A Bride for the Texas Cowboy

by Sinclair Jayne

  So why had she come?

  Catalina bit hard on her lip and forced herself forward. Some veggies for fajitas and then stir-fry. Eggs. Apples. Chicken. Tortillas. Fish, cilantro, and avocadoes for tacos. Her mind was on autopilot as she planned out a few basic meals she could prepare for the next couple of days. Who knew how long August would take to heal enough so that he could get around safely and take care of all his basic needs? And Axel would step up. He and August definitely had butted heads all their lives, but Axel made family and ranch and responsibility a religion. As long as it was his way.

  She rolled her eyes and refocused on getting through the store quickly. So far it was early enough that she had the place mostly to herself. For once luck seemed to be on her side. No need to tempt fate.

  Frowning, she grabbed a small jar of local strawberry and peach jam, crunchy peanut butter and a loaf of bread—usually she made her own, but she had no idea of the state of August’s kitchen. Did he have any cooking implements? Should she be buying frozen food? A little shiver of outrage shot down her spine. She loved to cook, especially for friends, not that she and August were friends anymore, and the fact that she had to keep reminding herself of that fact spooked her.

  She headed toward the cashier.

  “What are you doing?” Catalina nearly dropped her small red basket at the sight of August hobbling into the store.

  His face was gray and his mouth tight with pain. But his blue eyes snapped.

  “You didn’t wait for me,” he bit out.

  “I was trying…” she drew out the word, completely exasperated with him for risking further injury but more with her continuing impulses to charge in to the rescue “…to grab a few staples fast and get you home to bed.”

  Oops! Worst choice of words ever. Catalina felt the blush crawl up her neck and wash across her face.

  August’s answering grin was such an unholy mix of sexy mischief and confidence that Cat forgot how to swallow.

  And breathe.

  Alone. To rest.

  The words rattled in her brain but didn’t tumble out of her mouth.

  Her gaze slid sideways toward the cashier—Beverly James, who’d worked at the grocery store for as long as Catalina could remember. Of course Beverly had overheard, judged and smirked. She looked from Catalina to August and back again.

  “Same ole, same ole,” she said. “Some things time and distance never change. Still chasing a Wolf, huh, girl?”

  “No,” Catalina denied, clutching the groceries to her chest like they were a shield. Ten minutes back in town and she was staring down disapproval like she was still a teen dogged by a bad reputation that had everything to do with who her family was and nothing to do with her behavior.

  “Yeah, she’s a fast runner, ma’am,” August said like the most down-home Texas cowboy ever.

  Catalina wondered if he’d still be wearing that cocky grin if she bumped him a little so that he tipped over.

  “Settle.” He winked at her as if he could read her mind and limped the last few feet toward her. He reached out for the handbasket. “Just like old times, huh, Kitty Cat?” He smiled down at her.

  “Not one bit.”

  Actually, the exchange was disturbingly familiar, and she didn’t want it to be. Catalina unloaded the basket quickly, determined to regain her equilibrium and the upper hand.

  “Liar.” August’s breath was warm against her ear, and she couldn’t help the shiver of awareness that wafted through her.

  His hand covered hers as she reached for her debit card.

  “The food is for us, Cat. Use my card.”

  “It’s for you,” she corrected, hating the way her skin hummed where he touched her.

  She grabbed a reusable tote that advertised the upcoming Bluebonnet Festival next weekend. She remembered how much she’d always loved the way Bluebonnets would carpet the rolling hills, and the festival had been her favorite celebration in town. A smile played on her lips. She and August had always… She shut down the rush of memories like they were a faucet.

  She wasn’t staying for the festival.

  She wasn’t staying with August.

  Catalina began to jam the groceries into the tote.

  She didn’t look at him. And she did her best to ignore Beverly’s undisguised curiosity.

  She let him pay.

  She held the tote containing most of the groceries tight to her chest like it was some kind of a Captain America shield.

