One Good Cowboy

by Catherine Mann

  She couldn’t believe Stone had left with Pearl, that he’d made such a beautiful and selfless sacrifice for his grandmother. He’d ignored his grandmother’s test because he knew Mariah needed the comfort. Anyone who knew Mariah would understand she didn’t make frivolous threats. Her test might have seemed strange, but she’d known what she was doing.

  Johanna toyed with the diamond horseshoe pendant and realized Mariah never did anything by accident. She’d meant this test for Johanna, as well. The McNair matriarch had treated Johanna as a daughter every bit as much as she’d treated Stone as a son. This journey had brought Johanna the self-confidence to push Stone for the answers she needed, as well as bringing about an openness between them they should have had long ago.

  She kept replaying the look on his face as he’d left with Pearl, remembering him telling her the story of how Pearl had come to his grandmother. As a vet tech, Johanna had observed countless people with their animals. She recognized true affection and a connection when she saw it. He didn’t often show his emotions, but she’d seen the sketches he’d made. Stone was the right one to care for Pearl so Mariah could keep her during her treatment, and he was the perfect one to take Pearl afterward. No question, Stone loved the scruffy little pooch.

  She’d already realized there was much more to Stone than the cowboy Casanova, stony facade he showed the world. Yet she’d let him down, as well, today. He’d told her his secrets, owned up and offered to make amends as best he could, and she’d panicked. She’d walked out on a man who’d been abandoned by his mother and his father. A man who was willing to give up his life’s work and billions of dollars to put his grandmother’s happiness first. He loved his grandmother, and yes, he even loved the scruffy little pooch enough to risk everything.

  That was the man for her and she didn’t intend to wait another minute to get him back.

  She stood, resting a hand on Mariah’s shoulder. “Ma’am, would you like some refreshments sent in or do you need to rest?”

  Mariah smiled at the king with a twinkle in her eyes. “We’re having a lovely visit. Refreshments would be nice.”

  “Perfect. I’ll let the kitchen staff know.” Johanna grasped the excuse to leave with both hands.

  “And Johanna?” Mariah’s voice stopped her at the door. “Be sure to take something to that rebellious grandson of mine.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Johanna smiled back at the woman who wasn’t just like family. She was family.

  Racing through the lodge to the kitchen, she didn’t have to wonder where to look for Stone. She angled through the lanai party group in full swing, vacationers and guests from the wedding filled the place to capacity.

  She stepped clear of them into the starlit night, music from the live band at the wedding reception still filling the air. Stone loved this land and she understood the feeling. The land all but hummed under her boots as she saddled up the first horse she came to—a sleek gray quarter horse named Opal. A simple click launched the beautiful beast into motion, sure-footed even in the night with only the moon and stars lighting the way in a dappled path.

  The wind tore through Johanna’s wavy hair, rivulets of air rippling her dress along her skin. She’d never felt more alive and more afraid than right now. This was her chance for everything, if she could only find the right way to let Stone know how deeply she loved him.

  Approaching Stone’s favorite piece of land, the part that belonged to him, she ducked low under a branch. The moon shone down on Stone lying on the yellow quilt, staring up at the sky with Pearl curled up asleep beside him.

  Her heart filled with tender feelings for the man who’d been let down by so many, yet still had a full heart to offer her.

  Johanna dismounted. “Stone?”

  “Do you know why this particular part of the land is my favorite acre?” he asked without moving, the night breeze ruffling Pearl’s wiry fur.

  She settled her horse alongside Stone’s and walked to the blanket. “Why is that?”

  “The bluebonnets. They remind me of you. The peacefulness and the sweet scent carrying along the breeze of home.” His eyes slid to her. “That’s you.”

  She sank down beside him, sitting cross-legged. “Stone, you take my breath away when you say things like that.”

  How many times had she imagined a future with him back when she’d been a fanciful girl? He was everything she’d hoped for and so much more. More real. More complicated and compelling. She wouldn’t trade any part of him for the simple fantasies she’d once built around him.

  “Good. You deserve the words and everything else. Whatever you want. Children. Home and hearth. Building a family. Don’t settle.” Even now, he fought to protect her.

  He just didn’t realize that she knew what was best for her now.

  “I’m not settling.” She wanted to reach for him but they had things to discuss first. Their reunion hadn’t been a smooth, joyous coming together. It had been stilted steps toward each other because they couldn’t stay away. But that was their path and she would keep on walking it. Toward her future with him. “I was hurt by what you told me today, but I shouldn’t have run away. You opened up to me, and I let you down.”

  “You spoke the truth, though. I owe you more apologies than I can speak in a lifetime.”

  She hugged her knees to her chest and mulled that over for a minute, sifting through for the right words. “I guess we both aren’t perfect. I tried to make you fit some high school fantasy and almost missed out on something so much better—the man you’ve become.”

