Her Cowboy Billionaire Bachelor

by Liz Isaacson

  He’d met her parents months ago when they’d come to visit, and her mother had been living here since then. He liked her mom and dad, and they seemed to like him. They were so different from his parents, though they’d basically raised and managed the Everett Sisters through over two decades of a very successful career.

  They didn’t seem pretentious or stuffy the way his parents did, and he tried to shove the worry about having them here for the grand opening back into the hole where he’d been keeping it.

  His anxiety increased with each day toward the opening, toward the day his parents and Lars would come stay in the summer cabin with him. He needed to follow Rose’s lead and find a house of his own, but he simply hadn’t had time.

  After the opening. Liam had been living his life with those three words constantly in the back of his mind. He’d make sure Rose knew how much he wanted to be with her—after the opening. He’d find a house—after the opening. He’d get out and explore the wonders of nature in Coral Canyon—after the opening. He’d get to church on a more regular basis—after the opening.

  He pushed into the clinic to find it hopping with people. Happiness and hope hit him right in the chest, especially when Arthur approached him and shook his hand.

  “You made it,” Liam said. “How’d everything go with the move?”

  “Great.” The doctor had been scheduled to move in over the weekend, and he’d insisted to Liam that he didn’t need help. “Kami is at the lake with the girls today. Just got a text that they’re loving it.”

  “I’m glad,” Liam said, and he was. If he could keep his doctors and nurses happy, they’d stay, work hard, and the clinic would be successful.

  Paul waved at him, and Liam said, “Excuse me,” to go see what mishap had happened now. But for probably the first time, it wasn’t bad news.

  “Final inspection,” Paul said. “Let’s go over it.” He carried a clipboard with a ton of paper attached to it, and started walking around the clinic, showing Liam every little thing. Light switches, water shut offs, hot water heater, furnace, air conditioner, overhead ducts, internal vacuums, storage areas, all of it.

  “And we passed?” Liam asked.

  Paul signed his name on one paper, then another. “All passed.” He handed the pages to Liam. “You’re set to open, doctor.”

  Relief spread through Liam with the speed of light, and he shook Paul’s hand and watched the construction manager walk out of the clinic, hopefully for the last time.

  Now, they just needed to get all their staff meetings done, their schedules, get all the rooms stocked and supplied, and meet with Pearl to finalize the plans on the grand opening. Liam took a big breath and told himself he could do it.

  He’d come this far, and he could finish. He could.

  Hours later, their first staff meeting was almost over when the rain started. Since it was early June, the weather was still unpredictable and could change in a matter of minutes. Liam watched it splash the windows outside the break room where they’d been sitting for a while now. Dr. Gurnsey was almost finished, and Liam hoped he could get right out so he wouldn’t be late to Rose’s dinner.

  She’d planned no housewarming party. Only what she called “a simple dinner” just for the two of them. He couldn’t be late. Couldn’t miss it.

  When the first drops of rain landed on the table in front of him, he knew he was not going to Rose’s that night. His heart sank as he jumped to his feet, pure panic rushing through his body.

  “The roof is leaking,” he blurted, something he probably should’ve kept to himself, especially with Pearl in the room.

  The presentation stopped, and everyone seemed to zero in on the water slowly but steadily dripping from the ceiling tiles.

  “I’ll call Paul,” he said, fumbling for his phone at the same time Pearl said, “I thought we passed the physical inspection.”

  “We did,” Liam said darkly as the line rang. Pearl frowned at him as if Liam had climbed up on the roof and deliberately sabotaged it. Didn’t she understand he wanted this clinic to open as badly as she did?

  He was so, so tired, and Paul sounded the same when Liam told him there was water dripping into the break room. “Check everywhere else,” he said. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  So Liam instructed everyone to spread out and see if there were any more leaks in the clinic. They all reported back to the main nurse’s station with negative reports. So just one small leak. He could deal with it.

  He sent everyone home, and he and Pearl waited for Paul. He showed up and started using his fancy gadgets to detect moisture behind walls ceilings. “Yep, there’s a leak there. Let me see where it’s coming from.”

  He got out a ladder and Liam stepped away to call Rose.

  She answered with, “Tell me you’re still coming.”

  “I am,” he said, hoping he wasn’t going to be a liar too. “There’s a small leak in the roof we discovered when it started raining, and I’m—I have to stay for a little longer.”

  She sighed and said nothing. Liam didn’t blame her. She’d been living her life with the same words he had. After the opening.

  “Get here when you can,” she said, and then she added, “See you soon.”

  He sighed and turned back to the clinic. It felt eerie when it was empty, and a flash of pride at what he’d done here stole through him. Hopefully, Rose would be able to see the value of what she’d sacrificed for this clinic. What he had.

  Half an hour later, Paul came down out of the crawl space and said, “The leak is not in the roof. It’s coming from the main part of the hospital.”

  All Liam heard was not in the roof. Paul started talking to Pearl about rerouting the rain gutters that came off that corner of the hospital, and how they needed to be adjusted so they didn’t leak into the crawl space.

