A Bride for the Texas Cowboy

by Sinclair Jayne

  What if…

  She realized Cruz was staring at her expectantly, as was Diego as he air-dried his hands by flapping them over his head.

  What? She was so stunned by her question she forgot where she was for a moment. And that there were other people in the room. What was the deal? Was she playing hostess now?

  “I was planning to make lattes while August was taking a shower,” Catalina admitted. “But I got a little sidetracked.”

  Cursing my ex.

  August’s casually tossed grenade still had her feeling as if she were on the brink of detonating.

  It was like he had ripped off a scab, doused her in whiskey and then asked how she felt.

  And Cruz’s appearance with her beautiful little boy who looked to be seven or eight had trapped her even further into her past. Reminded her of what she’d lost, and everything that still seemed so out of reach.

  And this darkly glamorous, self-assured woman pinched her heart a little. Cruz was everything her mother had wanted in a daughter and Cat had fallen so far short. She belonged in this beautiful but austere designer kitchen. Cat felt a bit like a changeling—left on the doorstep, reluctantly let inside.

  Always the outsider.

  And she hated that. She’d built up so much confidence since she’d left Last Stand, and one hour back and she was doubting herself all over again.

  “Coffee will do the trick.” She took the beans from Cruz.

  “Oh, you must have brought August home from the hospital. Axel was planning to head over there after chores and breakfast. Did you text him? He was up early for chores but said he’d be back for breakfast. How’s August? He seemed pretty beat up yesterday but determined. Texas cowboys.” Cruz rolled her eyes and laughed. “Go to the grave not admitting anything hurts.”

  How did Cruz know anything about Texas cowboys? Who was she? Catalina couldn’t imagine Axel bringing home a hookup. And this woman seemed to know a lot about August. Another suspicion entered her head, but Catalina banished it. Not her business. And she didn’t care.

  “If you wouldn’t mind making us espresso, Diego and I can finish making breakfast. I’ll just check on August.”

  She put down the gourmet coffee beans and walked past Catalina, her stride long and fluid, and Catalina noticed that she was nearly a foot taller than herself. A perfect match for Axel or August.

  Don’t care.

  “Wait, he’s in the shower.” Catalina practically had to run down the hall. She grabbed Cruz’s raised arm.

  “I was going to knock.” Cruz looked down her long, elegant nose, clearly amused. “Not bust down the door. I’m a physician’s assistant and will be working at the local hospital temporarily. I know Axel’s worried about August because he refused a CAT scan for his head.”

  “Idiot. I knew it.” She didn’t care that she still heard the slosh of water. She banged open the bathroom door.

  *

  Hot water had never felt so good. August leaned against the white circular tiles and closed his eyes. He still felt like he’d been run over by the bus. And he was the lucky one in the tasting room.

  He’d always considered himself to be tough—cowboy tough. He’d grown up on the ranch and had helped with chores until he’d left for college at just sixteen. But even then, he’d never worked as hard as Axel. That damn IQ test. ‘Profoundly gifted,’ he’d been proclaimed at age eight. He hadn’t known what to make of it, nor had his parents, but great things had been expected of him and none of them had to do with the ranch.

  So, he’d been signed up for special courses. Summer programs. Had been offered full-ride scholarships. And his dad and Axel had shouldered more chores so he could ‘do great things.’

  Pretty sure brewing beer long before he was legal hadn’t been in Axel’s mind when he’d picked up the slack for his younger, supposedly brilliant brother.

  He bit back a groan. He had to admit that though he hit the gym daily and indulged in ten-mile or more trail runs several times a week, he was not used to pain. How the hell had Axel done it? He’d been tossed off bulls, and he bounced back. Even when injured he’d limped home most weekdays and worked long before sunup to sundown on the ranch.

  Axel hadn’t even wanted his help when he’d come back to Last Stand to supervise the start of the vineyard planting and scout for a building for his tasting room. Sure, he still traveled often to oversee his other businesses, but he’d been more than willing to help out on the ranch when he could. He’d even had some naïve hope that he and Axel could get to know each other. Bond.