  “This is Texas, darlin’,” August drawled like he’d grown up in rural East Texas and had never left the state. “The men carry the heavy things.” He took the tote from her and lifted up another one that he’d filled.

  “Right.” She rolled her eyes. At this rate, August would have her turned into a teenager sporting zits and a crush by noon.

  So, not going there.

  The past has no power. August has no power.

  “Chivalry is dead and buried,” Catalina informed him and marched out of the store, pretending that she didn’t hear Beverly’s parting shot of “By the way, welcome home, honey. It’s good to see you. Good luck snaring yourself a rich Wolf this time around. Luck can change, darlin’.”

  “Unbelievable,” she groused, tapping her toe furiously on the cracked and faded asphalt. She wanted to stomp off to the Jeep, but even as pissed as she was at August, with herself for answering his call, and with Last Stand and fate in general, she didn’t want him to take another header onto the ground. “People are unbelievable.”

  August had the audacity to look amused. “Believe it.”

  Her cheeks burned and her jaw ached from clenching her teeth.

  “You did that on purpose, acting all charming and giving Beverly something to gossip about by dragging your sorry, wounded ass into the store.”

  He limped beside her.

  Catalina sighed and grabbed the two totes of groceries back.

  “You’re wasting time showing off to Beverly and me.”

  “I’m not showing off. I’ve got a business to build,” he said. “Gossip good or bad will be good for business.”

  “Not at my expense.” She knew she sounded snippy.

  She hated that. She didn’t want to behave like her mother—always picking, hurting.

  “Cat.” August’s voice sounded soothing, which pissed her off more because she was letting him get to her, and then he might think that she still had feelings for him.

  And she didn’t. She so didn’t.

  She sped up to open the passenger door so she could load in the groceries before helping him into the front seat. She caught a blurry and distorted view of her reflection and nearly dropped one of the totes.

  She looked down in horror. “Damn!” she screeched.

  She’d paced around two airports, ridden on two flights, rented a car and entered the hospital looking like this! And now she’d just marched back inside the grocery store where one of the biggest town gossips had spit barbs for decades. To make the look worse, Catalina’s curls had frizzed out of her once almost elegant updo despite three types of “staying” product.

  August had been nearly crushed in an accident and he still managed to look bruised but beautiful. In pain and suffering but tragically sexy. He looked heroic. She looked…

  “I look like I just got dragged backward out of a really bad eighties rave and the time machine electrocuted my hair.” She tugged hard on one of her many escaped colorless curls in disgust.

  August had once covered her mouth with his large hand while she’d been complaining about her hair and had fiercely defended the unmanageable frizz, calling it tumbled, sexy and wild, and also ash blond.

  Right.

  August laughed, snapping her back to the present, and for a moment the sound chipped away at the years of crusted hurt she’d tried to ignore. But then August doubled over, held himself while writhing in pain. She could hear him trying to suck in air.

  “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay,” Catalina said, drawin
g circles on his back.

  Blue eyes, sharp with pain and something she didn’t dare name, clashed with hers, and she felt like she was falling, falling down from a great height into all that blue. Swimming in him. Drowning. She needed to pull herself up. Out.

  She bit her lip hard, as if the sting could center her. She still held on to him.

  “Let’s get you into the Jeep,” she said, trying to sound like a nurse. Why hadn’t she studied medicine? She could feel and act professional without worrying about getting sucked into her past bad habits, like falling back in love with August Wolf.

  “Is it time for another pain pill?” she demanded. Anything to do other than think about that insidious L word. “You probably need another. Let me look at the prescription. And I need to get some food in you.” Her words tumbled out like rocks.

  “I’m okay,” he gasped and visibly tried to pull himself together.

  Catalina unlocked the door and stood by it, barely resisting helping him into the Jeep. She had to stop touching him. Had to.

  She stored the groceries in the back and then jumped into the driver’s seat.

