Lone Wolf Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

“Thank you,” he said. “For giving me forgiveness that I don’t deserve.”

  “I think the best kind of life is one where we get what we don’t deserve, isn’t it? If we all got exactly what we should...it would be a lot sadder.”

  “That is true.”

  “I need to go try to fix some things with Jacob now,” she said. “Because I love him. And...and I’m greedy and I want everything. I want things fixed with you, and I want things fixed with him.”

  “You’re worth it, baby girl,” he said. “Go get what you want.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  JACOB HADN’T SLEPT for days, and when he’d gotten back home after the search for Aiden, he’d crashed out.

  When he woke up, he knew right where he had to go.

  He threw his shoes on and went outside, disoriented. The sun was setting, light shining down from the mountain, spectacular gold and glimmering rays lighting up the valley below.

  He stood there and looked at it, and he didn’t feel like he was falling.

  He felt like he was broken. But he didn’t feel like he was falling.

  And that, he supposed, was something.

  He was going to go to Vanessa’s next. Because he had to talk to her. He had to find her, had to tell her that he was choosing her. Because there was nothing else that he wanted. Nothing else at all, not in the whole world.

  And then he saw her car headed up the road, headed to him.

  And he just stood there, watching, because he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

  She parked and got out, moving toward him quickly, her expression full of fierceness. “I need to talk to you,” she said.

  “I was on my way to go talk to you,” he said.

  She stepped up toward him, so they were both standing on the rock that looked out over the view below.

  She was so damn pretty. Glowing in that yellow dress she wore, her hair loose and curling around her.

  And he wanted her. Wanted her with everything.

  “Vanessa,” he said.

  But his words failed him, so instead, he closed the distance between them and kissed her on the lips. Kissed her as the sun and its last remaining rays shone on them, lit him up from the inside out.

  But the warmth wasn’t coming from the sun, it was coming from her.

  “I’m so damn sorry,” he said roughly as he looked down at her face. “I am so, so sorry that I wasn’t ready to be as brave as you.”

  “Jacob,” she whispered.

  “I love you,” he said. “I love you so damn much. Vanessa, I...I can’t even explain the way I feel when I look at you. Like I’m looking at a promise for the rest of my life that I thought was too beautiful, too dangerous for me to have. But that’s just it, sweetheart. It was never about guilt or what I didn’t deserve. It was about me being afraid. Afraid of losing you. Of wanting something so much, something that I might not be able to hold on to forever. Time scares the hell out of me, and it doesn’t care. It moves on forward, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Even when I want to freeze a moment... Well, none of us can.”

  “No,” she said. “None of us can. But sometimes time marching on is the best thing ever. Because if it had stopped, I wouldn’t have been able to become the person that I am now. We wouldn’t be together. We wouldn’t be having this baby. We wouldn’t... We wouldn’t be in love.”

  “That’s true,” he said, his voice rough. “And I want all those things.”

  “Time can be a thief, Jacob, and you know that better than most. But time can give gifts too. The gift of us. Of the future that we’ll have together.”

  That word. The future.

  That was the thing he’d been avoiding thinking about. That when he saw her, he saw a future, stretched out in front of him, beautiful and bright, and it didn’t even terrify him. It was something he wanted, something he craved.

  “I never believed in fate,” he said. “I never wanted to. But you... I can’t deny that there’s something with you and me.”

  “I feel it,” she said. “But I don’t think it is fate. I think it’s choices that brought us here. To this moment. Mistakes, but some good ones too. And they made us both who we are. They made us this. And I can’t regret any of that, because the woman I am now loves the man that you are. Oh, she loves him so much.”

  “I don’t know why,” he said, his voice scraped raw.

  “Don’t you know,” she said. “You’re my hero. And it’s not just because you were there the night of the miscarriage. It’s not just because you punched Jared in the face, although that will always be a treasured memory for me. It’s not because you’re perfect, or because you always come through. A hero doesn’t stop every bad thing from happening, Jacob. But a hero shows up all the same, even knowing that he can’t win every time. And you’re a hero to me. My hero.”

  “I hurt you,” he said.

  “Yes,” she replied. “You did. But I’m still standing. And now we are standing here together. And that’s what matters. Not being perfect. Knowing that we aren’t and trying anyway. That’s what matters.”

  And he looked down at her, at this woman who knew all that he was, all of his failings, and all of his fears, and he saw more than just the future reflected back at him in her eyes. He saw himself. In a way that he never had before.

  He had been alone, from the time he was a boy, because he had decided that alone, isolated, was better than pain.

  But not now. Not when he could have her. Not when they could have everything.

  “I want to marry you,” he said. “Not because you’re having a baby, not just because I like sleeping with you an awful lot, but because I want to do whatever I can to come close to showing what I feel in my heart. That this is permanent. That this is part of me. That you’re part of me.”

  “I want to marry you too,” she said. “I was scared at first, to let you into my life. To let anyone into my life, because so much of what I’ve built is about control. But I’m not afraid now. I’m not afraid of my feelings. Good or bad. Because I know what is broken can be healed. I know we can be healed. As long as we choose it.”