  Ha. That sounded like a lot of northwest, man-bun-wearing, yoga-practicing BS even to him.

  Still he’d hoped. And offered thinking it would pay Axel back for all the times he’d picked up the slack, but he’d just said: “I got hands who need the work and money, and they know what they’re doing.”

  And when he’d tried to engage Axel in remodeling the house, he’d struck out again.

  “No point,” was all he’d said.

  “I’m going to make him eat those words,” August vowed, ducking his head under the water once again. Good thing he’d added an extra water heater.

  August had known it would be difficult to build a bridge between him and his brother. He just hadn’t known it would be damn near impossible.

  Good thing I didn’t become an engineer.

  When August had told him his plans to launch a beer brand instead, Axel had been pissed. And that was putting it mildly. He’d quit the AEBR tour, which had been his dream, after their father died, and busted his ass to make the ranch solid again. He’d been vocally fierce in his objection to August wanting to turn a portion of the ranch into rolling hills of vineyards instead of placidly grazing longhorns.

  But he didn’t have a say, and August had plenty of his own money from the businesses he’d started building as a freshman. Still he hated that Axel doubted him.

  It burned more than it should. Christ, he was an adult. He should be above the clawing desire to prove himself to his big brother. But no way was he going to let yesterday’s disaster define his future. Or prove Axel’s grim predictions correct.

  He’d get Verflucht back up and running and stronger than ever. Cat would say yes. She had to. He needed her.

  He reached for the shower gel and attempted to wash himself. It felt so awkward with his left hand. Damn. His third shoulder dislocation. He might actually have to consider his doctor’s strong recommendation for shoulder surgery. But not until he got Verflucht—with Cat’s help—on solid ground.

  The bathroom door bounced open. Cat stared at him, her eyes huge as dinner plates. Behind her towered Cruz.

  Catalina’s gaze dropped. Apparently, the steam wasn’t thick enough to hide much, and August didn’t really feel like hiding. But considering that one of the women was his brother’s girlfriend—not that Axel would admit as much—he should probably be more discreet.

  He turned off the water.

  “Good morning. Hand me a towel, please, Cat,” he asked pleasantly.

  Catalina was utterly silent, her attention still completely fixed on the one part of him that swelled painfully as if preening just for her.

  Damn.

  Cruz leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed, looking amused.

  “Thought you might need a nurse,” Cruz drawled, her black eyes sparkling.

  “Jesus, Axel would have my balls.”

  “He has no say.” She tossed her silky curtain of jet-black hair over her shoulder.

  August was confident Axel would not agree with that assessment.

  “You—” August pointed at Cruz, “out.”

  He knew enough about the rhythm of the ranch and his brother that he was pretty confident Axel would soon show up to check on his guests. And judging by the way Axel had been looking at Cruz yesterday, he did not want his brother to have one more thing to be pissed about.

  “You—” he pointed at Cat, “stay.”

  “What’s next?” Cat sniped.
“Sit? Roll over? Beg?”

  “Oh, I can make you beg, baby.”

  “Have fun with that,” Cruz hip-checked Cat and sauntered out the door.

  Cat crossed her arms, her look challenging as his manhood—at half-mast after Cruz’s clinical appraisal—began to perk up again.

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  “Kitty Cat, I’m doing more than thinking about it.”

  He waited for her snappy comeback.

  “Towel?” he asked.

  She handed him one, her expression wary but curious. “You weren’t really serious earlier, were you, about Verflucht?”

  “Dead serious. I want you, Cat.”

  She stood frozen, poised as if to flee. Damn, he’d really spooked her. He forced a calming breath to bottle up the persuasive arguments that crowded in his brain.

  “I need you.” He made the simple appeal, letting himself be vulnerable to her in a way he’d never allowed with anyone else.