  Liam wanted to go, because this obviously wasn’t a flaw with his clinic. But he didn’t dare, not until Pearl said he could. Why, he wasn’t sure. She really wasn’t his boss.

  But he stayed while Paul set up fans to dry out the crawl space and made a temporary fix until he could get his welder out once the rain stopped to get the gutters where they needed to go.

  Finally, Paul left, and Liam didn’t have a reason to stay either. But at that point, he was two hours late getting to Rose’s, and he didn’t want to waste any more time going home to shower.

  He showed up on her doorstep smelling like bleach and antiseptic, a measure of desperation and panic pulling through him.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said when she opened the door. He stepped inside, the house completely different than it had been that afternoon. “Look at this place.” He moved his gaze from the spacious living room, which was somehow put together perfectly, to the woman beside him.

  She wore a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt that hung off one shoulder. “Look at you.” He smiled and let his gaze linger on the bare skin of her upper arm. “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  “I know you are.” She hugged him, and he felt himself falling all the way in love with her.

  “I’m trying,” he said. “I’ve never had to do so much before.”

  “I kept dinner warm.” She went into the kitchen first, and he followed her, wondering if she was still frustrated or angry with him. She didn’t seem to be, but she wasn’t really participating in the conversation the way he’d like.

  She pulled a huge Dutch oven out of the oven and grunted as she set it on the stovetop. “I made pot roast.”

  “There’s not chocolate in there, is there?” he asked, hoping that would break the remaining ice surrounding her.

  She rolled her eyes and smiled. “No. No chocolate.”

  He picked up one of the plates she’d laid on the counter. “Are you mad at me?”

  “Yes,” she said, facing him and looking right at him. She’d always been so good at articulating how she felt. “But then I decided it wasn’t worth being mad about. I thought about this man I dated once. Cole Kingston
. I met him in Nashville while my sisters and I were between albums. Once we started on the next one, with all the writing and then the recording and then the touring, well, I didn’t see him very much.”

  She picked up a plate too and removed the lid from the Dutch oven. The most delicious smell of beef and onions filled the air. “I kept explaining to him that this was my job. I couldn’t just not tour with my sisters. He broke up with me.”

  Liam’s heart stuttered and skip. “So is that what you’re going to do?” He stepped to her side in front of the stove. “Break up with me?”

  She looked up at him, her eyes soft and so blue he wanted to dive into them and stay forever. In that moment, he realized he was in love with her. He bent down and she tilted up, and this kiss felt a bit different than any of their others.

  He’d kissed her in a slow, passionate way while they were supposed to be watching a movie. He’d kissed her with need and almost a frantic quality when he hadn’t seen her for a while. He’d kissed her quickly before he headed to work, and for a longer time when she had to go back up to the lodge.

  But he’d never kissed her with this hint of forgiveness in her touch, and when she ducked her head and broke their connection, Liam felt like the luckiest man on Earth to have found this good woman.

  Now, he just had to figure out how to keep her in his life by making sure she was happy. He had to make her happy.

  A week later, Liam paced in the kitchen of the summer cabin, expecting his parents and brother to arrive at any moment. Sure enough, he heard a car door slam from outside, and he quickly crossed through the house to the front door so he could greet them.

  The grand opening would happen the following morning, and they were meeting Rose that night for the first time too. Liam should’ve known better than to pack so many important things into less than fifteen hours, but apparently, he enjoyed the feeling of nearly failing a little too much.

  “Mom,” he said as she came up the sidewalk wearing a long black skirt with a white and green checkered blouse. He went down the steps to give her a quick hug. He shook his father’s hand and then Lars’, and gestured back up the steps as if they needed his permission to enter their own house.

  “All ready for tomorrow?” his dad asked.

  “Yep,” he said. “Yes, all ready.” Every piece had been checked and double-checked, from the Mayor’s schedule to the food to the staff bios and who would do the introductions. “How’s the real estate business? Going into summer is good, right?”

  Lars took over, detailing all these houses they had for sale, and how he’d closed on a mountain deal last week. The pride in his voice made Liam want to punch him, but he kept nodding and smiling.

  His phone crackled, and he practically lunged for it. But he didn’t have much hope that she’d like his family any more than he did. She would, however, probably be much better at pretending to.

  “Rose is here.” He faced his parents and brother. “Let’s be nice to her, okay?”

  “We’re nice,” his mom said as if she’d never looked down her nose at anyone before.

  “I really like this woman,” Liam said, something he’d never actually said or thought before. He turned toward the door, expecting them to come with him and unsurprised when they did.

  So Rose met them all on the front porch, and Liam introduced her to his mom and dad, and then Lars. She shook hands with a perfect smile on her face, and his mom gave her two air kisses, one on each cheek.

  “So lovely to meet you,” she said, holding onto Rose’s shoulders. “You look so familiar, dear.” She glanced at Liam.

  “She’s one of the Everett Sisters,” he said, unsure if his high-society family would know the country music group.

  His mother’s eyes widened, and she sucked in a breath. “Of course,” she said, still so dignified. “Rose Everett.”

  Liam refrained from rolling his eyes. His mother didn’t know Rose Everett from any of the members of her bridge club. But at least she was being nice, and she asked Rose how she was liking her new house as they went back into the cabin.

