Keep Calm and Cowboy: Sons of Country, #2

By Autumn Piper

If love is friendship set on fire, sex between best friends is a torch to tinder.

In second grade, he asked her to be his girlfriend. She said yes, and that was the end of that.

Keep calm and help a girl out:

Fourteen years of friendship later, Colin relishes living up to his reputation as a player, until fooling around takes priority over his grades. Losing his scholarship gets him booted out of college and lands him back home on the ranch with some strongly worded advice from his dad about staying away from women. Speaking of women, though… He's barely ever noticed his childhood pal Violet is female, let alone one he'd like to get horizontal with, but now that he's back, he can't seem to think of anything else.

Keep calm and learn from the best:

When none of her relationships move past first base, Violet knows she's doing something wrong. Lucky for her, Colin the Casanova is back in town. He seems like a natural choice to tutor her, until she realizes he's the only guy she's ever wanted to get physical with. Too bad they agreed they'll go back to being friends once her final exam is over.

Openly dating would destroy both of their reputations and break up their group of friends, so they have to finish this ride through the last lesson, then keep calm and cope. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Autumn Piper
• Release date: Aug 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393141396

Autumn Piper

Born and raised in itty-bitty Rifle, Colorado, Autumn Piper studiously avoided trouble…but is now inclined toward it, particularly in her novels. She thinks the best things in life are funny, and the runners-up, romantic. An admitted carb addict, Autumn writes, edits, and cares for her two grown kids, a cat, a box turtle with a huge personality, one husband and many supersize houseplants, and does the cooking and cleaning when forced to.

Book preview

Keep Calm and... Cowboy

Everyone knows his area of expertise falls squarely between the sheets, but nobody knows his best friend just asked him for a crash course in all things sex.

Keep calm and focus.

Colin relishes living up to his reputation as a player, until his fooling around affects his grades. Losing his scholarship gets him booted out of college and lands him back home on the ranch with some strongly worded advice from his dad about staying away from women. Speaking of women, though... He’s barely ever noticed his childhood pal Violet is female, let alone one he’d like to get horizontal with, but now that he’s back, he can’t seem to think of anything else.

Keep calm and learn from the best.

When none of her relationships move past first base, Violet guesses she must be doing something wrong. Lucky for her, Colin the Casanova is back in town. He seems like a natural choice to tutor her, until she realizes he’s the only guy she’s ever wanted to get physical with. Too bad they agreed they’ll go back to being friends once the final exam is over....

Dedication

For all those best friends in love.

Chapter 1

Pins clattered, balls rumbled down lanes, and voices competed to be heard over Wagon Wheel pumping through the sound system. Colin Wilson blinked at the shock of the overhead fluorescents and looked around the bowling alley for his crew. A group of emo-looking kids were playing pool while some skater punks had control of the air hockey table and a middle-school birthday party was in progress in the seating area. Several adults in the bar area wore straight-from-the-corral western wear, one lady was ready for a night on the town in a sequined top and black slacks, and the others wore just about everything in between. Lots of shorty-shorts on the girls. Well, it was July. And this was Rifle, Colorado, where pretty much anything went.

As he made a beeline for the shoe counter, Darius Rucker wound down and a Drake song came on, which caused the middle school girls to whoop and start singing along. Yep, he was definitely home.

Like it or not.

A pimply kid handed Colin his size 13 shoes with raised brows. While he waited for his change, Colin spied his friends at Lane 10. Damn. He liked 12 best, way at the end. Having a wall on the right just felt better, but looked like tonight they’d have bowlers on both sides. Which meant he’d have to step up his game in order to beat Joel. He pocketed his change with a thanks to the kid, grabbed his shoes off the counter and made for Lane 10.

Group of cuties bowling on Lane 9. Probably just high school kids, but it wouldn’t be a hardship to have something nice to look at between turns, give Joel a royal bowling ass-stomping, trade insults with the guys...maybe being home wouldn’t be so bad. And now he was old enough to drink. Looked like they’d already started working on a pitcher of beer. A Friday night in Rifle at its finest.

Bout damn time! Tristin yelled when he got close.

Yeah, you forget the way here, or what? Dylan asked, stepping up to give him a one-armed pat on the shoulder.

Tristin fist-bumped him while Joel bowled a strike. Damn it. Already.

A quick glance up at the score board and he saw they’d just started their practice rolls. Also...the scorekeeper was set up for five bowlers. Which was only natural.

Colin looked around. Where’s Violet?

Dylan shrugged. Doc Gray’s wife went out of town because their daughter’s having her baby this weekend. So ‘Olet has to do double duty and be the vet tech and the front desk lady too.

They’re still open at seven? He couldn’t believe a vet’s office kept that sort of hours.

Nah. Joel strutted over for a hello fist-bump. She had to walk the kenneled dogs after they had some emergency walk-in at five. What? He looked around at the other guys. You don’t care about hanging with the rest of us?

Truthfully, meeting up with the guys felt like slipping into his favorite old jeans—easy and comfortable. I’m just ready to get started bowling. And besides, we won’t look so lame if there’s at least one chick with us.

"Chick. Tristin shook his head. Since when is Vi a chick?"

The other guys agreed with curled lips and the general looks of disgust that first-grade boys on the playground would make if somebody asked them to hold a girl’s hand.

Damn. Dylan shook his head and punched Colin’s shoulder. You have been gone a long time if you think Vi’s a girl.

Well, he had been home during breaks from school, and he’d only been in school for two years, but sometimes that university had felt a million miles away from his life here as a ranch kid. Even if he really had only been an hour away. But time and distance wouldn’t make him think of Violet as a girly girl. She was one of the guys, able to keep up with the rest of them. And like a true guy-friend, if the crazy stunt they’d dreamed up seemed dangerous or idiotic, she never tried to talk them out of it. No, not Vi. She’d whip out her phone and take pictures or video.

His left knee suddenly buckled and he realized too late that someone had kicked it from behind. The guys laughed around him while he did a head-to-toe wave like one of those gas station blow-up clown things. Shithead who’d done that to him was going to pay. He dropped the bowling shoes with a couple of solid thunks on a chair and whirled to confront the jokester.

Vi gave him a smart smirk. Well, well. Once a cowboy, always a cowboy, huh? She looked him up and down, acting like he was no more than she’d have expected.

Cowboy? He had on what he