  God, this was hard. He could barely swallow.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You said you needed me before until you didn’t.”

  “Cat,” Finally. The crux of the problem. He tried to wrap the towel around himself but realized that with one arm out of commission, he couldn’t.

  So he held it tight to his body.

  “I can explain that,” he said quickly, stepping carefully out of the shower, not wanting to ruin his appeal and defense by knocking her down like a stray bowling pin.

  “You know your skills and your value. You know you would have been my first choice always. But you must understand the reasons why I went with Derek and Pete.”

  “Yeah.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm. “I’ve got a total understanding as to why you brought me in on the planning of your vineyard, looking at the topography of the site and the soil samples and the micro climates and then which grapes to plant in which blocks and which clones would produce the best on the site. And then I drew a planting plan over five years for you, but I was lacking a certain piece of anatomy,” her angry gaze swept down his body and then back up again. “So you hired my former assistant. I totally get that. I’m so intuitive. I’m sure every woman would understand.” Cat snagged a large, fluffy navy towel August had authorized a designer to purchase but had never imagined using.

  “Yeah, sure, August, anything to help you out. I’ll just drop everything and run back to Ghost Hill Ranch to save you from looking like an ass to Axel, save Verflucht so that you can send me on my way again the moment your wine starts winning awards.”

  She hissed and wrapped the towel around his waist, arching away from him as she did it like he was radioactive.

  “Or you rush to start the next enterprise so you hire a manager who starts telling me how to do my job, making me cut corners on quality and vineyard health for some damn bottom line.”

  She grabbed another towel and rubbed his scalp so hard with it he winced, expecting hair loss.

  “Sorry. I forgot you hit your head,” she said, and then stepped away from him. “But really, August. You expect too much. You think I’m going to be so honored to be your second choice for a winemaker you hire on a few months before your first estate harvest? And days before you release six wines I don’t know anything about. I don’t even know what they are made with—grapes from I don’t even know where. And tasting like I don’t even know what? But I’m supposedly head winemaker. Did I get that right?”

  “Not exactly,” he said carefully, feeling the ground shift under him metaphorically and physically.

  “Where did I stray from the path of your emergency plan?”

  “Dammit. It’s not like that.” Damn. He knew it sounded exactly like that, and trust Cat to call him on each and every mistake he’d made.

  “If you’d just let me explain.”

  And sit down. He’d never felt this sick and off his game ever.

  “Explain or spin the facts to save your ass?”

  Christ she was beautiful when she was furious. Her face was tight. Her eyes glowed as if lit from within, and her pale curls floated around her head like an electrified halo.

  “Cat.” He held his hand out toward her. It was like trying to calm a wild animal.

  “I don’t need an explanation,” she said, standing to her full height of five feet and a little, and rolling her shoulders back like she was heading off to war. “This is what I require. I’ll become your head winemaker. I will run the Verflucht show. I will have equal say in hiring the vineyard manager and work in tandem with them. I will help oversee all aspects of building the Verflucht brand.”

  Relief made him sway. He expected her to steady him as she had earlier in the morning, but instead she crossed her arms.

  “Cat! Baby! You won’t regret this.”

  “Don’t ‘baby’ me,” she snapped. “You might be the one full of regrets,” she warned darkly. “I’ll even start this morning, but—” She held up her small hand to stave him off as stunned happiness coursed through him, and he took a step forward to hug her.

  Thank God.

  He could breathe again. Really draw in a deep breath despite his painful ribs.

  “I want twenty-five percent of the business,” she announced starkly, balling her fists on her narrow hips. “That way when I uproot my life again—” she stressed the word again “—you can’t toss me aside like an already read daily newspaper when you’re ready to move on to GQ.”

  His mouth dropped open at her proposal. Her eyes squinted and glinted, and he could feel her daring him to protest. If he did, she’d no doubt walk out the door and head to the airport.