  Sitting up, he captured a strand of her hair, his hand not quite steady. “Does this mean you forgive me?”

  She nodded, tipping her face into his touch. “You told me you’re willing to compromise with having one child—biological or adopted—however the cards land on that. I accept your beautiful offer.”

  He cupped her head and drew her toward him for a kiss, the closemouthed sort filled with a relief and intensity that seared straight through. “Johanna, I love you so damn much, I will do my best to be the man you deserve because, God help me, I can’t live without you.”

  “I don’t want to live without you, either,” she admitted. “I’ve tried it. I don’t like it.”

  “I don’t want you making sacrifices for me.”

  “It’s a bigger sacrifice to be without you.” She knew that with a thousand percent certainty. No matter what the future held, she wanted Stone in her life, her heart and her home forever. He was her family.

  His eyes held hers, his fingers smoothing her cheek and then tracing her lips.

  “You don’t know how much...” He took a deep breath and released it in a shuddering sigh. “I’ll do everything I can to make this right. To give you the life you deserve.”

  “I know. We’ll fill our home with dogs, and dote on our nieces and nephews, and yes, maybe a child of our own. But we’re going to do it together.”

  He moved closer to her, Pearl huffing in irritation over being disturbed, then settling back to sleep. “I want to make sure you know what you’re signing on for.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I realized tonight when I took Pearl here that somewhere along the way to being the CEO for Diamonds in the Rough, I lost sight of who I really am, lost sight of where I belong.”

  “And where is that?”

  “I belong here, to the land, to the McNair land.” He scratched his dog’s ear. “I’m not a CEO who happens to be a cowboy. I’m a cowboy who happens to be an executive.”

  “Okay? And that means?” She wasn’t certain, but the fact that they were talking so openly gave her a new hope for their future.

  “It feels crystal clear to me.” He cupped Pearl’s head. “My grandmother was right to give me this test. It helped me to understand. I’m not meant to be the CEO of Diamonds in the Ro
ugh.”

  “Whoa.” She pressed a hand to his chest. “I’m completely confused.”

  “It’s time for me to be my own man. This land, this corner, belongs to me and it’s time for me to follow my destiny.” He tapped her lips to silence her. “Before you think you’ve hitched your wagon to a broken star, I have a hefty investment portfolio of my own. And I don’t see stepping away from the company altogether. I’ve contributed designs to the company that have landed big.”

  “But your plans to take the company international?”

  He shook his head. “That was ego talking, the need to prove I’m better than my cousins even if I don’t have parents that give a damn about me.”

  She reached for him. “Stone—”

  “Johanna, it’s okay. It’s not about competing. Not anymore. It’s about finding the right path. Mine is here. I want to build a home for us. Ours. A place to start our future. Not some wing at the Hidden Gem Lodge. But a place of our own to build our family.”

  “You have this all thought through.” And it made beautiful sense.

  “Even if we have a dozen children of our own, I would still like us to consider...”

  “What?” she prompted.

  “There are a lot of children out there who need homes, babies like I was, except they don’t have a rich grandmother to pick up the pieces for a newborn going through withdrawal. It’s a lot to take on. What do you think?”

  What did she think? She thought this was the easiest question ever. “I’m all-in, wherever the path takes us, as long as we’re together, cowboy.”

  * * * * *

  If you loved this story don’t miss

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  One

  The lawyer’s office at the firm of Drake, Alcott and Whittaker was too crowded for Sage Lassiter’s tastes. He much preferred being out on his ranch, in the cold, crisp air of a Wyoming spring. Still, he had no choice but to attend the reading of his adoptive father’s will.

  J.D. Lassiter had been dead only a couple of weeks and Sage was having a hard time coming to grips with it. Hell, he would have bet money that J.D. was far too stubborn to actually die. And now that he had, Sage was forced to live with the knowledge that now he would never have the chance to straighten things out between himself and the man who had raised him. Just like J.D. to go ahead and do something whether anyone else was ready for it or not. The old man had, once again, gotten the last word.

  Sage couldn’t have said when the tension between him and J.D. had taken root, but he remembered it as an always-there kind of feeling. Nothing tangible. Nothing that he could point to and say: There. That was it. The beginning of the end. Instead, it was a slow disintegration of whatever might have been between them and it was beyond too late to think about it now. Old hurts, old resentments had no place in this room and nowhere to go even if he had let them take the forefront in his mind.

  “You look like you want to hit something.” His younger brother Dylan’s voice came in a whisper.

  Shooting him a hard look, Sage shook his head. “No, just can’t really take in that we’re here.”

  “I know.” Dylan pushed his brown hair off his forehead and gave a quick look around the room before turning back to Sage. “Still can’t quite believe J.D.’s gone.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.” He shifted, folded his arms across his chest and said, “I’m worried about Marlene.”

  Dylan followed his gaze.

