The fun and flirty second installment in Lia Riley’s fantastic Brightwater series.

Sometimes two wrongs can make a right…

Bad boy wrangler, Archer Kane, lives fast and loose. Words like responsibility and commitment send him running in the opposite direction. Until a wild Vegas weekend puts him on a collision course with Eden Bankcroft-Kew, a New York heiress running away from her blackmailing fiancé…the morning of her wedding.

Eden has never understood the big attraction to cowboys. Give her a guy in a tailored suit any day of the week. But now all she can think about is Mr. Rugged Handsome, six-feet of sinfully sexy country charm with a pair of green eyes that keeps her tossing and turning all night long.

Archer might be the wrong guy for a woman like her, but she’s not right in thinking he’ll walk away without fighting for her heart. And maybe, just maybe, two wrongs can make a right.

In fairness, Brightwater, California, didn’t host a large population. For a healthy man who liked the ladies, it didn’t take long to make the rounds at The Dirty Shame, the local watering hole. Vegas getaways meant variety, a chance to spice things up, although a threesome with Crystal and Donna—Deborah? Deena? Dazzle?—was akin to swallowing a whole habanero.

He reached into the shower and flicked on the tap as a warm furry body hopped across his foot. “Shit!” He vaulted back, nearly going ass over teakettle, before bracing himself on the counter. A bewildered white rabbit peered up, nose twitching.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He squinted into the steam with increased suspicion. Hopefully, Crystal’s act didn’t also involve a baby crocodile or, worse, a boa constrictor. He hated snakes.

The coast was clear so he stepped inside, the hot water sending him halfway to human. There was a tiny bottle of hotel shampoo perched in the soap dish and he gave it a dubious sniff. It smelled like flowers but would do the job of rinsing away stale perfume and sex. He worked a dollop through his thick hair, shoulder muscles relaxing.

He’d always prided himself on being the kind of good-time guy who held no regrets, but lately it seemed like there was a difference between dwelling on past mistakes and reflecting in order to avoid future ones. Did he really want to live out these shallow morning-after scenarios forever like some warped version of Groundhog Day?

The hair on the back of his neck tingled with the unmistakable sensation of being watched. He swiped suds from his eyes and turned, nearly nose-to-nose with the blank stare of the old-man ventriloquist’s dummy.

“Fuck,” he barked, any better word lost in shock.

“Great Uncle Sam don’t like it when menfolk cuss,” the dummy responded in a deep, Southern drawl. Other than the puppet on her hand, Dixie-Dorothy-Darby wore nothing but a suggestive smile.

“Uh … morning, beautiful.” Thank God for matching dimples, they’d charmed him out of enough bad situations.

“No one’s ever made me come so hard.” The puppet’s mustache bobbed as he spoke and more of last night’s drunken jigsaw puzzle snapped into place. Desdemona-Diana-Doris had gone on (and on) about her dream of becoming a professional ventriloquist. She’d brought out the puppet and made Great Uncle Sam talk dirty, which had been hilarious after Tequila Slammers, Snake Bites, Buttery Nipples, and 5 Deadly Venoms, plus a few bottles of champagne.

It was a whole lot less funny now.

“Hey, D, would you mind giving me a sec here? I’m going to finish rinsing off.” When in doubt, he always referred to a woman by her first initial, it made him sound affectionate instead of like an asshole.

“D?” rumbled Great Uncle Sam.

Damn. Apparently an initial wasn’t going to cut it.

Okay think … Dinah? No. Two rocks glinted from her lobes—a possible namesake. “Diamond?”

Great Uncle Sam slowly shook his head. Maybe it was Archer’s imagination, but the painted eyes narrowed fractionally. “Stormy.”

And so was her expression.

Not even close.

“Stormy?” he repeated blankly. “Yeah, Stormy, of course. Gorgeous name. Makes me think of rain and … and … rainbows … and …”

“You called it out enough last night, the least you could do is be a gentleman and remember it the next morning!” Great Uncle Sam head-butted him.

Add splitting headache to his current list of troubles.

Archer scrambled from the shower before he got his bare ass taken down by a puppet. You don’t fight back against a woman, even if she is trying to bash your brain in with Pinocchio’s demented elderly uncle.

Lia Riley writes offbeat New Adult and Contemporary Adult romance. After studying at the University of Montana-Missoula, she scoured the world armed only with a backpack, overconfidence and a terrible sense of direction. She counts shooting vodka with a Ukranian mechanic in Antarctica, sipping yerba mate with gauchos in Chile and swilling XXXX with stationhands in Outback Australia among her accomplishments.

A British literature fanatic at heart, Lia considers Mr. Darcy and Edward Rochester as her fictional boyfriends. Her very patient husband doesn’t mind. Much. When not torturing heroes (because c’mon, who doesn’t love a good tortured hero?), Lia herds unruly chickens, camps, beach combs, daydreams about future books, wades through a mile-high TBR pile and schemes yet another trip. Right now, Icelandic hot springs and Scottish castles sound mighty fine.

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