Her Cowboy Billionaire Bad Boy

by Liz Isaacson

  The wedding party started to move again, and Sophia inched forward until she could loop her arm through Ames’s once more and go down the aisle again. She smoothed down her pale green dress once she reached the last row of chairs and exhaled.

  “That was amazing, right?” she asked Ames.

  “Yes,” he said, turning back to watch Cy and Patsy parade down the aisle while another round of applause went up. “Completely amazing.” He started to clap too, his smile finally appearing on his face.

  She stuck close to him while the event transitioned from ceremony to dinner, and then to party. She ate with him, laughed with him, and danced with him. Along the way, Sophia had never been more grateful to be at her best friend’s wedding with a date.

  “You were right,” she told him much later that night. Her feet hurt from all the walking and dancing in heels, but she didn’t want the day to end. “It was much better being here with a date.” She beamed up at him, and he gazed down at her.

  She could not think of anything more romantic than a kiss under a summer, starry sky, while she wore a dress she felt beautiful in, and he wore a tuxedo with the tie loosened. He was always just one step away from perfectly polished and buttoned up just right. That was the rebellious streak in him. The bad boy he simply would not tame.

  She let her eyes drift closed as she settled her cheek against his chest. They swayed together, and Sophia thought she could float away on these feather-light clouds of happiness drifting through her.

  The song ended, and he said, “My feet are killing me. I’ve got to sit the next one out.”

  Sophia was about to tease him, but a commotion started, and she turned toward the deafening sound of two motors revving.

  Wes sat on one motorcycle while Gray sat on another. Ames slipped his hand in hers and led her through the remaining crowd until they could see clearly.

  The crowd parted, and Cy and Patsy came forward, but they’d changed their clothes. They both wore jeans and leather jackets now, and gone was Cy’s cowboy hat. He’d tied a blue bandana around his head, and he carried a small saddlebag that he attached to the bike where Gray sat.

  He and Patsy turned back to the crowd, both of them wearing wide smiles. Cy held up his hand, and Gray and Wes stopped the obnoxious revving. “Thank you so much for coming,” he said. “We love you, and we’ll see you in two weeks.”

  The crowd clapped again, and Gray turned his bike over to Patsy, who climbed on as easily as breathing. Sophia didn’t know how she rode a motorcycle. The machines were huge, and they scared Sophia.

  Cy took charge of Wes’s motorcycle, and a moment later, they left their own wedding in favor of their honeymoon.

  Sophia sighed again, wondering what it would be like to go on a romantic vacation with the man she loved. She had no idea, because she’d never done anything like that.

  Ames led her away from the crowds while they started gathering up their loved ones. She had no idea who would clean up and put everything away, but no one had asked her to, so she went with Ames, though he was leading her away from his truck, not toward it.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, glad to be out of the fray and somewhere a little quieter.

  “Are you in a hurry to get home?” he asked.

  “Not really,” she said, though she did have to work in the morning. “Breakfast is at eight-thirty, though. So I need to be up and at the lodge by seven-thirty to start cooking.” Saying it out loud made a measure of exhaustion fill her. “And I have a forty-minute drive up the canyon from here.”

  “I won’t keep you long,” he said, and he took her straight into the orchard. The summer sky was fairly dusky, but she could still see where she was going, even under the canopy of the trees.

  “Are you okay in those shoes?” he asked.

  “I’m managing,” she said. “You’re the one who said you couldn’t dance another song.”

  “I don’t wear cowboy boots often, believe it or not.”

  “Even in Three Rivers?” she asked.

  “I did there, sometimes,” he said. “There wasn’t a dress code, and I found my work boots more comfortable.” He glanced at her. “Don’t tell Wyatt I’m not a real cowboy.” He gave her a quick grin, and Sophia laughed lightly.

  “I barely see Wyatt,” she said. “He and Marcy are working on a new product line this summer, and Marcy has daily calls with her team in Texas. She owns a crop-dusting business.”

