Nervous to hit send: Enemies-to-lovers Daddy energy

Hey there, Foxy—

I’m nervous hitting send on this, so I’m just going to be honest with you.

I’m deep in the second version of WRANGLER, and the rough draft is already 150,000+ words. It’s big and (in the best way) completely taking over my brain.

Here’s what I’m aiming for:

• Book 1 starts a couple decades after the holiday prequel (In case you didn't get your copy, here is a link: https://BookHip.com/NWMLVLF 
• I want the FMC to be in her 40s
• I’m still deciding if Wrangler should be her age… or a little older
• This is cowboy (Love on the Lost Coast!!!) enemies-to-lovers with Daddy Dom energy—sinful tension, sharp banter, and that good girl dynamic.
• This is also the first book I’ve written since my husband passed, so finishing it feels personal in a way I didn’t expect.

If you have a minute, I’d love your feedback on Chapter One—especially:

• Did it hook you right away?
• Do you like Wyatt's voice?
• Does the enemies-to-lovers tension hit?
• And do you want Wrangler the same age… or a little older?

Hit reply and tell me what you think. I’m genuinely listening.

XO,
Olivia Fox

PS: Quick heads-up: Wrangler special edition planning has begun. This weekend I’ll post the Kevin R. Davis photo options so you can help me choose.

Jasmine’s Journal — Two Years Earlier
A Year After You’ve Been Gone

This week I’ve been watching Ozark. I tell myself it’s just to pass the time, but really I’m just trying to avoid the quiet, the empty space you left behind. Well, at least I wasn’t born in the backwoods of Arkansas with a felon for a dad I tell myself. At least the Cartel isn’t after me. But you—you aren’t here.

I can go a while, nose to the grindstone, focusing on other stuff. Eventually, missing you gets too bad. I have to look at your photos again, watch videos of you (don’t have enough of those), and read your texts. Then I miss you even more, and the sadness hits and takes me out.

I found your hairbrush downstairs, in the bathroom, and it still smells like you. It’s the only thing left that does. I put it by my bed so I can breathe you in before I fall asleep, and let your scent follow me into my dreams.

Cowboy Courier First Dispatch

Calling All Baby Girls

Calling All Baby Girls

The fog rolling off the Lost Coast this season is thick enough to hide a body.

Some families in town are happy to keep their history buried in Resting Pastures cemetery. Others? They’ve built an empire on what never gets said out loud—brothers bound by something far more dangerous than blood.

Whispers keep circling Paradise Ranch. After years of locked gates and closed mouths, they’ve opened the entrance—just a sliver. Wide enough to call it an invitation.

And an order dressed up as an invitation is exactly what it is. Because rumor has it a tryout is brewing—quietly, deliberately—less “county fair” and more an invite only — the kind of thing certain cities call luxury and small towns call a sin. The kind that comes with rules, consequences… and a signed NDA designed to keep the wrong people out and the right people silent.

Word is it isn’t just about filling rooms. It’s about bringing the right women to Cowboy Cove.

They’re looking for a a very specific kind of woman:

A woman who runs her own life who’s tired of being in control.

A woman who pretends she doesn’t want the right man’s permission… until someone finally gives it.

A woman brave enough to risk her heart.

But understand this: the ranch doesn’t invite strangers in for charity. And once you step across that threshold, you won’t be the only one keeping secrets.

Paradise might be real.

The question is whether you can survive it—especially when the men who run it decide you belong to them.

Until the next revelation,

Your Watchful Correspondent

—CCC (Cowboy Cove Courier)

Chapter 1: Wyatt, It's Hard to Keep a Blanket on the Naked Truth

I bang my phone onto the scarred kitchen table—sharp as a gunshot. My jaw’s clenched so tight my teeth ache.

Which of my five fool brothers leaked our so-called shortlist to the wrong pretty face—and why the hell would he hand it to her?

Truth is, it’s short because we’re running out of options. Which is exactly why I’m riding to Jasmine La Costa: not because I want her opinion, but because I need it—someone sharp enough to turn a handful of possibilities into a real list before this whole thing dies on the vine.

The courier all but tattooed “Sullivan” on the invite and it’s the last kind of attention Paradise Ranch needs. My phone buzzes again—

Sheriff Raines: Call me. Now.

I fire off a group text to my brothers: Lock the gates. Answer your phones. Who talked?

