Becky tried to keep the image of Mason’s hard, naked body from popping into her head, but it was like trying not to cuss when you stubbed your pinkie toe. Whenever she closed her eyes, each bulging muscle flickered through her brain like pornographic flash cards: broad shoulders, defined pecs, knotted biceps, ripped abs, impressive . . .

“He just moved in and was sleeping there without one stitch of clothing?” Gracie cut in as if reading her thoughts. It wasn’t unusual. Becky and her cousin were as close as sisters and could always read each other’s minds. Even when they were hundreds of miles apart. “Did you see his manly staff?”

Becky rolled her eyes at her cellphone, which sat on the kitchen counter. “I don’t know what historical romance novel you got that name for a man’s penis out of, but you need to never read it again.” She poured the ground coffee into the coffeemaker.

Usually, Carly made the morning coffee . . . and a delicious breakfast to go with it. But she’d left early that morning with Zane. They would be gone for two weeks on their honeymoon in Hawaii, leaving Becky in charge of the ranch. She was more than a little excited about the prospect of running things without her big brother looking over her shoulder. But she was bummed she had to make her own coffee and cook her own meals. She had always preferred a barn to a kitchen.

“I like staff better than penis,” Gracie said. “It sounds more masculine. So does this Mason have a big one or not?”

“It looked pretty big to me, but I’m not exactly an expert. It’s pathetic to be almost twenty-five and still a virgin.”

“I don’t think it’s pathetic.”

“Because you’re only a few years away from being in the same freak boat.” She got a mug from the cupboard. “We should’ve had sex with the Jefferson twins when we had the chance.”

“I’m not going to give my virginity to someone with bad manners and a goatee. Especially if I don’t love him,” Gracie said adamantly. “I don’t care if it makes me a freak. I’m waiting for my Honey Bee.”

Honey Bee was the reason Becky and Gracie were still virgins. If they had never found their great-aunt’s diary, they never would’ve had such high expectations for a lover. But they did find it.

The vacant Reed property had been a perfect teenage hideout from annoying older brothers. Becky and Gracie had filled it with old furniture and dishes and treated it like their own grown up playhouse. When they’d moved the old brass bed—the only piece of furniture left in the house by the previous tenant—closer to the window, they had discovered the loose floorboard and their great-aunt’s account of her secret love affair.

Lucy Arrington was famous for writing the classic western series Tender Heart. She had written the ten book series in the 1960s and based it on the cowboys who had tamed Texas and the mail-order brides who had tamed them. Becky and Gracie grew up reading the books. They loved the stories and were completely intrigued by their aunt. Like everyone else, they thought Lucy was an eccentric old maid who never married—never even had a boyfriend. But when Becky and Gracie stumbled upon the diary, they discovered that their aunt had indeed had a boyfriend. And not just a boyfriend, but a lover.

While Lucy’s books only had a few passionate kisses, her diary was filled with steamy details of the time she spent with the man she referred to as Honey Bee. The diary never said where she met the man for their sexual romps. Since they’d found the journal in the Reed House, they thought maybe that was where Lucy had met her secret lover.

If the diary had been dated, Becky and Gracie might’ve been able to figure out who had been living in the house at the time. But there were no dates on the diary pages, and numerous renters had lived in the house after the Reed family moved to their bigger ranch near Austin in the late 1940s.

Gracie and Becky weren’t as concerned with Honey Bee as they were about guarding Lucy’s secret. After reading the diary, they felt a connection to their aunt and wanted to be sure her name was not dragged through the mud. Besides, it was extremely cool to know something no one else did. The cousins would do whatever it took to keep it that way, which was exactly why Becky had snuck into the Reed house.

“Speaking of Honey Bee,” she said. “We need to get back to figuring out how we’re going to get the diary out of the house before Mason finds it. Obviously, sneaking in while he’s sleeping isn’t going to work.”

“That was your idea, not mine,” Gracie said. “I wanted you to just tell him it was yours and ask for it. You’ve always been able to flirt anything out of a guy.”

She poured a cup of coffee. “Not Mason. He seems to be immune to my charms. In fact, I get the feeling that he likes me as much as I like him. If I told him the diary was mine, he’d probably sell it to the Austin newspaper. And we can’t have him doing that with Lucy’s diary.”

“You’re right.” Gracie paused. “But I don’t think we should move the diary either. Lucy left it there as a tribute to what she shared with Honey Bee. Taking it from the house would be like taking flowers from a grave.”

“So you just want to let Mason have it?”

“Of course not. I don’t want him to have the diary or the house. That house is where Lucy found her Tender Heart. Where she learned about love so she could write about it in her books.”

Gracie had always been such a romantic, while Becky dealt more in reality. “I don’t know if I’d go that far. If she’d found love, why didn’t they ever get married?”

“Maybe something tragic happened,” Gracie said. “Maybe Honey Bee died before they could get married.”

“Or maybe it was just hot sex.”

Gracie gasped, but Becky didn’t see anything wrong with that. She didn’t want to get married. She’d spent her entire life with a bossy daddy and brother. She didn’t need to add a bossy husband to the mix. And if she was going to be like Lucy Arrington and never get married, she had decided to get her own Honey Bee. A Honey Bee who would satisfy her at night but stay out of her business during the day.

