There was a deep chuckle from him that made me want to smile in return. This brother was clearly the easiest going of the three. I decided I liked him the best.
“It was the ‘not real cowboys’ crack. Cy gets touchy about people from the city coming here with preconceived notions about what the west is like, and about what it takes to survive out there in the mountains. We get a lot of weekend warriors who think they can take the wilderness on, and they end up being a pain in the ass for the entire ride. He’s protective over the land and our lifestyle, so it’s hard for him to let outsiders in, even if that’s how we make our living. Not all cowboys wear ten-gallon hats and have Sam Elliott mustaches. Cy has never dressed the part, even when we were younger. Trust me, you are far from the first person to book an excursion with us and end up underwhelmed when we didn’t show up dressed like a character out of the Hateful Eight.”
I sighed and shot him a look out of the corner of my eye. “I don’t know how you even heard that.” I was so sure I whispered it low enough so that only Emrys could hear me.
“You’re used to city noise and the sounds that come from being in such a crowded place covering up what you don’t want people to hear. In the great wide open, there isn’t anything to hide behind and all sound carries. You get used to saying what you mean out here and you learn real quick that words are permanent. You can try and take them back but they always linger.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” I tilted my head to the side and asked him, “If you and Sutton are the ones who guide the trips, what does Mr. Personality do . . . other than intimidate and berate the paying guests?” I wasn’t sure why I was curious about the most unpleasant of the brothers. But I had a lot of questions and it was all I could do to keep from blurting them out all at once.
Another laugh, and this time I did smile back at him. Up close and without the shadow from his hat hiding his face, I could see he was more than passably attractive like I first thought. Lane was much younger and his eyes were much more blue than gray. He had a similar jawline and the cut of his cheekbones matched his older brother, but this guy was handsome in a more approachable, accessible way. Lane Warner also had a dimple in one cheek when he grinned, which made him downright adorable in my book. I didn’t know if real cowboys had dimples, but I decided they all should if it was going to make them look as good as this one did. Lane had the kind of easy good looks that would appeal to any and every woman under the sun, while his older brother had the kind of brooding intensity and harshly hewn good looks that appealed to women who wanted something special, something unforgettable and impossible to overlook.
“Mr. Personality . . . Cy would lose his shit if he knew that’s what you were calling him. He usually avoids the guests for that very reason. He always shows up when guests arrive and he hangs around to make sure everyone is paying attention when we go over the rules and regulations for the week, but after that, he goes back to running the ranch and all the other businesses he’s got his hands in. Sutton and I do the grunt work but Cy is the brains behind the operation. He took over the ranch a few years ago when things got tough with my old man, health-wise. The guided tours and adventure vacations were his idea. When he was in college, all his buddies used to want to come home with him when they were on break so they could ride and camp out in the woods. Cy took something as simple as his college buddies hanging out and having a good time and turned it into a business plan. Since you paid to be here, you know how profitable the venture has been for us. He saved the ranch and gave my dad an easy last couple of years so our old man didn’t have to worry about us his last few years.”
It was more information than I asked for, but it was valuable insight into the man who had both annoyed me and intrigued me from the get-go. The younger man spoke with obvious pride when he talked about his older sibling, which made me smile at him; however, my smile died when we reached the cabin and the grumpy brother—who looked less like the one I was fascinated with—shoved open the door and dropped Emrys’s bag with a loud ‘thud’ on the floor. Sutton tipped his chin at her and then swept past us until he was at the bottom of the steps. He was tall and broad like his older brother but his eyes were green, nowhere near blue or gray. The downturn of his mouth and the furrow between his eyes made him appear sulky and moody, rather than brooding and intense like his older sibling. He was still an outrageously attractive young man, one that I noticed Emrys couldn’t seem to quit staring at. Considering I was in my own mental funk and had an unshakable cloud of piss-poor attitude hovering over my head, I had no time or interest in his sour disposition or the cause behind it. Lane put my bag down far more gently, gave me a rueful grin, then he touched the tip of his fingers to the brim of his ball cap.
“Working with family is never boring, that’s for sure. You ladies are going to have a great trip. Just leave it to me.”
The brothers disappeared as Emrys swung the door shut and turned on me with a swish of perfect hair and the narrowing of her captivating, dark eyes.
“You are too much, you know that, right?” She was pissed and I couldn’t find fault with her feeling that way.
“I’m sorry, okay? I really didn’t think anyone but you could hear me or that me pointing out the obvious would be considered fighting words.”
She tapped her foot, which was encased in a far more appropriate leather riding boot, and huffed out an annoyed breath.