If the sheriff’s calling, we’re already behind the public relations ball.

Bacon, pancakes, fried eggs—coffee. I take a draw of jet fuel and curse the Courier.

I clamp down on my temper as Gabe walks in. He didn’t write the damn Courier.

Gabe shuffles into the kitchen, looking like he’s been trampled by his own groupies. I hand him a mug, and slide him a plate of food when he finally makes it to the counter.

He groans, rubbing his eyes. “You ever try contending with a crowd of drunk tourists who think the band ‘Rider’ is their personal jukebox? I’d rather break a wild colt than play ‘Neon Moon’ ever again.”

I say, “But you always come home between gigs. Can’t stay away from the Cove, can you?”

He shrugs, makes a satisfied "ahh" sound after swigging his coffee. “Horses don’t care if you’re famous. Besides, someone’s gotta keep the barn from falling apart.”

I lean back, watching him over the rim of my cup, choosing my next words carefully. “Given any thought to the tryout now that you’re back in town?” The words leave my mouth, measured, their weight hanging in the space between us like steam curling from a mug.

Gabe lifts one eyebrow, habitual gleam in his eyes. It’s the unmistakable mark of a born troublemaker, he’s always been the rowdiest of our band of brothers. “That dog won’t hunt,” he says. “Not easy to entice new blood to a place like Cowboy Cove. How do you reckon you’ll find women inclined to move here? The closest department store is hundreds of miles away.”

I grin. “It’s not for me, it’s all of us. It’s time you all settled down with women who get the kind of unique connection Sullivan men are offering. And you’re right, not everyone’s cut out for it.”

He takes a long sip, then sets his mug down. “You mean women who can hold their own, but aren’t afraid to let a cowboy take the reins when it counts.”

“Exactly,” I say. “We want women who will see Cowboy Cove as a place to build something real—open a shop, find their people swapping stories by the bonfire at the Sand & Spurs Roundup, or….” I can’t find the words to say what I’m thinking.

Gabe smirks. “You mean the kind who’d see past the cowboy hats and figure out there’s more on the menu than barbecue and line dancing.” He glances at me as I stare out the window, coffee warming my hands. “You think this tryout is gonna work?”

I roll my shoulders and wince, the memory of yesterday’s fence work still knotted deep in my muscles. Middle age makes a cowboy’s shoulders pay for every task in dull, nagging aches. A familiar throb settles into my bones as I watch the fog burn away from the pasture, rising steady and stubborn.

I meet his gaze. "We're looking for women who need what we provide—rules, routine, and a man who won’t let a woman drown in the bad days." At least, I was looking on behalf of my brothers. It was time they settled down. Time I did too, but I didn’t need to go any further than Cowboy Cove to find the woman I planned to make mine.

Hell, she already is mine in my head—in every way except the one that counted.

Gabe lets out a rough, short laugh and grazes the back of his neck with his hand. “Not exactly the kind of thing you put in a brochure.”
I let the silence do the work.

Gabe falls silent, his gaze going distant. Then he gives a relaxed nod and says, “I don’t mean the ones who like the idea of it. The fantasy. The ones who say they want control, but flinch the second it’s real.”

He pauses, eyes steady now, voice still low, “I mean the kind who hears the word ‘Daddy’ and doesn’t giggle or perform.”

Then, quieter he says, “When you cross paths with one who craves it the same way,” he says, “it fits.”

My grip tightens on the mug. When it’s real, you don’t have to ask twice.

He’s right. One man craving this kind of bond is rare. Five brothers? That’s a hunger that doesn’t tame easy.

Gabe sips his coffee, a small smile tugging at his mouth.

I chuckle. “Hopefully, this tryout draws the right women—open-minded enough to see Cowboy Cove has more to offer than wide-open spaces.”

He laughs, shaking his head. “You’re a damn fool, Wyatt. But if anyone can pull it off, it’s you.”

I shrug, letting the tension roll off my shoulders as best I can, but the truth settles heavy in my chest.

I can’t do this alone. My brothers are all swagger and charm, convinced a wink and a smile can fix anything. The regulars at our private venues—scattered from Seattle to Sonoma—are too deep in that world to notice what needs fixing.

I need someone who won’t sugarcoat a damn thing—someone with enough grit to tell me when I’m about to drive this whole thing straight off a cliff.

Jasmine La Costa.