  Liam breathed deeply, and he was once again impressed with Rose as she engaged with each member of his family like she’d been waiting her whole life to meet them.

  By the time dinner was over, and he could escape with her alone, he was ready for his family to be gone. He held Rose’s hand as they walked along the shore of the lake, and he said, “You’re brilliant, you know that?”

  She laughed and clutched his hand with both of hers. “Because I can make small talk and act interested in people?”

  “Exactly.” He pressed his lips to her temple and said, “Rose, I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  She stilled and turned toward him. “Liam.” She shook her head. “You can’t say those things to me unless they’re true.”

  “Of course they’re true,” he said, his eyes searching hers and wondering why she looked like she was about to cry.

  She didn’t say she loved him too. But when she kissed him, he felt it in her touch, in the urgent way she pressed into him but kissed him in a whole, round way.

  And he was definitely all the way in love with her. Now, if he could just make it through the grand opening of the clinic in the morning, he could finally put his focus where it belonged: On Rose Everett.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Rose thought she might be more nervous that Liam, and she kept slicking her palms down the front of her pink, frilly dress. She stood to the side with Liam’s parents, in the front but not the center.

  It seemed like the whole town had shown up for the official grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony for the new emergency clinic. Liam stood with the Mayor, talking as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  But Rose had been with him only a few minutes ago, and he’d been as nervous as a cat in room full of rocking chairs. Then he’d put on a mask and stepped through the doors. She marveled watching him, as he seemed to move from role to role effortlessly.

  Nine o’clock came, and he handed the Mayor an overly large pair of scissors, took a mic from a woman who looked like she belonged behind the desk of a Fortune 500 company, and stepped to a spot right behind the huge, red bow in the middle of the ribbon.

  “Welcome, everyone,” he said, the speakers throwing his voice out into the crowd. He gave them a moment to quiet down. “I’m so pleased to be here with all of you today, for this opening of the emergency clinic. Just because it’s called Coral Canyon Afterhours Clinic doesn’t mean you can’t come in the middle of the day. It simply means we’re here for you when you need us.”

  Rose loved the deep, rolling sound of his voice, and she thought of his words from last night as they’d strolled along the lakeshore.

  I think I’m falling in love with you.

  They still made her warm all these hours later, as if the June sunshine wasn’t doing a good enough job.

  “So without further ado, we’ve brought in Mayor Berry to do the honors of opening us up right.” He indicated that the Mayor should come forward.

  He wore a smile the size of the Gulf of Mexico and cut the giant ribbon, which fell in two pieces to cheers and applause.

  “And we’re open!” Liam said into the mic before handing it back to the stuffy woman in the administrative skirt suit. Rose watched her for a moment, then her attention was stolen by Liam as he took her hand and squeezed it almost painfully.

  She went with him into the clinic, where the public was pouring in to be able to see the facilities before they truly became operational. Liam had thought of everything, and he and his staff positioned themselves in different locations to answer questions.

  Two hours later, the main event was over. The clinic was open for real, and the public had dispersed back to their homes, families, and jobs.

  “You did it,” Rose said, her pinky toe on her right foot screaming at her to find a different pair of shoes quickly.

  Liam stood in the middle of the waiting room in the
lobby and looked around. “I did it.” His gaze landed on her, and he kissed her standing right there for everyone to see.

  Rose didn’t care. She wanted to be wherever he was, and she thought she might be falling in love with him too.

  “We’ll be fine,” she said to Andrew and Becca, both of whom wore almost identical expressions of concern and worry. She bounced their toddler on her hip. “Right, Chrissy? Wave bye-bye to Mommy and Daddy.”

  Rose flapped her fingers, and Chrissy did too, which made her smile. “Seriously. You guys go on. We’ll be fine.”

  She was staying at their house to make it easier for Chrissy, have all of the supplies and food she needed, and she planned to have a great three-day weekend with the two-year-old. After all, Liam had to work this weekend, so her other option was to sit in her new house by herself or go up to the lodge and listen to Vi, Lily, and her mother plan a Christmas wedding for her sister.

  Andrew and Becca left, and Rose went back inside with Chrissy. “All right, baby,” she said. “What should we do first?”

  Chrissy picked up the handle to a toy vacuum and began pushing it around the room. Otto, the giant yellow lab of the household, came over and sniffed Rose like she might be made of something delicious he wanted to lick. In the end, he deemed her human and flopped onto the floor to take a nap.

  The little girl made vacuum noises with her mouth and ran the toy into Otto a few times before he got up and moved over a few feet, re-flopping down and starting to snore a moment later. Rose enjoyed the normalcy of it.

  She went over the kitchen table, where Becca said she’d left a few notes. A booklet was more like it, and Rose flipped through a few pages to read about how to feed and water the strays in the backyard, and all about Chrissy’s sleeping and eating schedule.

  Mothering and caring for children came naturally to Rose, so when it was time for lunch, she made macaroni and cheese and laughed when Chrissy tried to pick up the slippery noodles with her pudgy fingers. She gave her peach chunks according to Becca’s instructions and put her down for a nap.