  “I do,” he said. “And I choose you.”

  “I choose you too.”

  Jacob pulled her in for another kiss, just as the sun sank behind the mountain, and a sense of peace washed over him, a sense of peace he hadn’t felt since he was a little boy. Since he’d learned that the world could be ugly.

  But in all that time, he’d let himself forget just how beautiful the world could be.

  And with Vanessa by his side, he knew that he would never forget that again.

  Because when he looked at her, he realized it wasn’t fate that he saw. It was love. And the chance to choose it every day, to embrace the hope, the beauty and the joy in life, instead of fear.

  And he knew that he would spend the rest of his life choosing that. Choosing her.

  Loving her.

  * * *

  VANESSA THOUGHT HER heart might burst as she melted into his arms. She had come up here to fight for this, to fight for them, and had found his arms open. Had found a man stripped of his armor, for her.

  And she’d never felt more loved.

  Vanessa Logan had spent years avoiding coming home. And all this time, she hadn’t realized that home could be with another person.

  Home was with Jacob Dalton.

  EPILOGUE

  “DON’T GET TOO EXCITED.”

  At the sound of Jacob’s voice, Vanessa couldn’t help but get excited. They were in the new house. Well, not officially, but in the shell of it. And they would be all moved in before the baby was born. The house was very nearly finished, an impressive feat of both design and construction.

  “I’m trying to contain myself,” Vanessa called from her position in what would be the living room.

  “I’m going to paint for you.”

  She turned just as her husband walked into the room, two cans of paint and a roller in his hands.

  “O
h really?” she asked.

  “Yes. Okay, not an art piece. But...the nursery. I thought about painting you a picture, I really did. But I couldn’t think of what to paint. What I wanted to show you was my heart. This life, this house, our child, who I want so much... That’s my heart, Vanessa.”

  Vanessa launched herself across the empty space and into his arms.

  “I told you not to get excited,” he murmured into her hair.

  Oh, this man. This man, who had held her at her most broken, who held her now at her most whole...

  She loved this man. Now and forever.

  “Then don’t be so exciting, Dalton.”

  “It’s the way we Daltons are,” he said. “Starting with Hank.”

  “Hmm...you know, I kind of like that. Hank. Henry. Henry Dalton.”

  “Oh, honey, my dad’s ego can’t possibly handle getting any bigger. We can’t go naming babies after him. And anyway...he’s...a disaster. A mess.”

  “We all are sometimes,” Vanessa said. “We all are. And shouldn’t our child be free to be his own kind of mess?”

  Henry Dalton stuck, and that was exactly who he became.

  But no matter what messes and scrapes he got himself in, his parents loved him all the same.

  Because they weren’t alone anymore. They had each other.

  When Vanessa finally did paint a piece for the nursery, it was of three people holding hands, looking straight ahead.

  Walking forward into their future.

  A future full of love.

  * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Cowboy Christmas Redemption by Maisey Yates.

  Cowboy Christmas Redemption

  by Maisey Yates

  CHAPTER ONE

  ELLIE BELL COULD sometimes imagine that she lived an entirely different life. Not because she didn’t love so much about what she had, but because it was nice, even for a little while, to set down the various burdens that she carried around with her and just focus on the moment.

  Getting chickens had been an interesting endeavor, one that had proved to be quite a bit more sanity-preserving than she had anticipated.

  Sometimes when she was out collecting eggs, she felt like she’d fallen through a time warp. Where she was younger than twenty-eight. Not a woman with a heavy burden of responsibility, or the crushing weight of loss deep inside her.

  But somebody liked. Somebody carefree. Whose only responsibility was to collect eggs and look out at the beautiful view that stretched out before her.

  Her little farmhouse was modest, and it was old, with a porch that had white peeling paint that she hadn’t been able to rally herself to fix. But she’d hung baskets of flowers from the rafters, and she supposed that was something.

  At least it was something she was much more up for than painting.

  * * *

  MAYBE SOMEDAY SHE would get it together and do all the renovation that the place needed.

  She took a deep breath, and she focused her gaze on the horizon. On the long stretch of emerald field that faded into the evergreen-covered mountains, currently bathed in a rose-gold glow from the setting sun. The days were getting shorter, heading into the Christmas season, and honestly, that was something else that just made her tired.

  She had to do things.

  For Amelia’s sake.

  Well, handily, Tammy Dalton was always around to do something. The Daltons had been her late husband’s surrogate family, and after Clint’s death, had become hers and Amelia’s, as well.

  Tammy always made a wonderful Christmas dinner, and the gathering that they had was spectacular. And it gave Ellie an excuse not to make a big fuss about Christmas at her house, which always felt vaguely sad to her.

  She didn’t want to drag out the ornaments that she had gotten with Clint. And she didn’t want to get rid of them and get new ones either. They’d had cozy Christmases in their apartment back by the high school in town. Their own ornaments. First Christmas, with a bride and groom. The Bells, on a big silver bell...

