She Really Should’ve Used the Door

An except from Coveted by the Cowboy - Releasing April 21, 2026

TESSA

I hike a leg over the window ledge and lower myself to my belly, shimmying out the window backwards. For half a second I let myself grin, a little thrill unfurling in my chest as I wiggle my hips and start to ease down.

And then my jeans snag on something sharp, and my foot slips off the trellis.

Shit!

I plunge toward the ground.

Or I would, if not for the arm that snakes around my waist and yanks me against something solid.

Warm. Strong.

And very, very male.

I go still, heart slamming against my ribs. Right before a slow, familiar drawl slices clean through me.

“Well, well. Looks like your Catwoman skills are as rusty as ever, Bishop.”

My heart stumbles. God, no.

I glare up at the last man on earth I wanted to catch me with my ass hanging out a window, mid-escape. Literally.

Trick freaking Montgomery stands there, calm as you please, while the memories he just dug up without permission trigger a landslide inside me.

The second my feet hit the over-manicured lawn, I release the fistfuls of his shirt I grabbed on instinct and jerk back fast enough to trip over air.

Of course he’d bring up that Halloween.

The one where I foolishly climbed the massive oak tree beside old man Dupree’s haunted shack to prove I was Catwoman-level fearless. The one where I broke my arm falling out of the damn thing.

The one where Trick scooped me up before I could cry and carried me all the way to the vet clinic because it was closer than home, and he wasn’t about to make me wait for help.

I was ten. He was twelve. I loved him for exactly four more years before I discovered the only thing Trick Montgomery loved more than working with the prized horses his family trained, was making my life difficult.

Trick chuckles like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. “Still got that scar?” he asks, head tilted just enough that his Stetson casts his eyes in shadow, but I can feel them raking over me anyway.

Those stormy blue eyes framed by dark lashes that go a little too well with the dark hair curling slightly at the edges beneath the brim of his hat. His square jaw still looks carved from mountain stone, and the scruff dusting it only makes him look more like the kind of man you want to fight with and then climb like a tree.

“I’m not having this conversation,” I snap, brushing invisible dirt off my thighs. “Put me down.”

“I did.”

Right. “Then go away.”

His grin widens, all lazy menace. “Not until you tell me what’s in your back pocket.”

Coveted by the Cowboy releases April 21, 2026. ARC copies available on Book Sprout for a limited time.

Love, Sydney