Tycoon's Tryst (Culpepper Cowboys Book 10) by Merry Farmer, Culpepper Cowboys

turned back to his brother. “Rachel Korpanty. The most perfect woman in the world. Majority owner of Korpanty Enterprises. My future wife, your future sister-in-law.”
    Doc stared at him like he’d lost it. “The woman you’re suing?”
    Sly shook his head. “I’m trying to come up with a way not to sue her.”
    “Okay, how about just not suing her?” A sarcastic glint filled Doc’s eyes.
    “It’s not that simple.” Sly switched into business mode. “I still need to figure out a way to bring publicity to Culpepper. The town is my first priority, although to be honest, Culpepper now has a serious competitor for my affections.”
    Doc huffed a laugh and shook his head. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Mom dropped you on your head when you were a baby. I’m sure of it.”
    “Is it wrong to care about my hometown?” Sly challenged him.
    “No,” Doc admitted slowly.
    “There you go. I’m still looking for a way to boost the town’s visibility, draw in businesses and people, and win the hand of fair Rachel at the same time.”
    “And you’re going to do it with cake?” Doc glanced past him to where the three former Quinlan ladies were still watching the scene like it was a TV show.
    “Not cake,” Felicity interrupted. “Cookies.”
    The other two nodded and hummed in approval.
    “Cookies?” Sly turned back to them, ready to accept whatever pearls of wooing wisdom they wanted to share.
    “I won Allen with cookies,” Felicity explained. “My Box of Heaven. So I’m pretty confident in the power of a baker’s dozen mixed variety of cookies to pierce straight to the heart of anyone like Cupid’s arrow.”
    Sly lit up with excitement. “That’s it! You’ll have to start providing a special Cupid’s arrow cookie box for wooing. We could market and sell them online. You’d find yourself shipping hundreds of units a day.”
    “Whoa there.” Felicity stopped him with a raised hand. “I just got married. I love my cookies, but let me be a wife before I turn into a business mogul.”
    “We’ll get the cookies for you,” Patience added, stepping away to find a box.
    Sly turned back to Doc with a huge grin of victory, but Doc was shaking his head and laughing ironically.
    “You need to stop trying to push your visions for everything on people,” he said.
    “What?” Sly straightened offended. “I’m just trying to make Culpepper great.”
    Doc rested his weight on one leg, staring Sly down. “Not everyone shares your vision of what great is. I’m beginning to think that your sweetie, Rachel, might have a point if she thinks you’re trying to ruin her life.”
    “No she doesn’t,” Sly argued. “I’m not. I want to help her—help her wrestle her company back from her sister.”
    “What?”
    Sly shook his head. “It would take too long to explain. All you need to know is that I genuinely have Rachel’s best interest at heart.”
    “Here you go.” The three women returned with a crisp white box tied with pink ribbons. “One Cupid Special, just for you,” Felicity finished.
    Sly took the box with a wide grin and paid for it. Doc walked with him as he headed out of the bakery.
    “The thing about saying you have someone’s best interest at heart,” Doc went on as if the conversation had never paused, “is that it sounds a little too close to ‘I’m doing this for your own good.’ And nothing positive ever came out of those words.”
    “They will this time.”
    Doc sighed and stopped in the space between his truck and Sly’s convertible. “If there’s one thing that being married for these past several weeks has taught me, it’s that if you try to do something for a woman’s own good that she doesn’t agree with, she will resent you faster than greased lightning.”
    “But I’m only looking out for Rachel’s interests.”
    “Nope.” Doc put a stop to the argument then and there. “If you really like this woman the way you say you do, and if you