  “Yes, I heard that when I lived there,” he said.

  Sophia wondered how much farther they had to go, and then, in just three steps, they reached the edge of the orchard on the other side, and the whole world opened up in front of them.

  “Oh, wow,” she said, her voice made of mostly air. “This is amazing.” The orchard sat on the road that led to Dog Valley, and Sophia didn’t realize how much elevation she’d gained. They stood up above the town of Coral Canyon, the tops of the closest houses at least a mile away. They didn’t obstruct the view of the Tetons in the distance, or the glorious sunset as the last light of the day spilled over the tops of those mountains.

  She pressed one hand to her heartbeat, drinking in the glory of God’s creations.

  “Cy told me about this place,” Ames said. “He said he likes to come here to watch the sun set. Sometimes to bask in the light of the moon.”

  Sophia could imagine this scene under the complete cover of night. With all the houses asleep, and the deep darkness that settled over Coral Canyon when the lights went out. It would all be guarded by the silver light of the moon, and she wanted to experience it.

  “Will you bring me on the next full moon?” she asked.

  “Absolutely,” Ames said, his voice hushed.

  Sophia took another moment to truly breathe in the beauty of the place she lived, and then she focused on the beautiful man beside her. He still clutched her hand in his, but he didn’t look at her. “You don’t seem as happy as one might expect. Your twin brother just got married.”

  Ames nodded. “Trust me, I know.” He spoke in that gruff, grouchy tone that told everyone to approach with caution.

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  “Because now I’m the only one who’s not married,” he said, his voice even harder and sharper.

  Sophia had felt alone for most of her life. Left out. Left behind. Adrift. “I know exactly how you feel,” she said, surveying the land before her again. She leaned her head against his bicep and curled the fingers from both hands around his single one. “But I’m here with you, and I think we had a great time together.”

  “We did,” he murmured. He shifted, and Sophia lifted her head from his arm. They seemed to move in sync, and she turned toward him as he did the same to her. She reached up, her movement slow, as if her hand had been encased in quicksand.

  Her fingers touched the brim of his cowboy hat. They pinched it and removed his hat from his head.

  He gazed down on her, and she couldn’t tell if he was upset or frustrated or simply looking at her.

  She closed her eyes and tipped her head back slightly, her invitation for him to kiss her crystal clear.

  She waited.

  She sensed the very millisecond when Ames entered her personal space. She pulled in a breath, and when his lips touched hers, the flame that Sophia had kept going just for him roared into an inferno.

  She raked her fingers through his hair, pressing closer to him as he kissed her like the cowboy bad boy that he was at his core. She never wanted to kiss anyone else, and the prayer that she’d never have to started on a loop in her mind.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ames had kissed Sophia Cooke before. Many times.

  None of them held this much passion, this much desire, or this much care.

  She cared about him, and he could feel it in her touch. He’d started the kiss like an explosion, and he forced himself to slow down. She didn’t seem to want to go slower, but Ames insisted.

  She matched him, and though a river of exci
tement flowed through him, giving him a healthy buzz, he still managed to be a gentleman and pull away before he took things too far. He couldn’t seem to get a proper breath, and thankfully, neither could Sophia.

  He tucked her into his side and gazed out over the town of Coral Canyon again. “I think I could potentially move here one day,” he whispered, afraid to give full voice to the confession.

  “You do?” Sophia asked. “For real?”

  “Yes,” he said. He couldn’t explain more right then, but he truly did feel that perhaps God had heard his prayers for the past year and He was finally going to answer them.

  “Don’t you get my hopes up, Ames Hammond,” Sophia said. “Don’t say things like that unless they’re true.”

  He shifted his feet so he could look at her. “I won’t.”

  “You said potentially move here one day,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “How far away is this ‘one day’?”

  “I have no idea.” He sighed, because he knew he wasn’t being fair to her. “I’m trying to go slower this time, Sophia. I had made up my mind before I ever came to Coral Canyon that I would never move here. It’s going to take some time for that mindset to change.”