  “I have water.” She pulled her ever-present water bottle from the side of her backpack. “Where’s the prescription?” she repeated, not wanting to overdose him. “I want to read the directions.”

  “I don’t want pills,” he said, his breathing still ragged, but he was obviously trying to rally.

  Typical Texas cowboy. Too tough for his own good. Too stubborn. Too independent, too sexy…

  Stop!

  “Pills make me sick and stupid.”

  “You were always stupid.” She shot the lie back instinctively and started the Jeep.

  She tried to ignore the quirk of his lips that had always featured in so many of her fantasies. The way that man smiled and what he could do with those lips and tongue and teeth really ought to be outlawed.

  Catalina shifted in the leather seat before she could squelch the impulse to disperse the sudden heat.

  “Definitely, we need to work on your bedside manner, Kitty Cat.”

  Of course he noticed. Damn.

  And he had the balls to smirk about it.

  Some things—too many things, apparently—never changed. August knew the way he affected her. Effortlessly. He just had to think about sex, and it was like he had a damn switch to her libido. “Zero to sixty,” he used to tease her even though he’d be ripping off her clothes just as fast.

  And why was she remembering that?

  Catalina stomped her foot on the accelerator a little too hard. He sucked in a breath.

  “Sorry,” she muttered.

  “Don’t be,” he said. “I ruined us not you.”

  Now it was her turn to suck in a startled breath. Oh. No. He. Was. Not.

  “Let’s not talk about the past,” she said quickly, desperate to find some emotional armor. “I’ll drive you to the ranch and you can get into…” She didn’t want to say the B word again. Bed. She and August had done their best communicating in bed. And out, she’d thought. But thinking back, which she’d had a lot of time to do over the last long, lonely years without him, she had to admit that a lot of their relationship had been horizontal.

  And you loved every minute of it.

  She turned on the radio, hoping to quiet her memories.

  “We have to talk about the past, Cat,” he said sounding reasonable.

  She felt anything but.

  He leaned back in the Jeep’s seat and closed his eyes. “So we can talk about our future.”

  She nearly swerved off the road as she headed north out of town toward the main entrance to the ranch. The future was not a conversation she was willing to have with him—ever.

  Chapter Three

  “This morning has been like a walk of shame without the memorable sex,” Cat growled, pressing down hard on the accelerator and fishtailing back onto the road.

  “Trying to get another ticket?” August deliberately kept his eyes shut.

  He still felt like he was about to puke.

  “Shane Effing Highwater.” She’d created a new epithet for Last Stand’s police chief. “You’d think with his exalted position, he wouldn’t have time for traffic stops,” she groused, and August, despite his nausea, his pounding head, and the pain of everything else, found himself fighting a smile.

  “You were clocked at eighty in a forty-five,” he reminded her.

  “He needs his equipment recalibrated.”

  “I’d love to see you tell him that.” He wanted to laugh, but because of the pain in his ribs and head, he scrunched his face and grit his teeth to hold any levity at bay.

  Cat had always been able to do that: make him laugh in the darkest of circumstances. Her take on the world had always pulled him out of his head back to planet Earth. Back to her.

  “Or I can tell him for you. Ask around to see if he’s seeing anyone special. Get them to weigh in on his equipment. Report back.”

  “After what sounds like a horrific accident yesterday, you think he’d be holed up in his office with reports or plans to make the town safer or…”

  “I think that’s why he gave you a ticket. He was making the town safer.”

  Cat made an indescribable noise in the back of her throat and her nose, which was just so her that he gave up and smiled. He’d always admired Cat’s rants. Her fierce defense of herself, ideas, plans, and anyone she considered a friend, had always made him happy to have a front-row seat. She was loyal to her bones.

  “He could have at least given me a warning. His younger, brainy brother, Sean, was my high school biology lab partner.”

