Mail Order Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  “What if she leaves me?”

  “She did leave you, dumbass. The ship has sailed.”

  “But at least now Lily won’t remember. Not like me. I remembered.”

  “Are you afraid for Lily or for you?”

  He let that blow hit. “I don’t... I don’t know. But does it matter if she’s safe?”

  “And she won’t have a chance at having the life she could have, having as great of a mother as Savannah. Because you’re scared. But more than that, because of course you can’t marry someone just to give Lily a mother. More than that, you’re destroying your own happiness to keep yourself safe.”

  “Great lecture from a guy in a codependent relationship with his stepsister.”

  Tanner stiffened. “She’s going to get her own place soon.”

  “You said that before. You could build another house on the property. But neither of you have made that move.”

  “I don’t know what you’re implying. Chloe is family.”

  “To me. To Calder. To you? I’m not sure about that.”

  Tanner gritted his teeth. “This isn’t about me. You’re the one letting the love of your life walk away.”

  The love of his life. Was that what this was? He’d heard that expression a thousand times and never once applied it to himself. He’d never loved a woman he was romantically involved with. Ever.

  But he loved Savannah. He didn’t even have to question that now. It just was. The only question was what he was going to do about it. She was gone. He couldn’t very well negotiate with someone who wasn’t there.

  But he could do something he’d never done before.

  I could go after her.

  “Can you watch Lily?” he asked, his voice suddenly tinged with desperation.

  “Hell yeah,” Tanner said.

  Jackson was going to find her. Even if it meant breaking some minor laws to do it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  AT LEAST SHE was close to the ocean now. The air smelled like salt here, and mixed easily with the salt of her tears. She had wandered down the main street of the little town of Copper Ridge for most of the day before going back to the little bed-and-breakfast she had booked herself on a neighboring ranch.

  She and Jackson had never taken Lily to the beach before. Oh, she would love it. Love to squish the sand in her fist and kick her feet in it.

  She could just see Jackson’s face. The way he lit up when he looked at his little girl...

  It was the most beautiful thing. The only thing that was better was the feeling she got when he looked at her.

  And right now, no matter how charming the B&B was, she felt like she was going to be crushed beneath the weight of her own pain.

  The hostess at the B&B was sweet, and she had a little gray cat, and several beautiful children with a hot cowboy who also happened to be the sheriff in town.

  She shouldn’t have come here. She felt surrounded by cowboys after she had just managed to escape one. Here, there were two, the sheriff and his older brother, their wives and children, and she felt surrounded by both Stetsons and happiness.

  She wasn’t particularly in the mood for either.

  Still, the quiche had been delicious this morning, and the room was adorably appointed. She couldn’t really complain about that.

  Well, she could. But it would be churlish.

  Everything was terrible. The benefits of flaky crust and a soft mattress could not be minimized in those circumstances.

  She heard heavy footsteps in the hall, and wondered if someone was staying in the room next to hers. But the footsteps paused, and there was a knock on the door.

  “Hello?”

  “Savannah,” came the familiar voice on the other side of the door. “Thank God.”

  She jumped back, her hand on her chest. “How did you find me?”

  “Think of me as a small-town James Bond. I have a select network of informants.”

  She scrambled across the room and cracked the door open. “What does that mean?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like it means. I follow the gossip chain and it led me here. Asked at Sugar Cup if anybody had seen you leave this morning. Called around to see where the vacancies were in these parts. It all led me to the B&B.”

  “How did you know which room I was in?”

  “You left it in the guest ledger,” he said. “That was easy enough.”

  “They need better security for this place.”

  “I suspect security’s not a real big issue around here.”

  “Clearly it is!”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need to start over. I need to try again. Last night... Early this morning... Whenever it was. I messed up. I don’t know how to do this. In my experience, loving someone just ends with loss. But in this case it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Somehow, I justified that to myself because it was protecting Lily. From getting more attached to you. From thinking of you as her mother and losing you.”

  “Jackson...even if something ever happened between the two of us I would always love Lily.”

  He nodded. “I know that,” he said, his voice choked. “That’s the real problem. I really can’t stand losing you. For me. For selfish reasons. And I was a dick last night asking you how you would know if it was real. It was me. I was the one that was worried it wasn’t real. I want you. I would never have met you if it weren’t for Lily, but I would want you even if I didn’t have her. It’s you, Savannah.”

  She grabbed him by the front of the shirt and dragged him into the room, slamming the door behind him. And then she kissed him. Kissed him with every ounce of pain and pent-up anger that she had inside her. “Why did you do this to us?” Tears filled her eyes and she looked up at him, at that beautiful, familiar face. “Why did you put us through this?”

  “When my father divorced my mother, well, after she left him, there was a big hole in my life. I was five when my mother left. I can remember her. Just enough. And not enough. And when he brought home my first stepmother, I wanted it to be real. I wanted it to be real every time. But it wasn’t. Over and over again. How many times can you open up your heart only to let it get kicked around?”