If I don’t get to Jasmine first—before the Courier pings her phone—I’ll lose the only ally I might be able to buy with a paycheck.

Of course, she’s also the last person I should be asking for a favor. The woman basically hates my guts.

I start running through how I’ll pitch it. If I focus on the potential benefits for Cowboy Cove—like boosting the economy and enhancing the social scene with more female proprietors—she might agree to it. She’s the one person who possibly loves this place as much as I do.

I shove my hat on my head and march for the door. She needs the money but is too proud to ask for it. The only way she’ll take it from me is if I’m paying her for a job.

If that damn gossip rag ruins my shot before I even get to her door, I swear, I’ll—

I stop myself. No use getting riled up before the day’s even started. If I’m going to make this work—I’ll need Jasmine’s candor even if it comes with a tongue as sharp and stinging as the nettles that line her overgrown driveway.

It’s well past dawn when I climb into the saddle and let the world shrink down to the rhythm of my horse’s hooves. The air is sharp, laced with the scent of rain waiting to fall.

At this hour, the world thins out, everything stripped down to bare bones and quiet. The horizon is nothing but a bleeding apricot line between the trees and gray sky, and birds greet the morning with soft, melodic calls that fill the air.

Dense cloud creeps up the mountain, like a man’s hand sliding under a woman’s skirt. A dog’s bark cuts the silence.

I shift in the saddle, boots braced in the stirrups, one hand steady on the horn while the other loosens the reins. My gelding twitches beneath me, eager to run, but I keep him in check and scan the treeline.

Today, I don’t want to see her—I have to.

I stick to the fence line on the north boundary, where Paradise Ranch slams into the last stretch of the Benson property—now mine. Her place borders mine now—Benson’s old north strip I bought last year.

Too much land for one man? That’s what folks whisper. But I bought this Benson patch for one reason and one reason only: to keep a watchful eye on her.

She’s widowed before her time, out here alone, and still refuses to give up her place and move closer to town.

Jasmine’s property used to be landscaped all the way from the wild willow line down by the creek, but after her husband, David, got sick, she let the back acres go.

I pat my gelding's neck and ease him forward, scanning the slope for the woman I can’t quit. My lungs lock, and my dick’s ramming the cantle of my saddle — it's got a mind of its own and always acts this way around her.

As I navigate my horse carefully through a narrow strip where the underbrush is thick with alder, hiding me from sight, I tell myself that this morning will be different. That when I see her, she’ll smile at me when I dismount, and stride up to her with some fabricated excuse about fence repairs or stray cattle just to hear her voice. Even if it is laced with venom.

The side of me that wears a cowboy's pride like armor scoffs at the plan. Jasmine La Costa is no damsel in need of rescue, and certainly not by me. But another part—a rawer, less reasoned slice of my soul—clutches at the possibility like a life raft.

It wasn’t always like this. Back when we were still young, in a haze of hormones, and there was only laughter between us. Now she regards me with a stare icy enough to cause freezer burn, full of things said that we can’t take back. There’s history here— that ancient land deal, though it happened long ago, still sits between us like a loaded gun.

Now with the tryout on the horizon, I finally have a reason to cross that distance.

Some barriers are meant to keep cattle in. Others keep people apart.

A branch snaps somewhere up ahead, sharp as a rifle crack in the still morning. I turn the horse in a half circle, scanning the pale light, my pulse thumping harder than I’d like to admit. It’s early enough that mountain lions could still be on the prowl—these hills don’t belong to men at this hour. I ease my gelding forward, senses strung tight, and that’s when I spot her.

Air sticks in my throat as I edge closer. Through the mist, her silhouette sharpens. I nudge my horse closer, forcing a casual greeting, “You working this early, La Costa?”

Startled, she turns, eyes flashing, lips ready with a bite. “What the fuck are you doing on my land?”

I bite back the urge to remind her this patch is mine now—seems like waving a red flag at a bull. So I stand there, letting her wrath roll over me, hands steady at my sides, and wait for the next shot to land.

“Easy, Foxglove,” I say, low and calm, the way you’d talk to a spooked horse.

Her glare cuts like barbed wire. “Don’t call me that!” she snaps, every muscle in her body coiled tight. The dogs bristle at her tone. I tip my hat and let a grin twitch at my mouth, because Hell—she’s never been more beautiful than when she’s ready to strike.