But finding the right bee for the job hadn’t been easy. Becky had dated dozens of guys in the last year and not one had made her want to get her flower pollinated. And some, like Rich Myers, had made her want to grab a can of hornet spray.

“How can you say that, Becky?” Gracie asked. “You’ve read the diary. You know how much Lucy loved him. And it’s up to us to keep that love a secret. I truly believe that Lucy wanted us to find the diary. Just like she wanted me to find the first chapter of the final book of the Tender Heart series so Cole and Emery could live happily ever after.”

While Becky didn’t believe in fate, it did seem like more than a coincidence that Gracie had found the first chapter. Lucy had died before publishing the final book, and after her death, her relatives had searched high and low for the manuscript. Decades later, Gracie had found a long-lost chapter in the floor of the little white chapel. Becky couldn’t deny that the chapter had brought Emery to Bliss and subsequently into Cole’s arms. But it also might have contributed to the accident that had put Gracie in a wheelchair. If she hadn’t been in such a hurry to get back and tell her father and brother about finding the chapter, she might not have been thrown from her horse. And instead of being at a rehabilitation center in Dallas, she would be at home with her cousin.

“So how are we going to get rid of Mason and get our house back?” Becky asked.

There was a long silence, and Becky knew Gracie’s mind was working. Most folks thought she was as sweet as spring rain, but her cousin had a devious side. This was proven when she spoke.

“You told me he’s a lawyer who bought the property as a vacation home. And the only reason a big city man would buy a piece of land in the middle of nowhere is for peace and quiet. I say we give him just the opposite.”

Becky almost spit out the sip of coffee she’d just taken. “Are we talking chaos and noise?”

“Exactly.” She could almost see Gracie’s evil smile. “Why don’t you call Ms. Marble and see if she can notify the welcoming committee. I bet Mr. Granger would love folks dropping by to welcome him. And doesn’t the roof on the Reed house need a little work? I think it would be real neighborly of you to send some ranch hands over to fix it. Oh, and make sure they take big hammers.”

Becky laughed. “Why, Gracie Lynn Arrington, you little devil.”

“I’m just wanting to make sure the man feels welcome, is all. And make sure to call Winnie Crawley. Once she sinks her nails into a guy, he can’t get away fast enough.”

For some reason, Becky didn’t like the idea of Winnie sinking her nails into Mason. Probably because she couldn’t stand the thought of all that perfection being marred. But if she wanted to get rid of him, Winnie was the fastest way to do it. And she did want to get rid of him. She didn’t care as much about the house or Lucy’s diary as Gracie did, but she did care about the land.

Most people viewed the Reed property as too small to raise a large herd of cattle, but Becky had been reading up on rotational grazing where you need less land to feed more cattle. She had talked to Zane about trying it on the Earhart Ranch, but he was too set in his ways. For him to try it, he’d need proof that it worked. Becky wanted to give him that proof by turning the Reed property into a successful ranch.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s make Mason’s life hell. Then in a few weeks, when I turn twenty-five and get my trust fund, I’ll make him an offer he can’t—”

The doorbell cut her off. It was only a little after six o’clock in the morning, but on a working ranch everyone was up at the crack of dawn.

“I’ve got to go,” she said as she set down her cup of coffee. “I’ll call you later.” She hung up the phone and headed for the door. But when she opened it there was no one there. She stepped out onto the porch and looked around. The sun was just breaking over the horizon, casting the yard in a pinkish glow. A rooster crowed in the distance, and their herding dog Shep barked to be let out of the barn. But there were no ranch hands around or trucks parked next to hers.

She started to go back inside when she noticed her truck and froze. A huge teddy bear sat behind the steering wheel, its beady black eyes staring sightlessly back at her. While plenty of girls would love a stuffed animal surprise from a secret admirer, Becky didn’t. Mostly because the admirer’s identity wasn’t a secret.

Rich Myers had been a ranch hand Zane hired last fall. He was handsome, mannerly, and charming, which is why Becky had considered him a potential Honey Bee. But as soon as he got her alone, his charm and manners had flown right out his truck window. He’d turned into an overbearing jerk who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

It had taken a hard knee to the groin to get him to release her. When Zane found out she’d walked home after their date, he’d fired Rich the next day and sent him packing. She thought that would be the last of the man. But he had turned out to be persistent. He continued to ask her out with flowers and gifts. At first it was just annoying. But recently, it had started feeling kind of creepy to find her truck filled with flowers, stuffed animals, and love poems pieced together with words clipped out of a magazine like a kidnapper’s random note. And Becky didn’t like feeling scared. She didn’t like it at all.

Since Rich couldn’t have run off that quickly after ringing the doorbell, she figured he was hiding somewhere nearby. She went down the porch steps and jerked opened the door of her truck. The teddy bear toppled right out at her boots. She didn’t pick it up. Instead, she stomped the shit out of it, ripping a hole in its nose and cracking both plastic eyes. And when the thing looked like it had been violently assaulted at the teddy bear picnic, she kicked it into the middle of the road.

“Listen up, Rich,” she yelled. “If you don’t leave me alone, I’m going to do the same thing to you that I did to this bear. Now get off my property before I call the sheriff!”