  “Jackson,” she whispered, her heart tightening in pain for him, for the little boy he’d been, the man he was now. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what it’s like to be physically abandoned. But I know what it’s like to live with people who aren’t really there for you. I know what it’s like to love people who don’t love you back. And to decide you’re not going to let yourself get hurt again. But you’re worth it. I would love you and take the risk, every day, forever, rather than go back to a world where I don’t know what it’s like to have you in it.”

  “Me too,” he said gruffly. “Me too.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Kissed her until her walls broke down again, until the pain vanished. Until there was nothing between them. No defenses, no past hurts. They kissed until they might as well have been the only two people in the world.

  They would go back home, to his place, and there would be three of them. A family. The very idea made her heart swell.

  But right now, just for now, it was her and Jackson. Nothing and no one else.

  When he laid her down on the bed, he looked into her eyes. “I love you,” he said.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered back.

  “Do you want to know what made me the maddest when I went to pick you up from the airport?”

  “What?”

  “You said you were plain. Plain and tall. There’s nothing plain about you, woman. You were sunshine in the dark. There’s no way to hide from the sun. And I think part of me knew it from the first moment I saw you.”

  “I’m not the sun. I’m not anything special,” she said.

  “You�
��re everything special. You told me you were plain. And, honey, the first moment I saw you... I couldn’t believe you thought that. You’re beautiful, do you know that?”

  “You look at me and I... I feel like I might be.”

  “You are,” he said. “Beautiful. Perfect. Everything I needed. Everything I need.”

  There was such deep, real love in his eyes. She felt the furthest thing from plain. She felt singular. Special in a way she never had before. And she was damn glad she didn’t have any walls left, because she didn’t want anything between them at all.

  “You’re everything I need, Jackson. Because without you... I would still be buried behind all those rock walls. But now look at us. There’s none of that left anymore. Just love.”

  “Good thing,” he said.

  Savannah had come to Gold Valley with nothing but one flowered suitcase, hoping to start a new life.

  But she’d found so much more. She’d found everything.

  She’d found love. A family.

  And home, in Jackson’s arms.

  EPILOGUE

  JACKSON REID KNEW what he loved. He loved riding the perimeter of his family ranch, with his daughter seated in the saddle in front of him. He loved working from sunup to sundown, with his brand-new baby boy strapped to his chest.

  He loved coming home at the end of the day to a warm house that was full of crying babies, a barking puppy and a pissed-off cat that hated him. He had no idea how they’d ended up with a cat. Savannah had come home with her one day after a shopping trip in town, and Lily had already named her on the ride home. He’d been outvoted.

  He loved finding sippy cups hidden in strange places, although he loved cleaning them less. He loved his life.

  He loved his wife.

  He used to think that hedonism was a reward for all the hard work he did. And now he looked around and couldn’t find a single thing he’d done to earn this.

  There was no other way he wanted to live. In this house, with his family. Waking up every morning with the same woman. His life had changed.

  Work hard. Play hard. Love harder.

  And they loved him back. Beautifully. Wonderfully.

  Forever.

  * * * * *

  From New York Times bestselling author

  Maisey Yates comes the sizzling second book in her new GOLD VALLEY Western romance series. Shy tomboy Kaylee Capshaw never thought she’d have a chance of winning the heart of her longtime friend Bennett Dodge, even if he is the cowboy of her dreams.

  But when she learns he’s suddenly single, can she finally prove to him that the woman he’s been waiting for has been right here all along?

  Read on for a sneak peek at

  UNTAMED COWBOY,

  the latest in New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates’s

  GOLD VALLEY series!

  Untamed Cowboy

  by Maisey Yates

  CHAPTER ONE

  KAYLEE CAPSHAW NEEDED a new life. Which was why she was steadfastly avoiding the sound of her phone vibrating in her purse while the man across from her at the beautifully appointed dinner table continued to talk, oblivious to the internal war raging inside of her.

  Do not look at your phone.

  The stern internal admonishment didn’t help. Everything in her was still seized up with adrenaline and anxiety over the fact that she had texts she wasn’t looking at.

  Not because of her job. Any and all veterinary emergencies were being covered by her new assistant at the clinic, Laura, so that she could have this date with Michael, the perfectly nice man she was now ignoring while she warred within herself to not look down at her phone.

  No. It wasn’t work texts she was itching to look at.

  But what if it was Bennett?

  Laura knew that she wasn’t supposed to interrupt Kaylee tonight, because Kaylee was on a date, but she had conveniently not told Bennett. Because she didn’t want to talk to Bennett about her dating anyone.

  Mostly because she didn’t want to hear if Bennett was dating anyone. If the woman lasted, Kaylee would inevitably know all about her. So there was no reason—in her mind—to rush into all of that.

  She wasn’t going to look at her phone.