  “Probably why he didn’t cuff you and drag your angry ass in that sexy, slinky, sparkly pink girlie dress down to the department. If you want to fly under the radar, rocket launching down Highway 290 out of town minutes from shift change and arguing with the town’s most prominent law official is maybe not the best plan.”

  “One hour,” she said darkly. “One hour I’ve been in town—not even that, and I’m already in trouble with the law. Shane probably hasn’t had to stoop to handing out a ticket in years. I’m amazed he can still remember how.”

  Catalina slowed down as she made the final approach to the ranch. August tried to force the tension that had been cracking tighter and tighter since the accident yesterday to ease. He couldn’t shake the image of his winemaker, Derek, with a projectile protruding from his chest. And Derek’s wife, Erika, the would-be tasting room manager, lying beside him also covered in shards of glass and blood. All of his crew had been working overtime to help him get the tasting room ready for next week’s soft opening at the Bluebonnet Festival.

  But his tasting room was destroyed along with his apartment. And now he had to prostrate himself full mea culpa to Cat and come clean with her. Persuade her to come work with him when he was sure it was the last thing she’d ever want to do.

  And the last thing he’d wanted for her.

  She’d found success and happiness in Oregon. Far from Last Stand, which was what she always wanted. She’d hated being associated with her family.

  And he was going to ask—no, beg—her to put her dreams and her life on hold at least through the first estate harvest and bottling and release. No longer would Verflucht be contracting grapes solely from other vineyards. This year’s harvest would, when released in a couple of years, showcase only Verflucht wines, grown on his family’s land. His vineyard might be in its infancy—only its fourth leaf—but he had so much more planned. Eventually he wanted to have at least two hundred fifty acres planted.

  He wanted Verflucht to win awards, become a major player in the Texas Hill Country AVA. And Cat could get him there—she could get them there.

  It was a huge ask, but he had to make it.

  He couldn’t fail.

  And the damaged tasting room and the subsequent delay were only the first of several problems he was beginning to suspect.

  August draped his uninjured arm over his eyes
to protect them from the rising sun as well as hide his expression.

  He hated doing this to Cat.

  Everything in him longed to protect her. Let her find the life and career she deserved far away from her critical, mean and grasping father and brothers. But he needed her, too, and August, to his shame these past few years, had come to realize that unlike his brother Axel he sucked at self-sacrifice.

  “Same code?”

  “Yeah.”

  He’d changed so much about the house, and Axel had made so many improvements to the ranch, but the old gate and the code were the same.

  Axel’s way of saying he and his younger brother, Anders, were always welcome home.

  Sure as hell didn’t feel like it.

  *

  “You sure you don’t have a concussion?” Catalina asked again after she stopped the Jeep close to the house instead of parking in the large side garage about fifty yards away. She knew they kept some of the ranch trucks and the ATVs there, but she didn’t think August could handle the distance.

  He’d sunk into silence, which worried her because August had never done the tough, silent cowboy routine. That had been Axel’s strength. And weakness. But everyone knew where they stood with August. Too well, she thought wryly. Should she have let August leave the hospital? Had he checked out? Had he ever checked in?

  She should have asked a lot more questions. But no. She’d been too caught up in the whole frickin’ drama of seeing him again like she was still a twenty-something. And August had never met a rule he couldn’t charm himself out of.

  Hesitantly, she slid the keys out of the ignition and waited for movement. Nothing. Maybe she should have contacted Axel to ask his opinion of what she should do.

  No!

  Axel was never short on opinions, and about her, they were never good. But he lived on the ranch, just not in the house. Shouldn’t he have been checking on his brother? Axel and August were oil and water, but Axel wore the yoke of responsibility and family like it was part of his bones.

  So where was he?

  “August?”

  Nothing.

  Oh. God. What if he were dead? She’d been so frazzled by seeing him again, obsessed with nursing her hurt and anger and resentment while she’d barreled down the highway like demons were after her. And August had been dying.