She stalks closer, boots crunching in the grass, and I can feel the heat rolling off her, anger and something else tangled up beneath. “You got a death wish, Sullivan?” she hisses. “Or are you looking for someone to land on when you fall off your high horse?”

I let her words settle between us, bitter as day-old black coffee. “Making my rounds,” I say, voice rough. “Didn’t mean to rile you up so early.” Truth is, I’d rather face a stampede than stand here under the accusation in her glare—but I’ll take whatever she gives me, so long as she keeps that heat in her eyes instead of liquid sorrow.

I’ve watched that sorrow take her over before and hated it. Not because it was messy—because it meant she’d been carrying too much for too long, and nobody had taken it from her.

It showed up after everyone else’s life kept moving and hers stayed pinned to the moment the air left the room for good. It’s there in the beat of hesitation before she smiles, like the expression has to travel further to reach her mouth. In the way she goes still when someone says his name—like the sound has weight.

So I’m grateful for her anger now, even when it’s aimed straight at me. Better this than watching her slip quiet and far away again.

“Easy,” I say, keeping my voice low and steady.

Her glare could peel paint off a barn. “Don’t ‘easy’ me,” she snipes. “I’m not one of your simpering concubines.” She places her hands on her hips, and a completely inappropriate thought crosses my mind. How easy it would be to pin her wrists behind her back from where they were now, and steal a long overdue kiss.

Would she slap me clear to San Francisco, or would she finally surrender to the chemistry still simmering between us?

“Concubines?” I say, unbothered, even though my pulse is kicking up like a green-broke colt. “Hell, I don’t think anyone’s used that word round here since 1892.”

She stalks closer, boots crunching, “Is trespassing how you get your kicks these days? What are you trading in land grabbing for stalking now?”

I let her words hang in the air, pretending they don’t bite.

“You know me,” I say, easy. “Never could resist a challenge.” Then I tip my chin toward what she’s not carrying. “What are you doing out here unarmed, anyway?”

I pat myself on the back for keeping it gentle, for dressing it up like concern instead of control—because what I want to say is the truth, plain and unmistakable:

You are not to come out here on your own at first light, when prey is on the prowl. Do I make myself clear?

She pulls her jacket open, flashing a battered pistol harness across her chest like a dare. “You think I’m unarmed?” It’s meant to be a threat, but the way she stands—chin high, eyes daring me to flinch—has my jeans growing uncomfortably tight.

My knuckles go white on the reins. “You gonna shoot, or just make threats?”

She steps closer, finger near the trigger, chin high. “Try me.” My grip on the reins tautens, every nerve lit up and humming.

The woman can make grown men forget their own names, but right now, it’s me out here alone with her—struggling to remember how to breathe.

The two decades since she walked away vanish, as if I’d never lost her at all. The dom in me wants to set her straight; but my Daddy side, quietly proud, thinks: good girl.

I can’t help it, she does it to me—a crooked smile tugs at my mouth. “Never doubted you for a second. But you flash that at the wrong man, you might find yourself hauled over his knee.”

Her lips part, caught somewhere between outrage and something a hell of a lot more dangerous.

"Oh, please. You think you can dole out that infamous Sullivan 'discipline'—with me?" The air quotes she carved around the word were bigger than the balls on the prized black Angus I picked up at auction last week. She leaned in, eyes narrowed, and kept right on, "You're delusional."

I nudge my horse close enough to catch the quick hitch of her breath. “Careful, Jasmine. You know I don’t bluff.”

Her dogs go statue-still, ears pricked toward the tree line. The air between us snaps with tension. For a heartbeat, the world goes silent—then a gunshot cracks through the morning, sharp and near.

Not a warning shot. Too close.

Jasmine’s eyes go wide. My hand’s already at my belt. Instinct takes over.

“Come here,” I growl, but she’s stubborn as ever, rooted to the spot.

So I do what any half-crazed cowboy with more muscle than sense would do—I move in and bend over to grab her by the waist, toss her up onto the saddle in front of me. She fights me, cussing under her breath, but I don’t let go.

Not this time.

Another shot rings out, closer now. I dig my heels in, the gelding surging forward, Jasmine pressed tight against me, her heartbeat wild against my chest.

I don’t know who’s out there, or what the hell we’re riding away from—but for the first time in years, she’s close enough to hold onto, and I’ll be damned if I let go.

Not now.

Not ever.