Myla Jackson: Snippet Saturday: Circle in the Sand (Warm Weather)

Billionaire Husband Test
(Billionaire Online Dating System)
by Elle James (aka Myla Jackson)

Blurb
The first book in the Billionaire Online Dating Service Series.

Skeptical billionaire takes a risk on a friend's online dating service and finds the cowgirl of his dreams, now he only has to convince her that he's her perfect match

Billionaire Online Dating Service. It's new, it's exclusive. Let's test it!

How did Billionaire Cooper Johnson allow himself to get roped into testing a brand new online dating system? After making a fortune day-trading stocks, he's on track to accomplish all his life goals, except marriage and a family. As a billionaire, meeting the right woman is a minefield of gold-diggers, false eyelashes and surgically enhanced women. The Billionaire Online Dating Service matches hand-picked, screened clientele with the mates of their dreams. Or so the package was sold. As a favor for a friend, Cooper finds himself on the Rockin' J Ranch confronting his "date's" four tough looking cowboy brothers. When their girl-next-door, long, tall, gorgeous sister steps out on the porch, Cooper doesn't know whether to run to her or away. One date, that's all he's signed up for and he can be out of there. Or will one date be enough?

She had everything—a fiancé, a great future, love...until she lost it all

Still mourning the loss of her fiancé who died two years ago, Emma Jacobs can't imagine loving anyone else. But her four brothers won't quit pushing men her way. In a desperate attempt to throw her brothers off her back, she engages her friend's dating service to find a pasty-faced businessman sure to fail her brothers' husband criteria. Maybe then her brothers will finally back off and leave her alone.

Best laid plans tend to blow up in Emma's face. When her date turns out to be everything her brothers are looking for in a husband for Emma, she's got a bigger problem than she started out with. She lets Cooper in on her plan to have him date and dump her. Surprisingly he goes along with it. But Cooper has plans of his own. And they don't involve dumping the determined, sexy, independent cowgirl.

Note: Make a stop at Myla Jackson's Ugly Stick Saloon in this story and say hi to old friends.

Excerpt

For the first hour, Emma wanted to laugh at how her brothers put Cooper through his paces. They left him the heaviest bales and cracked crude jokes, perfectly playing the part of obnoxious country rednecks. She hadn't expected Cooper, a man who traded stock for a living, to last four minutes, much less four hours under the wilting heat and back-breaking work. But he'd hung in with the others, working just as hard and long. When he'd pulled off his shirt and Emma almost ran over a hay bale, she realized she might be in trouble. He wasn't at all what she'd wanted Leslie to send.

For a man who made his living behind a desk, he didn't have an ounce of flab and his chest was solid, tanned and positively drool-worthy.

Damn. If he didn't watch it, he'd earn a nod from her brothers and that wasn't the point of this whole exercise. Emma wanted this guy to run scared and for her brothers to rule him out as husband material. By the time they headed back to the barn, the men were all on first-name basis. Cooper laughed and joked right along with her brothers. She had to admit, she admired the man—for sticking it out, and for a lot of other things she'd been working hard for the past three hours to forget—pecs, arms, abs...

Out on the range, Emma wished she'd had reception on her cell phone. She'd have called Leslie and chewed her out for sabotaging her efforts to get her brothers off her back. Instead, she'd sat, stewing in her juices behind the steering wheel as she pulled into the barnyard.

When she climbed out of the truck and faced Cooper, who still had his shirt off, she forced herself to look away. "Thanks," she said.

"Yeah, thanks. We got that done a lot faster with your help." Ace pounded Cooper's back.

"Didn't think a stock trader had it in him, but you proved me wrong." Dillon slapped his cowboy hat against his dusty leg. "You're all right in my books."

Colton nodded. "Yup, you got a keeper there, Emma."

"Don't screw it up." Brand gave Emma a hug.

"Geez, Brand, you stink." Emma pushed him away, realizing she would have to do a lot more to convince her brothers this was the wrong man. She cocked her brows upward and gazed into Cooper's face, trying to act natural, knowing she was about to set him up for the fall. Literally. Hell, desperate times called for desperate measures. "Up for that picnic now?"

Cooper glanced down at his naked chest, gleaming with sweat. "I could do with a shower."

"Got one better than that." Emma went in for the first kill. "I'd planned on taking you to a little pool on Willow Creek where we could swim and enjoy the lunch Mrs. Fuentez packed.”

“That’s a great idea.” Dillon grinned. “Especially after sweating in the field. Who’s in?”

Ace backhanded Dillon in the gut. “I think they’d enjoy it better just the two of them.”

Cooper's lips twisted and he scrubbed a hand through his sweaty hair. “I didn’t bring a swimsuit.”

With an eyebrow arched, Emma smiled. “Swimsuits aren’t required.” She flounced away, her smile widening. “I’ll collect the food.” That would get her brothers’ dander up. Though she was twenty-five years old, they still treated her like the kid sister who had to be protected and coddled.

Skinny-dipping with a stranger should have all of their brotherly warning bells pinging.