  “Going over the statistical data for the last quarter was really very interesting. It’s fascinating how the holidays inform consumers.”

  Kaylee blinked. “What?”

  “Sorry. I’m probably boring you. The corporate side of retail at Christmas is probably only interesting to people who work in the industry.”

  “Not at all,” she said. Except, she wasn’t interested. But she was trying to be. “How exactly did you get involved in this job living here?”

  “Well, I can do most of it online. Sometimes I travel to Portland, which is where the corporate office is.” Michael worked for a world-famous brand of sports gear, and he did something with the sales. Or data.

  Her immediate attraction to him had been his dachshund, Clarence, whom she had seen for a tooth abscess a couple of weeks earlier. Then on a follow-up visit he had asked if Kaylee would like to go out, and she had honestly not been able to think of one good reason she shouldn’t. Except for Bennett Dodge. Her best friend since junior high and the obsessive focus of her hormones since she’d discovered what men and women did together in the dark.

  Which meant she absolutely needed to go out with Michael.

  Bennett couldn’t be the excuse. Not anymore.

  She had fallen into a terrible rut over the last couple of years while she and Bennett had gotten their clinic up and running. Work and her social life revolved around him. Social gatherings were all linked to him and to his family.

  She’d lived in Gold Valley since junior high, and the friendships she’d made here had mostly faded since then. She’d made friends when she’d gone to school for veterinary medicine, but she and Bennett had gone together, and those friends were mostly mutual friends.

  If they ever came to town for a visit, it included Bennett. If she took a trip to visit them, it often included Bennett.

  The man was up in absolutely everything, and the effects of it had been magnified recently as her world had narrowed thanks to their mutually demanding work schedule.

  That amount of intense, focused time with him never failed to put her in a somewhat pathetic emotional space.

  Hence the very necessary date.

  Then her phone started vibrating because it was ringing, and she couldn’t ignore that. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Excuse me.”

  It was Bennett. Her heart slammed into her throat. She should not answer it. She really shouldn’t. She thought that even while she was pressing the green accept button.

  “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Calving drama. I have a breech one. I need some help.”

  Bennett sounded clipped and stressed. And he didn’t stress easily. He delivered countless calves over the course of the season, but a breech birth was never good. If the rancher didn’t call him in time, there was rarely anything that could be done.

  And if Bennett needed some assistance, then the situation was probably pretty extreme.

  “Where are you?” she asked, darting a quick look over to Michael and feeling like a terrible human for being marginally relieved by this interruption.

  “Out of town at Dave Miller’s place. Follow the driveway out back behind the house.”

  “See you soon.” She hung up the phone and looked down at her half-finished dinner. “I am so sorry,” she said, forcing herself to look at Michael’s face. “There’s a veterinary emergency. I have to go.”

  She stood up, collecting her purse and her jacket. “I really am sorry. I tried to cover everything. But my partner... It’s a barnyard thing. He needs help.”

  Michael looked... Well, he looked understanding. And K
aylee almost wished that he wouldn’t. That he would be mad so that she would have an excuse to storm off and never have dinner with him again. That he would be unreasonable in some fashion so that she could call the date experiment a loss and go back to making no attempts at a romantic life whatsoever.

  But he didn’t. “Of course,” he said. “You can’t let something happen to an animal just because you’re on a dinner date.”

  “I really can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  She reached into her purse and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. She put it on the table and offered an apologetic smile before turning and leaving. Before he didn’t accept her contribution to the dinner.

  She was not going to make him pay for the entire meal on top of everything.

  “Have a good evening,” the hostess said as Kaylee walked toward the front door of the restaurant. “Please dine with us again soon.”

  Kaylee muttered something and headed outside, stumbling a little bit when her kitten heel caught in a crack in the sidewalk. That was the highest heel she ever wore, since she was nearly six feet tall in flats, and towering over one’s date was not the best first impression.

  But she was used to cowgirl boots and not these spindly, fiddly things that hung up on every imperfection. They were impractical. How any woman walked around in stilettos was beyond her.

  The breeze kicked up, reminding her that March could not be counted on for warm spring weather as the wind stung her bare legs. The cost of wearing a dress. Which also had her feeling pretty stupid right about now.

  She always felt weird in dresses, owing that to her stick figure and excessive height. She’d had to be tough from an early age. With parents who ultimately ended up ignoring her existence, she’d had to be self-sufficient.

  It had suited her to be a tomboy because spending time outdoors, running around barefoot and climbing trees, far away from the fight scenes her parents continually staged in their house, was better than sitting at home.

  Better to pretend she didn’t like lace and frills, since her bedroom consisted of a twin mattress on the floor and a threadbare afghan.

  She’d had a friend when she was little, way before they’d moved to Gold Valley, who’d had the prettiest princess room on earth. Lace bedding, a canopy. Pink walls with flower stencils. She’d been so envious of it. She’d felt nearly sick with it.