Betting On The Maverick (Montana Mavericks: What Happened At The Wedding 3)

by Cindy Kirk

  HOW LUCKY CAN YOU GET?

  RUST CREEK RAMBLINGS

  You heard it here first: Good ol’ boy Brad Crawford left that raucous Fourth of July card game with legal possession of Boyd Sullivan’s Leap of Faith Ranch. Never mind that Brad took advantage of an old man under the influence. The handsome and cocky Crawford has always had a “me first” philosophy.

  Now we’ve learned that Boyd’s long-absent daughter Margot Sullivan has returned to Rust Creek Falls and is living with Brad at the Leap of Faith! It seems unthinkable that the strong-willed, sassy rodeo rider would allow Brad to take advantage of her. So just what is going on behind those weathered fences? Place your bets, savvy readers. Could the right woman finally have reformed Brad the cad?

  “You got some hang-up about a man touching you?”

  “I most certainly do not,” Margot retorted before realizing she’d played right into his hands. “I don’t know you. I don’t particularly like you. That’s why I don’t want you touching me.”

  His gaze met hers. “Liar.”

  “What are you talking about?” Margot sputtered.

  “You want me to touch you,” Brad said as if speaking the gospel from the pulpit. “But you’re scared of what might happen once I do.”

  “Oh for the love of—” She reined in her emotions. “You are so incredibly arrogant. You think every woman is interested in that hot body of yours.”

  A grin spread across his face, like a kid opening a present at Christmastime. “You think my body is hot?”

  “Let’s get a few things straight. I’m not interested in touching you. I’m not interested in sleeping with you. I am interested in getting you out of my house.”

  “My house,” he corrected. “And you are interested in sleeping with me. You just won’t admit it.”

  “Delude yourself all you want.” Margot kept her face expressionless. There was no way, no way, she was letting him know that she found him the teensiest bit attractive.

  * * *

  MONTANA MAVERICKS:

  WHAT HAPPENED AT THE WEDDING?

  A weekend Rust Creek Falls will never forget!

  Dear Reader,

  Although I adore cats, I really consider myself to be a dog person. Vivian, the blue heeler in this book, is modeled after my dog, Shug.

  I wanted to have a dog in this book and I thought I might as well use a breed I know something about. While Shug (like Vivian) can be a bit difficult to win over, he’s very loyal and protective. A blue heeler is also the perfect dog for a ranch. They have boundless energy and love to run and herd. When Shug first showed up at our house (someone had dumped him in the country), he not only tried to herd our Shih Tzu, he tried to herd me! But we love him anyway.

  Brandie Sue is based off my friend’s Maltese, who passed away a couple of years ago. She was a pampered princess and the queen of their home. I like to think that by putting her in this book, she continues to live on.

  I hope you enjoy reading Betting on the Maverick as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  I post a lot about animals on Facebook and would love to have you “friend” me on my personal page and “like” me on my author page.

  Happy Reading!

  Cindy Kirk

  Betting on the Maverick

  Cindy Kirk

  From the time she was a little girl, Cindy Kirk thought everyone made up different endings to books, movies and television shows. Instead of counting sheep at night, she made up stories. She’s now had over forty novels published. She enjoys writing emotionally satisfying stories with a little faith and humor tossed in. She encourages readers to connect with her on Facebook and Twitter, @cindykirkauthor, and via her website, cindykirk.com.

  Books by Cindy Kirk

  Harlequin Special Edition

  Rx for Love

  The M.D.’s Unexpected Family

  Ready, Set, I Do!

  The Husband List

  One Night with the Doctor

  A Jackson Hole Homecoming

  The Doctor and Mrs. Right

  His Valentine Bride

  The Doctor’s Not-So-Little Secret

  Jackson Hole Valentine

  If the Ring Fits

  The Christmas Proposition

  In Love with John Doe

  The Fortunes of Texas: Cowboy Country

  Fortune’s Little Heartbreaker

  The Fortunes of Texas: Welcome to Horseback Hollow

  A Sweetheart for Jude Fortune

  The Fortunes of Texas: Southern Invasion

  Expecting Fortune’s Heir

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To Renee Ryan and Nancy Robards Thompson, my writing buddies. I love you, guys!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Evergreen Springs by RaeAnne Thayne

  Chapter One

  It was nearly 3:00 a.m. when Margot Sullivan stepped out of the brisk October wind and into the darkened foyer of her family home. She sniffed appreciatively. The ranch house where she’d grown up smelled different, cleaner than her last visit six months earlier. Though battling dust was a constant challenge in rural Montana, her mother had always worked hard to have a clean house. After her death, everything had been let go.

  It appeared her father was once again taking pride in the home.

  Pausing on the rug covering the weathered hardwood, Margot bent to take off her boots. She froze when Vivian, her blue heeler, snarled. The growl grew louder and Vivian crouched into a fighting stance, the fur on the back of her neck standing straight up.