  She nodded, a shiver running through her. “Can we head back now, please? I’m tired, and it’s getting late.”

  “Sure.”

  She moved first, and Ames got the hint by the way she huddled into her own arms as she picked her way through the orchard. She didn’t want to hold his hand. He wouldn’t be kissing her before she got in her sedan and drove back up the canyon.

  He’d messed up—again.

  You’re so…. He didn’t even know how to finish the thought. He wasn’t stupid, and he was tired of beating himself up that way. He was inconsistent. That’s what he was. And Sophia obviously didn’t want a man who changed his mind about where he’d live every six weeks.

  If only she knew he didn’t want to be that man either.

  He followed her all the way back to her car before he realized he’d left his cowboy hat on the edge of the orchard. Part of him just wanted to leave it, but Cy had spent hundreds of dollars on the matching cowboy hats for his wedding, and Ames couldn’t just leave it to rot in the mud.

  Sophia already had her hand on the door handle when he reached her car, and he decided to be bold by putting his hand over the seam where the door pulled away from the car. “Can you wait a second?” he asked, hearing the bite in his tone.

  She looked up at him, the fire flashing in her eyes. “I suppose,” she said coolly.

  “Look, I obviously messed up back there,” he said. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  She cocked her hip and folded her arms. “I don’t want you to say anything.”

  “That’s just not true.” He could fold his arms too, but he deliberately kept his hands at his sides. He didn’t need to turn into the big, bad cop who huffed and puffed and ruined everything.

  “No, it’s one hundred percent true,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re going to move here unless you’re absolutely, positively, without a doubt going to move here. Like, don’t even start to say it until you have the truck packed and you’re on the way.” Her words carried plenty of frustration, and Ames thought he detected an undercurrent of hurt.

  “Okay,” he said. “Fair enough. I can do that.” He’d just thought he could talk to her about it, but this was probably a better topic for someone like Colton, or Wes, or Gray.

  His mind seized onto Gray. He’d decided to make a home in Colorado and Coral Canyon, and Ames wondered why he couldn’t do the same. He blinked, and he was looking at the reason why. The beautiful woman in front of him would not want to leave Coral Canyon and her job at Whiskey Mountain Lodge, even for a few months out of the year.

  “Thank you,” Sophia said, and Ames acted out of bravery once more by embracing her. He lifted her right up off her feet, which caused her to squeal and giggle.

  “Forgive me?” he asked while she wrapped her arms around the back of his neck.

  “Yes,” she whispered, and he set her on her feet and gave her a moment to find her balance before he released her.

  “Thank you, Sophia,” he said. He stepped away from her car, because he’d already shared the most amazing kiss with her, and he wanted that to be the thing he thought about as he fell asleep that night. “I left my cowboy hat out there, so I’ve got to go grab it. Good-night.”

  “Good-night, Ames,” she said.

  He quickly retraced his steps through the small patch of orchard, collected his hat, and hurried back to where the wedding had taken place. He was supposed to take Blue Velvet with him back to Colton’s that night, and then tomorrow, he’d move over to Cy’s with the dog.

  The festivities had mostly been cleaned up, and Ames thought that had happened really fast. A few workers loaded up the chairs from the party rental store Cy had used, and Patsy’s sister stood at the dessert table, loading the leftover cookies into plastic zipper bags.

  He went that way, and as he approached, he asked, “Have you seen Cy’s dog?”

  Her sister—Ames could not think of her name to save his life—looked up at him. She did a double-take, which Ames was actually used to. He put a smile on his face and said, “I’m Ames, his twin. I was supposed to take his dog home with me tonight.”

  “I think Colton took her,” the woman said.

  “Thanks.” Ames cursed himself for forgetting about the canine. Now he’d have to answer his nosy brother’s questions—or worse, endure his teasing for how he stayed out until all hours of the night with his girlfriend.

