Ride It Out — A Free Cowboy Grumpy/Sunshine Romance Scene by Isla Wilde (2026)

A free one today, warm as a porch in July. This scene’s from Isla Wilde — MF, a grumpy rancher, and the sunshine who rented his guest cabin and refused to be scared off. If the voice lands, the full catalog is free with Kindle Unlimited, and every book page has a first chapter waiting.

Heads up: explicit scene, readers 18 and over. Two consenting adults, a grumpy/sunshine slow burn finally boiling over, enthusiastic yes-means-yes throughout. If that’s not your speed today, our reading guides are a gentler stop.

Ride It Out

Della had been renting Wyatt Cole’s guest cabin for six weeks, and in that time she had gotten exactly four full sentences out of the man.

She’d counted. It had become a hobby, out here where the nearest town was forty minutes and the wifi was a rumor. Wyatt was all weathered hands and shoulders that blocked doorways and a permanent frown he aimed at her like she was a gate someone had left open. He fixed the cabin’s porch step without being asked. He left a cord of firewood by her door before the first cold snap and denied doing it. He was, in short, the single most infuriating man she had ever wanted to climb like a fence, and he had made it his entire personality to pretend she wasn’t there.

Tonight the storm had knocked the power out, and she’d come up to the main house because her cabin had gone dark and cold and, fine, because she was a little scared of the thunder and would die before admitting it. Wyatt had opened the door in a flannel and a scowl, taken one look at her standing there dripping, and stepped back to let her in without a word.

“You could just say hello,” she told him, toweling off by his fire. “People do that.”

“Hello.” He handed her a mug of coffee she hadn’t asked for, made exactly the way she took it — which meant he’d been paying attention for six weeks while pretending not to. “Storm’ll pass by morning.”

“That’s nine words. New record.” She watched him over the rim of the mug, and something in the firelight made her brave. “You know what I can’t figure out? A man who leaves me firewood and fixes my step and knows how I take my coffee, and still can’t look at me for longer than two seconds. Why is that, Wyatt?”

His jaw worked. He set his own mug down very carefully, like it had done something wrong. “Because if I look at you longer than two seconds,” he said, low and rough, “I stop being able to pretend I’m not thinking about you. And you’re renting my cabin, and you’re leaving in the spring, and I’m too old to want something I can’t keep.”

That was forty words. She’d remember the number later. Right now she set the coffee down and crossed the room.

“What if,” she said, stopping close enough to tip her head back and hold his eyes, “you looked at me for longer than two seconds and found out what happens.”

“Della.” A warning and a plea in one syllable, his hands flexing at his sides like it was costing him something not to reach for her. “Be sure. I’m not a man who does this halfway, and I’m not gonna be able to go back to nodding at you across the yard after.”

“Good,” she said. “I’m tired of the yard. Kiss me, cowboy.”

He did — and every ounce of that careful restraint went up like dry hay. One big hand cupped the back of her head and the other spanned her waist and pulled her flush against him, and the frown was gone, replaced by a focus so complete it stole her breath. He kissed her like he’d been starving and too stubborn to say so, walking her back until her shoulders met the warm log wall, and Della laughed against his mouth out of pure delight and felt him smile for the first time in six weeks.

“Six weeks,” she breathed. “You could’ve just said something.”

“Sayin’ it now.” His mouth dragged to her throat, his stubble a delicious scrape, one hand sliding under the hem of her damp shirt to splay hot against her bare back. “Tell me to slow down and I will. Tell me to stop and I stop. Otherwise I’m gonna take my time with you, and I’m gonna be thorough about it.”

“Don’t you dare slow down.” She got her hands into his flannel and pulled. “Six weeks, Wyatt. Be thorough.”

“Yes, ma’am.” And the rumble of it against her skin, the way the taciturn man turned out to have plenty to say once his mouth was somewhere useful, was the last coherent thought she had for a good long while — every new thing checked with a low this all right?, every yes of hers answered with a rough sound of approval and more, until the storm outside was the quietest thing for miles.

After, they ended up on the rug in front of the fire because the bed had seemed too far, tangled under a quilt he’d pulled off the back of the couch, Della draped half over his chest and tracing the line of an old scar while his heart slowed under her ear.

“So,” she said. “That’s what happens.”

“Mm.” His arm tightened around her, his hand splayed warm and possessive on her hip. She felt him press a kiss to the top of her head — the same man who couldn’t look at her this morning. “About the spring,” he said, gruff.

“What about it?”

“Lease on that cabin’s up in April.” A pause, and when he spoke again the gruffness had gone soft at the edges. “Reckon we could talk about you not leaving. If you wanted. No pressure. Just… think on it.”

Della smiled against his chest. “That,” she informed him, “was thirty-one words.”

“Gonna have to get used to that,” Wyatt said, and pulled the quilt up over them both, and outside the rain kept falling on a ranch that suddenly didn’t feel nearly so empty.

Want the whole book?

If a monosyllabic rancher who shows he cares in firewood and fixed steps — right up until the dam breaks — is your flavor, that’s the heart of Isla Wilde’s cowboy corner: grumpy/sunshine, small-town, forced proximity, with the tension wound tight and the payoff fully on the page. Every title is free to read with Kindle Unlimited, and Save a Horse, Ride the Grump is the perfect place to start — grab its first chapter free.

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