One Night with a Cowboy (Paint River Ranch) (Entangled Indulgence) by Elizabeth Otto

Tucker turned off the main drive onto a dirt path marked through the grass by the width of tire tracks. They drove farther away from Paint River and deeper into the completely untamed landscape Tucker’s heart belonged to. The path narrowed until they were driving on nothing but unmarked land. The mountain towered on the horizon, a constant navy-gray mass. As they drove, the open land began to close as pine trees dotted the space and the grasses grew taller.
    Her gaze was all over the landscape with an appreciation that made his chest swell with pride. The remarkable differences in the land, from city, to flat lands, to rolling hills, to primitive mountain peaks, still took his breath away.
    “Where are we going?” she asked with a look out the rear window.
    “Somewhere you’ll never forget.” A couple minutes later, the truck sliced through a path in the trees and into a space where the ground got softer, the woods thinner, and a pristine river drew a ribbon down the side of the mountain. The water flowed across a stretch of flat land before them and interrupted the road. Sophie straightened, her mouth gaping a little. Tucker smiled. The river was impressive, yes, but that wasn’t the cause of her sudden smile.
    “Wow!” Sophie reached for the handle as soon as he stopped the truck, throwing the door open and hopping down before he’d even gotten his seat belt off. She leaned her butt against the front of the Chevy, arms crossed, genuine amazement on her face as she sized up the bridge making a gentle arch over the river. Tucker moved next to her, hands in his pockets to keep from touching her.
    “The floor needs a little work, but we can walk inside if you want.” He gestured with his head and they walked over, side by side. The covered bridge was over a hundred years old, and as far as Tucker knew, the only bridge like it in the state. The waterway below was fed by Paint River, which gave the Haywoods a roundabout connection to the bridge, one they’d used to fuel their secret upkeep of the bridge’s supports, roof, and floor over the last ten years. Peeling red boards lined the exterior walls and the roof was topped with row after row of weather-gray cedar shake shingles. It was a one-lane, forty-foot structure whose presence was all but forgotten. Locals barely remembered it was there and, with no clear markings to its whereabouts, tourists usually only happened upon it after getting lost.
    Both were fine with Tucker. In the rare moments they were able to escape their father and the ranch, Tucker, his brothers, and Jaxon would ride their bikes the five miles here, fishing poles strapped to their backs, to poke around in the water and play pirates inside the bridge. That others rarely came this way made it all the better for four rowdy boys with overactive imaginations to do whatever the hell they wanted. Someone usually ended up getting thrown overboard into the water; Levi mostly. Tucker shook his head at the memory as they stepped into the opening of the bridge. Levi had been a scrawny kid; how he’d survived so many “accidental” falls off the bridge was a miracle.
    Tucker showed her the safest path to follow and Sophie went ahead, trailing her fingers on the worn and cracked wood as she walked close to the wall. Above, intricately placed beams intersected each other to create a running V-shaped roof support while cross beams lined the walls to support the separated lower and upper halves. She paused in the middle, leaned over the waist-high rail to look at the river below.
    “What’s it called?” She looked sideways at him, her face radiant. It damn near took his breath away.
    Tucker blinked.“Hmmm?”
    “The bridge. Does it have a name? When I visited a friend out East the covered bridges there were named.”
    He moved next to her, leaned his back against the wall with his elbows on the rail. “Nope, not as far as I know.” Daylight was threatening to fade from the accumulating storm clouds