  Following the dog’s gaze to the stairway leading to the second floor, Margot gasped.

  A bare-chested man wearing only jeans stood on the steps, a baseball bat in his hands. Tall with a thatch of brown hair and a dark stubble of beard on his cheeks, his hair was mussed as if he’d just run his hands through it. The eyes riveted on her were sharp and assessing.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded, but his expression was more puzzled than menacing.

  “I’ll ask the questions.” Margot rested a trembling hand on Vivian’s head. “Where’s my father?”

  Without answering, the man lowered the bat and started down the stairs toward her.

  “Not one more step,” she ordered. “Or I’ll give my dog the command to attack.”

  He paused, cocked his head, grinned.

  That’s when she recognized him. Brad Crawford, of the illustrious Crawford family. What the heck was a Crawford doing skulki
ng around her father’s house half-dressed in the middle of the night?

  “Little Margot Sullivan.” He shook his head and flashed a smile that had been winning him hearts since he’d been old enough to walk.

  Despite herself, Margot relaxed slightly. Given the choice, she’d take Brad with a bat over a stranger in the same pose. Though she still had no clue what he was doing in her house.

  “Didn’t expect to see you here,” he added.

  “This is my house.”

  “Well, now.” He rubbed his chin. “That’s debatable.”

  “Where’s my father?” Margot’s heart froze as she imagined all the things that could have happened to a man pushing eighty. Without waiting for an answer, she called out. “Dad! It’s Margot. Where are you?”

  “Save your breath.” Barely giving a second glance to Vivian who’d continued to growl low in her throat, Brad meandered into the living room and plopped down into an overstuffed chair. “Boyd isn’t here.”

  Vivian’s eyes remained trained on Brad.

  “Friend,” Margot said reluctantly, then repeated. “Friend.”

  Friend might be carrying it a bit far but the Crawfords were well-known in Rust Creek Falls, Montana. Although Brad was a good ten years older than her—and had quite the reputation as a ladies’ man—there was no denying his family was respected in the community.

  While he wasn’t exactly her friend, Brad wasn’t a dangerous enemy, either.

  With Vivian glued to her side, Margot moved to the sofa and took a seat. Questions over her father’s whereabouts fought with an unexpected spike of lust at the sight of Brad’s muscular chest. She’d already noticed he hadn’t quite secured the button on his jeans. Just like she noticed he smelled terrific: a scent of soap and shampoo and that male scent that was incredibly sexy.

  Trying to forget the fact she’d driven ten hours today with the windows down and that her red hair was a messy tumble of curls, Margot leaned forward, concern for her father front and center. She rested her arms on her thighs and fixed her gaze on Brad. “Tell me where my father is.”

  “I don’t know.”

  A cold chill enveloped her in a too-tight hug. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “He left town right after the Fourth of July,” Brad said in a conversational tone. “Hasn’t come back.”

  It was now October. Three months. Her elderly father had left the family ranch not long after that last argument between them. A horrible conversation that had ended with him hanging up on her after telling her to not come back or call again.

  “Everyone knows he has a daughter, yet no one in this town thought to let me know he’d up and taken off for parts unknown?” Fear sluiced through Margot’s veins and panic had her voice rising with each word.

  “The sheriff confirmed he left by train with a ticket to New York City.”

  “Wow. That makes me feel so much better.” Sarcasm ran through her voice like thick molasses. Then the anger punched. “Did anyone even try to get a hold of me?”

  “Initially everyone thought Boyd had gone to see his sister, who—”

  “Who lived in New Jersey, not New York City. My aunt Verna has been gone almost two years. She died six months before my mother passed away.”

  “That fact wasn’t known until later.” Brad waved a dismissive hand. “You know your dad. He wasn’t the kind of guy to share personal stuff.”

  Margot clasped her hands together. “That still doesn’t explain why no one called me.”

  “After the sheriff discovered his sister was no longer living, he attempted to contact you. He discovered you’d been injured and were no longer competing. No one knew where to find you.”

  After sustaining a serious skull fracture shortly after that last conversation with her father, Margot had left the rodeo circuit to stay with a friend in Cheyenne. But when a week or two of recuperation stretched into several months, Margot decided to return to the only home she’d ever known. “My father has my cell number.”

  “One problem,” Brad said. “He wasn’t around to give it to us. And it’s not like you’ve kept in touch with anyone else in town.”

  Where would her father have gone? None of this made any sense. Margot wasn’t certain if it truly didn’t compute or if her head just wasn’t processing the information correctly. Boyd Sullivan was a smart man who, despite his age, knew how to handle himself. When he was sober, that is.

  “Was he still drinking before he left?”

  “He was,” Brad said quietly.