  “And just so we’re clear—” she wagged a finger at him, and he was tempted to bite it to show her that while he thought it was hot as hell she thought she was taking charge, she wasn’t “—no friends with benefits when you’re between hookups and bored. Sex is definitely not part of the equation between us ever again.”

  She stalked to the door and then turned around, glared at him. Yeah, his Cat was back and ready to take him on, but she didn’t know him at all if she thought that afterthought was going to fly. She was too passionate of a woman. They could barely stand next to each other without catching fire.

  “Think about that deal, August Wolf. You have the time it will take me to make three espressos, four if Axel shows. The question you need to ask yourself is, are you all in or all out?”

  The door snicked shut behind her.

  Chapter Six

  Despite the shower and changing into a pair of jeans, a tank—yikes, no bra—and a vintage Pendleton flannel, Catalina felt like she wanted to crack open her skin and crawl away.

  She felt on fire.

  What if August went for it?

  What if he didn’t?

  She forced herself to stand at the espresso machine and make a latte first for Cruz and then herself when she really wanted to… That was the thing. She wasn’t sure. Yes, she was so eager to jump on a Gator or ATV and start touring the vineyard and then do some barrel tasting, but another part of her wanted to run back to safe and secure anonymous Oregon. She was afraid to get her hopes up. Maybe she should grab her backpack and run instead.

  August still hadn’t made an appearance.

  No winemaker insisted on partial ownership. It wasn’t like she had any money to invest. But she had knowledge. Experience. And a work ethic that never quit.

  Surprise.

  Part of her wished she’d stuck around to see August’s expression. Shock? Outrage? Was he desperately Googling wine industry job boards? Let him.

  She still wasn’t sure she wanted to work with him.

  Well, the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to jump in and make her mark.

  But without the risk and temptation that was August Wolf.

  Like that’s going to happen.

  But August excelled in starting things.

  Sticking around? Not so much.

  And while being back in Last Stand so close to her family didn’t thr
ill her, she wasn’t a vulnerable young girl looking for love and acceptance and belonging.

  She’d settle for making kick-ass wines that cleaned up on awards, created buzz in the industry, and oh yeah, she’d keep her orphan vines and make some pinot that would make her former bosses and colleagues drool.

  Yeah.

  That sounded like a life plan worth living.

  If August said yes.

  And if he didn’t—Catalina mentally shrugged—she was out only the price of a plane ticket.

  “Is this good?” Diego tossed her out of her dreams of grandeur by sticking a lumpy bowl of batter under her nose. “I added the cinnamon like you asked.”

  “Almost there. You want to flatten the lumps.”

  He stirred and chased the lumps around the bowl with the wooden bowl, chortling “gotcha” each time he flattened one.

  He was so cute. So alive.

  For a moment, her heart squeezed so hard it felt hard to breathe. She should be over it. She knew that. August hadn’t once expressed grief or remorse. Only relief. She’d mourned alone, like so much of her life.

  She closed her eyes and sucked in a slow, deep breath. And then she looked into the child’s dark eyes.

  “How ’bout now?” Diego demanded, keeping her grounded.

  “It’s perfect,” she told him.

  An impish grin was her answer.

  “We’re ready to roll,” Diego said, taking the bowl of pancake batter to his mom. “I’m starved!” He gave the word about four syllables.

  “Let’s give Axel a few more minutes,” Cruz said, palming her latte and looking more like she was in the middle of a domestic photo shoot than ready to actually cook anything.

  Just then, Axel walked in the door. Catalina felt herself tense, but Axel’s gaze went directly to Cruz and lingered.

  What Cat wouldn’t give for August to look at her like that.

  No. Not August. She was done with him.

  “Why don’t you wash the blueberries?” She told Diego.

  “And then maybe start attacking the shrink wrap on all those cubes stacked against the wall,” Cruz said, meeting Axel’s hot look with one of her own. “I think they can be arranged to make chairs and couches in different shapes. August or Axel can tell you how they want everything placed, but guests always help out as a thank you,” she said.