not hard for him but it could come as a big-assed surprise to Bree. Maybe to Allie, too, if she hadn’t figured out how things really were between them.

  “My feelings for Allie aren’t all of the friend variety,” he said, “and they run deep.”

  He waited for Bree’s reaction. But there wasn’t one. Not a verbal one anyway. Bree headed straight for the front door and stormed out, leaving Allie and him standing there. Ryder started to go after her, but he knew Bree well enough to know this wasn’t a situation where talking things out would help.

  Hell.

  Allie grumbled something similar and sank down onto the sofa. “I should have handled this better. You know, eased Bree into this.” She looked up at him. “Maybe we should just cool things between us for a while to give her time to adjust.”

  Ryder mentally repeated that hell, and he added a lot more profanity to go with it. Twenty-four hours ago, he’d never thought he’d be in this position. After all, he had been trying to keep this attraction at bay. But if he’d actually wanted to do that, he would have never shown up at Allie’s house. He’d known what was going to happen when he’d walked in the door.

  “Is that what you want?” he snapped. But he didn’t want her answering that in case she said yes. “Because it’s not what I want.”

  She kept staring at him, then gave an uncertain nod. “But Bree... If you lose her friendship, you might lose her as a sister, too.”

  Allie was right, and that put a huge knot in his stomach. Still, there was a bigger problem here. “If I quit seeing you, then I’ll resent it. I’m talking big-time resentment. That’s going to play into how I feel about Bree.”

  Man, he had the idea of their friendships all going down the drain. They’d all been such a big part of each other’s lives, and now that might be over.

  “Just how deep is deep?” Allie asked.

  It took him a moment to realize she was responding to the comment he’d made about his feelings for her. “Deep,” he assured her. And to prove it, Ryder pulled her to him and kissed her. It wasn’t one of those scorchers that would lead to sex, but it was plenty hot enough to let her know just what she meant to him. Just in case, though, he spelled it out for her.

  “I care for you. A lot. And I’d like for that lot to be a whole lot more.” He frowned a little, wishing he’d practiced that or used a thesaurus for a better variety of words, but she got the point because she gave a little smile and a larger kiss.

  Allie’s mouth was still on his when the door flew open. Bree. His sister stood there, bearing some resemblance to a gunslinger in the Old West. Instead of guns, though, she had cans of Easy Cheesy in each hand.

  “I keep spares in my car,” Bree mumbled when she followed his gaze to the cans. “You know, just in case of a crisis.”

  After the weird kidnapping attempt, Ryder wasn’t sure what Bree intended to do with the cheese, but he considered she might throw them at him. She didn’t. Bree squirted some from the first can into her mouth and then did the same with the second one.

  “It’s too early for tequila shots,” she added after she’d swallowed the stuff. “So, this will have to do.”

  She came in, still moving a little like a gunslinger, but her appearance was somewhat diminished by the yellow goop on her lips.

  “I’m not giving up Ryder,” Allie told her. “My feelings for him run deep.” Allie looked at him. “Sorry, I couldn’t come up with a different description without coffee or a hit of that cheese.”

  He shrugged. Deep worked for him just fine because it meant this was just the start. And Ryder couldn’t wait.

  “And I suppose you’re not giving up Allie,” Bree said, shifting her attention to Ryder.

  “No.” Then he did some more waiting.

  Bree had a squirt of cheese first, taking it the way she would a tequila shot. She still had on her tough expression, but it faded by degrees with each volleyed glance they gave her.

  “Crap,” Bree finally said. “All right. Go ahead and fall in love. Just remember one very important thing.”

  Ryder frowned. “Nothing can go wrong with that?”

  Allie frowned, too. “Easy Cheesy cures all?” she tried.

  Bree gave them a flat look. “Sheez. No originality from either of you. I was going to say have sex until your legs buckle, and when you come up for air, give me a call so we can get some nachos.”

  That knot in Ryder’s stomach loosened a little. “You mean that?”

  Bree huffed, and her flat look morphed into a shrug. Then a nod. “Just promise me that the Bra Posse will live on.”

  Allie went to her, brushed a kiss on Bree’s cheek. “It will. Friends forever.”

  Bree made an exaggerated roll of her eyes, but the smile was genuine. “Forever,” she said softly to Allie, but her gaze wavered a little when she looked at Ryder. “And what about you? Are you in on this friends-forever stuff?”

  “Yeah.” When Allie stepped aside, Ryder went to his sister and pulled her into his arms. “I won’t even object to the Bra part of Bra Posse. Not much anyway,” he added in a mumble.

  Bree stared at him. “I can’t lose you. Either of you.” Her voice cracked a little, and cursing no one in particular, she slung an arm around Allie, dragging them all into a group hug.

  “You won’t lose me,” Allie assured her.

  “You won’t lose me,” Ryder echoed. It was the truth, but because Bree was also his sister, he had to add the brotherly jab of “Well, unless you try another half-assed attempt to kidnap me. Or squirt me with those cheese guns.”

  Bree was smiling again when she pulled back to face them. “Well, then. The next attempt will just have to be full-assed.” She winked, squirted them both on their mouths with cheese and, laughing, she headed for the door. “Don’t forget the part about calling me after you recover from your leg-buckling sex.”

  Ryder slipped his arm around Allie as they watched Bree leave. He felt as if everything had suddenly moved into place. Not the old familiar grooves that’d once made up his life. But new ones—that still involved Allie, Bree, Curt and, yes, even Easy Chees
y. All in all, these new grooves were darn good.

  Perfect, in a new “looking forward to this” kind of way.

  “Well?” Allie asked, staring up at him.

  “Bree had some sage advice.” Ryder smiled. Licked the cheese off her lips, and he kissed her. “Let’s see if I can really make your knees buckle.”

  An hour later, Ryder proved that he could do just that.

  * * * * *

  The Granger siblings thought they’d left their ranching days behind, until fate sends them home to Wrangler’s Creek, Texas—and into the passionate arms of those they’d least expect...

  Don’t miss any of the stories in the irresistible Wrangler’s Creek series by USA TODAY bestselling author Delores Fossen.

  Those Texas Nights

  No Getting Over a Cowboy

  Branded as Trouble

  Texas-Sized Trouble

  Lone Star Blues

  Order your copies today!

  “Clear off space on your keeper shelf, Fossen has arrived.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Lori Wilde

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  ISBN-13: 9781488080531

  Lone Star Blues

  Copyright © 2018 by Delores Fossen

  The publisher acknowledges the copyright holder of the individual work as follows:

  Cowboy Heartbreaker

  Copyright © 2018 by Delores Fossen

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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