  She’d loved him so much. Right from the beginning. He was just a nice man. In spite of the fact he’d had a rough upbringing. He’d been open, and he’d laughed easily. He’d taught her to laugh a little easier.

  He’d taught her to love in a way that was so different from the way she’d known love as a child.

  She’d spent her growing-up years craving her mom’s attention, while her mom craved only the attention of whatever man had her heart at the time.

  She’d hated it. And she’d sworn off love herself.

  But then she’d met Clint.

  He’d been tall, with dark hair and a slight build. Rangy and athletic. He was the kind of guy who had to climb up the side of a rock face on a hike if there was one; the kind who had to jump over obstacles just as easily stepped over.

  He’d been the one thing to distract her even slightly from her laser-focused vision. She’d wanted to go to college, be a teacher. Because it was teachers who’d given her the support, the help, that her own mother didn’t.

  She’d made Clint wait to get married until she was finished with school. She’d been strong that way. She’d been determined to forego boyfriends, especially while she was studying. But she hadn’t been able to stay away from him. He was so magnetic and happy, and she’d wanted that.

  As soon as she’d graduated, they’d gotten married.

  They’d lived in little apartments near the high school, and Ellie had gotten jobs substitute-teaching in the area, and then spent a year as a teacher’s assistant at the school right near their house.

  They’d been young when Clint wanted to try for a baby, but he’d been so excited about it. So they’d started trying, and not just for a baby but also to find a house.

  They’d found the farmhouse. She’d found out she was pregnant.

  He’d been the proudest, happiest man alive that day.

  And four weeks later he’d died.

  Before they’d moved into their home. Before he’d ever even gotten to hear his child’s heartbeat.

  She’d never had a Christmas in the farmhouse. Her and Amelia’s Christmas traditions were built around the Dalton family, and that was okay with Ellie.

  Her egg collecting was feeling terribly sad at the moment. But she blamed the upcoming Christmas season for that.

  It was inescapably bittersweet.

  Always, she thought about that first Christmas without him. When she had been eight months pregnant and so miserable. So alone.

  Alone, except for Caleb Dalton.

  The entire Dalton family had been good to her in the years following the loss of Clint, but no one had been quite as good as Caleb.

  Caleb had been Clint’s best friend in the world. A man who was like a brother to him, so he’d said often. He’d talked about Caleb all the time, from the beginning of their relationship. She could still remember going to her first Dalton family barbecue with Clint. He’d been nervous, because it had been like meeting his parents, he’d said.

  All three Dalton brothers had presence. A perfect combination of their father, Hank’s, charm and charisma, and their mother, Tammy’s, beauty and quick wit.

  Caleb had been unlike any man she’d ever met. A daredevil with an easy smile, and he was so big. Larger than life, both in height and in presence.

  He could fix anything. If her car needed a tune-up or an oil change, Caleb could just do it. Why call the landlord when their apartment had an issue? Caleb could always handle it. She’d been in awe of that. The way his hands worked to puzzle together anything that might have been broken.

  She could see why Clint loved the family the way he did, and Caleb in particular. She’d bonded with him easily, quickly.

  And now...

  Caleb had become her best friend in the entire world. She’d always liked him. But he became something more during these long, lonely years.

  He’d become her rock. Her salvation.

  He was always on hand in an emergency. If she n
eeded cold medicine in the middle of the night for Amelia, yet didn’t want to drag her little girl to the store, she could call Caleb. And he would go get the cold medicine. He would bring it to her. If she wasn’t well, he would be the first person to come by with soup, and to make sure that Amelia was taken care of while she convalesced.

  He had built her chicken coop. Had been the one to help her figure out what you were supposed to do with chickens in the first place.

  And when she had partnered with his brother Gabe to help start the school that she now taught at on the Dalton family ranch, Caleb had immediately partnered with her, too.

  He had helped make her dream a reality, the moment that she was able to have dreams again.

  She felt much happier, thinking about Caleb.

  He was definitely a lot more of a safe space than Christmas could ever be.

  As if thinking of him conjured him up, she heard the sound of truck tires on gravel, mixed with the sound of an old engine from a Ford F-150.

  It was Caleb, coming home with Amelia. Amelia had spent the day with Tammy. The school that Ellie had been part of founding, and that she worked at full-time, specifically geared toward troubled boys, was on the Dalton family ranch, and Hank and Tammy Dalton lived there in a large house. Tammy had graciously offered to watch Amelia after preschool on the days when Ellie worked.

  It just so happened that today, by the time Ellie had finished up, Amelia and Tammy were in the middle of a baking project.

  Usually, Ellie would have hung out, but today she had been eager for escape. For a moment in silence. Out of time.

  And she wasn’t even sorry it was over. Because Caleb was here. And so was Amelia. No matter how difficult or chaotic life could seem, she loved the people in it.

  She stepped out of the coop, her basket clutched in her hands, and she made her way across the field, toward her driveway. Her floral dress caught the breeze and fluttered around her legs, strands of blond hair whipping across her face. She pushed them away and smiled as Caleb got out of the truck.