  Marlene Lassiter had stepped in as surrogate mother to Sage, Dylan and Angelica after Ellie Lassiter died during childbirth with Angie. She’d been married to J.D.’s brother Charles, and when she was widowed, she’d come home to Wyoming to live on Big Blue, the Lassiter ranch. She’d been nurturer, friend and trusted confidante for too many years to count.

  “She’ll be okay, eventually,” Dylan said, then winced as they watched Marlene hold a sodden tissue to her mouth as if trying to stifle a wail of agony.

  “Hope you’re right,” Sage muttered, uncomfortable seeing Marlene in pain and knowing there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  Marlene’s son, Chance Lassiter, sat to one side of her, his arm thrown protectively around her shoulders. He wore a leather jacket tossed on over a long-sleeved white shirt. Dark blue jeans and boots completed the outfit, and the gray Stetson he was never without was balanced on one knee. He was a cowboy down to his bones and the manager of J.D.’s thirty-thousand-acre ranch, Big Blue.

  “You have any idea what the bequests are?” Dylan asked. “Couldn’t get a thing out of Walter.”

  “Not surprising,” Sage remarked with a sardonic twist of his lips. Walter Drake was not only J.D.’s lawyer, but practically his clone. Two more stubborn, secretive men he’d never met. Walter had made calls to all of them, simply telling them when and where to show up and not once hinting at what was in J.D.’s will. Logan Whittaker, another partner in the firm, was also working on J.D.’s will but he hadn’t been any more forthcoming than Walter.

  Sage wasn’t expecting a damn thing for himself. And it wasn’t as if he needed money. He’d built his own fortune, starting off in college by investing in one of his friends’ brilliant ideas. When that paid off, he invested in other dreamers, and along the way he’d amassed millions. More than enough to make him completely independent of the Lassiter legacy. In fact, he was surprised he had been asked to be here at all. Long ago, he’d distanced himself from the Lassiters to make his own way, and he and J.D. hadn’t exactly been close.

  “Have you talked to Angelica since this all happened?” Dylan frowned and glanced to where their sister sat beside her fiancé, Evan McCain, her head on his shoulder.

  “Not for long.” Sage frowned, too, and thought about the sister he and Dylan loved so much. Her much-anticipated wedding had been postponed because of their father’s death and who knew when it would happen now. Angelica’s big brown eyes were red rimmed from crying and there were lavender shadows beneath those eyes that told Sage she wasn’t sleeping much. “I went to see her a couple of days ago, hoping I could talk to her, but all she did was bawl.” His scowl deepened. “Hate seeing her like that, but I don’t know what the hell we can do for her.”

  “Not much really,” Dylan agreed. “I saw her yesterday, but she didn’t want to talk about what happened. Evan told me she’s not sleeping, hardly eating. She’s taking this really hard, Sage.”

  Nodding, he told his brother, “She and the old man were so close, of course she’s taking it hard. Not to mention, J.D. collapsing at her rehearsal dinner adds a whole new level of misery. We’ve just got to make sure she gets past this. We’ll tag team her. One of us going to see her at least every other day...”

  “Oh,” Dylan said, chuckling,
“Evan will love having us around all the time.”

  “He’s the one so hell-bent on marrying into the Lassiter family,” Sage pointed out wryly. “If he takes one of us, he gets all of us. Best he figures that out now anyway.”

  “True.” Dylan nodded then sat back in his chair. “Okay, then. We’ll keep an eye on Angelica.”

  Dylan kept talking, now about his plans for the restaurant he was opening, but Sage had stopped listening. Instead, he watched Colleen Falkner, J.D.’s private nurse, slip quietly into the room, then make her way to the front, where she took a seat beside Marlene. The older woman gave her a watery smile of welcome and took her hand in a firm grip.

  Sage narrowed his gaze on Colleen and felt a hard jolt of awareness leap to life inside him—just as it had the night of the rehearsal dinner. The same night J.D. died.

  That night, he’d really noticed her for the first time. They’d met in passing of course, but on that particular night, there had been something different about her. Something that tugged at him. Maybe it had been seeing her long, amazing hair loose, cascading down her back in beautiful shimmering waves. Maybe it had been the short red dress and the black heels and the way they’d made her legs look a mile long. All he knew for sure was when he’d caught her eye from across the room, he’d felt a connection snap into place between them. He had started toward her, determined to talk to her—then J.D.’s heart attack had changed everything.

  She wasn’t wearing party clothes today, though. Instead, she wore baggy slacks, a sapphire-blue pullover sweater and her long, dark blond hair was pulled back into a braid that hung down between her shoulder blades. She had wide blue eyes that were bright with unshed tears and a full, rich mouth that tempted a man to taste it.

  If he hadn’t seen her in a figure-skimming red dress at the party—a dress that remained etched into his memory—Sage never would have guessed at the curves she kept so well hidden beneath her armor of wool and cotton.