  Margot sat back abruptly. The head she’d injured ten weeks earlier began to ache. The strain of travel from Wyoming to Montana had taken its toll, but it was the tension of the past few minutes that now had her head clamped in a vise.

  She rubbed the back of her neck with one hand, trying to ease the pressure. With every syllable Brad uttered, the story worsened.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked bluntly.

  “I live here.”

  “You’re watching the place while my father is away?” she asked cautiously, her admiration for him inching up a notch.

  Unlike in many large cities where people could live side-by-side for years and not really know each other, in Rust Creek Falls neighbors took care of neighbors.

  Not to say there weren’t feuds. The bad blood between the Crawfords and the Traubs over the years was a prime example.

  But on the whole, you couldn’t have asked for a better place to grow up, or in her father’s case, to grow old.

  Brad shifted uncomfortably in the chair. “That’s not exactly the case.”

  Margot frowned. “If you’re not watching it for him, what are you doing here?”

  “Well, you see, your father put up the deed to the ranch in a poker game.” A sheepish grin crossed his handsome face. “He lost. I won. The Leap of Faith is now mine.”

  * * *

  Brad left the pretty redhead fuming in the downstairs parlor as he headed upstairs for his shirt and shoes. He was concerned about her father, too—if he wasn’t he wouldn’t have used some of his own money to hire a PI to search for the old man. But right now he had Boyd’s daughter on the brain.

  Sitting across from Margot Sullivan with that white shirt gaping open and those green eyes flashing fire had been a huge turn-on. Especially when he’d told her she could stay the night. It had been like tossing kerosene onto a burning fire.

  The hellcat had been so angry she’d sputtered and stammered, her breasts heaving in a most delectable way as she informed him that this was her house and if anyone was leaving, it was him.

  Damn. There was nothing that excited Brad more than a woman with spunk.

  That fact was firmly evident in the sudden tightness of his jeans. He grinned, more than a little relieved.

  Though he’d dated his share of women since his divorce four years earlier, in the past six months there hadn’t been a single female who’d caused his mast to rise.

  Not that his seeming lack of libido worried him. Not in the least.

  Brad had been more puzzled than anything by the occurrence...or rather the non-occurrence.

  Tonight had illustrated he’d been foolish to give the matter a second thought. Obviously it had just been that none of the women he’d taken out recently tripped his trigger.

  Odd, as the saucy redhead had only to step through the front door to capture his interest.

  Brad jerked on a flannel shirt, buttoned it but deliberately left the tail hanging out. Even being on a different floor in a far-removed room hadn’t, ah, cooled his interest. Still, there was no need to advertise the fact.

  Of course, he reminded himself as he pulled on his boots, that interest between a man and a woman needed to be a two-way street. The fact that, in her eyes, he’d—oh, what was the phrase she�
�d used—“stolen a grieving old man’s ranch” almost certainly ensured she wasn’t likely to get naked with him.

  At least not tonight.

  He clambered back down the rickety steps and felt one bend beneath his weight. After making a mental note to fix it before it collapsed, Brad traversed the last few steps, then crossed to the parlor.

  Margot stood at the darkened fireplace, her gaze riveted to one of the photographs on the mantel: a family picture of her parents and a skinny girl with rusty hair and freckles. But that gawky little girl had grown into a real beauty. Worn Levis hugged her slender legs like a glove and a mass of red-gold hair tumbled down her back like a colorful waterfall.

  His body stirred in appreciation of such a fine female figure. Brad tried to recall how old she’d be by now.

  Twenty-two? Twenty-three? Definitely old enough.

  All he knew for certain was that the spitfire who at age six had once tossed a bucketful of rancid water on him when he’d mentioned her freckles had grown into a lovely young woman.

  A flash of teeth from the dog standing beside her brought a smile to his lips. It wasn’t only the white-and-black coat tinged with silver or those large ears that alerted Brad to the breed. The protective stance was pure heeler.

  Rather than resenting the animal, Brad found himself grateful Margot had such a companion. A woman traveling alone could be a target for the unscrupulous. But first they’d have to get through—what had she called the animal... Viper?

  The name didn’t sound exactly right, but it certainly fit.

  Viper emitted a low growl as Brad entered the room.

  Margot didn’t growl like her dog, but when she turned her face was composed and icy.

  “I’m calling Gage Christensen first thing in the morning,” she said, referring to the sheriff of Rust Creek Falls. “You and I and the sheriff will hash out this matter tomorrow.”

  “Anyone ever tell you you’re pretty cute when you’re angry?” Ignoring the dog’s warning growl, Brad stepped closer. “You growed up real fine, Margot Sullivan.”

  Though Brad was a recipient of a solid education from the University of Montana, most of his days before and since graduation were spent with ranch hands who delighted in slaughtering the English language. When necessary, he could play the good-ole-boy card with the best of ’em.