  He took his phone from his pocket and looked at it. Colton had not called or texted. It was definitely far past nine-thirty, but the wedding celebration had only ended about twenty minutes ago. He probably couldn’t even get back to Colt’s in that amount of time.

  As he strode toward his truck, he dialed his brother.

  “There you are,” Colton said, clear relief in his voice. “I’ve called you five or six times. You just disappeared, and I was worried something had happened to you.”

  “I didn’t get any calls,” he said.

  “Sometimes the service is patchy up there,” Colton said. “I have Blue here with us. You’re still coming here tonight, right?”

  “Yes,” Ames said. “Sorry, Colt. I just….” He couldn’t say he’d wanted to get Sophia alone so he could kiss her, though that was exactly why he’d taken her through the orchard to the overlook. That, and he’d wanted to see it. Cy had told him about the spot at breakfast that morning with Patsy’s mother, and he’d said it was a beautiful place to let go of all the stress he carried.

  Ames needed to do that too, especially after watching his twin tie the knot for the second time and then ride off into the sunset—literally—with his beautiful wife.

  “It’s fine,” Colton said. “Are you on your way back now?”

  “Yes.” Ames reached his truck and got behind the wheel. “I’ll be there soon.” He ended the call and drove a little faster than the speed limit back to his brother’s house. He was constantly teased about his adherence to the speed limit, and he wanted to put on the family text that he’d gone five over the speed limit just to see what all the brothers would say.

  He could hear them in his head already.

  I don’t believe it, Gray would say. Did you get a picture? No picture, didn’t happen. The lawyer always wanted proof.

  Wes would laugh and say, About time, Ames. You quit the force a long time ago. Wes acted like moving on was something that a man could achieve overnight, if he simply put his mind to it.

  Colton would send a dozen cop car emojis, and he’d probably say something like, Welcome to the dark side, Ames. He was always a bit ahead of the technology curve, as Ames couldn’t remember the last time he’d used an emoji. He honestly didn’t understand them, and he thought they were pretty lame all around.

  Cy would say, I don’t even know
who you are anymore. He’d be kidding, so he’d send a smiley face with all its teeth showing in the smile.

  Ames wasn’t sure he knew himself anymore either, and he thought about it as he took Blue outside so she could go to the bathroom. The dog then followed Sparky, Colton’s dog, into the master bedroom, and Ames hesitated in the kitchen.

  “Ames?” Colton called, and he turned toward the hallway on the other side of the house.

  “Yep.”

  “She can sleep in here, if you don’t care.” Colton appeared at the end of the hall, already in his gym shorts and T-shirt.

  “Sure,” Ames said. “I don’t care.” He touched the brim of his cowboy hat, glad he’d gone back to get it. “I’m headed to bed. I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow.”

  “You’re not in the way,” Colton said, taking a few quick steps to intercept Ames before he could reach the staircase that went upstairs. His dark eyes searched Ames’s, something urgent in his expression. “Okay, Ames? You can stay here and look after Blue just as easily as you can at Cy’s.”

  “I know,” Ames said. “She’d probably be happier here too.” He didn’t really want to go to bed alone tonight, and he’d been looking forward to having Blue Velvet as a friend and companion.

  “Take them both,” Colton said.

  “I’m going to get my own dog on Wednesday,” he said. “Sophia and I are going up to the place where she gets her foster dogs.”

  “Oh, good idea,” Colton said.

  “What about you?” Ames asked. “Are you and Annie going to do the foster parent classes?”

  Colton ran his hand up the back of his head and sighed. “I don’t think so.”

  “She doesn’t want to?”

  Colton shook his head. “I don’t want to. Fostering…it’s not permanent.”

  “You want your own child.”

  Colton nodded. “Everything is back on hold,” he said. “We just decided not to foster this morning.”

  Ames hugged his brother, wishing he could remove the hurt and unrest in Colton’s soul. Heck, he’d love to pluck it out of his own.